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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1976384

Martha Elizabeth Beall Mitchell (September 2, 1918 – May 31, 1976) was the wife of John N. Mitchell, United States Attorney General under President Richard Nixon. She became a controversial figure with her outspoken comments about the government at the time of the Watergate scandal. Early education and family life. Martha Elizabeth Beall Jennings Mitchell was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas on September 2, 1918. She grew up the only child of cotton broker George V. Beall and drama teacher Arie Beall (née Ferguson). Living in a rural area, Mitchell's friends lived far away, and she recalled in a "Saturday Evening Post" interview that she mostly grew up playing with the children of her "mammy," or African-American domestic worker, who lived with the family on the farm. As a little girl, she liked to sing, particularly as a member of her church choir. Her mother hoped she would become an opera singer. As a child, she studied singing around the country and, at Northwestern, she studied piano. For the first six years of her education, she attended a private school, switching to a public one during the Great Depression. She graduated from Pine Bluff High School in 1937. Under her high school yearbook picture was the quote, "Love its gentle warble, I love its gentle flow, I love to wind my tongue up, And I love to let it go." Her biographer noted that she was dyslexic, and struggled to read aloud. She attended Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, with hopes of studying premed; she had wanted to be a pediatrician when she grew up, but blamed her Southern accent for difficulty with learning Greek and Latin. Instead, she became a Red Cross Nurse's Aide in one of the organization's very first chapters, and claimed that, at one time, she had given more hours to the service than anyone else in the country. She eventually transferred to the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and finally the University of Miami, At college, she joined Chi Omega and was president of Sigma Iota Chi. She was fascinated by the arts, and had dreams of becoming an actress, but her family would not allow it. She ultimately received a BA in history. After graduation, she worked for about a year as a seventh-grade teacher in Mobile, Alabama, before leaving the profession, saying she "despised" it. She returned to Pine Bluff in 1945 and, after World War II, she began work as a secretary at the Pine Bluff Arsenal. She was soon transferred (along with her boss, Brigadier General Augustin Mitchell Prentiss) to Washington, D.C.. In Washington, she met Clyde Jennings, Jr., a US Army officer from Lynchburg, Virginia. They married on October 5, 1946 in Pine Bluff and moved to Rye, New York. Soon after they wed, he was honorably discharged, and he took up work as a traveling handbag salesman. By Jennings, she had a son, Clyde Jay Jennings, on November 2, 1947. Jennings, however, spent a lot of time away from home, and (according to Mitchell) it led to the couple's separation on May 18, 1956 and eventual divorce on August 1, 1957. She once said as soon as she met John N. Mitchell, she was "impressed with his suaveness and intellect," and the couple married on December 30, 1957, settling in Rye, New York. John worked as a lawyer in Manhattan, earning a year, and the couple purchased a home on the grounds of the Apawamis Club. On January 10, 1961, the couple had a daughter, Martha Elizabeth, whom they nicknamed Marty. They enrolled their daughter in Stone Ridge Country Day School in Bethesda, Maryland, despite not being Roman Catholics, because of Mitchell's belief that "the Roman Catholic schools are about the only ones that have discipline." Move to Washington and the Watergate scandal. John Mitchell and Richard Nixon's professional careers converged when, on New Year's Eve 1966, their law offices combined to become Nixon Mudge Rose Guthrie Alexander and Mitchell. Although their status as friends is debated, when Nixon was elected president in 1968, he appointed John Mitchell as his Attorney General. The position necessitated that the family move to Washington DC, and their home in the "fashionable" Watergate complex, at the time, was estimated to be worth . Mitchell first came to national attention after she remarked to a television reporter that Washington DC peace demonstrations held in November 1969 reminded her husband of a Russian revolution. The statement, widely viewed as indiscreet, increased her notoriety and coverage in the media. She had the custom of having an evening drink, and then calling reporters with political gossip or information she had gleaned while rifling through her husband's papers or eavesdropping on his conversations. During this time, Mitchell's renown as an outspoken socialite grew, and she made regular appearances on talk shows and variety shows, such as "Laugh-In". By the following year, in November 1970, a Gallup poll indicated that 76 percent of Americans recognized who she was, and she made the cover of "Time" in an issue about the most influential women of Washington. Her reputation for frank and uncensored talk, generally in support of Republican issues, led to her being nicknamed "Martha the Mouth" or "The Mouth of the South". Nixon selected John to head the Committee to Re-Elect the President (commonly abbreviated to CRP, or deridingly, CREEP) for the 1972 campaign. During the campaign, however, Mitchell had begun to complain to her media contacts that the campaign had engaged in "dirty tricks" to win the election. A week before the 1972 burglary of the DNC headquarters in the Watergate office building, the Mitchells had traveled to Newport Beach, California to attend a series of fundraising events. While there, John received a phone call about the incident and immediately held a press conference denying any CRP involvement. John then returned to Washington DC, encouraging his wife to remain in California to enjoy the sunny weather. Meanwhile, however, he enlisted their security guard Steve King (a former FBI agent) to prevent her from learning about the break-in or contacting reporters. Despite these efforts, the following Monday, Martha acquired a copy of the "Los Angeles Times". Martha learned that James W. McCord Jr., the security director of the CRP and her daughter's bodyguard and driver, was among those arrested. This detail conflicted with the White House's official story that the break-in was unrelated to the CRP, and raised her suspicion. Martha unsuccessfully made attempts to contact her husband by phone, eventually telling one of his aides that her next call would be to the press. June 1972 kidnapping, aftermath and vindication. The following Thursday, on June 22, Mitchell made a late-night phone call to Helen Thomas of the United Press, reportedly Mitchell's favorite reporter. Mitchell informed Thomas of her intention to leave her husband until he resigned from the CRP. The phone call, however, abruptly ended. When Thomas called back, the hotel operator told her that Mitchell was "indisposed" and would not be able to talk. Thomas then called John, who seemed unconcerned and said, "[Martha] gets a little upset about politics, but she loves me and I love her and that’s what counts." In her subsequent report of the incident, Thomas said that it was apparent someone had taken the phone from Mitchell's hand and the woman could be heard saying "You just get away." Thomas's account was widely covered in the news, and many media outlets made efforts to find Mitchell for an interview. A few days later, Marcia Kramer, a veteran crime reporter of the "New York Daily News", tracked Mitchell to the Westchester Country Club in Rye, New York. Kramer found "a beaten woman" who had "incredible" black and blue marks on her arms. In what turned out to be the first of many interviews, Mitchell related how in the week following the Watergate burglary, she had been held captive in that California hotel and that it was King that had pulled the phone cord from the wall. After several attempts to escape from the balcony, she was physically accosted by five men, which had left her needing stitches. Herb Kalmbach, Nixon's personal lawyer, was summoned to the hotel and he decided to call for a doctor to inject her with a tranquilizer. The incident left her fearing for her life. Although the Watergate burglary was the leading story across all news formats, her reports were relegated to human-interest stories in major newspapers, including "The Times", "The Washington Post", and "The New York Daily News". Nixon aides, in an effort to discredit Mitchell, told the press that she had a "drinking problem", which was not entirely untrue. They also suggested that she was convalescing in Silver Hill Hospital, a psychiatric facility in Connecticut. Initially, Mitchell began contacting reporters when her husband's role in the scandal became known in an effort to defend him. She believed him to be a "fall guy" and encouraged him to turn against the President. Soon after the burglary, John resigned, citing his desire to spend more time with his family as the reason. However, the Mitchells separated in September 1973, with John suddenly moving out of the family home with their daughter, Marty. On January 1, 1975, he was convicted of perjury, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy for his involvement in the Watergate break-in; he served 19 months in a federal prison. They never saw each other again. Martha was also outspoken about the corruption in the GOP. In May 1976, she provided sworn testimony in a deposition at the offices of attorney Henry B. Rothblatt in connection with the Democratic party's million civil suit against the CRP. Because of her involvement in the scandal, she was discredited and abandoned by most of her family, except for her son Jay. It was not until February 1975 that McCord, after having been convicted for his role in the Watergate burglary, admitted that Mitchell was, in his words, "basically kidnapped", and corroborated her story. He further asserted that H. R. Haldeman, as well as other top aides of President Nixon, had been "jealous" of her popularity in the media and had sought out ways to embarrass her. Nixon was later to tell interviewer David Frost in 1977 that Martha was a distraction to John Mitchell, such that no one was minding the store, and "If it hadn't been for Martha Mitchell, there'd have been no Watergate." Personal life. Mitchell was Presbyterian and, while in New York, attended Marble Collegiate Church. She began to write her memoirs in 1973, but fearing it would mean she would get no money from her husband, never signed a contract. In April 1974, she got a short-lived job as the guest host of the program "Panorama" on Washington's WTTG; it only lasted a week. In 1975, Mitchell fell sick. As her health declined, she was called on by a small circle of friends that included her reporter friend, and eventual biographer, Winzola McLendon. McLendon reports that Mitchell was suicidal and without any income. Her lawyer, in an ongoing alimony dispute, described her as "desperately ill, without funds and without friends." Even so, her son, who was working as a researcher for the Senate Subcommittee on internal security, was said to have cared for her and served as her occasional spokesperson. In her final days, she subsisted on donations sent by sympathetic supporters. On May 31, 1976, in the advanced stages of multiple myeloma, Mitchell slipped into a coma and died at Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York City at age 57. Her son, Jay, and her estranged husband and daughter arrived at her funeral in Pine Bluff shortly after it began. The service was held at First Presbyterian Church. An anonymous supporter (a California admiral, according to the family) had sent a floral arrangement of white chrysanthemums that spelled "Martha was right." She is buried in the Bellwood Cemetery in Pine Bluff with her mother and grandparents. Public image. A November 1970 Gallup poll placed the public's opinion of her at 33-percent unfavorable to 43-percent favorable. She was known for her glamorous but "girly" fashion. Despite her fame as an outsized personality, those who knew her said she was often anxious before attending parties or public events, clutching her friend's arm, trembling, or even weeping. She refused to curtsy to Queen Elizabeth II at a garden party in July 1971, saying, "I feel that an American citizen should not bow to foreign monarchs." Scotland's Earl of Lindsay, a member of the Queen's Body Guard for Scotland, wrote Mitchell a letter of reprimand, and in a statement to the press said, "There is always hope she may learn some manners. She is a stupid woman. If she is going to shout her mouth off like that, she is bound to get shouted at." Legacy. Three years after her death, Washington newswoman and Mitchell-collaborator Winzola McLendon released a book called "Martha". The birthplace and childhood home of Martha Beall Mitchell, now the Martha Beall Mitchell Home and Museum, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in January 1978. On the second anniversary of her death, Martha Mitchell Expressway in Pine Bluff was named for her. Three years later to the day, a bust was erected in her honor at the Pine Bluff Civic Center with a plaque that reads "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." Martha Mitchell was portrayed in the 1995 film "Nixon" by actress Madeline Kahn who, like Mitchell, died at the age of 57 of cancer. In 2004, a three-act play, "This is Martha Speaking...", by Thomas Doran premiered in Pine Bluff, Arkansas starring Lee Anne Moore as Martha Mitchell and Michael Childers as John Mitchell. That same year, a one-woman play about Mitchell, "Dirty Tricks" by John Jeter, appeared off-Broadway. The first episode of the podcast "Slow Burn", entitled "Martha", chronicled her role in the Watergate scandal. Mitchell was portrayed by Vanessa Bayer in the July 16, 2019 episode of the Comedy Central show "Drunk History". The "Martha Mitchell effect", in which a psychiatrist mistakenly or willfully identifies a patient's true but extraordinary claims as delusions, was named after her.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2952949

ipfirewall or ipfw is a FreeBSD IP, stateful firewall, packet filter and traffic accounting facility. Its ruleset logic is similar to many other packet filters except IPFilter. ipfw is authored and maintained by FreeBSD volunteer staff members. Its syntax enables use of sophisticated filtering capabilities and thus enables users to satisfy advanced requirements. It can either be used as a loadable kernel module or incorporated into the kernel; use as a loadable kernel module where possible is highly recommended. ipfw was the built-in firewall of Mac OS X until Mac OS X 10.7 Lion in 2011 when it was replaced with the OpenBSD project's PF. Like FreeBSD, ipfw is open source. It is used in many FreeBSD-based firewall products, including m0n0wall and FreeNAS. A port of an early version of ipfw was used since Linux 1.1 as the first implementation of firewall available for Linux, until it was replaced by ipchains. A modern port of ipfw and the "dummynet" traffic shaper is available for Linux (including a prebuilt package for OpenWrt) and Microsoft Windows. wipfw is a Windows port of an old (2001) version of ipfw.

contemporary interface

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2032384

An intercity bus service (North American English) or intercity coach service (British English and Commonwealth English), also called a long-distance, express, over-the-road, commercial, long-haul, or highway bus or coach service, is a public transport service using coaches to carry passengers significant distances between different cities, towns, or other populated areas. Unlike a transit bus service, which has frequent stops throughout a city or town, an intercity bus service generally has a single stop at one location in or near a city, and travels long distances without stopping at all. Intercity bus services may be operated by government agencies or private industry, for profit and not for profit. Intercity coach travel can serve areas or countries with no train services, or may be set up to compete with trains by providing a more flexible or cheaper alternative. Intercity bus services are of prime importance in lightly populated rural areas that often have little or no public transportation. Intercity bus services are one of four common transport methods between cities, not all of which are available in all places. The others are by airliner, train, and private automobile. History. Stagecoaches. The first intercity scheduled transport service was called the stagecoach and originated in the 17th century. Crude coaches were being built from the 16th century in England, but without suspension, these coaches achieved very low speeds on the poor quality rutted roads of the time. By the mid 17th century, a basic stagecoach infrastructure was being put in place. The first stagecoach route started in 1610 and ran from Edinburgh to Leith. This was followed by a steady proliferation of other routes around the country. A string of coaching inns operated as stopping points for travellers on the route between London and Liverpool by the mid 17th century. The coach would depart every Monday and Thursday and took roughly ten days to make the journey during the summer months. They also became widely adopted for travel in and around London by mid-century and generally travelled at a few miles per hour. Shakespeare's first plays were staged at coaching inns such as The George Inn, Southwark. The speed of travel remained constant until the mid-18th century. Reforms of the turnpike trusts, new methods of road building and the improved construction of coaches all led to a sustained rise in the comfort and speed of the average journey—from an average journey length of 2 days for the Cambridge-London route in 1750 to a length of under 7 hours in 1820. Robert Hooke helped in the construction of some of the first spring-suspended coaches in the 1660s and spoked wheels with iron rim brakes were introduced, improving the characteristics of the coach. In 1754, a Manchester-based company began a new service called the "Flying Coach". It was advertised with the following announcement: "However incredible it may appear, this coach will actually (barring accidents) arrive in London in four days and a half after leaving Manchester." A similar service was begun from Liverpool three years later, using coaches with steel spring suspension. This coach took an unprecedented three days to reach London with an average speed of eight miles per hour. Even more dramatic improvements to coach speed were made by John Palmer at the British Post Office, who commissioned a fleet of mail coaches to deliver the post across the country. His experimental coach left Bristol at 4 pm on 2 August 1784 and arrived in London just 16 hours later. The golden age of the stagecoach was during the Regency period, from 1800 to 1830. The era saw great improvements in the design of the coaches, notably by John Besant in 1792 and 1795. His coach had a greatly improved turning capacity and braking system, and a novel feature that prevented the wheels from falling off while the coach was in motion. Obadiah Elliott registered the first patent for a spring-suspension vehicle. Each wheel had two durable steel leaf springs on each side and the body of the carriage was fixed directly to the springs attached to the axles. Steady improvements in road construction were also made at this time, most importantly the widespread implementation of Macadam roads up and down the country. Coaches in this period travelled at around 12 miles per hour and greatly increased the level of mobility in the country, both for people and for mail. Each route had an average of four coaches operating on it at one time - two for both directions and a further two spares in case of a breakdown en route. Motorbuses. The development of railways in the 1830s spelt the end for the stagecoaches across Europe and America, with only a few companies surviving to provide services for short journeys and excursions until the early years of the 20th century. The first motor coaches were acquired by operators of those horse-drawn vehicles. W. C. Standerwick of Blackpool, England acquired its first motor charabanc in 1911, and Royal Blue from Bournemouth acquired its first motor charabanc in 1913. Motor coaches were initially used only for excursions. In 1919, Royal Blue took advantage of a rail strike to run a coach service from Bournemouth to London. The service was so successful that it expanded rapidly. In 1920 the Minister of Transport Eric Campbell Geddes was quoted in Punch magazine as saying "I think it would be a calamity if we did anything to prevent the economic use of charabancs" and expressed concern at the problems caused to small charabanc and omnibus operators in parliament. In America, Carl Eric Wickman began providing the first service in 1913. Frustrated about being unable to sell a seven-passenger automobile on the showroom floor of the dealership where he worked, he purchased the vehicle himself and started using it to transport miners between Hibbing and Alice, Minnesota. He began providing this service regularly in what would start a new company and industry. The company would one day be known as Greyhound. In 1914, Pennsylvania was the first state to pass regulations for bus service in order to prevent monopolies of the industry from forming. All remaining U.S. states would soon follow. The coach industry expanded rapidly in the 1920s, a period of intense competition. The Road Traffic Act 1930 in the UK introduced a national system of regulation of passenger road transport and authorised local authorities to operate transport services. It also imposed a speed limit of 30 mph for coaches whilst removing any speed limit for private cars. The 1930s to the 1950s saw the development of bus stations for intercity transport. Many expanded from simple stops into major architecturally designed terminals that included shopping and other businesses. Intercity bus transport increased in speed, efficiency and popularity until the 1950s and 1960s, when as the popularity of the private automobile has increased, the use of intercity bus service has declined. For example, in Canada in the 1950s, 120 million passengers boarded intercity bus service each year; in the 1960s, this number declined to 50 million. During the 1990s, it was down to 10 million. Characteristics of intercity buses/coaches. Intercity buses, as they hold passengers for significant periods of time on long journeys, are designed for comfort. A sleeper bus is an example of a vehicle with optimum amenity for the longest travel times. Route and operation. An intercity coach service may depart from a bus station with facilities for travellers or from a simple roadside bus stop. A coachway interchange is a term (in the United Kingdom) for a stopping place on the edge of a town, with connecting local transport. Park and ride facilities allow passengers to begin or complete their journeys by automobile. Intercity bus routes may follow a direct highway or freeway/motorway for shortest journey times, or travel via a scenic route for the enjoyment of passengers. Intercity buses may run less frequently and with fewer stops than a transit bus service. One common arrangement is to have several stops at the beginning of the trip, and several near the end, with the majority of the trip non-stop on a highway. Some stops may have service restrictions, such as "boarding only" (also called "pickup only") and "discharge only" (also called "set-down only"). Routes aimed at commuters may have most or all scheduled trips in the morning heading to an urban central business district, with trips in the evening mainly heading toward suburbs. Intercity coaches may also be used to supplement or replace another transport service, for example when a train or airline route is not in service. Safety. Statistically, intercity bus service is considered to be a very safe mode of transportation. For example, in the United States there are about 0.5 fatalities per 100 million passenger miles traveled according to the National Safety Council. When accidents do occur, the large passenger capacity of buses means accidents are disastrous in their magnitude. For example, the Kempsey bus crash in Australia on 22 December 1989 involved two full tourist coaches, each travelling at 100 km/h, colliding head-on: 35 people died and 41 were injured. Intercity coach travel by country. Canada. Intercity coach service is the only public transit to reach many urban centres in Canada, and Via Rail services are very sporadic outside the Québec City–Windsor Corridor. Coach service is mostly privately owned and operated, and tends to be regionally focused. Greyhound Canada, once Canada's biggest intercity carrier, ceased operations in 2021. Major operators are listed below. China. In relatively developed regions of China where the motorway network is extensive, intercity coach is a common mean of transport between cities. In some cities, for example Shenzhen, nearly every town / district has a coach station. Hong Kong. There are numerous inter-city coach services between Hong Kong and various cities of Guangdong Province, e.g. Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Zhongshan and Zhuhai. These kinds of coaches are legally classified as a kind of non-franchised public bus, as "International Passenger Service". In addition, there are some coach services which just carry passengers between the city of Hong Kong and the border crossing at Shenzhen, without entering the city centre in Shenzhen or further. These services are termed 'short-haul cross-boundary coach service' by the Transport Department which nearly the whole journey is within the limits of Hong Kong, as opposed to 'long-haul cross-boundary coach service' which runs between cities. Germany. Intercity coach service in Germany became important in the decades following the Second World War, as the Deutsche Bundesbahn and the German federal post office operated numerous bus routes in major cities and metropolitan areas associated with each other. While rail was quicker and more convenient, the buses were a low-cost alternative. With the increasing prosperity of society and the growing use of the automobile, the demand fell significantly and most of these lines were abolished in the 1970s and 1980s. One exception was traffic from and to (West-)Berlin. A long-distance bus network linking Berlin with Hamburg and several other German locations was created at the time of German division because of the small number of train services between the cities. It still exists today. Until 2012 new long-distance bus lines could only be added in accordance with "Passenger Transportation Act" (PBefG), meaning if they did not compete with existing rail or bus lines. Since Germany - in contrast with many other European countries - has a well-developed rail network to all major cities and metropolitan areas, the domestic marketing of long-distance buses in Germany was much less significant than in many other countries. The existing lines were often international lines as exist in almost all European countries, and for the transportation within Germany, there was a ban. In 2012, the PBefG was amended, essentially allowing intercity bus services. Thus, since 1 January 2013 Coach services have been allowed if they are longer than 50 kilometers, which led to a fast-growing market with companies like Meinfernbus, Deinbus, Flixbus, ADAC Postbus, Berlin Linien Bus GmbH and City2City. Starting shortly after the establishment of the market a consolidation process occurred, which reduced the number of competing companies. ADAC Postbus became Postbus upon the ADAC leaving the cooperation. Meinfernbus and Flixbus fused to create a common company (currently the biggest operator of long-distance buses in Germany) while City2City folded operations. Deinbus came close to bankruptcy but secured an investor in time. Greece. Since Greece's rail network was underdeveloped, intercity bus travel became important in the post-war years. The main bus operator in Greece is KTEL. It was founded in 1952. Ireland. Generally slower than rail travel with refreshment and toilet stops required on longer routes. The main operators in the country are the Bus Éireann and private operators, such as JJ Kavanagh and Sons. The bus service between Dublin and Belfast is provided by Bus Éireann and Ulsterbus providing frequent service, including direct connections to Dublin Airport. Some bus services run overnight. Israel. Because of the weak-developed rail network and the small size of the country and the resulting low domestic air traffic, the long-distance bus cooperative Egged is the main public transport service in the country. Because of the widespread network, Egged is considered one of the largest bus companies in the world, in part because of the long-distance bus lines. However, in recent years Israel railways has expanded and upgraded its route network and other companies have taken over routes previously served by Egged. Netherlands. In the relatively small Netherlands there is a limited number of long-distance routes within the country. In 1994, the Interliner-network started with express buses on connections devoid of rail transport. Owing to high fares, a dense rail network and other reasons, the Interliner network fell apart into several different systems. In 2014, only a limited number of express buses existed as regular public transport usually under the name Qliner. Besides of regular public transport, a number of international bus companies serves Netherlands. Norway. Norway has long-distance bus routes within the country. They operate in barely inhabited areas, including mountains, and affect the construction of a comprehensive railway network. Except in the Oslo area, Norway has only a rather sparse rail network, which extends north of the Arctic Circle to Fauske and Bodø, and to the north of Narvik with a connection to the Swedish rail network. Many of the routes are based on random railways. In addition to this network, they provide public passenger transport by many more companies within Norway than airlines, shipping lines (including the Hurtigruten) and bus lines, including many long-distance bus lines. The buses used in the north of the country (especially in the county of Finnmark) have both a passenger compartment and a freight compartment in the rear: many remote villages are connected to the outside world only by these buses, thus achieving a large part of the cargo by bus to the city. Pakistan. Intercity bus transportation has risen dramatically in Pakistan due to the decline of Pakistan Railways and the unaffordable prices of airplanes for the average Pakistani. Numerous companies have started operating within the country such as Daewoo Express and Niazi Express, Manthar Bus Service and have gained considerable popularity due to their reliability, security and good service. Smaller vans are used for transportation in the mountainous north where narrow and dangerous roads make it impossible for the movement of larger buses. Former Yugoslavia. Intercity bus travel in Serbia, as well as in other countries of former Yugoslavia, is very popular in proportion to travel by rail and air. In some regions, data has shown that intercity bus routes have transported over ten times the number of passengers carried by intercity trains on the same competing routes. It has been a trend around Serbia and the Balkan region that small towns and some villages have their own flagship bus carrier, often branded with the last name of the family whose owner runs that bus company. Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, and Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, have very large central bus terminals that operate 24 hours a day. The largest intercity bus operator in the whole region is Lasta Beograd which operates from Serbia to many countries in Europe. Switzerland. Switzerland has an extremely dense network of interconnected rail, bus and ship lines, including some long-distance bus lines. Although Switzerland is a mountainous country, the rail network is denser than Germany's. Switzerland is an exception to the rule that long-distance bus lines are established especially in countries with inadequate railway network, or in areas with low population density. Some of the railway and main bus routes on Italian territory also serve to shorten the distance between Swiss towns. From Germany lines run from Frankfurt am Main, Heidelberg, Karlsruhe to Basel and Lucerne. Long-distance bus services in Switzerland: Taiwan. Most of the time, coaches in Taiwan is driving on Controlled-access highway, so it is mainly called Highway Coach (Chinese name:國道客運). e.g. KBus（國光客運）, UBus（統聯客運）, HoHsin（和欣客運）. Turkey. Turkey has an extensive network of intercity buses. Every part of the country is served. The buses are popular, comfortable and frequent. For example, there are over 150 departures from Istanbul to Ankara each day. The level of onboard service is very high, with free drinks and snacks on long-distance routes. Notable operators including Pamukkale, Kâmil Koç, Metro, and Ulusoy. Tickets can be bought online from all of them. United Kingdom. There is an extensive network of scheduled coach transport in the United Kingdom. However, passenger numbers are a fraction of those travelling by rail. Coach travel companies often require passengers to purchase tickets in advance of travel, that is they may not be bought on board. The distinction between bus and coach services is not absolute, and some coach services, especially in Scotland, operate as local bus services over sections of route where there is no other bus service. National Express Coaches has operated services under that name since 1972. Megabus started in 2004 and Greyhound UK in 2009. There are many other operators. Receipts in 2004 were £1.8 billion (2008 prices) and grew significantly between 1980 and 2010. Ulsterbus connect places in Northern Ireland which are no longer on the railway network. United States. In the mid-1950s more than 2,000 buses operated by Greyhound Lines, Trailways, and other companies connected 15,000 cities and towns. Passenger volume decreased as a result of expanding road and air travel, and urban decay that caused many neighborhoods with bus depots to become more dangerous. In 1960, American intercity buses carried 140 million riders; the rate decreased to 40 million by 1990, and continued to decrease until 2006. By 1997, intercity bus transportation accounted for only 3.6% of travel in the United States. In the late 1990s, however, Chinatown bus lines that connected New York with Boston and Philadelphia's Chinatowns began operating. They became popular with non-Chinese college students and others who wanted inexpensive transportation, and between 1997 and 2007 Greyhound lost 60% of its market share in the northeast United States to the Chinatown buses. During the following decade, new bus lines such as Megabus and BoltBus emulated the Chinatown buses' practices of low prices and curbside stops on a much larger scale, both in the original Northeast Corridor and elsewhere, while introducing yield management techniques to the industry. By 2010 curbside buses' annual passenger volume had risen by 33% and they accounted for more than 20% of all bus trips. One analyst estimated that curbside buses that year carried at least 2.4 billion passenger miles in the Northeast Corridor, compared to 1.7 billion passenger miles for Amtrak trains. Traditional depot-based bus lines also grew, benefiting from what the American Bus Association called "the Megabus effect", akin to the Southwest Effect, and both Greyhound and its subsidiary Yo! Bus, which competed directly with the Chinatown buses, benefited after the federal government shut several Chinatown lines down in June 2012. Between 2006 and 2014, American intercity buses focused on medium-haul trips between 200 and 300 miles; airplanes performed the bulk of longer trips and automobiles shorter ones. For most medium-haul trips curbside bus fares were less than the cost of automobile gasoline, and one tenth that of Amtrak. Buses are also four times more fuel-efficient than automobiles. Their Wi-Fi service is also popular; one study estimated that 92% of Megabus and BoltBus passengers planned to use an electronic device. New lower fares introduced by Greyhound on traditional medium-distance routes and rising gasoline prices have increased ridership across the network and made bus travel cheaper than all alternatives. Effective June 25, 2014, Greyhound reintroduced many much longer bus routes, including New York–Los Angeles, Los Angeles–Vancouver, and others, while increasing frequencies on existing long-distance and ultra-long-distance buses routes. This turned back the tide of shortening bus routes and puts Greyhound back in the position of competing with long-distance road trips, airlines, and trains. Long-distance buses were to have Wi-Fi, power outlets, and extra legroom, sometimes extra recline, and were to be cleaned, refueled, and driver-changed at major stations along the way, coinciding with Greyhound's eradication of overbooking. It also represented Greyhound's traditional bus expansion over the expansion of curbside bus lines. Safety on U.S. intercity buses. On August 4, 1952, Greyhound Lines had its deadliest accident when two Greyhound buses collided head-on along then-U.S. Route 81 near Waco, Texas. The fuel tanks of both buses then ruptured, bursting into flames. Of the 56 persons aboard both coaches, 28 were killed, including both drivers. On May 9, 1980, a freight ship collided with the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, resulting in several vehicles, including a Greyhound bus, falling into the Tampa Bay. All 26 people on the bus perished, along with nine others. This is the largest loss of life on a single Greyhound coach to date. On March 5, 2010, a bus operated by Tierra Santa Inc. crashed on Interstate 10 in Arizona, killing six and injuring sixteen passengers. The bus was not carrying insurance, and had also been operating illegally because the company had applied for authority to operate an interstate bus service, but had failed to respond to requests for additional information. Security on U.S. intercity buses. Though generally rare, various incidents have occurred over time involving both drivers and passengers on intercity buses. Security became a concern following the September 11 attacks. Less than a month later, on October 3, 2001, Damir Igric, a passenger on a Greyhound bus, slit the throat of the driver (who later survived his injuries and was hospitalized) as he tries to take control of the bus, resulting in a crash that killed 7 passengers, including Igric, and injuring six other passengers. It was determined there was no connection between the September 11 attacks and this incident. Nevertheless, this raised concern. On September 30, 2002, another Greyhound driver was assaulted near Fresno, California, resulting in two passenger deaths after the bus then rolled off an embankment and crashed. Following this attack, driver shields were installed on most Greyhound buses that now prevent passengers from directly having contact with the driver while the bus is in motion, even if the shield is forced open. On buses which do not have the shield, the seats directly behind the driver are generally off limits. The growing popularity in the United States of new bus lines such as Megabus and BoltBus that pick up and drop off passengers on the street instead of bus depots has led to a rise in the perceived security of intercity buses. Megabus states that a quarter of its passengers are unaccompanied women. Urban-suburban bus line. Urban-suburban bus line is generally categorized as public transit, especially for large metropolitan transit networks. Usually these routes cover a long distance compared to most transit bus routes, but still short—usually 40 miles in one direction. An urban-suburban bus line generally connects a suburban area to the downtown core. The vehicle can be something as simple as a merely refitted school bus (which sometimes already contains overhead storage racks) or a minibus. Often a suburban coach may be used, which is a standard transit bus modified to have some of the functionality of an interstate coach. An example would be the Suburban line employed by TransLink (Vancouver), typically going from the downtown core of Vancouver to suburban cities such as Delta and White Rock. In such case, the vehicles are modified standard transit bus, but with only one door and air conditioning. The vehicles provide accommodation for the disabled (through a lift or ramp at the front), and thus has a few high-back seats, usually in the front, that can be folded up for wheelchairs. The rest of the seats are reclining upholstered seats and have individual lights and overhead storage bins. Because it is a commuter bus, it has some (but not much) standing room, stop-request devices, and a farebox. This model also has a bike rack at the front to accommodate two bicycles. Some lines use a full-size interstate coach with on board toilet, such as the "TrainBus" service of Vancouver's West Coast Express commuter rail system. Suburban models in the United States are often used in Park-and-Ride services, and are very common in the New York City area, where New Jersey Transit Bus Operations is a major operator serving widespread bedroom communities.

structure to hold bikes

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5201337

The Domestic Purposes Benefit (DPB) is a social welfare payment in New Zealand's social security system, primarily given to single parents with dependent children. It, along with all other benefit payments, was managed by Work and Income, under the Ministry of Social Development. Since the Fifth National Government of New Zealand's welfare reforms in July 2013, the main Domestic Purposes Benefit Sole Parent was renamed Sole Parent Support, with the two other DPB benefits, Care of Sick or Infirm and Women Alone, absorbed into other benefits. History. The Domestic Purposes Benefit, or DPB, was first introduced in New Zealand in 1973 by the country's Third Labour Government led by Prime Minister Norman Kirk. The Destitute Persons Act 1910 and the Domestic Proceedings Act 1968 had previously created a statutory means by which a woman could seek a maintenance order against the father of her children. The court could, at its discretion, set the rate that it thought appropriate for the father to pay the mother in respect of the child. This maintenance continued until the child reached the age of sixteen; maintenance would continue to be payable in respect of a child over the age of sixteen if the child was engaged in full-time education. These statutes provided a means by which women could seek maintenance from the putative father, but in the event of any difficulties, women had to resort to the court in order to enforce the maintenance agreement or order. There were also further difficulties; an unmarried mother had to obtain an acknowledgement of paternity from the father or a declaration of paternity from the court in order to be entitled to seek maintenance. The DPB, introduced in statutory form in 1973, mitigated these difficulties. The Act provided State financial support for single mothers, irrespective of whether the father was contributing to maintenance payments. The introduction of the DPB was blamed for "creating a shortage of babies for adoption". However, the extent to which the DPB contributed to the shortage of babies available for adoption is unclear. The number of births outside of marriage fell between 1971 and 1976. The numbers of ex nuptial children being adopted had started to fall in 1962, before the introduction of State financial support. Else notes that a number of other factors were at work, such as a "softening" of attitudes towards illegitimate children and their mothers, the removal of the stigma of illegitimacy by the Status of Children Act 1969, the increasing availability of contraception and delays in the placement of babies. In the 2011 New Zealand general election, the ruling centre-right National Party campaigned on, among other policies, welfare reform. National's Welfare Reform plan, called for the streamlining of the existing 11 benefit categories into three, with extra work obligations and focusing on reducing long-term welfare dependency. Upon winning power in 2011, National's Minister for Social Development and Employment Paula Bennett started implementing the policies. The changes to the welfare system came into effect in July 2013. 7 of the 11 existing benefit categories were replaced with three broad groups - Jobseeker Support (for people who can usually work full-time, only work part-time or can't work at the moment), Sole Parent Support (for solo parents caring for children under 14) and the Supported Living Payment (for those who are unable to work and those caring for someone needing significant care). Response to the reforms have been mixed. A New Zealand Herald article on the reforms states under the heading 'The rationale' that 'New Zealand has among the world's highest rates of sole parenthood, especially among low-income groups for whom the DPB may seem a viable option.' But under the heading 'The risks', it says that '...the risk (of reform) is that it will also cause unintended harm to the majority of women who end up on the DPB through no fault of their own.' Details. Domestic Purposes Benefit - Sole Parent. The Domestic Purposes Benefit - Sole Parent is the main DPB benefit. It is a weekly payment to sole parents with one or more dependent children. It is primarily awarded to a parent who is 19 years old or over, has a dependent child under 18 and who does not have a partner or has lost the support of their partner. A parent whose youngest child is under five years old needs to take practical steps to get ready for work. If their youngest child is aged between five and 13 (five being the earliest age a child can attend school, although it is not compulsory until the child turns six) they are expected to be in, or be actively seeking part-time work of at least 15 hours per week. If their youngest child is aged 14 or older (14 being the minimum legal age which children can be left unattended) they are expected to be in, or be actively seeking full-time work of at least 30 hours per week. If they don’t meet these work obligations and do not have an exemption, their benefit may be reduced or stopped. The benefit is a fixed amount for parents who earn $100 or less in other income per week, which as of 15 July 2013 is $335.18 before tax per week. The benefit amount is reduced by 30c per dollar earned between $100 and $200, and 70c per dollar earned over $200. The gross income cut-out point is $577 per week. As of April 2014, this benefit has been mainly replaced by Sole Parent Support if the child is aged under 14 (a maximum net weekly payment of NZ$299.45 for those earning less than NZ$5200 a year - as well as NZ$20 extra per week if childcare costs are needed - and the gross income cut-out point is NZ$585 a week) or Jobseeker Support if the child is aged over 14 (a maximum net weekly payment of NZ$299.45 for sole parents). Both statistics are as of April 1, 2014. Domestic Purposes Benefit - Care of Sick or Infirm. Domestic Purposes Benefit - Care of Sick or Infirm is a weekly payment which helps people who are caring for someone at home who needs full-time care. As of April 1, 2014, the Domestic Purposes Benefit - Care of Sick or Infirm, has been replaced by the Supported Living Payment. The Supported Living Payment goes from a minimum weekly net payment of NZ$211.46 for single 16- and 17-year-olds to a maximum payment of NZ$435.50 for a married couple, de facto couple or a civil union couple. The maximum gross income cut-off point is NZ$780 per week for couples. Domestic Purposes Benefit - Woman Alone. Domestic Purposes Benefit – Woman Alone is a weekly payment which helps women aged 50 or over (but under the age of New Zealand Superannuation, i.e. 65) who have lost the support of their partner or finished caring for a child or sick relative. As of April 1, 2014, the Domestic Purposes Benefit has been replaced by Jobseeker Support. The maximum net weekly payment for those who was receiving the old DPB before 15 July 2013 is NZ$217.75 with a gross weekly income cut-off point of NZ$469. There is no dedicated category now for single women over 50: those applying after 15 July 2013 will receive the Jobseeker Support payment for those aged 25+, together with the obligations to find work that brings. The net weekly benefit is NZ$209.06 with a gross weekly income cut-off point of NZ$379. Benefit numbers. At the end of December 2012, 109,000 working-age people (aged 18–64 years) were receiving a Domestic Purposes Benefit. This represents around 4% of the working age population of New Zealand.

territory fiscal help

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=90723

Albani Bryggerierne A/S (Eng. : "Albani Breweries") is a brewery located in Odense, Denmark, and the vast majority of its customers live on the island of Funen. The brewery was founded by MPharm Theodor Schiøtz in 1859. In 2000, the brewery merged with "Bryggerigruppen" with the Brewery group (now known as Royal Unibrew), a group of Danish regional breweries. Albani is most known for two of its beers, Odense Pilsner and Odense Classic. Beers. Odense Pilsner. Odense Pilsner is a pilsener. The taste is balanced between malt and fruit. Two different varieties of hops are used, both come from Hallertau in Germany. It has been brewed since 1934 and was originally not part of the Albani Brewery's portfolio, but was introduced to the product line with the acquisition of "Bryggeriet Odense". Alcohol by volume: 4.6% Odense Classic. Odense Classic is a pilsener, though it has a more dark colour than ordinary beers of the same type. The beer has a more rounded, but still powerful taste of malt and hops. It was introduced at the brewery's 140th anniversary in 1999. Alcohol by volume: 4.6% Odense Rød Classic. Odense Rød Classic (Danish for "Odense Red Classic") is a Vienna lager. A mixture of dark caramel malt and Münchener malt is used. The result is a dark beer with a somewhat rounded taste. The colour is dark golden red, which might be the source of the name. Alcohol by volume: 4.6% Giraf Beer. Giraf Beer is a strong pilsener. It was first brewed in 1962, when Odense Zoo's giraffe (Danish: "giraf") Kalle was found dead, as the Albani Breweries had previously used this giraffe in its advertisement, it decided to create a special beer, the profits of which would be spent on purchasing a new giraffe for the zoo. The first year's production raised enough funds to buy two giraffes for the zoo. Alcohol by volume: 7.2% HC Andersen. HC Andersen is a strong ale-type beer, first brewed in 1988 when the Albani Breweries decided to create a special beer to celebrate Odense's 1,000th anniversary. The beer became so popular that Albani decided to keep it as a part of its product range. In 1989, it was marketed under its current name, honouring Hans Christian Andersen. A small batch of HC Andersen is brewed every year, and released on Andersen's birthday, April 2. Each year's labels depict a different paper cutting by Hans Christian Andersen. The bottles are also serial numbered. As a result, the beer has become a collector's item. The beer is bottom fermented and is matured longer than ordinary beer. The result is a beer with a light taste, considering its high alcohol content. Alcohol by volume: 9% Christmas Beers. Albani produces two Christmas beers Blålys (Danish for "Blue light") and Rødhætte (Danish for "Red Riding Hood"). Blålys was introduced in 1960, although it was not Denmark's first Christmas beer, "Blålys" effectively started the tradition of Danish Christmas beers. Denmark's first Christmas beer was produced by the "Carlsminde" brewery and had been introduced the previous year. Albani acquired Carlsminde in 1972. Both "Blålys" and "Rødhætte" are dark lagers. The label depicts the church-like "Gallery Tower" of the brewery cover covered in snow. This is the reason why many people originally referred to the Christmas beer as the "church beer" . This only lasted a few years until other breweries introduced their own Christmas beers. Blålys: Alcohol by volume: 7% Rødhætte: Alcohol by volume: 5.6% Easter beer. Påskebryg (Danish for Easter Brew), is a strong pilsener, and the Albani Breweries' traditional beer for the Easter season. Easter beers were Denmark's first seasonal beers in Denmark, and were introduced by Carlsberg in 1905. The Påskebryg was introduced in the 1950s and is brewed from a mixture of dark and light malt. Alcohol by volume: 5,6% Light beers. Albani also produces two light beers, Odense Light and Odense Extra Light, as light alternatives to its original pilsener. These beers are brewed using light pilsener malt, Münchner malt, and caramel malt. Odense Light: Alcohol by volume: 2.6% Odense Extra Light: Alcohol by volume: 0.05% Mergers and acquisitions. At the turn of the twentieth century there was a large consolidation in the Danish brewing industry, where the larger city breweries typically bought the smaller countryside breweries. Albani was part of this development, buying smaller breweries in Odense and around the island of Funen. Later, when Albani had a near monopoly on beer distribution on Funen, Albani started acquiring breweries in other parts of the country; Sønderborg Bryghus, Bryggeriet Slotsmøllen, Baldur, and Maribo Bryghus, in each case, Albani taking control of the other company. Albani Breweries A/S merged with the Royal Unibrew group in 2000. Other names used by the group are: Hans Christian Andersen. Denmark's best known poet and author, Hans Christian Andersen, was very fond of Albani beers. In a letter to a friend he described Albani beer as: "Jeg kan ikke rose denne øl højt nok. Den er forfriskende, delikat og stærk. Prøv den!" (Danish for "I cannot recommend this beer enough. It is refreshing, savoury and strong. Try it!") This quote is occasionally used in the company's marketing.

pale lagers

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3790249

A saltern is an area or installation for making salt. Salterns include modern salt-making works (saltworks), as well as hypersaline waters that usually contain high concentrations of halophilic microorganisms, primarily haloarchaea but also other halophiles including algae and bacteria. Salterns usually begin with seawater as the initial source of brine but may also use natural saltwater springs and streams. The water is evaporated, usually over a series of ponds, to the point where sodium chloride and other salts precipitate out of the saturated brine, allowing pure salts to be harvested. Where complete evaporation in this fashion was not routinely achievable due to weather, salt was produced from the concentrated brine by boiling the brine. Background. Earliest examples of pans used in the solution mining of salt date back to prehistoric times and the pans were made of ceramics known as briquetage. Later examples were made from lead and then iron. The change from lead to iron coincided with a change from wood to coal for the purpose of heating the brine. Brine would be pumped into the pans, and concentrated by the heat of the fire burning underneath. As crystals of salt formed these would be raked out and more brine added. In warmer climates no additional heat would be supplied, the sun's heat being sufficient to evaporate off the brine. One of the earliest salterns for the harvesting of salt is argued to have taken place on Xiechi Lake, Shanxi, China by 6000 BC. Strong archaeological evidence of salt making dating to 2000 BC is found in the ruins of Zhongba at Chongqing.

prime supply

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3044408

Global citizenship is the idea that one's identity transcends geography or political borders and that responsibilities or rights are derived from membership in a broader class: "humanity". This does not mean that such a person denounces or waives their nationality or other, more local identities, but that such identities are given "second place" to their membership in a global community. Extended, the idea leads to questions about the state of global society in the age of globalization. In general usage, the term may have much the same meaning as "world citizen" or cosmopolitan, but it also has additional, specialized meanings in differing contexts. Various organizations, such as the World Service Authority, have advocated global citizenship. Usage. Education. In education, the term is most often used to describe a worldview or a set of values toward which education is oriented (see, for example, the priorities of the "Global Education First Initiative" led by the Secretary-General of the United Nations). The term "global society" is sometimes used to indicate a global studies set of learning objectives for students to prepare them for global citizenship (see, for example, the Global Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh). Global citizenship education. Within the educational system, the concept of global citizenship education (GCED) is beginning to supersede or overarch movements such as multicultural education, peace education, human rights education, Education for Sustainable Development, and international education. Additionally, GCED rapidly incorporates references to the aforementioned movements. The concept of global citizenship has been linked with awards offered for helping humanity. Teachers are being given the responsibility of being social change agents. Audrey Osler, director of the "Centre for Citizenship and Human Rights Education", the University of Leeds, affirms that "Education for living together in an interdependent world is not an optional extra, but an essential foundation". With GCED gaining attention, scholars are investigating the field and developing perspectives. The following are a few of the more common perspectives: Philosophy. Global citizenship, in some contexts, may refer to a brand of ethics or political philosophy in which it is proposed that the core social, political, economic, and environmental realities of the world today should be addressed at all levels—by individuals, civil society organizations, communities, and nation states—through a global lens. It refers to a broad, culturally and environmentally inclusive worldview that accepts the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. Political, geographic borders become irrelevant and solutions to today's challenges are seen to be beyond the narrow vision of national interests. Proponents of this philosophy often point to Diogenes of Sinope (c. 412 B.C.) as an example, given his reported declaration that "I am a citizen of the world (κοσμοπολίτης, "cosmopolites")" in response to a question about his place of origin. A Tamil term, "Yadhum oore yaavarum kelir", has the meaning of "the world is one family". The statement is not just about peace and harmony among the societies in the world, but also about a truth that somehow the whole world has to live together like a family. Psychological studies. Global pollsters and psychologists have studied individual differences in the sense of global citizenship. Beginning in 2005, the World Values Survey (WVS), administered across almost 100 countries, included the statement, "I see myself as a world citizen". In the WVS Wave 6, conducted from 2010 to 2014, across the globe 29.5% "strongly agreed" and another 41% "agreed" with this statement. However, there were wide national variations, as 71% of citizens of Qatar, 21% of U.S. citizens, 16% of Chinese, and just 11% of Palestinians "strongly agreed." Interpreting these differences is difficult, however, as survey methods varied for different countries, and the connotations of "world citizen" differ in different languages and cultures. For smaller studies, several multi-item scales have been developed, including Sam McFarland and colleagues' Identification with All Humanity scale (e.g., "How much do you identify with (that is, feel a part of, feel love toward, have concern for) . . . all humans everywhere?”), Anna Malsch and Alan Omoto's Psychological Sense of Global Community (e.g., "I feel a sense of connection to people all over the world, even if I don’t know them personally"), Gerhard Reese and colleagues' Global Social Identity scale (e.g. "I feel strongly connected to the world community as a whole"), and Stephen Reysen and Katzarska-Miller's global citizenship identification scale (e.g., "I strongly identify with global citizens"). These measures are strongly related to one another, but they are not fully identical. Studies of the psychological roots of global citizenship have found that persons high in global citizenship are also high on the personality traits of openness to experience and agreeableness from the Big Five personality traits and high in empathy and caring. Oppositely, the authoritarian personality, the social dominance orientation, and psychopathy are all associated with less global human identification. Some of these traits are influenced by heredity as well as by early experiences, which, in turn, likely influence individuals' receptiveness to global human identification. Research has found that those who are high in global human identification are less prejudiced toward many groups, care more about international human rights, worldwide inequality, global poverty and human suffering. They attend more actively to global concerns, value the lives of all human beings more equally, and give more in time and money to international humanitarian causes. They tend to be more politically liberal on both domestic and international issues. They want their countries to do more to alleviate global suffering. Following a social identity approach, Reysen and Katzarska-Miller tested a model showing the antecedents and outcomes of global citizenship identification (i.e., degree of psychological connection with global citizens). Individuals' normative environment (the cultural environment in which one is embedded contains people, artifacts, cultural patterns that promote viewing the self as a global citizen) and global awareness (perceiving oneself as aware, knowledgeable, and connected to others in the world) predict global citizenship identification. Global citizenship identification then predicts six broad categories of prosocial behaviors and values, including: intergroup empathy, valuing diversity, social justice, environmental sustainability, intergroup helping, and a felt responsibility to act. Subsequent research has examined variables that influence the model such as: participation in a college course with global components, perception of one's global knowledge, college professors' attitudes toward global citizenship, belief in an intentional worlds view of culture, participation in a fan group that promotes the identity, use of global citizen related words when describing one's values, possible self as a global citizen, religiosity and religious orientation, threat to one's nation, interdependent self-construal prime, perception of the university environment, and social media usage. In 2019, a review of all studies of the psychology of global human identification and citizenship through 2018 was published. Aspects. Geography, sovereignty, and citizenship. At the same time that globalization is reducing the importance of nation-states, the idea of global citizenship may require a redefinition of ties between civic engagement and geography. Face-to-face town hall meetings seem increasingly supplanted by electronic "town halls" not limited by space and time. Absentee ballots opened the way for expatriates to vote while living in another country; the Internet may carry this several steps further. Another interpretation given by several scholars of the changing configurations of citizenship due to globalization is the possibility that citizenship becomes a changed institution; even if situated within territorial boundaries that are national, if the meaning of the national itself has changed, then the meaning of being a citizen of that nation changes. Human rights. The lack of a universally recognized world body can put the initiative upon global citizens themselves to create rights and obligations. Rights and obligations as they arose at the formation of nation-states (e.g. the right to vote and obligation to serve in time of war) are being expanded. Thus, new concepts that accord certain "human rights" which arose in the 20th century are increasingly being universalized across nations and governments. This is the result of many factors, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations in 1948, the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust and growing sentiments towards legitimizing marginalized peoples (e.g., pre-industrialized peoples found in the jungles of Brazil and Borneo). Couple this with growing awareness of our impact on the environment, and there is the rising feeling that citizen rights may extend to include the right to dignity and self-determination. If national citizenship does not foster these new rights, then global citizenship may seem more accessible. Global citizenship advocates may confer specific rights and obligations of human beings trapped in conflicts, those incarcerated as part of ethnic cleansing, and pre-industrialized tribes newly discovered by scientists living in the depths of dense jungle UN General Assembly. On 10 December 1948, the UN General Assembly Adopted Resolution 217A (III), also known as "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights." Article 1 states that "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." Article 2 states that "Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinions, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty." Article 13(2) states that "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country." As evidence in today's modern world, events such as the Trial of Saddam Hussein have proven what British jurist A. V. Dicey said in 1885, when he popularized the phrase "rule of law" in 1885. Dicey emphasized three aspects of the rule of law : US Declaration of Independence. The opening of the United States Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson in 1776, states as follows: "Global citizenship in the United States" was a term used by former U.S. President Barack Obama in 2008 in a speech in Berlin. Social movements. World citizen. In general, a world citizen is a person who places global citizenship above any nationalistic or local identities and relationships. An early expression of this value is found in Diogenes of Sinope (c. 412 B.C. ; mentioned above), a Cynic philosopher in Ancient Greece. Of Diogenes it is said: "Asked where he came from, he answered: 'I am a citizen of the world (kosmopolitês)'". This was a ground-breaking concept because the broadest basis of social identity in Greece at that time was either the individual city-state or the Greeks (Hellenes) as a group. The Tamil poet Kaniyan Poongundran wrote in "Purananuru", "To us all towns are one, all men our kin." In later years, political philosopher Thomas Paine would declare, "my country is the world, and my religion is to do good." Today, the increase in worldwide globalization has led to the formation of a "world citizen" social movement under a proposed world government. In a non-political definition, it has been suggested that a world citizen may provide value to society by using knowledge acquired across cultural contexts. Many people also consider themselves world citizens, as they feel at home wherever they may go. Albert Einstein described himself as a world citizen and supported the idea throughout his life, famously saying "Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind." World citizenship has been promoted by distinguished people including Garry Davis, who lived for 60 years as a citizen of no nation, only the world. Davis founded the World Service Authority in Washington, DC, which sells World Passports, a fantasy passport to world citizens. In 1956 Hugh J. Schonfield founded the Commonwealth of World Citizens, later known by its Esperanto name "Mondcivitana Respubliko", which also issued a world passport; it declined after the 1980s. The Baháʼí Faith promotes the concept through its founder's proclamation (in the late 19th century) that "The Earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens." As a term defined by the Baháʼí International Community in a concept paper shared at the 1st session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, New York, U.S.A. on 14–25 June 1993. "World citizenship begins with an acceptance of the oneness of the human family and the interconnectedness of the nations of 'the earth, our home.' While it encourages a sane and legitimate patriotism, it also insists upon a wider loyalty, a love of humanity as a whole. It does not, however, imply abandonment of legitimate loyalties, the suppression of cultural diversity, the abolition of national autonomy, nor the imposition of uniformity. Its hallmark is 'unity in diversity.' World citizenship encompasses the principles of social and economic justice, both within and between nations; non-adversarial decision making at all levels of society; equality of the sexes; racial, ethnic, national and religious harmony; and the willingness to sacrifice for the common good. Other facets of world citizenship—including the promotion of human honour and dignity, understanding, amity, co-operation, trustworthiness, compassion and the desire to serve—can be deduced from those already mentioned." Mundialization. Philosophically, mundialization (French, "mondialisation") is seen as a response to globalization's "dehumanisation through [despatialised] planetarisation" (Teilhard de Chardin quoted in Capdepuy 2011). An early use of "mondialisation" was to refer to the act of a city or a local authority declaring itself a "world citizen" city, by voting a charter stating its awareness of global problems and its sense of shared responsibility. The concept was promoted by the self-declared World Citizen Garry Davis in 1949, as a logical extension of the idea of individuals declaring themselves world citizens, and promoted by Robert Sarrazac, a former leader of the French Resistance who created the Human Front of World Citizens in 1945. The first city to be officially mundialised was the small French city of Cahors (only 20,000 in 2006), the capital city of the Département of Lot in central France, on 20 July 1949. Hundreds of cities mundialised themselves over a few years, most of them in France, and then it spread internationally, including to many German cities and to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In less than a year, 10 General Councils (the elected councils of the French "Départements"), and hundreds of cities in France covering 3.4 million inhabitants voted mundialisation charters. One of the goals was to elect one delegate per million inhabitants to a People's World Constitutional Convention given the already then historical failure of the United Nations in creating a global institution able to negotiate a final world peace. To date, more than 1000 cities and towns have declared themselves World cities, including Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Toronto, Hiroshima, Tokyo, Nivelles, and Königswinter. As a social movement, mundialization expresses the solidarity of populations of the globe and aims to establish institutions and supranational laws of a federative structure common to them, while respecting the diversity of cultures and peoples. The movement advocates for a new political organization governing all humanity, involving the transfer of certain parts of national sovereignty to a Federal World Authority, Federal World Government and Federal World Court. Basing its authority on the will of the people, supporters hope it could develop new systems to draw on the highest and best wisdom of all humanity, and solve major planetary problems like hunger, access to water, war, peace-keeping, pollution and energy. The mundialization movement includes the declaration of specified territory – a city, town, or state, for example – as world territory, with responsibilities and rights on a world scale. Currently, the nation-state system and the United Nations offer no way for the people of the world to vote for world officials or participate in governing our world. International treaties or agreements lack the force of law. Mundialization seeks to address this lack by presenting a way to build, one city at a time, such a system of true World Law based upon the sovereignty of the whole. Earth Anthem. Author-politician Shashi Tharoor feels that an Earth Anthem sung by people across the world can inspire planetary consciousness and global citizenship among people. Criticisms. Not all interpretations of global citizenship are positive. For example, Bhikhu Chotalal Parekh advocates what he calls globally oriented citizenship, and states, "If global citizenship means being a citizen of the world, it is neither practicable nor desirable." He argues that global citizenship, defined as an actual membership of a type of worldwide government system, is impractical and dislocated from one's immediate community. He also notes that such a world state would inevitably be "remote, bureaucratic, oppressive, and culturally bland." Parekh presents his alternative option with the statement: "Since the conditions of life of our fellow human beings in distant parts of the world should be a matter of deep moral and political concern to us, our citizenship has an inescapable global dimension, and we should aim to become what I might call a globally oriented citizen." Parekh's concept of globally oriented citizenship consists of identifying with and strengthening ties towards one's political regional community (whether in its current state or an improved, revised form), while recognizing and acting upon obligations towards others in the rest of the world. Michael Byers, a professor in Political Science at the University of British Columbia, questions the assumption that there is one definition of global citizenship, and unpacks aspects of potential definitions. In the introduction to his public lecture, the UBC Internalization website states, "'Global citizenship' remains undefined. What, if anything, does it really mean? Is global citizenship just the latest buzzword?" Byers notes the existence of stateless persons, whom he remarks ought to be the primary candidates for global citizenship, yet continue to live without access to basic freedoms and citizenship rights. Byers does not oppose the concept of global citizenship, however, he criticizes potential implications of the term depending on one's definition of it, such as ones that provide support for the "ruthlessly capitalist economic system that now dominates the planet." Byers states that global citizenship is a "powerful term" because "people that invoke it do so to provoke and justify action," and encourages the attendees of his lecture to re-appropriate it in order for its meaning to have a positive purpose, based on idealistic values. Neither criticism of global citizenship is anything new. Gouverneur Morris, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention (United States), criticized "citizens of the world" while he was on the floor of the convention; 9 August 1787. "As to those philosophical gentlemen, those Citizens of the World as they call themselves, He owned he did not wish to see any of them in our public Councils. He would not trust them. The men who can shake off their attachments to their own Country can never love any other. These attachments are the wholesome prejudices which uphold all Governments, Admit a Frenchman into your Senate, and he will study to increase the commerce of France: an Englishman, and he will feel an equal bias in favor of that of England."

elementary articulation

12306-2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=15428941

RASL is a 2013 graphic novel by cartoonist Jeff Smith. A sci-fi noir, it is the story of RASL (Dr. Robert Joseph Johnson), an art thief who jumps to parallel universes in attempts to steal famous paintings, but runs into danger as he is pursued by the government. "RASL" draws influences from real-life events, people, and places, including Nikola Tesla, Southwestern Native American culture, and hardboiled crime fiction. The book's central storyline is narrated extensively through the protagonist's thoughts, aided by the use of flashbacks to tell the story of his past. Smith's art style is high-contrast black-and-white, and is notably more detailed and "human" than his previous work "Bone". "RASL" originally appeared in serial form in an independently published black-and-white comic book published from 2008–2012. Development. Jeff Smith has stated that "RASL" came from a desire to do something completely different from his previous work "Bone". He came up with the idea in 1999 during the process of inking "Bone", inspired by his thoughts of how films like "Blade Runner" and the Bourne film series could come together. Smith then talked to cartoonists Paul Pope and Frank Miller about the idea and gained support. Smith postponed his idea on "RASL" as to complete "Bone", and came back to it in 2007. He developed an idea of how the story would end and what would happen but needed to organize it into a full-fledged story. He flew out to Arizona, as he knew the story would be set in the desert. He found the quiet and heat helped him develop his ideas for the story and characters. Smith was also interested in the visual aspects of film noir, such as intense angles, heavy shadows, and a sense of discomfort. He then spent a year researching the latest in the theories of physics, M-theory, and string theory from the work of Brian Greene, Stephen Hawking, and Carl Sagan to get a feel of what scientists believe is happening with parallel worlds. Publication history. Self-published through Smith's publishing company Cartoon Books, the first issue of "RASL" was released in February 2008. Originally planned for three issues a year at 32 pages, the format was changed as of issue #5 to 24 pages (22 pages of comics, and a two-page letter column titled "RASLetters") for less wait in between. Issue #6 was delayed for an extensively long time, from October 2009 to January 2010. According to creator Jeff Smith's blog, the series was to go bimonthly with issue #7. Earlier in the series' production, it was unclear whether "RASL" was supposed to be a limited series or a standard ongoing series. However, in response to a fan's post on Smith's Facebook page on August 1, 2010, he commented; "I'm not sure how many issues there will be exactly, but you'll probably only have to be collecting "RASL" for about two more years", confirming that it was in fact an ongoing series, and that Smith estimated the series to end somewhere between 2012 and 2013. Smith hinted in the "RASLetters" section of issue #10 that either issue #15 or #16 would be the final issue of the series. Ultimately, the series ended with issue #15 in August 2012. Plot synopsis. The following synopses are cited directly from the collected editions of RASL, respectively. Chapter 1 – The Drift. The story opens to RASL, a dimension-jumping art thief with a tattoo of a woman's name (Maya) on his left arm, wandering in a desert battered and bloody. He recollects his memories on a job where he steals a Picasso painting ("The Old Guitarist"). After tagging the location of the painting, RASL escapes from the police by using an immersion suit (resembling 4 airplane turbines strapped to his shoulders and legs and an African mask) to enter "The Drift", a place where he is able to travel to other dimensions. He comes to a seemingly regular world and hides his suit, then visits a bar where he is the only one present. After some drinks and lighting a cigar, he looks through the songs on the jukebox, noticing that Bob Dylan's "Blonde on Blonde" album is instead credited to Robert Zimmerman, which is Bob Dylan's birthname. He realizes he is in the wrong place. As he is about to leave, an eerie assassin with a lizard like face comes in and shoots at RASL; as he escapes his painting is shot. Outside the assassin chases him and a fight ensues, to which RASL beats and disarms the man. He finds no I.D. and is startled to see a small rectangle block in the man's wrist. Hearing sirens, he decides to go find a quiet place to meditate for a couple of hours (to be put in a more zen-like state of purity so he may enter the Drift again) thinking to himself about how he knew someone could "figure it out eventually". His final lines as he meditates in the light of the moon are "You can fix this. It’s never too late to fix it." The story then cuts back to him one last time wandering in the desert. Chapter 2 – Annie. RASL drives back into town after having returned to the real world. He comes to his client's house (a prostitute named Annie). Inviting him in, she notices RASL is in bad shape, and asks if he was "time traveling again". He corrects her by explaining that he jumps dimensions using "thermo-magnetic engines to bend the space" around him. Annie notices the painting was shot in the foot and she can never show it to anyone. During a conversation RASL asks if Annie has seen the lizard face assassin (mentioning he was from "The Compound.") We also learn that under the assassin's wrist was a security chip. She has not seen the man. RASL is frustrated that "they" are unable to control him, so they sent an assassin. Annie shows him a medallion depicting "The Man in the Maze" (a nickname for the I'itoi) which represents the journey of life and its turning points. During the conversation we see his point of view as he travels dimensions, mentioning while he is in the void, there are portals, and he goes through the one he sees. Annie believes that worlds also choose him. Later the two have sex and fall asleep. RASL wakes up later worried he felt something wrong (nervous he might be in the wrong place). However, Bob Dylan exists in this world and RASL decides to go out to a strip club and drink. He returns later to find that Annie has been murdered, and a heart shape ripped from the painting covered in blood on Annie. RASL knows he must go after the assassin and gets his jeep. As he drives past The Compound he narrates about when he first played with magnets and learned Maxwell's equations to make his immersion suit. He asserts that "nothing is certain in the world of quantum physics." He gives an example of this by stating how electrons are not able to be pinned down in an atom. He narrates: "I can’t remember where I heard the theory that these particles were actually leaking into other dimensions. But I can remember the first time I followed one." He then burns the Picasso painting on a mountain top and uses his immersion suit to enter The Drift in a blast of light. Chapter 3 – Maya. RASL re-enters the world where "Dylan isn't Dylan" on the same abandoned mountain top from Chapter 2 after having counted to 10. With his jeep gone he walks into town. At a bus stop he sees the Man in the Maze symbol used as an ad for a Maze of Life exhibit for a museum. As he contemplates finding a Jeep, he meets a shady character who introduces himself as "The President of the Street". RASL pays him 40 dollars for his help in finding a vehicle. Soon after, RASL begins his drive to the museum (during this we learn that he counts while drifting so he can focus and not black out). Blacking out is how he came to the current dimension the first time. Assuming Annie's killer is following him, he wonders how he got the technology but admits it wouldn't be hard to master. However he mentions that two people saw his (RASL's) complete designs, and that one of them is dead. The story flashes back to when he worked for The Compound (a military base). He works with a man named Miles and his wife Maya. We learn RASL's name is Robert, and that he and his partners are working on a "St. George Array" (based on ideas by Nikola Tesla). According to Miles it's an anti weapon which serves as a barrier against missiles. RASL feels reluctant going through with the plans, but Miles points out that in the past he supported Robert's teleportation suits (t-suits). At this time, however, they do not function properly. The phone rings and Miles answers the call and tells them the project has now been green-lit and the budget doubled. While he gets a bottle of champagne Maya kisses RASL saying "Even if you could leave him, I know you can't leave me" (indicating an affair between them). Maya tells Miles Robert won't back out, leaving Robert himself unsure of the future. In the museum he meets the curator who looks exactly like Maya who in this dimension doesn't know him (instead her name is Uma Giles.) After showing her the silver medallion to examine she says it looks like Hopi silverwork, though his “friend” (Annie) was part Pima. He leaves the museum shortly after making plans to meet her again, reeling from the experience. He decides to visit Annie's house. As RASL is about to leave (after watching a client walk out of her house), the assassin with the lizard like face pulls up in a car to come kill her. RASL enters and sees the man has her hostage and greets him by his first name telling him, "You have something that belongs to us and we want it back." RASL takes the gun and points it at the assassin but is startled when the assassin says that there are infinitely many different Annie's but only one of he and Robert. A brutal fight ensues while Annie picks up the gun and aims it at both of them. The assassin runs outside while RASL makes sure Annie is ok. Outside, the assassin (with his own immersion suit) enters The Drift. RASL prepares to do the same telling Annie to get to safety. She asks where he is going, to which he replies “After him!” He enters the Drift, leaving this dimension's Annie with the gun, in awe and bewildered. Chapter 4 – Opening Doors. The story opens with RASL declaring himself a liar, in a world filled with liars. And that even a liar can find it difficult to tell what is truth and what is legend. During this, a boat spots a life raft holding a dead (and possibly mutated) sailor. We learn that this is 6 days prior to the Philadelphia Experiment, which is narrated as follows: In September 1943, a military convoy is leaving from Casablanca bound for Norfolk Virginia via the Atlantic (waters patrolled by German submarines in this era). As the ships pass within 100 miles from Bermuda, an immense flash is seen on the horizon, followed by the muffled sounds of depth charges. A distress call is picked up yet no ships or German subs are seen. 2 days pass and the calls and noises persist. The next day, the dead sailor is found. On the sixth night, a loud succession of explosions is heard and an unknown ship is seen with its stern on fire. Alarm is issued and the traveling boat goes to rescue the other. As they approach, it is gone and not seen nor detected on radar. Going further, the sailors look down into a trench in the shape of a hull. A loud pop of electricity is heard and the sailors look shocked at what is described as "a man-made horror/a travesty of nature." RASL narrates that this incident is the beginning of a series of lies that leads to the current point in his story. A quiet barrio in Tucson. Re-emerging from the Drift once more in a new dimension with the assassin, another brutal fight ensues at night in the street in a suburb area. The assassin draws his gun and points it at RASL, warning him to stay put. He looks at RASL, stating he looks nothing like his picture (addressing him by his full name, Robert Joseph Johnson). He notices drifting is killing him. The assassin asks if RASL came to "return the stolen property", but RASL has come only because of Annie's murder. The assassin warns RASL that he is meddling with forces he can't control, and that none of the worlds RASL visits are real, which is why he has never met himself. The assassin then reveals his name as Sal, that he is working for the Compound, and that they believe RASL has 2 journals stolen from the navy. He offers a truce for the journals in exchange for not killing RASL's "girlfriends" for 48 hours. RASL tries to make a grab for him but falls on the street, as Sal teleports away. Suddenly, he notices a very eerie and silent little girl who disappears quickly. He goes to a nearby bar to drink and collect his thoughts. We learn through this that Nikola Tesla was working on magnetic fields for ships to detect German ships and repel mines during World War I. The assistant secretary of the navy at the time is Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR becomes president and discusses the magnetic project with Albert Einstein during the period of the Manhattan Project during World War II. RASL had seen the data of a full-scale test in which a ship blinked in and out of existence several times over 6 days; the experiment had horrific results, making the navy want to "close that door". However, RASL says he opened it again 2 years ago. He walks out of the bar and sees the eerie girl again, who slaps the ground where he appeared and points to Annie's house. Unsure of what to make of this, RASL puts on his suit and returns once more to the dimension with no Bob Dylan. Checking on Annie, he is worried she doesn't know who he is. She addresses him as Robert, assures him and kisses him. As they do this, RASL slowly shuts the door of her house. Chapter 5 – Uma. The story continues the morning after Anne and RASL have sex with Annie expressing her disbelief and amazement at RASL's explanation of his drifting technology. We learn that his first test was done in a desert of Arizona (where the story takes place) and it took 3 days to realize he was on another world. Knowing that this dimension's Annie saw the suit, Robert plans to leave to pull a new heist to get money while Annie can go somewhere safe. Annie questions RASL about her alternate versions RASL has seen or slept with. Asking why RASL wants to be with her, he simply says it is because they both are there. Keeping in mind that he destroyed The Compound's multibillion-dollar weapons division, he plans to not give the journals to them. Rob leaves, bloody and hurt from Drifting and has a short black out before and during driving. During the second blackout the story flashes back to Robert coming back in the lab looking ill (we see the mask of his immersion suit hanging on the wall amongst other objects). RASL confesses that he tested a t-suit, that it worked, and expresses his want to postpone the St. George Array test (and shut down the Tesla Division) to analyze the calculations of his trip. Miles expresses his frustration and wonders if anything has to do with Robert and Maya's trip to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. Afterward, Miles picks up the phone and tells RASL to stick to a story, and that the head of security is arriving. After the blackout, he pulls over and starts walking and sees the strange girl from Chapter 4 holding hands with a woman on the sidewalk (this is the second world he has seen her). Shortly, Maya (the Uma version) drives up to give him a ride to the museum to get his necklace (which Annie gave him). She offers him a private tour. During the drive, the story flashes back to Robert and Maya having sex during the Wright Patt trip (confirming Miles' suspicions). Maya confesses she wishes to be with Robert all the time. They discuss their schedule which includes a research meeting and another meeting with H.A.A.R.P. to discuss Maya's bio-theories on low frequencies. RASL plans to go to the archives to check out U.F.O. conspiracies. The story returns to RASL staring at Maya as she gives a tour, and notices he isn't listening, smiling seductively. The story then flashes back to when RASL meets Alvin Bester, a man who works in the archives. He tells RASL of his reputation he's been building and also reminds him of his desire to shut down the Tesla Division. Bester gives RASL Nikola Tesla's 2 missing journals. RASL has a look of shock and fright upon reading one of the journals. The story flashes back to Maya and RASL embraced, kissing in the museum. Chapter 6 – The Mad Scientist. The story continues after the date with Maya with RASL reflecting on his and Miles' fascination with the life of Nikola Tesla and his "electrification" of the world. His exposition includes Tesla's relationship and rivalry with Thomas Edison, which leads into a further explanation of the war of the currents. Halfway through this, RASL is seen breaking into a parallel version of the penthouse from Chapter 1 to obtain a new Old Guitarist painting. He continues his story of Tesla by emphasizing that he felt electricity was a life force, and made plans to create wireless energy transmissions in a laboratory in the Colorado Rockies. The story then goes back to RASL to show that his job was successful as he receives pay from the owner of a casino (who allows RASL to go and enjoy it). The story jumps back into a further narration of Tesla's competition, specifically Guglielmo Marconi. Meanwhile, the company which Tesla and his partner George Westinghouse ran was in financial trouble, but Tesla temporarily saved it. The story goes to the present in the real world to a scene where RASL brings the painting to his friend Pauly in a casino office. Pauly gives RASL a free pass to enjoy the casino. RASL continues his recollection of Tesla. Ultimately the residents in the area of Tesla's lab grew tired of the thunder being emitted, and he left to go meet J.P. Morgan. After working for Morgan, he is abandoned for Marconi (being that he became the first to transmit signals over the Atlantic Ocean). RASL for a moment sympathizes with Tesla but lets his story serve as a cautionary tale as he sits at a poker table with a drink. Sal approaches him from behind to confront him, questioning him as to why he does not have the journals. After realizing the casino set him up (because security isn't called to his aide), RASL tries to fight Sal drunk, but is smashed over the head with the butt of his gun. Chapter 7 – Brighter Than the Sun. The story continues with RASL narrating The Tunguska Event, expressing his belief that Nikola Tesla's attempt at putting his world system on line was the cause. The story then flashes back to The Compound. Robert and Miles' friendship has fallen apart with Robert having left the St. George project but persistent in advising Miles not to test the weapon. Miles is skeptical at RASL's advisions, seeing that he had, without authorization, taken the t-suit and accidentally discovered other worlds. During an exchange, RASL reveals his knowledge of the existence of Tesla's journals. Miles, infuriated that RASL had kept them secret, throws a laptop through a window. Ranting in an almost madness-driven manner. Maya comes in worried to break up the fight, to which Miles (reading Robert and Maya's faces) realizes their affair. RASL is taken out of the building by security, stating that after seven years of research, his time at The Compound was done. Three days before the St. George test, however, Robert returns to take his t-suit and drifts, conscious of it for the first time (and jamming the array in the process). Because of the electromagnetic effects drifting and a guilty conscience, RASL develops a drinking habit. He wakes up in the present after the confrontation with Sal in the casino office from Chapter 6 (located in Las Vegas). Present in the room is Sal, along with Kalani Adams, the security head of the compound. Sal's full name is revealed as Salvador Crow, and that he has undergone training under the authority of The Department of Homeland Security. Also—that he is part of a "watchdog group" created by the Patriot Act. In conversation with Kalani, it is learned the department considers the new worlds (if real) a potential security risk. RASL expresses that they are real, to which Sal is disgusted by the thought of considering that so. We also learn that the St. George array is being rebuilt. RASL reveals his t-suit works because energy is shared in all the universes and that energy is transferred. In addition he states the barrier is thin and trying to create the St. George weapon is ill-advised, because an energy gusher could be opened up causing devastating consequences. Choosing to see this as a way to convince RASL to bring her the journals, Kalani offers an ultimatum to bring them in 24 hours or be locked away. RASL is taken away by Sal and tossed out on the edge of town, telling him that he is still seeking out Annie. RASL's narration of the past is further revealed as he states that three days after jamming the weapon, he drifted back to Tucson and rented a jeep, knowledgeable of where he hid the journals. After driving out of town, he recalls seeing a flash in the mirror, and witnesses (along with other drivers who had gotten out of their cars) a devastating explosion from The Compound. The story flashes back to the present one last time with RASL standing in the desert where Sal left him, with the eerie girl he'd met earlier right behind him. Chapter 8 – Romance at the Speed of Light. We pick up right from the end of the last chapter with RASL reflecting back on his motto, "It's never too late to fix it." He thinks back to a warning that Annie gave him— That he is an addictive personality and would run back to Maya, even if her motives seemed suspect. We then flash to a new scene in which Robert breaks off the affair with Maya (much to her dismay). We then jump to RASL watching the news after the explosion at the Compound (talked about at the end of Chapter 7). The entire team which includes Miles is rescued, but not Maya. We then cut to a scene in which RASL gets a tattoo in her memory. We jump two years later (to the present) and RASL realizes there is the eerie little girl is standing behind him. RASL tries to communicate with the girl and see if she followed him from a parallel universe. But she motions for RASL to take off his jacket, and then crosses out Maya's name on his arm (to RASL's confusion). She then draws a diagram in the dirt which shocks RASL, as he backs away he bumps into The President of the Street, who recognizes RASL from their last meet (in Chapter 3) despite them not being in the world in which they met. RASL asks if the man knows who the little girl is, and he states that she is God. Chapter 9 – The Warning. RASL contemplates God, existence and the origins of the universe through various Native American myths and stories. Included is a visual reference to the Man in the Maze who is described as "Elder Brother". We then pick up from where we left off, with RASL walking along in the desert to town and The President of the Streets behind him with the little girl (who he claims to be God). The President is recalling a story of how he saw a UFO when RASL stops momentarily to question the man's claim of the little girl being God. When The President makes references to Nikola Tesla and his downfall, RASL suddenly takes hold of the man angrily, and the little girl calms him down. RASL explains to her that the drawing she made in the sand in the previous chapter is from Tesla's journals. The diagram/drawing makes reference to his Unified Field Theory which explains the ideas of dimensions and universes overlapping, along with shared energy. RASL explains that in order to tap into those dimensions, high frequencies of energy are needed, which would crack a hole in reality itself (which he states is what happened in The Philadelphia Experiment). He also worries that that is exactly what will happen if the St. George array is activated. RASL decides to go and get Annie like he planned (after he'd side-tracked in Las Vegas in Chapter 6) and The President and the girl seem to vanish. RASL goes to a parking garage to pick up his Jeep and finds a figure going through his trunk, dressed in a T-Suit. He chases the figure, and is positive it isn't Sal (because of the person's dexterity and height). He almost catches the figure but they drift out of his reach with the T-Suit engines. RASL muses that he'll have to keep his Jeep locked up. Collected editions. RASL has been collected into the following oversized (10" by 12") trade paperbacks: The collection of "The Drift" has been released in a hardcover edition (), limited to 3000 copies. The collection of "The Drift" also features extra story pages along with bonus material. The series is also being released in "Pocket Book" format (measuring 8.9 by 6.4 by 0.6 inches). Due to the release of these, the previous oversized collected editions were renamed the "RASL Giant Artist Editions". It has been confirmed that despite the release of the pocket books, the "RASL Giant Artist Editions" will be kept in print and continued. Smith said in the "RASLetters" of "Issue #10" that there would be either one or two more "RASL Giant Artist Editions" (if one, then the one would contain more pages than usual, while if two, they may contain less pages than usual), while there will be one more "RASL Pocket Book Edition": The entire series was colored and collected as a single 472 page hardcover in September, 2013 (). Film adaptation. "RASL" has been optioned for a film by Lionel Wigram.

dousing wear

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=43445856

Primus & the Chocolate Factory with the Fungi Ensemble is the eighth studio album by American rock group Primus. The album is a re-imagining of the soundtrack of the 1971 film "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory". The album was released on October 21, 2014. It is the first full-length album with Tim "Herb" Alexander since 1995's "Tales from the Punchbowl". Background. Lead singer and bassist Les Claypool told "Rolling Stone" of his fascination with "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory", the 1971 film adaptation of Roald Dahl's novel "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory": "I don't think it was until "Jaws" came along that I was more obsessed with a film, when I started drawing sharks all over my binders and notebooks. Prior to that it was everything Wonka." During an interview at The Greene Space, Les Claypool explained that one idea for his next record was a cover of The Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour". Although this project never came to fruition, he stated that he was glad it didn't work out since he later found out that The Flaming Lips were producing their cover of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" around the same time. Music. The track "I Want It Now" is the first Primus song to feature guitarist Larry "Ler" Lalonde on lead vocals. Drummer Tim Alexander used an intentionally unusual drum kit throughout the album, which contained various rototoms, frying pans, a HAPI UFO drum, and more in addition to his already-large drum kit. About the odd choice of percussion, Alexander explains "It went back to the original meaning of a contraption, which is what a drum set initially was when they were first being put together in the early 1900s. Putting all these things together, I just had all these different sounds to work with them. It made me have to think about what I’m doing to create rhythms using all this stuff." Promotion. To tie in with the album's "Wonka" theme, Primus began selling exclusive chocolate "Primus Bars" at live performances. The varieties are named after Primus songs: "Mr. Krinkle Bars" and "Pork Soda Bars" (from "Pork Soda"), "Professor Nutbutter Bars" (from "Tales from the Punchbowl"), and "Bastard Bars". "The tour and the album are solely a marketing tool just so we can sell candy bars," jokes Claypool. "That's the whole impetus of this entire project. Because the fucking recording industry rolled over and let this Internet shit all over us. So we had to come up with another income stream, so we're making chocolate bars because you can’t digitize a chocolate bar — yet." On Hollywood, limited edition 'Pork Soda' bars were available. The last live performance of the album, September 19, 2015, was a live Pay-Per-View event on TourGigs.com Deluxe Edition. In early 2015, Primus' official website announced Primus and the Chocolate Factory with the Fungi Ensemble Deluxe Edition to be released on April 28, 2015. This update reformats the album into Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound, and also includes a bonus live CD that features Primus' signature extended live jams. This was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Immersive Audio Album. Shortly after the last live performance of the album, it was announced on Primus' official website that the Deluxe Edition's release date had been delayed until November 20, 2015, and that pre-orders will now include a limited edition box of chocolates. The live CD was replaced with a DVD of custom visuals for each song.

a different way to make profit

5715-2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=36918398

The 2012 Harvard cheating scandal involved approximately 125 Harvard University students who were investigated for cheating on the take-home final examination of the spring 2012 edition of Government 1310: "Introduction to Congress". Harvard announced the investigation publicly on August 30, 2012. Dean of Undergraduate Education Jay M. Harris described the case as "unprecedented in its scope and magnitude". "The Harvard Crimson" ranked the scandal as the news story most important to Harvard in 2012. A teaching fellow noticed similarities between a small number of exams during grading in May 2012. The course's professor brought the case to the Harvard College Administrative Board, which reviewed all final exams, leading to individual cases against nearly half of the 279 students enrolled in the class, almost two percent of the undergraduate student body. The administrative board completed its investigation in December 2012. On February 1, 2013 Harvard revealed that "somewhat more than half" of the investigated students, estimated at 70%, were forced to withdraw. Government 1310: "Introduction to Congress" was led by assistant professor Matthew B. Platt in Spring 2010, 2011, and 2012. The course was offered to students of Harvard College and Harvard Extension School. It developed a reputation as an easy course, receiving a high proportion of "easy" or "very easy" ratings in the "Q Guide", Harvard's collection of course evaluations. According to some Spring 2012 students, Platt immediately confirmed this reputation by promising 120 A's and stating that attendance was optional. Students who attended could share their notes. Grades were determined by four take-home exams. In 2010 and 2011, the take-home exams were essays, but in 2012 they were changed to a short answer format. The change corresponded with a spike in difficulty and a drop in overall score, according to the "Q Guide". Students said the short answer format facilitated collaboration. Some guessed that the changes were forced from above. Spring 2012 final exam. The spring 2012 final exam was assigned April 26 and due May 3 at 5:00 p.m. Its first page contained the instructions: "The exam is completely open book, open note, open internet, etc. However, in all other regards, this should fall under similar guidelines that apply to in-class exams. More specifically, students may not discuss the exam with others—this includes resident tutors, writing centers, etc." The use of "etc." has been questioned. Students complained about confusing questions on the final exam. Due to "some good questions" from students, Platt clarified three exam questions by email on April 30. Platt cancelled his office hours on the May 3 due date on short notice. Many students received assistance from the teaching fellows. Spring 2013 – present. Government 1310 had its spring 2013 Harvard College course listing removed as of October 7, 2012. Platt taught the course through the Harvard Extension School only for spring 2013 and spring 2014. Grading was based on two essay exams, ten quizzes and the final. The collaboration policy forbade any collaboration. Investigation. A teaching fellow noticed similarities between a small number of exams during grading in May 2012. Platt reported the suspected plagiarism in a letter to administrative board secretary John "Jay" L. Ellison on May 14. The similarities were first noticed in answers for the bonus short answer question "Describe two developments in the history of Congress that ostensibly gave individual MCs [members of Congress] in the House greater freedom and/or control but ultimately centralized power in the hands of party leadership." Some students picked the "somewhat obscure" pair of the Cannon Revolt of 1910 and Henry Clay and "all the answers use the same (incorrect) reading of the course material in arguments that are identically structured." Additional comparisons revealed possible collaboration on the other questions. The administrative board reviewed all exams over the summer and flagged roughly 125 for suspected collaboration. The suspects constitute nearly half of the 279 students enrolled in the class and almost two percent of Harvard College's undergraduate student body. Harris said the similarities include "answers that look quite alike to answers that appear to have been lifted in their entirety." Harvard enlisted "supplemental fact finders" to deal with the load. Peter F. Lake, a Stetson University College of Law professor approximated fifty hours per student totaling "essentially one administrator’s entire year of energy." Harvard announced the investigation publicly on August 30, 2012. Dean of undergraduate education Jay M. Harris justified the announcement as a springboard to raise awareness and a teachable moment. A senior under investigation dismissed this explanation, writing, "Harvard chose to go public with this story to first and foremost save their own asses." On the same day as the announcement, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences dean Michael D. Smith sent an email to all faculty members informing them of the investigation and suggesting that they clarify their collaboration policies. Each student was given copies of their exams and similar ones, then had to submit a written explanation. The student met with an administrative board subcommittee and was shown the other students' statements. Some students named the classmates they collaborated with. The subcommittee recommended an action to the full board. Cases were finalized in September and December 2012. Students forced to withdraw vanished from campus as verdicts were issued every Tuesday. The administrative board completed its investigation in December 2012. Discipline. Potential discipline for academic dishonesty includes a year's forced withdrawal. In May 2010 the administrative board gained the ability to "exclude" students and fail them. IvyGate published rumors that the administrative board developed a "tiered punishment scheme" based on general classes of collaboration but Faculty of Arts and Sciences spokesperson Jeff Neal stated that each case would be evaluated individually. Students could withdraw voluntarily before their cases were closed, according to an email sent by Ellison to resident deans. If convicted and sentenced to a required withdrawal, the leave of absence would be credited as time served. A forced withdrawal includes a permanent notation on the student's transcript. Harvard biology professor Richard Losick calls the note "a severe punishment" and one suspected student describes it as "almost the kiss of death in the academic realm." During their absence, students must "hold a full-time, paid, non-academic job in a non-family situation, for at least six consecutive months" before becoming eligible for readmittance. On February 1, 2013, Smith revealed that "somewhat more than half" of the students were forced to withdraw "for a period of time" and "roughly half" of the remainder were put on disciplinary probation. Smith's e-mail covers all administrative board cases for the past term without mentioning Government 1310 or the scandal, but a Harvard official said they were from one course. For the majority of cases, the "period of time" is two semesters according to students. Athletes. Harvard Crimson varsity team athletes will lose a year of Ivy League eligibility if they play any games and are forced to withdraw. If they register and attend classes before withdrawing, the "Harvard Department of Athletics Student-Athlete Handbook" says "In nearly all circumstances, [they] will be ineligible to compete in the first year [they] return to Harvard." According to estimates by students, over half the class and up to half of those suspected are athletes. The Harvard Crimson football team was expected to lose players, but it won its season opener. None of the starters left the team. "Sports Illustrated" reported that Kyle Casey, current co-captain and leading scorer of last year's 2011–12 Harvard Crimson men's basketball team withdrew from Harvard ahead of the registration deadline. "The Boston Herald" reported that co-captain Brandyn Curry was expected to withdraw also. On October 9, 2012 a team spokesperson confirmed that they "are not playing this season." Platt highlighted a group of baseball players in his letter to the Ad Board. One athlete told "The Boston Globe" that his teammates combined notes while travelling on their team bus. Four ice hockey players left the team. In a telephone interview with the Associated Press, Harvard president Drew Faust said that athletes should not be set apart or given special treatment. Faust said "It is not about one student group. It’s not confined to any one student group." Athletes and non-athletes withdrew voluntarily. Reaction. Students. Students claimed that collaboration like note-sharing and consulting teaching fellows was widespread. One student produced shared lecture notes and argued successfully that they were the source. Students under investigation complained about uncertainty stemming from the length of the investigation and the Administrative Board's hiatus over the summer. One 2012 graduate now working on Wall Street told "Bloomberg Businessweek" "Dragging us into this investigation now, when we have financial obligations and jobs, seems very unfair." Current students expressed concerns about pro-rated tuition costs where students forced to withdraw later would pay more. Some students did not receive their verdicts until shortly before finals. In the interest of "financial equity," Harvard calculated tuition refunds for all required withdrawals based on September 30, 2012. Harvard Extension School students wrote to "The Boston Globe" and GovLoop to debunk claims that Platt encouraged collaborating on exams. A number of students responded to Harvard's announcement by going to the media themselves and "trying to present the other side" of the story. A senior reached out to "The New York Observer" and "Salon". He told "Salon" "we’re being scapegoated" and that many students are ready to file lawsuits. One student who had contacted a lawyer told "The Harvard Crimson" "Harvard has created this war between the students and the fricking school, and this is a war that I am willing and very eager to fight." Experts said that Harvard can be sued for procedural errors, lost employment opportunities or intentional or negligent infliction of emotional distress. After the final announcement, lawyers said that lawsuits would be difficult and unlikely. Harvey A. Silverglate said "Schaer vs. Brandeis makes Harvard very close to invulnerable." One lawyer said students may be waiting to graduate and avoid retribution. The statute of limitations for breach of contract is six years in Massachusetts. Implicated students and parents were disappointed by Smith's e-mail and blamed Platt. Other students thought the punishment was fair. Robert Peabody, an attorney for two students said the process was too slow and calling it "death by a thousand nicks", "living torture", "basically hell" and "twisting in the wind." He said his clients "emotionally deteriorated over the course of the semester." "Harvard Crimson"'s survey of graduating seniors of the class of 2013 estimated that 32.0% of students cheated on "papers or take-home tests" but 7.0% self-reported cheating. Harvard. An honor code was drafted by Harvard's Committee on Academic Integrity and adopted on May 6, 2014 by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences by "overwhelmingly" positive vote. Colin Diver, former president of Reed College writes that an "Honor Principle" must be the basis of a culture of academic integrity. Some professors defended the take-home exam format. Erika Christakis and Nicholas A. Christakis write that there is a "national crisis of academic dishonesty." Harry R. Lewis entreats Harvard to "Know thyself." Howard Gardner writes that the case exposes "ethical rot" at Harvard. Gardner contemplates the scandal "as a play in four acts." Faust, Smith and Harris made statements regarding the investigation at the first Faculty of Arts and Sciences meeting of Fall 2012 on October 2. Faust also granted an interview with "The Harvard Crimson". She refused comment on student athletes saying the investigation "includes a wide spectrum of students." The instructors of Harvard's Expository Writing Program are using the scandal to accentuate the anti-plagiarism principles they have already been teaching. Thomas G. Stemberg. Thomas G. Stemberg, prominent Harvard alumnus and Staples Inc. founder, wrote a heavily critical letter addressed to Faust dated January 6, 2013. Stemberg was co-chair of the Friends of Harvard Basketball fundraising group. The 2012–13 Harvard Crimson men's basketball team lost two stars to the scandal. Stemberg criticized Harvard for punishing students who used collaborative notes alongside those who copied answers. He alleged that students had escaped punishment by lying in their testimony. He called Platt and other undergraduate instructors "clearly not qualified." Stemberg said to "Bloomberg News" "Those students who cut and pasted exam answers deserved to get kicked out. The rest of them should have been vindicated, and the faculty member fired." The other co-chair Thomas W. Mannix disapproved of how the media focused on the basketball team and individual players. Commentary. Editorials by "The Harvard Crimson" call out widespread confusion over the acceptability of collaboration as the scandal's root cause and focus on extracurricular activity. An editorial by "The Cavalier Daily" blames the "poorly worded exam instructions" and the phrase "open Internet". According to an editorial by "The Boston Globe", the cheating exposes a lack of quality in Government 1310. An editorial by "The Christian Science Monitor" examines the challenges of teaching integrity. Naomi Schaefer Riley writes in "Bloomberg View" that the scandal highlights problems in the college admissions process. Farhad Manjoo, writing for "Slate", believes "The students should be celebrated for collaborating" as they would in the real world. Sarah Green writes in "Harvard Business Review" that a developed love of learning would prevent cheating. "Forbes" contributor Richard Levick blames Harvard for drawing out the investigation and failing to maintain confidentiality. Alexandra Petri writes in "The Washington Post" that cheating is caused by an aversion to failure. In "The Boston Globe", Lauren Stiller Rikleen blames the Millennial Generation's inexperience on a lack of structure. A number of student newspapers published opinion pieces on cheating inspired by the event. Jonathan Zimmerman of the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University writes in "The Christian Science Monitor" that "poor teaching" encourages cheating. On February 11, 2013 "The Daily Show" did a segment on the scandal. Yale. The Yale Freshman Class Council designed a shirt for the Harvard-Yale football game replacing "Veritas" in the Harvard logo with "Cheaters" or "Cheatas" but the Yale Licensing Office rejected the design. The approved shirt has "Try cheating your way out of this one" on its back. Harvard won the game. Yale College Dean Mary Miller discouraged instructors from using take-home finals in direct response to the scandal. Administrative Board. On October 23–26, 2012 "The Harvard Crimson" published a four-part series about the Administrative Board and the changes made in 2009–2010. "The Harvard Crimson" followed up with a critical editorial. One criticism is resident deans are normally trusted advisors but communications with them are not protected by privilege. Collaboration policies. On August 30, 2012, the same day as the announcement, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Michael D. Smith sent an email to all faculty members informing them of the investigation and suggesting that they clarify their collaboration policies. Harris reminded instructors that course syllabi must contain explicit collaboration policies before the Spring 2013 semester. Some classes also went over their policies in their first lecture. Search of deans' email accounts. On March 9, 2013 "The Boston Globe" reported that Harvard searched 16 resident deans' email accounts seeking the source of a leaked email shortly after the scandal broke. On March 11 Smith and Evelynn Hammonds confirmed the search in an official statement. One dean had forwarded the email to two students in their role as an advisor and it was redistributed, reaching "The Harvard Crimson". In light of a second leak of an Administrative Board meeting and with no explanations forthcoming, administrators approved the email search. Information technology staff searched the subject lines of the deans' staff email accounts. Only the dean responsible was notified about the search. The statement said Senior Resident Dean Sharon Howell was also informed but she and an anonymous Harvard official said she was not. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences privacy policy requires members to be "notified at the earliest possible opportunity." The policy was partially due to suspected snooping by Harvard President Lawrence Summers. It was not clear if resident deans are faculty or merely staff. The search breaks the faculty policy but not the staff policy. Faculty members reacted negatively to the search. Resident deans have separate administrative and personal email accounts. The first search examined only the administrative account. On April 2, 2013 Hammonds disclosed that additional searches were run on the deans' two email accounts seeking communication with reporters for "The Harvard Crimson". In April, Hammonds announced that her earlier statement had not been complete as she had failed to recollect a second email search, this time of the accounts of Allston Burr Resident Deans, academics who live in Harvard's undergraduate housing and advise students. Hammonds did not inform Smith of this second search, violating the Faculty of Arts and Sciences' email privacy policy. "The Harvard Crimson" called on Hammonds to resign, stating: "Since Hammonds provided misinformation regarding the highly sensitive issue of email searches, and since she violated clear policy regarding those searches, her presence at the helm of the College stands as a roadblock to rebuilding trust between students, faculty, and the administration." On May 28, Hammonds announced that she would resign to lead a new Harvard research program on race and gender in science. Hammonds said that her decision to resign was unrelated to the email search incident. An outside investigation run by Michael B. Keating of Foley Hoag found that the searches were done in good faith.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=123407

Philipsburg is a town in and the county seat of Granite County, Montana, United States. The population was 820 at the 2010 census. The town was named after the famous mining engineer Philip Deidesheimer, who designed and supervised the construction of the ore smelter around which the town originally formed. He platted the townsite in 1867. Geography. Philipsburg is located at (46.333108, -113.296564). Montana Highway 1 passes through town. Granite Ghost Town State Park is nearby. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , all land. Demographics. 2010 census. As of the census of 2010, there were 820 people, 413 households, and 217 families residing in the town. The population density was . There were 547 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the town was 96.8% White, 0.1% African American, 0.9% Native American, 0.2% Asian, 0.4% from other races, and 1.6% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.8% of the population. There were 413 households, of which 16.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 40.0% were married couples living together, 8.5% had a female householder with no husband present, 4.1% had a male householder with no wife present, and 47.5% were non-families. 40.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 17.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 1.92 and the average family size was 2.53. The median age in the town was 54.4 years. 14.8% of residents were under the age of 18; 4.4% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 17.2% were from 25 to 44; 34.2% were from 45 to 64; and 29.4% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the town was 49.1% male and 50.9% female. Economy. Since the closure of local mines and sawmills in the 1980s the town's future was uncertain. The surrounding county is home to more than 24 ghost towns of former mining and timber towns. However the 1990s saw a wave of newcomers purchasing and restoring the numerous buildings in the town's historic district. These included several retailers who expanded on the popularity of sapphire hunting in gravel from the nearby Sapphire Mountain range. The Sweet Palace candy store opened in 1998 and became a regional tourist destination. In 2003 the historic Broadway Hotel was reopened by filmmaker Jim Jenner and numerous other lodging operations followed. Jenner's award-winning 2017 film, "Saving the Burg" captured the story of the town's rebirth and aired on PBS more than a dozen times. Major industries in Philipsburg are Accommodation and Food Service, Educational Services, Healthcare and Social Assistance. The main job fields are Service, Management, Business, Science and Arts, Sales and Office. The Ranch at Rock Creek is Granite County's largest private employer. It is a luxury ranch, opened in 2007 and located 15 minutes from town, for celebrities and the well-to-do. Other major employers are Discovery Basin Ski Area, Granite County Medical Center and Rest Home and the Philipsburg School District. Philipsburg Brewing Company opened 2012 in the historical Sayrs Building, and expanded in 2015 to the historic Silver Springs Brewery on the eastern edge of town. The brewery sells bottled and keg beer throughout Montana and recently expanded to sell drinking water in recyclable aluminum bottles. The environmentally friendly packaging has led to contracts to provide bottled water to both Yellowstone and Glacier National Park concessionaires. Project Vote Smart was located approximately 25 miles from Philipsburg for 16 years. It annually attracted interns to work on its elected official database and many of the organization's employees lived in Philipsburg. After the 2016 presidential election, Vote Smart relocated to Des Moines, Iowa. Climate. Philipsburg's climate transitions between semi-arid (Köppen "BSk") and humid continental (Köppen "Dfb"). Winters are long and dry, but relatively mild, while summers are warm and distinctly wetter. Infrastructure. Riddick Field is a public use airport located 1 mile southeast of town. Education. Philipsburg Public Schools educates students from kindergarten through 12th grade. Granite High School's team name is the Prospectors. Philipsburg Public Library serves the area. Cultural references. Philipsburg is notable for being the setting and subject of the poem "Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg" by celebrated Northwest poet Richard Hugo. Actress Kate Bosworth married American director Michael Polish in Philipsburg on August 31, 2013. Actress Scarlett Johansson married boyfriend French journalist Romain Dauriac in Philipsburg on October 1, 2014. Kate Bosworth and Scarlett Johansson appeared together in the 1998 film "The Horse Whisperer", much of which was shot in Montana. Philipsburg won the 2015 Sunset Magazine Award for "Best Municipal Makeover," beating out entrants that included Reno, Nevada and Sacramento, California.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4377304

"To Heart" is a 1999 Japanese anime television series based on the visual novel "To Heart" by the Japanese software company Leaf. The episodes, produced by the animation studio Oriental Light and Magic, are directed by Naohito Takahashi and aired in Japan between April 1 and June 24, 1999 compiling thirteen episodes. Six short bonus broadcasts were produced and aired after selected episodes. They lasted around five minutes and followed the general style of the main anime, although the characters are drawn super deformed. The overall story centers on Akari Kamigishi's blossoming relationship with the protagonist Hiroyuki. Three pieces of theme music were used for the episode; one opening theme and two ending themes. The opening theme is "Feeling Heart" by Masami Nakatsukasa; the first ending theme is "Yell" by Ayako Kawasumi, and the second ending theme is "Access" by Spy. Different ending themes were used depending on the location of the broadcast. The DVD and VHS releases used "Yell" as the ending theme. A set of six DVDs, videotapes and laserdiscs were sold in Japan for the "To Heart" anime. "To Heart" was licensed for North American release by The Right Stuf International at Anime Expo 2004 on July 3, 2004 at their panel. Volume one was scheduled for late 2005, but the master copies Right Stuf received from Japan were in bad shape, delaying the release. Because "To Heart" was animated in the process of cel animation, it was captured onto film prior to conversion to video, and the video master showed dirt, glue marks, and other artifacts as a result of the process. Normally the original film would be restored to create a new master, but in this case the original film had been destroyed. As a result, the only choice was to digitally restore and remaster the video. All thirteen episodes and the six bonus extra was released on four DVD volumes between March 27 and August 28, 2007. A sequel anime series entitled "To Heart: Remember My Memories" is set a year after the conclusion of the first anime and completes the anime's storyline (deviating from the visual novel). The future of Akari, Hiroyuki, and Multi are also shown. The Himeyuri twins from "To Heart 2" make their debut appearances in "To Heart: Remember My Memories" as speaking cameos. The anime, which was produced by AIC and Oriental Light and Magic, and directed by Keitaro Motonaga, aired in Japan between October 2 and December 25, 2004 compiling thirteen episodes. The episodes were released on seven DVD compilation volumes in Japan. Seven short omake episodes titled "Heart Fighters" were released with the consumer DVD versions of "To Heart: Remember My Memories"; they are not available on rental DVDs. Unlike the bonus shorts of the first season, the characters are not drawn super deformed and there is an overall arching mini-story. The humor comes from its parodies of popular Japanese culture. An anime television series for "To Heart 2" was produced by Oriental Light and Magic and directed by Norihiko Sudō. Conisch and Kei Haneoka provided the soundtrack for the series. The episodes aired between October 3, 2005 and January 2, 2006 consisting of thirteen episodes. A three-episode original video animation series was produced by Aquaplus and Chaos Project with a new, original story. It was released on three DVDs between February 28 and September 28, 2007. A second OVA series titled "To Heart 2: Another Days", was released on two DVDs, each containing an episode, between March 26 and August 8, 2008.

horrible condition

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1258023

Minh Mạng (, , lit. "the bright favour of Heaven"; 25 May 1791 – 20 January 1841; born Nguyễn Phúc Đảm, also known as Nguyễn Phúc Kiểu) was the second emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty of Vietnam, reigning from 14 February 1820 until his death, on 20 January 1841. He was the fourth son of Emperor Gia Long, whose eldest son, Nguyễn Phúc Cảnh, had died in 1801. He was well known for his opposition to French involvement in Vietnam and his rigid Confucian orthodoxy. Early years. Born Nguyễn Phúc Đảm at Gia Định in the middle of the Second Tây Sơn – Nguyễn Civil War, Minh Mạng was the fourth son of lord Nguyễn Phúc Ánh – future Emperor Gia Long. His mother was Gia Long's second wife Trần Thị Đang (historically known as Empress Thuận Thiên). At the age of three, under the effect of a written agreement made by Gia Long with his first wife Tống Thị Lan (Empress Thừa Thiên), he was taken in and raised by the lord consort as her own son. Following Thừa Thiên's death in 1814, it was supposed that her grandson, Crown Prince Cảnh's eldest son Mỹ Đường, would be responsible for conducting the funeral. Gia Long however, brought out the agreement to insist that Phúc Đảm, as Thừa Thiên's son, should be the one fulfilling the duty. Despite opposition from mandarins such as Nguyễn Văn Thành, Gia Long was decisive with his selection. In 1816, Gia Long appointed Đảm as his heir apparent. After the ceremony, Crown Prince Đảm moved to Thanh Hòa Palace and started assisting his father in processing documents and discussing country issues. Gia Long's death coincided with the re-establishment of the Paris Missionary Society's operations in Vietnam, which had closed in 1792 during the chaos of the power struggle between Gia Long and the Tây Sơn brothers before Vietnam was unified. In the early years of Minh Mạng's government, the most serious challenge came from one of his father's most trusted lieutenants and a national hero in Vietnam, Lê Văn Duyệt, who had led the Nguyễn forces to victory at Qui Nhơn in 1801 against the Tây Sơn dynasty and was made regent in the south by Gia Long with full freedom to rule and deal with foreign powers. Policy towards missionaries. In February 1825, Minh Mạng banned missionaries from entering Vietnam. French vessels entering Vietnamese harbours were ordered to be searched with extra care. All entries were to be watched "lest some masters of the European religion enter furtively, mix with the people and spread darkness in the kingdom." In an imperial edict, Christianity was described as the "perverse European" (practice) and accused of "corrupting the hearts of men". Between 1833 and 1838, seven missionaries were sentenced to death, amongst them Pierre Borie, Joseph Marchand, and Jean-Charles Cornay. He first attempted to stifle the spread of Christianity by attempting to isolate Catholic priests and missionaries from the populace. He asserted that he had no French interpreters after Chaigneau's departure and summoned the French clergy to Hue and appointed them as mandarins of high rank to woo them from their proselytising. This worked until a priest, Father Regereau, entered the country and began missionary work. Following the edict which forbade further entry of missionaries into Vietnam, arrests of clerics began. After strong lobbying by Duyệt, the governor of Cochin China, and a close confidant of Gia Long and Pigneau de Behaine, Minh Mạng agreed to release the priests on the condition that they congregate at Đà Nẵng and return to France. Some of them obeyed the orders, but others disobeyed the order upon being released, and returned to their parishes and resumed preaching. Isolationist foreign policy. Minh Mạng continued and intensified his father's isolationist and conservative Confucian policies. His father had rebuffed a British delegation in 1804 proposing that Vietnam be opened to trade; the delegation's gifts were not accepted and turned away. At the time, Vietnam was of no interest to the European powers, since most of the continent was engaged in the Napoleonic Wars. Nevertheless, Napoleon had seen Vietnam as a strategically important objective in the Anglo-French power struggle in Asia, as he felt that it would make an ideal base from which to contest the East India Company's foothold in the Indian subcontinent. With the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy and the final exile of Napoleon in 1815, the military scene in Europe quieted and French interest in Vietnam was revived. Jean-Baptiste Chaigneau, one of the volunteers of Pigneau de Behaine who had helped Gia Long in his quest for power, had become a mandarin and continued to serve Minh Mạng, upon whose ascension, Chaigneau and his colleagues were treated more distantly. He eventually left in November 1824. In 1825, he was appointed as French consul to Vietnam after returning to his homeland to visit his family after more than a quarter of a century in Asia. Upon his return, Minh Mạng received him coldly. The policy of isolationism soon saw Vietnam fall further behind the pace of technology and become more vulnerable to outside encroachment as political stability returned to continental Europe, allowing European powers free hand to once again direct their attention towards increasing their influence in Asia. With his Confucian orthodoxy, Minh Mạng shunned all western influence and ideas as hostile and avoided all contact. In 1819, Lieutenant John White of the United States Navy was the first American to make contact with Vietnam, arriving in Saigon. Minh Mạng was willing to sign a contract, but only to purchase artillery, firearms, uniforms and books. White was of the opinion that the deal was not sufficiently advantageous and nothing was implemented. In 1821, a trade agreement from Louis XVIII was turned away, with Minh Mạng indicating that no special deal would be offered to any country. That same year, East India Company agent John Crawfurd made another attempt at contact, but was only allowed to disembark in the northern ports of Tonkin; he gained no agreements, but concluded relations with France posed no threat to Company trade. In 1822, the French frigate "La Cleopatre" visited Tourane (present day Đà Nẵng). Her captain was to pay his respects to Minh Mạng, but was greeted with a symbolic dispatch of troops as though an invasion had been expected. In 1824 Minh Mạng rejected the offer of an alliance from Burma against Siam, a common enemy of both countries. In 1824 Henri Baron de Bougainville was sent by Louis XVIII to Vietnam with the stated mission "of peace and protection of commerce. Upon arriving in Tourane in 1825, it was not allowed ashore. The royal message was turned away on the pretext that there was nobody able to translate it. It was assumed that the snub was related to an attempt by Bougainville to smuggle ashore a Catholic missionary from the Missions étrangères de Paris. Jean-Baptiste Chaigneau's nephew, Eugène Chaigneau, was sent to Vietnam in 1826 as the intended consul but was forced to leave the country without taking up his position. Further fruitless attempts to start a commercial deal were led by de Kergariou in 1827 and Admiral Laplace in 1831. Another effort by Chaigneau in 1829 also failed. In 1831 another French envoy was turned away. Vietnam under Minh Mạng was the first East Asian country with whom the United States sought foreign relations. President Andrew Jackson tried twice to contact Minh Mạng, sending Edmund Roberts in 1832, and Consul Joseph Balestier in 1836, to no avail. In 1837 and 1838, "La bonite" and "L'Artémise" were ordered to land in Tourane to attempt to gauge the situation in Vietnam with respect to missionary work. Both were met with hostility and communication was prevented. Later, in 1833 and 1834, a war with Siam was fought over control of Cambodia which for the preceding century had been reduced to impotence and had fallen under the control of its two neighbours. After Vietnam under Gia Long gained control over Cambodia in the early 19th century, a Vietnamese-approved monarch was installed. Minh Mạng was forced to put down a Siamese attempt to regain control of the vassal as well as an invasion of southern Vietnam which coincided with rebellion by Lê Văn Khôi. The Siamese planned the invasion to coincide with the rebellion, putting enormous strain on the Nguyễn armies. Eventually, Minh Mạng's forces were able to repel the invasion as well as the revolt in Saigon, and he reacted to Western encroachment by blaming Christianity and showing hostility, leading to the European powers asserting that intervention was needed to protect their missionaries. This resulted in missed opportunities to avert the colonisation of Vietnam through having friendly relations, since strong opposition was raised in France against an invasion, due to the costs of such a venture. After the outbreak of the First Opium War in 1839, Minh Mạng attempted to build an alliance with European powers by sending a delegation of two lower rank mandarins and two interpreters in 1840. They were received in Paris by Prime Minister Marshal Soult and the Commerce Minister, but they were shunned by King Louis-Philippe. This came after the Society of Foreign Missions and the Holy See had urged a rebuke for an "enemy of the religion". The delegation went on to London, with no success. Domestic program. On the domestic front, Minh Mạng continued his father's national policies of reorganising the administrative structure of the government. These included the construction of highways, a postal service, public storehouses for food, monetary and agrarian reforms. He continued to redistribute land periodically and forbade all other sales of land to prevent wealthy citizens from reacquiring excessive amounts of land with their money. In 1840 it was decreed that rich landowners had to return a third of their holdings to the community. Calls for basic industrialisation and diversification of the economy into fields such as mining and forestry were ignored. He further centralised the administration, introduced the definition of three levels of performance in the triennial examinations for recruiting mandarins. In 1839, Minh Mạng introduced a program of salaries and pensions for princes and mandarins to replace the traditional assignment of fief estates. Conquests and ethnic minority policy. Minh Mạng enacted the final conquest of the Champa Kingdom after the centuries long Cham–Vietnamese wars. The Cham Muslim leader Katip Suma was educated in Kelantan and came back to Champa to declare a Jihad against the Vietnamese after Emperor Minh Mạng's annexation of Champa. The Vietnamese coercively fed lizard and pig meat to Cham Muslims and cow meat to Cham Hindus against their will to punish them and assimilate them to Vietnamese culture. Rebellions. Minh Mạng was regarded as being in touch with the concerns of the populace. Frequent local rebellions reminded him of their plight. Descendants of the old Lê dynasty fomented dissent in the north, appealing not only to the peasantry but to the Catholic minority. They attempted to enlist foreign help by promising to open up to missionaries. Local leaders in the south were upset with the loss of the relative political autonomy they enjoyed under Duyệt. With Duyệt's death in 1832, a strong defender of Christianity passed. Catholics had traditionally been inclined to side with rebel movements against the monarchy more than most Vietnamese and this erupted after Duyệt's death. Minh Mạng ordered Duyệt posthumously indicted and one hundred lashes were applied to his grave. This caused indignation against southerners who respected Duyệt. In July 1833, a revolt broke out under the leadership of his adopted son, Lê Văn Khôi. Historical opinion is divided with scholars contesting whether the grave desecration or the loss of southern autonomy after Duyệt's death was the main catalyst. Khôi's rebels brought Cochinchina under their control and proposed to replace Minh Mạng with a son of Prince Cảnh. Khôi took into hostage French missionary Joseph Marchand within the citadel, thinking that his presence would win over Catholic support. Khôi enlisted Siamese support, which was forthcoming and helped put Minh Mạng on the defense for a period. Eventually, however, the Siamese were defeated and the south was recaptured by royalist forces, who besieged Saigon. Khôi died during the siege in December 1834 and Saigon fell nine months later in September 1835 and the rebel commanders put to death. In all the estimates of the captured rebels was put between 500 and 2000, who were executed. The missionaries were rounded up and ordered out of the country. The first French missionary executed was Gagelin in October 1833, the second was Marchand, who was put to death along with the other leaders of the Saigon citadel which surrendered in September 1835. From then until 1838 five more missionaries were put to death. The missionaries began seeking protection from their home countries and the use of force against Asians. Minh Mạng pursued a policy of cultural assimilation of non-Viet ethnic groups which from 1841, through 1845, led to southern Vietnam experiencing a series of ethnic revolts. Ruling style. Minh Mạng was known for his firmness of character, which guided his instincts in his policy making. This accentuated his unwillingness to break with orthodoxy in dealing with Vietnam's problems. His biographer, Marcel Gaultier, asserted that Minh Mạng had expressed his opinions about national policy before Gia Long's death, proposing a policy of greater isolationism and shunning westerners, and that Long tacitly approved of this. Minh Mạng was regarded as more nuanced and gentle than his father, with less forced labour and an increased perceptiveness towards the sentiment of the peasantry. His strict belief in Confucian society enabled him to neutralize rebellions incited by Christian missionaries and their Vietnamese converts. This affirmation of Vietnam's cultural and religious sovereignty angered France, which had territorial designs on Vietnam. France then furthered its policy of undermining Vietnam and, in 1858, after Minh Mạng's death, French troops would briefly occupy Tourane, demanding that the so-called "persecutions" stop. This was the beginning of the French campaign to occupy and colonize Vietnam. Although he disagreed with European culture and thinking, he studied it closely and was known for his scholarly nature. Ming Mạng was keen in Western technologies, namely mechanics, weaponry and navigation which he attempted to introduce into Vietnam. Upon hearing of the vaccination against smallpox, he organised for a French surgeon to live in a palatial residence and vaccinate the royal family against the disease. He was learned in Eastern philosophy and was regarded as an intellectually oriented monarch. He was also known for his writings as a poet. He was known for his attention to detail and micromanagement of state affairs, to a level that "astonished his contemporaries". As a result, he was held in high-regard for his devotion to running the country. When Minh Mạng died, he left the throne to his son, Emperor Thiệu Trị, who was more rigidly Confucianist and anti-imperialist than his father. During Thiệu Trị's reign, diplomatic standoffs precipitated by aspiring European imperial powers on the pretext of the "treatment" of Catholic priests gave them an excuse to use gunboat diplomacy on Vietnam, and led to increasing raids and the eventual colonisation of Vietnam by France. Nevertheless, during his reign Minh Mạng had established a more efficient government, stopped a Siamese invasion and built many national monuments in the imperial city of Huế. Successions. Minh Mạng had a large number of wives and concubines. He is reported to have fathered 142 children from 43 wives. His sons included: Miên Tông (Emperor Thiệu Trị), Miên Định (Prince of Thọ Xuân), Miên Thẩm (Prince of Tùng Thiện), Miên Trinh (Prince of Tuy Lý), Miên Bửu (Prince of Tương An), Miên Lâm (Prince of Hoài Đức), Miên Triện (Prince of Hoằng Hóa), Miên Lịch (Yên Thành). Three of his daughters, Nguyệt Đình, Mai Am and Huệ Phố, were famous poets. Minh Mạng's sons also had a remarkable number of offspring: Prince of Thọ Xuân fathered 144 children, including 78 sons and 66 daughters, Prince of Tuy Lý, another son, had 77 sons and 37 daughters. He is succeeded by Emperor Thiệu Trị, who himself fathered 29 princes and 35 princesses. He decided to name his descendants (Nguyễn Phước or Nguyễn Phúc: all members of the Nguyễn dynasty) by choosing the Generation name following the words of the "Imperial succession poem" to avoid confusion. For boys, the following poem is shown in Chữ Quốc Ngữ (modern Vietnamese script) and in chữ nôm: Note: Hường = Hồng // Thoại = Thụy "They replaced Hồng with Hường and Thụy with Thoại because they're the forbidden names of the passed emperors or fathers." The meaning of each name is roughly given as follows: Girls receive also a different name on each generation, for example: "Công-chúa", "Công-nữ", "Công Tôn-nữ", "Công-tằng Tôn-nữ", "Công-huyền Tôn-nữ", "Lai-huyền Tôn-nữ", or shorten to "Tôn-nữ" for all generations afterward. References.

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Radio propagation is the behavior of radio waves as they travel, or are propagated, from one point to another, or into various parts of the atmosphere. As a form of electromagnetic radiation, like light waves, radio waves are affected by the phenomena of reflection, refraction, diffraction, absorption, polarization, and scattering. Understanding the effects of varying conditions on radio propagation has many practical applications, from choosing frequencies for international shortwave broadcasters, to designing reliable mobile telephone systems, to radio navigation, to operation of radar systems. Several different types of propagation are used in practical radio transmission systems. "Line-of-sight propagation" means radio waves which travel in a straight line from the transmitting antenna to the receiving antenna. Line of sight transmission is used for medium-distance radio transmission, such as cell phones, cordless phones, walkie-talkies, wireless networks, FM radio, television broadcasting, radar, and satellite communication (such as satellite television). Line-of-sight transmission on the surface of the Earth is limited to the distance to the visual horizon, which depends on the height of transmitting and receiving antennas. It is the only propagation method possible at microwave frequencies and above. At lower frequencies in the MF, LF, and VLF bands, diffraction allows radio waves to bend over hills and other obstacles, and travel beyond the horizon, following the contour of the Earth. These are called "surface waves" or "ground wave propagation". AM broadcast stations use ground waves to cover their listening areas. As the frequency gets lower, the attenuation with distance decreases, so very low frequency (VLF) and extremely low frequency (ELF) ground waves can be used to communicate worldwide. VLF and ELF waves can penetrate significant distances through water and earth, and these frequencies are used for mine communication and military communication with submerged submarines. At medium wave and shortwave frequencies (MF and HF bands) radio waves can refract from the ionosphere. This means that medium and short radio waves transmitted at an angle into the sky can be refracted back to Earth at great distances beyond the horizon – even transcontinental distances. This is called "skywave propagation". It is used by amateur radio operators to communicate with operators in distant countries, and by shortwave broadcast stations to transmit internationally. In addition, there are several less common radio propagation mechanisms, such as "tropospheric scattering" (troposcatter), "tropospheric ducting" (ducting), and "near vertical incidence skywave" (NVIS) which are used in specialized communication systems. Frequency dependence. At different frequencies, radio waves travel through the atmosphere by different mechanisms or modes: Free space propagation. In free space, all electromagnetic waves (radio, light, X-rays, etc.) obey the inverse-square law which states that the power density formula_1 of an electromagnetic wave is proportional to the inverse of the square of the distance formula_2 from a point source or: At typical communication distances from a transmitter, the transmitting antenna usually can be approximated by a point source. Doubling the distance of a receiver from a transmitter means that the power density of the radiated wave at that new location is reduced to one-quarter of its previous value. The power density per surface unit is proportional to the product of the electric and magnetic field strengths. Thus, doubling the propagation path distance from the transmitter reduces each of these received field strengths over a free-space path by one-half. Radio waves in vacuum travel at the speed of light. The Earth's atmosphere is thin enough that radio waves in the atmosphere travel very close to the speed of light, but variations in density and temperature can cause some slight refraction (bending) of waves over distances. Direct modes (line-of-sight). Line-of-sight refers to radio waves which travel directly in a line from the transmitting antenna to the receiving antenna. It does not necessarily require a cleared sight path; at lower frequencies radio waves can pass through buildings, foliage and other obstructions. This is the most common propagation mode at VHF and above, and the only possible mode at microwave frequencies and above. On the surface of the Earth, line of sight propagation is limited by the visual horizon to about . This is the method used by cell phones, cordless phones, walkie-talkies, wireless networks, point-to-point microwave radio relay links, FM and television broadcasting and radar. Satellite communication uses longer line-of-sight paths; for example home satellite dishes receive signals from communication satellites above the Earth, and ground stations can communicate with spacecraft billions of miles from Earth. Ground plane reflection effects are an important factor in VHF line-of-sight propagation. The interference between the direct beam line-of-sight and the ground reflected beam often leads to an effective inverse-fourth-power law for ground-plane limited radiation. Surface modes (groundwave). Lower frequency (between 30 and 3,000 kHz) vertically polarized radio waves can travel as surface waves following the contour of the Earth; this is called "ground wave" propagation. In this mode the radio wave propagates by interacting with the conductive surface of the Earth. The wave "clings" to the surface and thus follows the curvature of the Earth, so ground waves can travel over mountains and beyond the horizon. Ground waves propagate in vertical polarization so vertical antennas (monopoles) are required. Since the ground is not a perfect electrical conductor, ground waves are attenuated as they follow the Earth's surface. Attenuation is proportional to frequency, so ground waves are the main mode of propagation at lower frequencies, in the MF, LF and VLF bands. Ground waves are used by radio broadcasting stations in the MF and LF bands, and for time signals and radio navigation systems. At even lower frequencies, in the VLF to ELF bands, an Earth-ionosphere waveguide mechanism allows even longer range transmission. These frequencies are used for secure military communications. They can also penetrate to a significant depth into seawater, and so are used for one-way military communication to submerged submarines. Early long-distance radio communication (wireless telegraphy) before the mid-1920s used low frequencies in the longwave bands and relied exclusively on ground-wave propagation. Frequencies above 3 MHz were regarded as useless and were given to hobbyists (radio amateurs). The discovery around 1920 of the ionospheric reflection or skywave mechanism made the medium wave and short wave frequencies useful for long-distance communication and they were allocated to commercial and military users. Non-line-of-sight modes. Ionospheric modes (skywave). Skywave propagation, also referred to as skip, is any of the modes that rely on reflection and refraction of radio waves from the ionosphere. The ionosphere is a region of the atmosphere from about that contains layers of charged particles (ions) which can refract a radio wave back toward the Earth. A radio wave directed at an angle into the sky can be reflected back to Earth beyond the horizon by these layers, allowing long-distance radio transmission. The F2 layer is the most important ionospheric layer for long-distance, multiple-hop HF propagation, though F1, E, and D-layers also play significant roles. The D-layer, when present during sunlight periods, causes significant amount of signal loss, as does the E-layer whose maximum usable frequency can rise to 4 MHz and above and thus block higher frequency signals from reaching the F2-layer. The layers, or more appropriately "regions", are directly affected by the sun on a daily diurnal cycle, a seasonal cycle and the 11-year sunspot cycle and determine the utility of these modes. During solar maxima, or sunspot highs and peaks, the whole HF range up to 30 MHz can be used usually around the clock and F2 propagation up to 50 MHz is observed frequently depending upon daily solar flux values. During solar minima, or minimum sunspot counts down to zero, propagation of frequencies above 15 MHz is generally unavailable. Although the claim is commonly made that two-way HF propagation along a given path is reciprocal, that is, if the signal from location A reaches location B at a good strength, the signal from location B will be similar at station A because the same path is traversed in both directions. However, the ionosphere is far too complex and constantly changing to support the reciprocity theorem. The path is never exactly the same in both directions. In brief, conditions at the two end-points of a path generally cause dissimilar polarization shifts, hence dissimilar splits into ordinary rays and extraordinary rays ("Pedersen rays") which have different propagation characteristics due to differences in ionization density, shifting zenith angles, effects of the Earth's magnetic dipole contours, antenna radiation patterns, ground conditions, and other variables. Forecasting of skywave modes is of considerable interest to amateur radio operators and commercial marine and aircraft communications, and also to shortwave broadcasters. Real-time propagation can be assessed by listening for transmissions from specific beacon transmitters. Meteor scattering. Meteor scattering relies on reflecting radio waves off the intensely ionized columns of air generated by meteors. While this mode is very short duration, often only from a fraction of second to couple of seconds per event, digital Meteor burst communications allows remote stations to communicate to a station that may be hundreds of miles up to over away, without the expense required for a satellite link. This mode is most generally useful on VHF frequencies between 30 and 250 MHz. Auroral backscatter. Intense columns of Auroral ionization at 100 km altitudes within the auroral oval backscatter radio waves, including those on HF and VHF. Backscatter is angle-sensitive—incident ray vs. magnetic field line of the column must be very close to right-angle. Random motions of electrons spiraling around the field lines create a Doppler-spread that broadens the spectra of the emission to more or less noise-like – depending on how high radio frequency is used. The radio-auroras are observed mostly at high latitudes and rarely extend down to middle latitudes. The occurrence of radio-auroras depends on solar activity (flares, coronal holes, CMEs) and annually the events are more numerous during solar cycle maxima. Radio aurora includes the so-called afternoon radio aurora which produces stronger but more distorted signals and after the Harang-minima, the late-night radio aurora (sub-storming phase) returns with variable signal strength and lesser doppler spread. The propagation range for this predominantly back-scatter mode extends up to about 2000 km in east–west plane, but strongest signals are observed most frequently from the north at nearby sites on same latitudes. Rarely, a strong radio-aurora is followed by Auroral-E, which resembles both propagation types in some ways. Sporadic-E propagation. Sporadic E (Es) propagation occurs on HF and VHF bands. It must not be confused with ordinary HF E-layer propagation. Sporadic-E at mid-latitudes occurs mostly during summer season, from May to August in the northern hemisphere and from November to February in the southern hemisphere. There is no single cause for this mysterious propagation mode. The reflection takes place in a thin sheet of ionization around 90 km height. The ionization patches drift westwards at speeds of few hundred km per hour. There is a weak periodicity noted during the season and typically Es is observed on 1 to 3 successive days and remains absent for a few days to reoccur again. Es do not occur during small hours; the events usually begin at dawn, and there is a peak in the afternoon and a second peak in the evening. Es propagation is usually gone by local midnight. Observation of radio propagation beacons operating around 28.2 MHz, 50 MHz and 70 MHz, indicates that maximum observed frequency (MOF) for Es is found to be lurking around 30 MHz on most days during the summer season, but sometimes MOF may shoot up to 100 MHz or even more in ten minutes to decline slowly during the next few hours. The peak-phase includes oscillation of MOF with periodicity of approximately 5...10 minutes. The propagation range for Es single-hop is typically 1000 to 2000 km, but with multi-hop, double range is observed. The signals are very strong but also with slow deep fading. Tropospheric modes. Radio waves in the VHF and UHF bands can travel somewhat beyond the visual horizon due to refraction in the troposphere, the bottom layer of the atmosphere below 20 km. This is due to changes in the refractive index of air with temperature and pressure. Tropospheric delay is a source of error in radio ranging techniques, such as the Global Positioning System (GPS). In addition, unusual conditions can sometimes allow propagation at greater distances: Tropospheric ducting. Sudden changes in the atmosphere's vertical moisture content and temperature profiles can on random occasions make UHF, VHF and microwave signals propagate hundreds of kilometers up to about —and for ducting mode even farther—beyond the normal radio-horizon. The inversion layer is mostly observed over high pressure regions, but there are several tropospheric weather conditions which create these randomly occurring propagation modes. Inversion layer's altitude for non-ducting is typically found between and for ducting about , and the duration of the events are typically from several hours up to several days. Higher frequencies experience the most dramatic increase of signal strengths, while on low-VHF and HF the effect is negligible. Propagation path attenuation may be below free-space loss. Some of the lesser inversion types related to warm ground and cooler air moisture content occur regularly at certain times of the year and time of day. A typical example could be the late summer, early morning tropospheric enhancements that bring in signals from distances up to few hundred kilometers for a couple of hours, until undone by the Sun's warming effect. Tropospheric scattering (troposcatter). At VHF and higher frequencies, small variations (turbulence) in the density of the atmosphere at a height of around can scatter some of the normally line-of-sight beam of radio frequency energy back toward the ground. In tropospheric scatter (troposcatter) communication systems a powerful beam of microwaves is aimed above the horizon, and a high gain antenna over the horizon aimed at the section of the troposphere though which the beam passes receives the tiny scattered signal. Troposcatter systems can achieve over-the-horizon communication between stations apart, and the military developed networks such as the White Alice Communications System covering all of Alaska before the 1960s, when communication satellites largely replaced them. Rain scattering. Rain scattering is purely a microwave propagation mode and is best observed around 10 GHz, but extends down to a few gigahertz—the limit being the size of the scattering particle size vs. wavelength. This mode scatters signals mostly forwards and backwards when using horizontal polarization and side-scattering with vertical polarization. Forward-scattering typically yields propagation ranges of 800 km. Scattering from snowflakes and ice pellets also occurs, but scattering from ice without watery surface is less effective. The most common application for this phenomenon is microwave rain radar, but rain scatter propagation can be a nuisance causing unwanted signals to intermittently propagate where they are not anticipated or desired. Similar reflections may also occur from insects though at lower altitudes and shorter range. Rain also causes attenuation of point-to-point and satellite microwave links. Attenuation values up to 30 dB have been observed on 30 GHz during heavy tropical rain. Airplane scattering. Airplane scattering (or most often reflection) is observed on VHF through microwaves and, besides back-scattering, yields momentary propagation up to 500 km even in mountainous terrain. The most common back-scatter applications are air-traffic radar, bistatic forward-scatter guided-missile and airplane-detecting trip-wire radar, and the US space radar. Lightning scattering. Lightning scattering has sometimes been observed on VHF and UHF over distances of about 500 km. The hot lightning channel scatters radio-waves for a fraction of a second. The RF noise burst from the lightning makes the initial part of the open channel unusable and the ionization disappears quickly because of recombination at low altitude and high atmospheric pressure. Although the hot lightning channel is briefly observable with microwave radar, no practical use for this mode has been found in communications. Other effects. Diffraction. Knife-edge diffraction is the propagation mode where radio waves are bent around sharp edges. For example, this mode is used to send radio signals over a mountain range when a line-of-sight path is not available. However, the angle cannot be too sharp or the signal will not diffract. The diffraction mode requires increased signal strength, so higher power or better antennas will be needed than for an equivalent line-of-sight path. Diffraction depends on the relationship between the wavelength and the size of the obstacle. In other words, the size of the obstacle in wavelengths. Lower frequencies diffract around large smooth obstacles such as hills more easily. For example, in many cases where VHF (or higher frequency) communication is not possible due to shadowing by a hill, it is still possible to communicate using the upper part of the HF band where the surface wave is of little use. Diffraction phenomena by small obstacles are also important at high frequencies. Signals for urban cellular telephony tend to be dominated by ground-plane effects as they travel over the rooftops of the urban environment. They then diffract over roof edges into the street, where multipath propagation, absorption and diffraction phenomena dominate. Absorption. Low-frequency radio waves travel easily through brick and stone and VLF even penetrates sea-water. As the frequency rises, absorption effects become more important. At microwave or higher frequencies, absorption by molecular resonances in the atmosphere (mostly from water, H2O and oxygen, O2) is a major factor in radio propagation. For example, in the 58–60 GHz band, there is a major absorption peak which makes this band useless for long-distance use. This phenomenon was first discovered during radar research in World War II. Above about 400 GHz, the Earth's atmosphere blocks most of the spectrum while still passing some - up to UV light, which is blocked by ozone - but visible light and some of the near-infrared is transmitted. Heavy rain and falling snow also affect microwave absorption. Measuring HF propagation. HF propagation conditions can be simulated using radio propagation models, such as the Voice of America Coverage Analysis Program, and realtime measurements can be done using chirp transmitters. For radio amateurs the WSPR mode provides maps with real time propagation conditions between a network of transmitters and receivers. Even without special beacons the realtime propagation conditions can be measured: A worldwide network of receivers decodes morse code signals on amateur radio frequencies in realtime and provides sophisticated search functions and propagation maps for every station received. Practical effects. The average person can notice the effects of changes in radio propagation in several ways. In AM broadcasting, the dramatic ionospheric changes that occur overnight in the mediumwave band drive a unique broadcast license scheme, with entirely different transmitter power output levels and directional antenna patterns to cope with skywave propagation at night. Very few stations are allowed to run without modifications during dark hours, typically only those on clear channels in North America. Many stations have no authorization to run at all outside of daylight hours. Otherwise, there would be nothing but interference on the entire broadcast band from dusk until dawn without these modifications. For FM broadcasting (and the few remaining low-band TV stations), weather is the primary cause for changes in VHF propagation, along with some diurnal changes when the sky is mostly without cloud cover. These changes are most obvious during temperature inversions, such as in the late-night and early-morning hours when it is clear, allowing the ground and the air near it to cool more rapidly. This not only causes dew, frost, or fog, but also causes a slight "drag" on the bottom of the radio waves, bending the signals down such that they can follow the Earth's curvature over the normal radio horizon. The result is typically several stations being heard from another media market – usually a neighboring one, but sometimes ones from a few hundred kilometers away. Ice storms are also the result of inversions, but these normally cause more scattered omnidirection propagation, resulting mainly in interference, often among weather radio stations. In late spring and early summer, a combination of other atmospheric factors can occasionally cause skips that duct high-power signals to places well over 1000 km away. Non-broadcast signals are also affected. Mobile phone signals are in the UHF band, ranging from 700 to over 2600 MHz, a range which makes them even more prone to weather-induced propagation changes. In urban (and to some extent suburban) areas with a high population density, this is partly offset by the use of smaller cells, which use lower effective radiated power and beam tilt to reduce interference, and therefore increase frequency reuse and user capacity. However, since this would not be very cost-effective in more rural areas, these cells are larger and so more likely to cause interference over longer distances when propagation conditions allow. While this is generally transparent to the user thanks to the way that cellular networks handle cell-to-cell handoffs, when cross-border signals are involved, unexpected charges for international roaming may occur despite not having left the country at all. This often occurs between southern San Diego and northern Tijuana at the western end of the U.S./Mexico border, and between eastern Detroit and western Windsor along the U.S./Canada border. Since signals can travel unobstructed over a body of water far larger than the Detroit River, and cool water temperatures also cause inversions in surface air, this "fringe roaming" sometimes occurs across the Great Lakes, and between islands in the Caribbean. Signals can skip from the Dominican Republic to a mountainside in Puerto Rico and vice versa, or between the U.S. and British Virgin Islands, among others. While unintended cross-border roaming is often automatically removed by mobile phone company billing systems, inter-island roaming is typically not. Empirical models. A radio propagation model, also known as the radio wave propagation model or the radio frequency propagation model, is an empirical mathematical formulation for the characterization of radio wave propagation as a function of frequency, distance and other conditions. A single model is usually developed to predict the behavior of propagation for all similar links under similar constraints. Created with the goal of formalizing the way radio waves are propagated from one place to another, such models typically predict the path loss along a link or the effective coverage area of a transmitter. As the path loss encountered along any radio link serves as the dominant factor for characterization of propagation for the link, radio propagation models typically focus on realization of the path loss with the auxiliary task of predicting the area of coverage for a transmitter or modeling the distribution of signals over different regions Because each individual telecommunication link has to encounter different terrain, path, obstructions, atmospheric conditions and other phenomena, it is intractable to formulate the exact loss for all telecommunication systems in a single mathematical equation. As a result, different models exist for different types of radio links under different conditions. The models rely on computing the median path loss for a link under a certain probability that the considered conditions will occur. Radio propagation models are empirical in nature, which means, they are developed based on large collections of data collected for the specific scenario. For any model, the collection of data has to be sufficiently large to provide enough likeliness (or enough scope) to all kind of situations that can happen in that specific scenario. Like all empirical models, radio propagation models do not point out the exact behavior of a link, rather, they predict the most likely behavior the link may exhibit under the specified conditions. Different models have been developed to meet the needs of realizing the propagation behavior in different conditions. Types of models for radio propagation include:

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Film capacitors, plastic film capacitors, film dielectric capacitors, or polymer film capacitors, generically called "film caps" as well as power film capacitors, are electrical capacitors with an insulating plastic film as the dielectric, sometimes combined with paper as carrier of the electrodes. The dielectric films, depending on the desired dielectric strength, are drawn in a special process to an extremely thin thickness, and are then provided with electrodes. The electrodes of film capacitors may be metallized aluminum or zinc applied directly to the surface of the plastic film, or a separate metallic foil. Two of these conductive layers are wound into a cylinder shaped winding, usually flattened to reduce mounting space requirements on a printed circuit board, or layered as multiple single layers stacked together, to form a capacitor body. Film capacitors, together with ceramic capacitors and electrolytic capacitors, are the most common capacitor types for use in electronic equipment, and are used in many AC and DC microelectronics and electronics circuits. A related component type is the power (film) capacitor. Although the materials and construction techniques used for large power film capacitors are very similar to those used for ordinary film capacitors, capacitors with high to very high power ratings for applications in power systems and electrical installations are often classified separately, for historical reasons. As modern electronic equipment gained the capacity to handle power levels that were previously the exclusive domain of "electrical power" components, the distinction between the "electronic" and "electrical" power ratings has become less distinct. In the past, the boundary between these two families was approximately at a reactive power of 200 volt-amperes, but modern power electronics can handle increasing power levels. Overview of construction and features. Film capacitors are made out of two pieces of plastic film covered with metallic electrodes, wound into a cylindrical shaped winding, with terminals attached, and then encapsulated. In general, film capacitors are not polarized, so the two terminals are interchangeable. There are two different types of plastic film capacitors, made with two different electrode configurations: A key advantage of modern film capacitor internal construction is direct contact to the electrodes on both ends of the winding. This contact keeps all current paths to the entire electrode very short. The setup behaves like a large number of individual capacitors connected in parallel, thus reducing the internal ohmic losses (ESR) and the parasitic inductance (ESL). The inherent geometry of film capacitor structure results in very low ohmic losses and a very low parasitic inductance, which makes them especially suitable for applications with very high surge currents (snubbers) and for AC power applications, or for applications at higher frequencies. Another feature of film capacitors is the possibility of choosing different film materials for the dielectric layer to select for desirable electrical characteristics, such as stability, wide temperature range, or ability to withstand very high voltages. Polypropylene film capacitors are specified because of their low electrical losses and their nearly linear behavior over a very wide frequency range, for stability Class 1 applications in resonant circuits, comparable only with ceramic capacitors. For simple high frequency filter circuits, polyester capacitors offer low-cost solutions with excellent long-term stability, allowing replacement of more expensive tantalum electrolytic capacitors. The film/foil variants of plastic film capacitors are especially capable of handling high and very high current surges. Typical capacitance values of smaller film capacitors used in electronics start around 100 picofarads and extend upwards to microfarads. Unique mechanical properties of plastic and paper films in some special configurations allow them to be used in capacitors of very large dimensions. The larger film capacitors are used as power capacitors in electrical power installations and plants, capable of withstanding very high power or very high applied voltages. The dielectric strength of these capacitors can reach into the four-digit voltage range. Internal structure. The formula for capacitance ("C") of a plate capacitor is: formula_1 ("ε" stands for dielectric permittivity; "A" for electrode surface area; and "d" for the distance between the electrodes). According to the equation, a thinner dielectric or a larger electrode area both will increase the capacitance value, as will a dielectric material of higher permittivity. Example manufacturing process. The following example describes a typical manufacturing process flow for wound metallized plastic film capacitors. The production of wound film/metal foil capacitors with metal foil instead of metallized films is done in a very similar way. As an alternative to the traditional wound construction of film capacitors, they can also be manufactured in a "stacked" configuration. For this version, the two metallized films representing the electrodes are wound on a much larger core with a diameter of more than 1 m. So-called multi-layer capacitors (MLP, Multilayer Polymer Capacitors) can be produced by sawing this large winding into many smaller single segments. The sawing causes defects on the collateral sides of the capacitors which are later burned out (self-healing) during the manufacturing process. Low-cost metallized plastic film capacitors for general purpose applications are produced in this manner. This technique is also used to produce capacitor "dice" for Surface Mount Device (SMD) packaged components. Self-healing of metallized film capacitors. Metallized film capacitors have "self-healing" properties, which are not available from film/foil configurations. When sufficient voltage is applied, a point-defect short-circuit between the metallized electrodes vaporizes due to high arc temperature, since both the dielectric plastic material at the breakdown point and the metallized electrodes around the breakdown point are very thin (about 0.02 to 0.05 μm). The point-defect cause of the short-circuit is burned out, and the resulting vapor pressure blows the arc away, too. This process can complete in less than 10 μs, often without interrupting the useful operation of the afflicted capacitor. This property of self-healing allows the use of a single-layer winding of metallized films without any additional protection against defects, and thereby leads to a reduction in the amount of the physical space required to achieve a given performance specification. In other words, the so-called "volumetric efficiency" of the capacitor is increased. The self-healing capability of metallized films is used multiple times during the manufacturing process of metallized film capacitors. Typically, after slitting the metallized film to the desired width, any resulting defects can be burned out (healed) by applying a suitable voltage before winding. The same method is also used after the metallization of the contact surfaces ("schoopage") to remove any defects in the capacitor caused by the secondary metallization process. The "pinholes" in the metallization caused by the self-healing arcs reduce the capacitance of the capacitor very slightly. However, the magnitude of this reduction is quite low; even with several thousand defects to be burned out, this reduction usually is much smaller than 1% of the total capacitance of the capacitor. For larger film capacitors with very high standards for stability and long lifetime, such as snubber capacitors, the metallization can be made with a special fault isolation pattern. In the picture on the right hand side, such a metallization formed into a "T" pattern is shown. Each of these "T" patterns produces a deliberately narrowed cross-section in the conductive metallization. These restrictions work like microscopic fuses so that if a point-defect short-circuit between the electrodes occurs, the high current of the short only burns out the fuses around the fault. The affected sections are thus disconnected and isolated in a controlled manner, without any explosions surrounding a larger short-circuit arc. Therefore, the area affected is limited and the fault is gently controlled, significantly reducing internal damage to the capacitor, which can thus remain in service with only an infinitesimal reduction in capacitance. In field installations of electrical power distribution equipment, capacitor bank fault tolerance is often improved by connecting multiple capacitors in parallel, each protected with an internal or external fuse. Should an individual capacitor develop an internal short, the resulting fault current (augmented by capacitive discharge from neighboring capacitors) blows the fuse, thus isolating the failed capacitor from the remaining devices. This technique is analogous to the "T metallization" technique described above, but operating at a larger physical scale. More-complex series and parallel arrangements of capacitor banks are also used to allow continuity of service despite individual capacitor failures at this larger scale. Internal structure to increase voltage ratings. The rated voltage of different film materials depends on factors such as the thickness of the film, the quality of the material (freedom from physical defects and chemical impurities), the ambient temperature, and frequency of operation, plus a safety margin against the breakdown voltage (dielectric strength). But to a first approximation, the voltage rating of a film capacitor depends primarily on the thickness of the plastic film. For example, with the minimum available film thickness of polyester film capacitors (about 0.7 μm), it is possible to produce capacitors with a rated voltage of 400 VDC. If higher voltages are needed, typically a thicker plastic film will be used. But the breakdown voltage for dielectric films is usually "nonlinear". For thicknesses greater than about 5 mils, the breakdown voltage only increases approximately with the "square-root" of the film thickness. On the other hand, the capacitance "decreases" linearly with increased film thickness. For reasons of availability, storage and existing processing capabilities, it is desirable to achieve higher breakdown voltages while using existing available film materials. This can be achieved by a one-sided partial metallization of the insulating films in such a manner that an internal series connection of capacitors is produced. By using this series connection technique, the total breakdown voltage of the capacitor can be multiplied by an arbitrary factor, but the total capacitance is also reduced by the same factor. The breakdown voltage can be increased by using one-sided partially metallized films, or the breakdown voltage of the capacitor can be increased by using double-sided metallized films. Double-sided metallized films also can be combined with internal series-connected capacitors by partial metallization. These multiple technique designs are especially used for high-reliability applications with polypropylene films. Internal structure to increase surge ratings. An important property of film capacitors is their ability to withstand high peak voltage or peak current surge pulses. This capability depends on all internal connections of the film capacitor withstanding the peak current loads up to the maximum specified temperature. The collateral contact layers (schoopage) with the electrodes can be a potential limitation of peak current carrying capacity. The electrode layers are wound slightly offset from each other, so that the edges of the electrodes can be contacted using a face contacting method "schoopage" at the collateral end faces of the winding. This internal connection is ultimately made by multiple point-shaped contacts at the edge of the electrode, and can be modeled as a large number of individual capacitors all connected in parallel. The many individual resistance (ESR) and inductance (ESL) losses are connected "in parallel", so that these total undesirable parasitic losses are minimized. However, ohmic contact resistance heating is generated when peak current flows through these individual microscopic contacting points, which are critical areas for the overall internal resistance of the capacitor. If the current gets too high, "hot spots" can develop and cause burning of the contact areas. A second limitation of the current-carrying capacity is caused by the ohmic bulk resistance of the electrodes themselves. For metallized film capacitors, which have layer thicknesses from 0.02 to 0.05 μm the current-carrying capacity is limited by these thin layers. The surge current rating of film capacitors can be enhanced by various internal configurations. Because metallization is the cheapest way of producing electrodes, optimizing the shape of the electrodes is one way to minimize the internal resistance and to increase the current-carrying capacity. A slightly thicker metallization layer at the schoopage contact sides of the electrodes results in a lower overall contact resistance and increased surge current handling, without losing the self-healing properties throughout the remainder of the metallization. Another technique to increase the surge current rating for film capacitors is a double-sided metallization. This can double the peak current rating. This design also halves the total self-inductance of the capacitor, because in effect, two inductors are connected in parallel, which allows less-unimpeded passage of faster pulses (higher so-called "dV/dt" rating). The double-sided metallized film is electrostatically field-free because the electrodes have the same voltage potential on both sides of the film, and therefore does not contribute to the total capacitance of the capacitor. This film can therefore be made of a different and less expensive material. For example, a polypropylene film capacitor with double-sided metallization on a polyester film carrier makes the capacitor not only cheaper but also smaller, because the thinner polyester foil improves the volumetric efficiency of the capacitor. Film capacitors with a double-sided metallized film effectively have thicker electrodes for higher surge current handling, but still do retain their self-healing properties, in contrast to the film/foil capacitors. The highest surge-current rated film capacitors are film/foil capacitors with a metal foil construction. These capacitors use thin metal foils, usually aluminum, as the electrodes overlying the polymer film. The advantage of this construction is the easy and robust connection of the metal foil electrodes. In this design, the contact resistance in the area of the schoopage is the lowest. However, metal foil capacitors "do not have self-healing properties". A breakdown in the dielectric film of a film/foil capacitor leads to an irreversible short circuit. To avoid breakdowns caused by weak spots in the dielectric, the insulating film chosen is always thicker than theoretically required by the specific breakdown voltage of the material. Films of less than 4 μm generally are not used for film/foil capacitors because of their excessively high numbers of point defects. Also. the metallic foils only can be produced down to about 25 μm in thickness. These tradeoffs make the film/foil capacitor the most robust but also the most expensive method for increasing surge current handling. Styles of film capacitors. Film capacitors for use in electronic equipment are packaged in the common and usual industry styles: axial, radial, and SMD. Traditional axial type packages are less used today, but are still specified for point-to-point wiring and some traditional through-hole printed circuit boards. The most common form factor is the radial type (single ended), with both terminals on one side of the capacitor body. To facilitate automated insertion, radial plastic film capacitors are commonly constructed with terminal spacings at standardized distances, starting with 2.5 mm pitch and increasing in 2.5 mm steps. Radial capacitors are available potted in plastic cases, or dipped in an epoxy resin to protect the capacitor body against environmental influences. Although the transient heat of reflow soldering induces high stress in the plastic film materials, film capacitors able to withstand such temperatures are available in surface-mounted device (SMD) packages. Historical development. Before the introduction of plastic films, capacitors made by sandwiching a strip of impregnated paper between strips of metal, and rolling the result into a cylinder–paper capacitors–were commonly used; their manufacture started in 1876, and they were used from the early 20th century as decoupling capacitors in telecommunications (telephony). With the development of plastic materials by organic chemists during the Second World War, the capacitor industry began to replace paper with thinner polymer films. One very early development in film capacitors was described in British Patent 587,953 in 1944. The introduction of plastics in plastic film capacitors was approximately in the following historic order: polystyrene (PS) in 1949, polyethylene terephthalate (PET/"polyester") and cellulose acetate (CA) in 1951, polycarbonate (PC/Lexan) in 1953, polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE/Teflon) in 1954, polyparylene in 1954, polypropylene (PP) in 1954, polyethylene (PE) in 1958, and polyphenylene sulphide (PPS) in 1967. By the mid-1960s there was a wide range of different plastic film capacitors offered by many, mostly European and US manufacturers. German manufacturers such as WIMA, Roederstein, Siemens and Philips were trend-setters and leaders in a world market driven by consumer electronics. One of the great advantages of plastic films for capacitor fabrication is that plastic films have considerably fewer defects than paper sheets used in paper capacitors. This allows the manufacture of plastic film capacitors with only a single layer of plastic film, whereas paper capacitors need a double layer of paper. Plastic film capacitors were significantly smaller in physical size (better volumetric efficiency), with the same capacitance value and the same dielectric strength as comparable paper capacitors. Then-new plastic materials also showed further advantages compared with paper. Plastic is much less hygroscopic than paper, reducing the deleterious effects of imperfect sealing. Additionally, most plastics are subject to fewer chemical changes over long periods, providing long-term stability of their electrical parameters. Since around 1980, paper and metallized paper capacitors (MP capacitors) have almost completely been replaced by PET film capacitors for most low-power DC electronic applications. Paper is now used only in RFI suppression or motor run capacitors, or as a mixed dielectric combined with polypropylene films in large AC and DC capacitors for high-power applications. An early special type of plastic film capacitors were the cellulose acetate film capacitors, also called MKU capacitors. The polar insulating dielectric cellulose acetate was a synthetic resin that could be made for metallized capacitors in paint film thickness down to about 3 μm. A liquid layer of cellulose acetate was first applied to a paper carrier, then covered with wax, dried and then metallized. During winding of the capacitor body, the paper was removed from the metallized film. The remaining thin cellulose acetate layer had a dielectric breakdown of 63 V, enough for many of general purpose applications. The very small thickness of the dielectric decreased the overall dimensions of these capacitors compared to other film capacitors of the time. MKU film capacitors are no longer manufactured, because polyester film capacitors can now be produced in the smaller sizes that were the market niche of the MKU type. Film capacitors have become much smaller since the beginning of the technology. Through development of thinner plastic films, for example, the dimensions of metallized polyester film capacitors were decreased by a factor of approximately 3 to 4. The most important advantages of film capacitors are the stability of their electrical values over long durations, their reliability, and lower cost than some other types for the same applications. Especially for applications with high current pulse loads or high AC loads in electrical systems, heavy-duty film capacitors, here called "power capacitors", are available with dielectric ratings of several kilovolts. But the manufacture of film capacitors does have a critical dependency on the materials supply chain. Each of the plastic film materials used for film capacitors worldwide is produced by only two or three large suppliers. The reason for this is that the mass quantities required by the market for film caps are quite small compared to typical chemical company production runs. This leads to a great dependency of the capacitor manufacturers on relatively few chemical companies as raw material suppliers. For example, in the year 2000 Bayer AG stopped their production of polycarbonate films, due to unprofitably low sales volumes. Most of the producers of polycarbonate film capacitors had to quickly change their product offerings to another type of capacitor, and a lot of expensive testing approvals for new designs were required. As of 2012, only five plastic materials continued to be widely used in the capacitor industry as films for capacitors: PET, PEN, PP, PPS and PTFE. Other plastic materials are no longer in common use, either because they are no longer manufactured, or they have been replaced with better materials. Even the long-time manufactured polystyrene (PS) and polycarbonate (PC) film capacitors have been largely replaced by the previously-mentioned film types, though at least one PC capacitor manufacturer retains the ability to make its own films from raw polycarbonate feedstock. The less-common plastic films are described briefly here, since they are still encountered in older designs, and are still available from some suppliers. From simple beginnings film capacitors developed into a very broad and highly specialized range of different types. By the end of the 20th century mass production of most film capacitors had shifted to the Far East. A few large companies still produce highly specialized film capacitors in Europe and in the US, for power and AC applications. Dielectric materials and their market share. The following table identifies the most commonly used dielectric polymers for film capacitors. Also, different film materials can be mixed to produce capacitors with particular properties. The most used film materials are polypropylene, with a market share of 50%, followed by polyester, with a 40% share. The remaining 10% share is accounted for by the other dielectric materials, including polyphenylene sulfide and paper, with roughly 3% each. Polycarbonate film capacitors are no longer manufactured because the dielectric material is no longer available. Characteristics of film materials for film capacitors. The electrical characteristics, and the temperature and frequency behavior of film capacitors are essentially determined by the type of material that forms the dielectric of the capacitor. The following table lists the most important characteristics of the principal plastic film materials in use today. Characteristics of mixed film materials are not listed here. The figures in this table are extracted from specifications published by various different manufacturers of film capacitors for industrial electronic applications. The large range of values for the dissipation factor includes both typical and maximum specifications from data sheets of the various manufacturers. Typical electrical values for power and large AC capacitors were not included in this table. Polypropylene (PP) film capacitors. Polypropylene film capacitors have a dielectric made of the thermoplastic, non-polar, organic and partially crystalline polymer material Polypropylene (PP), trade name Treofan, from the family of polyolefins. They are manufactured both as metallized wound and stacked versions, as well as film/foil types. Polypropylene film is the most-used dielectric film in industrial capacitors and also in power capacitor types. The polypropylene film material absorbs less moisture than polyester film and is therefore also suitable for "naked" designs without any coating or further packaging. But the maximum temperature of 105 °C hinders use of PP films in SMD packaging. The temperature and frequency dependencies of electrical parameters for polypropylene film capacitors are very low. Polypropylene film capacitors have a linear, negative temperature coefficient of capacitance of ±2,5 % within their temperature range. Therefore, polypropylene film capacitors are suitable for applications in Class 1 frequency-determining circuits, filters, oscillator circuits, audio circuits, and timers. They are also useful for compensation of inductive coils in precision filter applications, and for high-frequency applications. In addition to the application class qualification for the film/foil version of PP film capacitors, the standard IEC/EN 60384-13 specifies three "stability classes". These stability classes specify the tolerance on temperature coefficients together with the permissible change of capacitance after defined tests. They are divided into different temperature coefficient grades (α) with associated tolerances and preferred values of permissible change of capacitance after mechanical, ambient (moisture) and life time tests. The table is not valid for capacitance values smaller than 50 pF. In addition, PP film capacitors have the lowest dielectric absorption, which makes them suitable for applications such as VCO timing capacitors, sample-and-hold applications, and audio circuits. They are available for these precision applications in very narrow capacitance tolerances. The dissipation factor of PP film capacitors is smaller than that of other film capacitors. Due to the low and very stable dissipation factor over a wide temperature and frequency range, even at very high frequencies, and their high dielectric strength of 650 V/μm, PP film capacitors can be used in metallized and in film/foil versions as capacitors for pulse applications, such as CRT-scan deflection circuits, or as so-called "snubber" capacitors, or in IGBT applications. In addition, polypropylene film capacitors are used in AC power applications, such as motor run capacitors or power-factor correction (PFC) capacitors. Polypropylene film capacitors are widely used for EMI suppression, including direct connection to the power supply mains. In this latter application, they must meet special testing and certification requirements concerning safety and non-flammability. Most power capacitors, the largest capacitors made, generally use polypropylene film as the dielectric. PP film capacitors are used for high-frequency high-power applications such as induction heating, for pulsed power energy discharge applications, and as AC capacitors for electrical distribution. The AC voltage ratings of these capacitors can range up to 400 kV. The relatively low permittivity of 2.2 is a slight disadvantage, and PP film capacitors tend to be somewhat physically larger than other film caps. The capacitor grade films are produced up to 20 μm in thickness with width of roll up to 140 mm. Rolls are carefully vacuum packed in pairs according to the specifications required for the capacitor. Polyester (PET) film capacitors. Polyester film capacitors are film capacitors using a dielectric made of the thermoplastic polar polymer material polyethylene terephthalate (PET), trade names Hostaphan or Mylar, from the polyester family. They are manufactured both as metallized wound and stacked versions, as well as film/foil types. The polyester film adsorbs very little moisture, and this feature makes it suitable for "naked" designs without any further coating needed. They are the low-cost mass-produced capacitors in modern electronics, featuring relatively small dimensions with relatively high capacitance values. PET capacitors are mainly used as general purpose capacitors for DC applications, or for semi-critical circuits with operating temperatures up to 125  °C. The maximum temperature rating of 125 °C also allows SMD film capacitors to be made with PET films. The low cost of polyester and the relatively compact dimensions are the main reasons for the high prevalence of PET film capacitors in modern designs. The small physical dimensions of PET film capacitors are the result of a high relative permittivity of 3.3, combined with a relatively high dielectric strength leads to a relatively high volumetric efficiency. This advantage of compactness comes with some disadvantages. The capacitance temperature dependence of polyester film capacitors is relatively high compared to other film capacitors, ±5% over the entire temperature range. The capacitance frequency dependence of polyester film capacitors compared with the other film capacitors is -3% in the range from 100 Hz to 100 kHz at the upper limit. Also, the temperature and frequency dependence of the dissipation factor are higher for polyester film capacitors compared with the other film capacitor types. Polyester film capacitors are mainly used for general purpose applications or semi-critical circuits with operating temperatures up to 125 °C. Polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) film capacitors. Polyethylene naphthalate film capacitors are film capacitors using a dielectric made of the thermoplastic biaxial polymer material polyethylene naphthalate (PEN), trade names Kaladex, Teonex. They are produced only as metallized types. PEN, like PET, belongs to the polyester family, but has better stability at high temperatures. Therefore, PEN film capacitors are more suitable for high temperature applications and for SMD packaging. The temperature and frequency dependence of the electrical characteristics for capacitance and dissipation factor of PEN film capacitors are similar to the PET film capacitors. Because of the smaller relative permittivity and lower dielectric strength of the PEN polymer, PEN film capacitors are physically larger for a given capacitance and rated voltage value. In spite of this, PEN film capacitors are preferred over PET when the ambient temperature during operation of the capacitors is permanently above 125 °C. The special PEN "high voltage" (HV) dielectric offers excellent electrical properties during the life tests at high voltages and high temperatures (175 °C). PEN capacitors are mainly used for non-critical filtering, coupling and decoupling in electronic circuits, when the temperature dependencies do not matter. Polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) film capacitors. Polyphenylene sulfide film capacitors are film capacitors with dielectric made of the thermoplastic, organic, and partially crystalline polymer material Poly(p-phenylene sulfide) (PPS), trade name Torelina. They are only produced as metallized types. The temperature dependence of the capacitance of PPS film capacitors over the entire temperature range is very small (± 1.5%) compared with other film capacitors. Also the frequency dependence in the range from 100 Hz to 100 kHz of the capacitance of the PPS film capacitors is ± 0.5%, very low compared with other film capacitors. The dissipation factor of PPS film capacitors is quite small, and the temperature and frequency dependence of the dissipation factor over a wide range is very stable. Only at temperatures above 100 °C does the dissipation factor increase to larger values. The dielectric absorption performance is excellent, behind only PTFE and PS dielectric capacitors. Polyphenylene sulfide film capacitors are well-suited for applications in frequency-determining circuits and for high-temperature applications. Because of their good electrical properties, PPS film capacitors are an ideal replacement for polycarbonate film capacitors, whose production since 2000 has been largely discontinued. In addition to their excellent electrical properties, PPS film capacitors can withstand temperatures up to 270 °C without damaging the film quality, so that PPS film capacitors are suitable for surface mount devices (SMD), and can tolerate the increased reflow soldering temperatures for lead-free soldering mandated by the RoHS 2002/95/EC directive. Cost of a PPS film capacitor is usually higher compared to a PP film capacitor. Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) film capacitors. Polytetrafluoroethylene film capacitors are made with a dielectric of the synthetic fluoropolymer polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), a hydrophobic solid fluorocarbon. They are manufactured both as metallized and as film/foil types, although poor adherence to the film makes metallization difficult. PTFE is often known by the DuPont trademark Teflon. Polytetrafluoroethylene film capacitors feature a very high temperature resistance up to 200 °C, and even further up to 260 °C, with a voltage derating. The dissipation factor 2 • 10 −4 is quite small. The change in capacitance over the entire temperature range of +1% to -3% is a little bit higher than for polypropylene film capacitors. However, since the smallest available film thickness for PTFE films is 5.5 μm, approximately twice of the thickness of polypropylene films, the PTFE film capacitors are physically bulkier than PP film capacitors. It added that the film thickness on the surface is not constant, so that Teflon films are difficult to produce. Therefore, the number of manufacturers of PTFE film capacitors is limited. PTFE film capacitors are available with rated voltages of 100 V to 630 V DC. They are used in military equipment, in aerospace, in geological probes, in burn-in circuits and in high-quality audio circuits. Main producers of PTFE film capacitors are located in the USA. Polystyrene (PS) film capacitors. Polystyrene film capacitors, sometimes known as "Styroflex Capacitors", were well known for many years as inexpensive film capacitors for general purpose applications, in which high capacitance stability, low dissipation factor and low leakage currents were needed. But because the film thickness could be not made thinner than 10 μm, and the maximum temperature ratings reached only 85 °C, the PS film capacitors have mostly been replaced by polyester film capacitors as of 2012. However, some manufacturers may still offer PS film capacitors in their production program, backed by large amounts of polystyrene film stocked in their warehouse. Polystyrene capacitors have an important advantage - they have a temperature coefficient near zero and so are useful in tuned circuits where drift with temperature must be avoided. Polycarbonate (PC) film capacitors. Polycarbonate film capacitors are film capacitors with a dielectric made of the polymerized esters of carbonic acid and dihydric alcohols polycarbonate (PC), sometimes given the trademarked name Makrofol. They are manufactured as wound metallized as well as film/foil types. These capacitors have a low dissipation factor and because of their relatively temperature-independent electrical properties of about ±80 ppm over the entire temperature range, they had many applications for low-loss and temperature-stable applications such as timing circuits, precision analog circuits, and signal filters in applications with tough environmental conditions. PC film capacitors had been manufactured since the mid-1950s, but the main supplier of polycarbonate film for capacitors had ceased the production of this polymer in film form as of the year 2000. As a result, most of the manufacturers of polycarbonate film capacitors worldwide had to stop their production of PC film capacitors and changed to polypropylene film capacitors instead. Most of the former PC capacitor applications have found satisfactory substitutes with PP film capacitors. However, there are exceptions. The manufacturer Electronic Concepts Inc, (New Jersey, US) claims to be an in-house producer of its own polycarbonate film, and continues to produce PC film capacitors. In addition to this manufacturer of polycarbonate film capacitors, there are other mostly US-based specialty manufacturers. Paper (film) capacitors (MP) and mixed film capacitors. Historically, the first "film" type capacitors were paper capacitors of film/foil configuration. They were fairly bulky, and not particularly reliable. As of 2012, paper is used in the form of metallized paper for MP capacitors with self-healing properties used for EMI suppression. Paper is also used as an insulating mechanical carrier of metallized-layer electrodes, and combined with polypropylene dielectric, mostly in power capacitors rated for high current AC and high voltage DC applications. Paper as carrier of the electrodes has the advantages of lower cost and somewhat better adherence of metallization to paper than to polymer films. But paper alone as dielectric in capacitors is not reliable enough for the growing quality requirements of modern applications. The combination of paper together with polypropylene film dielectric is a cost-effective way to improve quality and performance. The better adhering of metallization on paper is advantageous especially at high current pulse loads, and the polypropylene film dielectric increases the voltage rating. However, the roughness of a metallized paper surface can cause many small air-filled bubbles between the dielectric and the metallization, decreasing the breakdown voltage of the capacitor. For this reason, larger film capacitors or power capacitors using paper as carrier of the electrodes usually are filled with an insulating oil or gas, to displace the air bubbles for a higher breakdown voltage. However, since almost every major manufacturer offers its own proprietary film capacitors with mixed film materials, it is difficult to give a universal and general overview of the specific properties of mixed film capacitors. Other plastic film capacitors. Besides the above-described films ((Polypropylene (PP), Polyethylene Terephthalate Polyester PET), Polyphenylene Sulfide (PPS), Polyethylene Naphthalate (PEN), Polycarbonate (PP), Polystyrene (PS) and Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE)), some other plastic materials may be used as the dielectric in film capacitors. Thermoplastic polymers such as Polyimide (PI), Polyamide (PA, better known as Nylon or Perlon), Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), Siloxane, Polysulfone (PEx) and Aromatic Polyester (FPE) are described in the technical literature as possible dielectric films for capacitors. The primary reason for considering new film materials for capacitors is the relative low permittivity of commonly used materials. With a higher permittivity, film capacitors could be made even smaller, an advantage in the market for more-compact portable electronic devices. In 1984, a new film capacitor technology that makes use of vacuum-deposited electron-beam cross-linked acrylate materials as dielectric in film capacitors was announced as a patent in the press. But as of 2012, only one manufacturer markets a specific acrylate SMD film capacitor, as an X7R MLCC replacement. Polyimide (PI), a thermoplastic polymer of imide monomers, is proposed for film capacitors called Polyimide-, PI- or Kapton capacitors. Kapton is the trade name of polyimide from DuPont. This material is of interest because its high temperature resistance up to 400 °C. But as of 2012, no specific PI capacitor series film capacitors have been announced. The offered film capacitor, Kapton CapacitorCL11, announced from "dhgate" is a "Type: Polypropylene Film Capacitor". Another very strange Kapton capacitor can be found at YEC, a Chinese producer of capacitors. Here the announced "Kapton capacitors" are in reality supercapacitors, a completely different technology Perhaps the Kapton film in these supercapacitors is used as a separator between the electrodes of this double-layer capacitor. Kapton films are often offered as an adhesive film for the outer insulation of capacitor packages. Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) has a very high permittivity of 18 to 20, which allows large amounts of energy to be stored in a small space (volumetric efficiency). However, it has a Curie temperature of only 60 °C, which limits its usability. Film capacitors with PVDF are described for one very special application, in portable defibrillators. For all the other previously named plastic materials such as PA, PVDF, Siloxane, PEx or FPE, specific series of film capacitors with these plastic films are not known to be produced in commercial quantities, as of 2012. Standardization of film capacitors. The standardization for all electrical, electronic components and related technologies follows the rules given by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), a non-profit, non-governmental international standards organization. The IEC standards are harmonized with European standards EN. The definition of the characteristics and the procedure of the test methods for capacitors for use in electronic equipment are set out in the generic specification: The tests and requirements to be met by film capacitors for use in electronic equipment for approval as standardized types are set out in the following sectional specifications: The standardization of power capacitors is strongly focused on rules for the safety of personnel and equipment, given by the local regulating authority. The concepts and definitions to guarantee safe application of power capacitors are published in the following standards: The text above is directly extracted from the relevant IEC standards, which use the abbreviations "d.c." for Direct Current (DC) and "a.c." for Alternating Current (AC). Film capacitors type abbreviations. During the early development of film capacitors, some large manufacturers have tried to standardize the names of different film materials. This resulted in a former German standard (DIN 41 379), since withdrawn, in which an abbreviated code for each material and configuration type were prescribed. Many manufacturers continue to use these de facto standard abbreviations. However, with the relocation of mass-market business in the passive components industry, which includes film capacitors, many of the new manufacturers in the Far East use their own abbreviations that differ from the previously established abbreviations. Electrical characteristics. The manufacturers Wima, Vishay and TDK Epcos specify the electrical parameters of their film capacitors in a general technical information sheet. Series-equivalent circuit. The electrical characteristics of capacitors are harmonized by the international generic specification IEC/EN 60384-1. In this standard, the electrical characteristics of capacitors are described by an idealized series-equivalent circuit with electrical components which model all ohmic losses, capacitive and inductive parameters of a film capacitor: The two reactive resistances have following relations with the angular frequency "ω": Capacitance standard values and tolerances. The rated capacitance is the value for which the capacitor has been designed. The actual capacitance of film capacitors depends on the measuring frequency and the ambient temperature. Standardized conditions for film capacitors are a measuring frequency of 1 kHz and a temperature of 20 °C. The percentage of allowed deviation of the capacitance from the rated value is called capacitance tolerance. The actual capacitance value of a capacitor should be within the tolerance limits, or the capacitor is out of specification. Film capacitors are available in different tolerance series, whose values are specified in the E series standards specified in IEC/EN 60063. For abbreviated marking in tight spaces, a letter code for each tolerance is specified in IEC/EN 60062. The required capacitance tolerance is determined by the particular application. The narrow tolerances of E24 to E96 will be used for high-quality circuits like precision oscillators and timers. On the other hand, for general applications such as non-critical filtering or coupling circuits, the tolerance series E12 or E6 are sufficient. Frequency and temperature changes in capacitance. The different film materials have temperature- and frequency-dependent differences in their characteristics. The graphs below show typical temperature and frequency behavior of the capacitance for different film materials. Voltage ratings. DC voltage. The rated DC voltage VR is the maximum DC voltage, or peak value of pulse voltage, or the sum of an applied DC voltage and the peak value of a superimposed AC voltage, which may be applied continuously to a capacitor at any temperature between the category temperature and the rated temperature. The breakdown voltage of film capacitors decreases with increasing temperature. When using film capacitors at temperatures between the upper rated temperature and the upper category temperature, only a temperature-derated category voltage VC is allowed. The derating factors apply to both DC and AC voltages. Some manufacturers may have quite different derating curves for their capacitors compared with the generic curves given in the picture at the right. The allowable peak value of a superimposed alternating voltage, called the "rated ripple voltage", is frequency-dependent. The applicable standards specify the following conditions, regardless of the type of dielectric film. AC voltage and current. Film capacitors are not polarized and are suitable for handling an alternating voltage. Because the rated AC voltage is specified as an RMS value, the nominal AC voltage must be smaller than the rated DC voltage. Typical figures for DC voltages and nominally related AC voltages are given in the table below: An AC voltage will cause an AC current (with an applied DC bias this is also called "ripple current"), with cyclic charging and discharging of the capacitor causing oscillating motion of the electric dipoles in the dielectric. This results in dielectric losses, which are the principal component of the ESR of film capacitors, and which produce heat from the alternating current. The maximum RMS alternating voltage at a given frequency which may be applied continuously to a capacitor (up to the rated temperature) is defined as the rated AC voltage UR AC. Rated AC voltages usually are specified at the mains frequency of a region (50 or 60 Hz). The rated AC voltage is generally calculated so that an internal temperature rise of 8 to 10 °K sets the allowed limit for film capacitors. These losses increase with increasing frequency, and manufacturers specify curves for derating maximum AC voltages permissible at higher frequencies. Capacitors, including film types, designed for continuous operation at low-frequency (50 or 60 Hz) mains voltage, typically between line and neutral or line and ground for interference suppression, are required to meet standard safety ratings; e.g., X2 is designed to operate between line and neutral at 200-240 VAC, and Y2 between line and ground. These types are designed for reliability, and, in case of failure, to fail safely (open-, rather than short-circuit). A non-catastrophic failure mode in this application is due to the corona effect: the air enclosed in the winding element becomes ionized and consequently more conductive, allowing partial discharges on the metallized surface of the film, which causes local vaporization of the metallization. This occurs repeatedly, and can cause significant loss of capacitance (C-decay) over one or two years. International standard IEC60384-14 specifies a limit of 10% C-decay per 1,000 test hours (41 days of permanent connection). Some capacitors are designed to minimise this effect. One method, at the expense of increased size and cost, is for a capacitor operating at 200-240 VAC to consist internally of two parts in series, each at a voltage of 100-120 VAC, insufficient to cause ionisation. Manufacturers also adopt cheaper and smaller construction intended to avoid corona effect without series-connected sections, for example minimising enclosed air. Surge ratings. For metallized film capacitors, the maximum possible pulse voltage is limited because of the limited current-carrying capacity between contact of the electrodes and the electrodes themselves. The rated pulse voltage Vp is the peak value of the pulse voltage which may be applied continuously to a capacitor at the rated temperature and at a given frequency. The pulse voltage capacity is given as pulse voltage rise time dV/dT in V/μs and also implies the maximum pulse current capacity. The values on the pulse rise time refer to the rated voltage. For lower operating voltages, the permissible pulse rise times may decrease. The permissible pulse load capacity of a film capacitor is generally calculated so that an internal temperature rise of 8 to 10 °K is acceptable. The maximum permissible pulse rise time of film capacitors which may be applied within the rated temperature range is specified in the relevant data sheets. Exceeding the maximum specified pulse load can lead to the destruction of the capacitor. For each individual application, the pulse load must be calculated. A general rule for calculating the power handling of film capacitors is not available because of vendor-related differences stemming from the internal construction details of different capacitors. Therefore, the calculation procedure of the manufacturer WIMA is referenced as an example of the generally applicable principles. Impedance, dissipation factor, and ESR. Impedance. The impedance formula_4 is the complex ratio of the voltage to the current in an alternating current (AC) circuit at a given frequency. In data sheets of film capacitors, only the "magnitude" of the impedance |Z| will be specified, and simply written as "Z". The "phase" of the impedance is specified as dissipation factor formula_5. If the series-equivalent values of a capacitor formula_6 and formula_2 and formula_3, and the frequency are known, then the impedance can be calculated with these values. The impedance formula_9 is then the sum of the geometric (complex) addition of the real and the reactive resistances. In the special case of resonance, in which the both reactive resistances formula_2 and formula_3 have the same value (formula_14), then the impedance will only be determined by formula_6. The impedance is a measure of the ability of the capacitor to pass alternating currents. The lower the impedance, the more easily alternating currents can be passed through the capacitor. Film capacitors are characterized by very small impedance values and very high resonant frequencies, especially when compared to electrolytic capacitors. Dissipation factor (tan δ) and ESR. The equivalent series resistance (ESR) summarizes all resistive losses of the capacitor. These are the supply line resistances, the contact resistance of the electrode contact, the line resistance of the electrodes and the dielectric losses in the dielectric film. The largest share of these losses is usually the dissipative losses in the dielectric. For film capacitors, the dissipation factor tan "δ" will be specified in the relevant data sheets, instead of the ESR. The dissipation factor is determined by the tangent of the phase angle between the capacitive reactance "X"C minus the inductive reactance "X"L and the "ESR". If the inductance "ESL" is small, the dissipation factor can be approximated as: This reason for using the dissipation factor instead of the ESR is, that film capacitors were originally used mainly in frequency-determining resonant circuits. The reciprocal value of the dissipation factor is defined as the quality factor "Q". A high Q value is for resonant circuits a mark of the quality of the resonance. The dissipation factor for film/foil capacitors is lower than for metallized film capacitors, due to lower contact resistance to the foil electrode compared to the metallized film electrode. The dissipation factor of film capacitors is frequency-, temperature- and time-dependent. While the frequency- and temperature-dependencies arise directly from physical laws, the time dependence is related to aging and moisture adsorption processes. Insulation resistance. A charged capacitor discharges over time through its own internal insulation resistance Risol. The multiplication of the insulation resistance together with the capacitance of the capacitor results in a time constant which is called the "self-discharge time constant": (τisol = Risol•C). This is a measure of the quality of the dielectric with respect to its insulating properties, and is dimensioned in seconds. Usual values for film capacitors range from 1000 s up to 1,000,000 s. These time constants are always relevant if capacitors are used as time-determining elements (such as timing delay), or for storing a voltage value as in sample-and-hold circuits or integrators. Dielectric absorption (soakage). Dielectric absorption is the name given to the effect by which a capacitor that has been charged for a long time discharges only incompletely when briefly discharged. It is a form of hysteresis in capacitor voltages. Although an ideal capacitor would remain at zero volts after being discharged, real capacitors will develop a small residual voltage, a phenomenon that is also called "soakage". The following table lists typical values of the dielectric absorption for common film materials Polypropylene film capacitors have the lowest voltage values generated by dielectric absorption. Therefore, they are ideally suited for precision analog circuits, or for integrators and sample-and-hold circuits. Aging. Film capacitors are subject to certain very small but measurable aging processes. The primary degradation process is a small amount of plastic film shrinkage, which occurs mainly during the soldering process, but also during operation at high ambient temperatures or at high current load. Additionally, some moisture absorption in the windings of the capacitor may take place under operating conditions in humid climates. Thermal stress during the soldering process can change the capacitance value of leaded film capacitors by 1% to 5% from initial value, for example. For surface mount devices, the soldering process may change the capacitance value by as much as 10%. The dissipation factor and insulation resistance of film capacitors may also be changed by the above-described external factors, particularly by moisture absorption in high humidity climates. The manufacturers of film capacitors can slow the aging process caused by moisture absorption, by using better encapsulation. This more expensive fabrication processing may account for the fact that film capacitors with the same basic body design can be supplied in different life time stability ratings called Performance grades. Performance grade 1 capacitors are "longlife", Performance grade 2 capacitors are "general purpose" capacitors. The specifications behind this grades are defined in the relevant standard of IEC/EN 60384-x (see standards). The permissible changes of capacitance, dissipation factor and insulation resistance vary with the film material, and are specified in the relevant data sheet. Variations over the course of time which exceed the specified values are considered as a degradation failure. Failure rate and life expectancy. Film capacitors generally are very reliable components with very low failure rates, with predicted life expectancies of decades under normal conditions. The life expectancy for film capacitors is usually specified in terms of applied voltage, current load, and temperature. Markings. Color-coded film capacitors have been produced, but it is usual to print more detailed information on the body. According to the IEC standard 60384.1, capacitors should be marked with imprints of the following information: Mains-voltage RFI suppression capacitors must also be marked with the appropriate safety agency approvals. Capacitance, tolerance, and date of manufacture can be marked with short codes. Capacitance is often indicated with the sub-multiple indicator replacing an easily erased decimal point, as: n47 = 0.47 nF, 4n7 = 4.7 nF, 47n = 47 nF Applications. In comparison with the other two main capacitor technologies, ceramic and electrolytic capacitors, film capacitors have properties that make them particularly well suited for many general-purpose and industrial applications in electronic equipment. Two main advantages of film capacitors are very low ESR and ESL values. Film capacitors are physically larger and more expensive than aluminum electrolytic capacitors (e-caps), but have much higher surge and pulse load capabilities. As film capacitors are not polarized, they can be used in AC voltage applications without DC bias, and they have much more stable electrical parameters. Polypropylene film capacitors have relatively little temperature dependence of capacitance and dissipation factor, so that they can be applied in frequency-stable Class 1 applications, replacing Class 1 ceramic capacitors. Electronic circuits. Polypropylene film capacitors meet the criteria for stability Class 1 capacitors, and have low electrical losses and nearly linear behavior over a very wide temperature and frequency range. They are used for oscillators and resonant circuits; for electronic filter applications with high quality factor (Q) such as high-pass filters, low-pass filters and band-pass filters as well as for tuning circuits; for audio crossovers in loudspeakers; in sample and hold A/D converters and in peak voltage detectors. Tight capacitance tolerances are required for timing applications in signal lights or pulse width generators to control the speed of motors, PP film capacitors are also well-suited because of their very low leakage current. Class 1 PP film capacitors are able to handle higher current than stability Class 1 ceramic capacitors. The precise negative temperature characteristics of polypropylene make PP capacitors useful to compensate for temperature-induced changes in other components. Fast pulse rise time rating, high dielectric strength (breakdown voltage), and low dissipation factor (high Q) are the reasons for the use of polypropylene film capacitors in fly-back tuning and S-correction applications in older CRT tube television and display equipment. For similar reasons, PP film capacitors, often in versions with special terminals for high peak currents, work well as snubbers for power electronic circuits. Because of their high pulse surge capabilities, PP capacitors are suitable for use in applications where high-current pulses are needed, such as in time-domain reflectometer (TDR) cable fault locators, in welding machines, defibrillators, in high-power pulsed lasers, or to generate high-energy light or X-ray flashes. In addition, polypropylene film capacitors are used in many AC applications such as phase shifters for PFC in fluorescent lamps, or as a motor-run capacitors. For simple higher-frequency filter circuits, or in voltage regulator or voltage doubler circuits, low-cost metallized polyester film capacitors provide long-term stability, and can replace more-expensive tantalum capacitors. Because capacitors pass AC signals but block DC, film capacitors with their high insulation resistance and low self-inductance are well-suited as signal coupling capacitors for higher frequencies. For similar reasons, film capacitors are widely used as decoupling capacitors to suppress noise or transients. Film capacitors made with lower-cost plastics are used for non-critical applications which do not require ultra-stable characteristics over a wide temperature range, such as for smoothing or AC signal coupling. Polyester film (KT) capacitors of the "stacked" type are often used now instead of polystyrene capacitors (KS), which have become less available. Metallized film capacitors have self-healing properties, and small imperfections do not lead to the destruction of the component, which makes these capacitors suitable for RFI/EMI suppression capacitors with fault protection against electrical shock and flame propagation, although repeated corona discharges which self-heal can lead to significant loss of capacitance. PTFE film capacitors are used in applications that must withstand extremely high temperatures. such as in military equipment, in aerospace, in geological probes, or burn-in circuits. Safety and EMI/RFI suppression film capacitors. <gallery caption="RFI/EMI suppression capacitors" class="center"> File:MP3-X2-P1180582b.JPG|Metallized paper RFI suppression capacitors (MP3) with safety marks for “X2” safety standard File:MKP Capacitor P10705333b.jpg|Metallized polypropylene RFI suppression capacitor (MKP) for "X2" safety standard File:Entstoerkondensator xy IMGP5363.jpg|Combined XY-RFI suppression capacitor </gallery> Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) or Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) suppression film capacitors, also known as "AC line filter safety capacitors" or "Safety capacitors", are used as crucial components to reduce or suppress electrical noise caused by the operation of electrical or electronic equipment, while also limited providing protection against electrical shocks. A suppression capacitor is an effective interference reduction component because its electrical impedance decreases with increasing frequency, so that at higher frequencies they short circuit electrical noise and transients between the lines, or to ground. They therefore prevent equipment and machinery (including motors, inverters, and electronic ballasts, as well as solid-state relay snubbers and spark quenchers) from sending and receiving electromagnetic and radio frequency interference as well as transients in across-the-line (X capacitors) and line-to-ground (Y capacitors) connections. X capacitors effectively absorb symmetrical, balanced, or differential interference. On the other hand, Y capacitors are connected in a line bypass between a line phase and a point of zero potential, to absorb asymmetrical, unbalanced, or common-mode interference. <gallery class="center" widths="280" heights="140" caption="RFI/EMI suppression with X- and Y-capacitors for equipment without and with additional safety insulation"> File:Safety caps-Appliance Class I.svg|Appliance Class I capacitor connection File:Safety caps-Appliance Class II.svg|Appliance Class II capacitor connection </gallery> EMI/RFI suppression capacitors are designed and installed so that remaining interference or electrical noise does not exceed the limits of EMC directive EN 50081 Suppression components are connected directly to mains voltage semi-permanently for 10 to 20 years or more, and are therefore exposed to overvoltages and transients which could damage the capacitors. For this reason, suppression capacitors must comply with the safety and inflammability requirements of international safety standards such as the following: RFI capacitors which fulfill all specified requirements are imprinted with the certification mark of various national safety standards agencies. For power line applications, special requirements are placed on the inflammability of the coating and the epoxy resin impregnating or coating the capacitor body. To receive safety approvals, X and Y powerline-rated capacitors are destructively tested to the point of failure. Even when exposed to large overvoltage surges, these safety-rated capacitors must fail in a fail-safe manner that will not endanger personnel or property. Most EMI/RFI suppression film capacitors are polyester (PET) or metallized polypropylene (PP) film capacitors. However, some types of metallized paper capacitors (MP) are still used for this application, because they still have some advantages in flame resistance. Lighting ballasts. A lighting ballast is a device to provide proper starting and operating electrical conditions to light one or more fluorescent lamps, while also limiting the amount of current. A familiar and widely used example is the traditional inductive ballast used in fluorescent lamps, to limit the current through the tube, which would otherwise rise to destructive levels due to the tube's negative resistance characteristic. A disadvantage of using an inductor is that current is shifted out of phase with the voltage, producing a poor power factor. Modern electronic ballasts usually change the frequency of the power from a standard mains frequency of 50 or 60  Hz up to 40  kHz or higher, often using a Switched Mode Power Supply (SMPS) circuit topology with PFC. First the AC input power is rectified to DC, and then it is chopped at a high frequency to improve the power factor. In more expensive ballasts, a film capacitor is often paired with the inductor to correct the power factor. In the picture at right, the flat grey rectangular component in the middle of the ballast circuit is a polyester film capacitor used for PFC. Snubber / Damping capacitors. Snubber capacitors are designed for the high peak current operation required for protection against transient voltages. Such voltages are caused by the high "di/dt" current slew rate generated in switching power electronics applications. Snubbers are energy-absorbing circuits used to eliminate voltage spikes caused by circuit inductance when a switch opens. The purpose of the snubber is to improve electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) by eliminating the voltage transient that occurs when a switch abruptly opens, or by suppressing sparking of switch contacts (such as an automotive ignition coil with mechanical interrupter), or by limiting the voltage slew rate of semiconductor switches like thyristors, GTO thyristors, IGBTs and bipolar transistors. Snubber capacitors (or higher power "damping capacitors") require a very low self-inductance and very low ESR capacitor construction. These devices are also expected to be highly reliable because, if the snubber RC circuitry fails, a power semiconductor will be destroyed in most cases. Snubber circuits usually incorporate film capacitors, mostly polypropylene film caps. The most important criteria for this application are a low self-inductance, low ESR, and very high peak current capability. The so-called "snubber" capacitors sometimes have some additional special construction features. The self-inductance is reduced by slimmer designs with narrower width of the electrodes. By double-sided metallization or the film/foil construction of the electrodes, the ESR also can be reduced, increasing the peak current capability. Specially widened terminals which can be mounted directly beneath semiconductor packages can help to increase current handling and decrease inductance. The most popular simple snubber circuit consists out of a film capacitor and a resistor in series, connected in parallel with a semiconductor component to suppress or damp undesirable voltage spikes. The capacitor absorbs the inductive turn-off peak current temporarily, so that the resulting voltage spike is limited. But the trend in modern semiconductor technology is towards higher power applications, which increases the peak currents and switching speeds. In this case, the boundary between a standard electronic film capacitor and a power capacitor is blurred, so that larger snubber capacitors belong more in the area of power systems, electrical installations and plants. The overlapping categories of film and power capacitors are visible when they are applied as snubber capacitors in the growing market for high power electronics with IGBT's and thyristors. Although the power capacitors use polypropylene film, like the smaller snubber film capacitors, they belong to the family of power capacitors, and are called "damping" capacitors. Power film capacitors. The relatively simple fabrication technique of winding gives film capacitors the possibility of attaining even very large sizes for applications in the high power range, as so-called "power capacitors". Although the materials and the construction of power capacitors are mostly similar to the smaller film capacitors, they are specified and marketed differently for historical reasons. The "film capacitors" were developed together with the growing market of broadcast and electronic equipment technology in the mid-20th century. These capacitors are standardized under the rules of IEC/EN 60384-1 "Capacitors for use in electronic equipment" and different "film materials" have their own sub standards, the IEC/EN 60384-"n" series. The "power capacitors" begin at a power handling capacity of approximately 200 volt-amps, such as for ballast capacitors in fluorescent lamps. The standardization of power capacitors follows the rules of IEC/EN 61071 and IEC/EN 60143-1, and have for various different applications their own sub standards, such as for railway applications. Power capacitors can be used for a wide variety of applications, even where extremely non-sinusoidal voltages and pulsed currents are present. Both AC and DC capacitors are available. AC capacitors serve as damping or snubbing capacitors when connected in series with a resistor, and are also specified for the damping of undesirable voltage spikes caused by the so-called charge carrier storage effect during switching of power semiconductors. In addition, AC capacitors are used in low-detuned or close-tuned filter circuits for filtering or absorbing harmonics. As pulse discharge capacitors, they are useful in applications with reversing voltages, such as in magnetizing equipment. The scope of application for DC capacitors is similarly diverse. Smoothing capacitors are used to reduce the AC component of fluctuating DC voltage (such as in power supplies for radio and television transmitters), and for high voltage testing equipment, DC controllers, measurement and control technology and cascaded circuits for generation of high DC voltage. Supporting capacitors, DC-filter or buffer circuit capacitors are used for energy storage in intermediate DC circuits, such as in frequency converters for poly-phase drives, and transistor and thyristor power converters. They must be able to absorb and release very high currents within short periods, the peak values of currents being substantially greater than the RMS values. Surge (pulse) discharge capacitors are also capable of supplying or absorbing extreme short-duration current surges. They are usually operated in discharge applications with non-reversing voltages, and at low repetition frequencies, such as in laser technology and lighting generators. Power capacitors can reach quite large physical dimensions. Rectangular housings with internally interconnected individual capacitors can reach sizes of L×W×H = (350×200×1000) mm and above. References. This article draws heavily on a corresponding article in the , accessed in the version of 12 March 2012.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=31111292

The 2011 FIM Sidecarcross World Championship, the 32nd edition of the competition, started on 3 April and finished after thirteen race weekends on 11 September 2011. The defending champions were eight time winners Daniël Willemsen from the Netherlands and his passenger Gertie Eggink. In 2011, Willemsen raced with 43-year-old Sven Verbrugge as his passenger, after an injury to first-choice passenger Roman Vasyliaka. Willemsen and Verbrugge were a team for a fifth time in the history of the competition, with the combination winning the 2005 and 2006 titles together. Willemsen temporarily switched to Ondrej Cermak as his passenger for the first of two German GP's because of an injury to Verbrugge. Willemsen and his passenger clinched the World Championship at the second-last race of the season, at Slagelse, Denmark, having a 53-point lead over Latvians Jānis and Lauris Daiders. The Belgian-Latvian combination Joris Hendrickx-Kaspars Liepiņš, the 2009 World Champions and long the main rivals of Willemsen-Verbrugge during the 2011 season, suffered a season-ending injury at the qualifying of the German Grand Prix in July 2011, being able to compete in the race but requiring surgery afterwards. Parallel to the riders competition, a manufacturers championship was also held. Like in 2010, the competition was a close contest between 2010 champions WSP and eventual winners VMC. The Sidecarcross World Championship, first held in 1980 and organised by the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme, is an annual competition. All races, manufacturers and the vast majority of riders in the competition being in and from Europe. Sidecarcross is similar to motocross except that the teams consist of two riders, a driver and a passenger. Races are held on the same tracks as solo motocross but the handling of the machines differs as sidecars don't lean. The majority of physical work in the sport is carried out by the passenger, who speeds up the sidecarcross in corners by leaning out. The coordination between the driver and the passenger are therefore of highest importance. Overview. The thirteen races of the season were held in eleven countries, Netherlands, Switzerland, France, Poland, Ukraine, Belgium, Germany, Estonia, Latvia, Russia and Denmark. In comparison to the 2010 edition, the Grand Prix of Great Britain and Italy have been dropped off the calendar while the Swiss GP made a return. Format. Every Grand Prix weekend is split into two races, both held on the same day. This means, the 2011 season with its thirteen Grand Prix has 26 races. Each race lasts for 30 minutes plus two laps. The two races on a weekend actually get combined to determine an overall winner. In case of a tie, the results of the second race as used to determined the winner. While this overall winners receives no extra WC points, they usually are awarded a special trophy. Race start times are set at 13:30 and 16:00. Events typically consist of a qualifying competition, held in multiple stages on Saturdays of a race weekend while the two race events are typically held on Sundays. One exception to this rule is Easter weekends, when the races are held on Easter Monday. Race weekends can consist of additional motocross or quart support races as well, but the FIM stipulates that the World Championship races have priority. Riders have to be provided with at least one 30 minute free practice season, which will be timed. A race can consist of up to 30 starters and the qualifying modus is dependent on the number of entries. Up to 32 entries, it will be held in one group split into two sessions of 30 minutes each. Above 32 entries, the starter field will be sub-divided into two groups through ballot and the current standings. Each qualifying group can consist of up to 30 racers. Should there be more than 60 entries, a pre-qualifying has to be held. Of the riders in the two groups, the top-twelve directly qualify for the races. The remaining teams then go to a second-chance qualifying, in which the best six advance. The riders placed seventh and eighth remain in reserve should one of the qualified teams not be able to participate. The FIM stipulates that all drivers must be of a minimum age of 18 while passengers have to be at least 16 years old to compete, but no older than 50. Riders older than 50 have to provide a certificate of medical fitness to be permitted to compete. The driver has the right to exchange his passenger under certain conditions. Starting numbers for the season are awarded according to the previous seasons overall finishing position of the driver. Current or former World Champions have however the right to pick any number they wish, except the number one which is reserved for the current World Champion. The competition is open for motor cycles with two-stroke engines from between 350 and 750cc and four-stroke engines of up to 1,000cc. Each team is permitted the use of two motorcycles with the possibility of changing machines between races. The FIM does not permit radio communication between riders and their teams. Outside assistance during the race on the course is not permitted unless it is through race marshals in the interest of safety. Limited repairs in the designated repair zone during the race are permitted. The first twenty teams of each race score competition points. The point system for the season was as follows: Prize money. In 2011, prize money was awarded to all rider scoring points, with €300 going to each race winner, €250 to the runners-up, gradually declining from there, with €50 going to all teams placed 12th to 20th. Additionally, every team qualified for the race plus the two reserve teams receive €500 in travel compensation. Retirements. At the end of the 2011 season a number of long-term competitors retired from the World Championship, the most successful of those being Russian Evgeny Scherbinin, runners-up in 2006 and active since 1999. Calendar. The calendar for the 2011 season: Classification. Riders. The top ten teams in the final overall standings were: Manufacturers. Parallel to the riders championship, a manufacturers competition was also held. In every race, only the best-placed rider of every make was awarded points in this competition. The final standings in the manufacturers competition were: 2011 season races. Oss – Netherlands. The top ten of the first Grand Prix of the 2011 season, held on 3 April 2011, at Oss in the Netherlands: Castelnau-de-Lévis – France. The top ten of the first of two French Grand Prix in 2011, held on 17 April at Castelnau-de-Lévis: Frauenfeld – Switzerland. The top ten of the Swiss Grand Prix in 2011, held on Easter Monday, 25 April at Frauenfeld: Chernivtsi – Ukraine. The top ten of the Ukrainian Grand Prix in 2011, held on 8 May at Chernivtsi: Brou – France. The top ten of the second French Grand Prix in 2011, held on 13 June at Brou, Eure-et-Loir: Gdańsk – Poland. The top ten of the Polish Grand Prix in 2011, held on 26 June at Gdańsk: Genk – Belgium. The top ten of the Belgian Grand Prix in 2011, held on 3 July at Genk: Strassbessenbach – Germany. The top ten of the first of two German Grand Prix in 2011, held on 24 July at Strassbessenbach: Ķegums – Latvia. The top ten of the Latvian Grand Prix in 2011, held on 7 August at Ķegums: Kiviõli – Estonia. The top ten of the Estonian Grand Prix in 2011, held on 14 August at Kiviõli: The race at Kiviõli saw the first-ever Sidecarcross Grand Prix win for Vaclav and Marek Rozehnal and the first-ever for the Czech Republic. Kamensk-Uralsky – Russia. The top ten of the Russian Grand Prix in 2011, held on 21 August at Kamensk-Uralsky: Slagelse – Denmark. The top ten of the Danish Grand Prix in 2011, held on 4 September at Slagelse: Rudersberg – Germany. The top ten of the second German Grand Prix in 2011, held on 11 September at Rudersberg: The last race event of the 2011 season saw the World Champions, Willemsen and Verbrugge, failing to score any points. A dispute during qualifying between the two lead to Verbrugge walking out during the first qualifying session. He later returned to take part in the "last chance", where the team qualified for the race after all. Verbrugge however was injured during a fall and had to be taken to hospital where his arm was placed into a plaster, ruling the team out of the race.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=66991260

The European Centre for Living Technology (ECLT) is an international research centre devoted to the study of living technology, located in Ca' Bottacin, a XIII century palace in Venice, Italy hosted by Ca' Foscari University of Venice. History. Founded in 2004 the European Centre for Living Technology is an international and interdisciplinary research centre established as an inter-university consortium, currently involving 16 European and extra-European institutional affiliates. The Centre is devoted to the study of technologies that exhibit life-like properties including self-organization, adaptability and the capacity to evolve. ECLT received its initial funding in 2004 through the EU project PACE (Programmable Artificial Cell Evolution, FP6), and continued to pursue cutting-edge research as coordinator and partner in European projects (FP6, FP7, H2020 and EuropeAid). A molecular biology wet Lab has also been established and hosted an intense research activity. ECLT is a place to conduct research, develop collaboration and discussion. It organized several conferences, workshops, meetings, public lectures, summer schools and activities related to the projects research. Several external distinguished scientists have spent extended periods of time in ECLT, allowing long-lasting fruitful interactions. The Centre has developed extensive experience and competence in project coordination and planning, including the involvement of SMEs, and civil society organizations. Organization. For the governance of the centre an initial General Assembly, composed of the founding institution representatives, has been established, and later enlarged by accepted applications from other institutions. The ECLT operations are led by three directors, supervised by a Science Board which includes members of the General Assembly  and eminent scientists from a variety of research fields. The initial Board of Directors was composed by Irene Poli, Norman Packard, and John McCaskill, followed in subsequent years by Kristian Lindgren, Rudolf Marcel Füchslin, Marcello Pelillo, and Achille Giacometti. The Science Board was first chaired by Mark Bedeau, later followed by Roberto Serra, Natalio Krasnogor and Irene Poli. Leading role in ECLT research is also taken by a large number of Fellows, eminent scientists from a very large variety of research fields. Research. International and interdisciplinary research activity of ECLT is organized in Research Units which currently includes: Artificial intelligence. The goal is to study and develop computer algorithms that exhibit human-like cognitive abilities. Bioinspired design. Study the complexity of living systems using a holist approach bridging the borders between Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Medicine is the main goal of this research unit. To this aim, we combine computational and experimental tools to find molecular level solutions to a broad range of issues related to medicine, biotechnology, environment and energy. Science of complexity. The Unit researches on any system in which a large number of elements interact, adapt and evolve to give rise to new meso and macro-level structures. Learning about the organization and the dynamic of such systems raise challenging problems which require new theories and methodologies for understanding the fundamental principles of complexity at a variety of scales, from molecular biology to human societies. Research fields currently active include: Arts and complexity. For a long time, art and science were viewed as distant domains that were only loosely connected, but we’re now witnessing more interaction between the two. This has led to an increased awareness of how art and science are indeed two different but strongly coupled aspects of human creativity, both driving innovation as art influences science and technology, and as science and technology in turn inspire art. This Research Unit will start from these premises to face research challenges at the intersection of art, science, and technology. Neuroscience. The mission of this research unit is to promote the study of the human mind and its social and cultural complexities across major disciplines including neuropsychology, comparative cognitive neuroscience, affective neuroscience and computer science work towards an integrative view of sensory modalities and research methodologies.

directing task

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=54439682

Cattle theft, more commonly cattle raiding or cattle lifting, is a property crime in India. In the ancient and medieval era India texts, stealing cattle is described as a crime and sin, a motif that appears in Hindu mythologies. In the colonial and postcolonial eras, it has been a common crime but one marked with contradictions. According to David Gilmartin, the crime of cattle theft was perceived by the colonial-era British officials as a "potential political danger" that threatened "to corrupt the whole structure of the administration, for its pervasiveness threatened to undercut the position of the state as the protector and legal guarantor of the individual as a productive owner of revenue-producing property". In contemporary times, the demand for meat has led to cattle becoming a target of mass-theft. According to "The New York Times" and other sources, cattle theft for beef production is a lucrative business in India. India has over 30,000 illegal slaughterhouses that operate in filthy conditions. According to "The New York Times", cattle theft is partly a source of supplies to illegal slaughterhouses. Mythology, rituals and texts. Ancient myths in India such as those found in the Vedas mention cattle raiding, where it is described in terms of cosmogonic significance. These cow-theft myths trigger war and a cycle of retaliations such as in the story of Parashurama, a warrior Brahmin avatar of Hindu god Vishnu, who kills numerous Kashatriyas (warrior caste) after the theft of his father's mythical cow by the king. In the "Ramayana", states Alf Hiltebeitel, a myth speaks of the sins of "murdering children, sages and cows" leading to war, migration of communities and social upheavel. The story, states Hiltebeitel, not only condemns the murder of a sage and the theft of a cow, but also extends its analogy between calves and children. The "Kamadhenu" and Vasistha-Visvamitra conflict legend found in the "Ramayana", states Adheesh Sathaye, is based on cattle theft motif, where Visvamitra fails to steal the mythical cow, repents and transforms himself into a Brahmin sage. Cattle are mentioned in the Vedas more often than any other animals. In the "Rigveda", the term "Gavisti" is mentioned in the context of conflict or battle, and this may be related to cattle raids state Macdonell and Keith. The penalty for injuring a bull was ten cows, according to Calvin Schwabe, for the theft of a cow, death. Stealing a cow, states Patrick Olivelle, is one of the crimes and sins in "Manusmriti". History. Cattle looting is mentioned as a form of warfare among pastoral peoples in the history of India. Competitive raiding a means to show prowess by youth and community solidarity in colonial era Punjab. David Gilmartin states that "cattle were among the most ubiquitous and important forms of moveable property in India, and cattle stealing was among the most prevalent crimes in northern India during the colonial period" in the 19th century. However, adds Gilmartin, cattle thefts in India were "marked by contradictions" with many village and clan chiefs involved in cattle theft networks and shared in the profits in western Punjab. These were recognized by the colonial government as "key administrative intermediaries". The crime came to be known as "cattle lifting" (like shop lifting), and it was practiced by thieves, by organized mafia and by armies during conquest. Cattle theft were a source of riots and civil disturbances. Hundreds of riots erupted in colonial India over cow slaughter. The village "muqaddam" (chiefs) pursued peace in the village, and British administrators added laws aimed at preventing cattle theft. According to Ramnarayan Rawat, a professor of South Asian History, cattle theft (or "languri") was the "most widely reported crime investigated by the Uttar Pradesh police in the 1880s and 1890s, and was considered the most organized and widespread agricultural crime because cows were regarded as the most valuable animal in Indian society." The convicted cattle thieves were from various Hindu castes such as Thakurs, Rajputs, Kurmis, Brahmins, Chamars, as well as Muslims. During this period and through the early part of 20th-century, the British administration routinely accused Chamars (untouchables, Hindus) of large-scale cattle deaths by poisoning and of theft for the purposes of obtaining skins for leather trade. According to Rawat, these accusations were "standard bureaucratic response" that continued after the British rule ended. In 1930, an elderly Hindu woman alleged that Bengali Muslims had stolen her bullock, for sacrifice during the Islamic festival of Bakri-Id, when she saw her bullock in the Digboi market place. Hindus with sticks and Muslims with stones collected, triggering waves of riots in this part of Assam, accompanied by looting and killings. According to David H. Bayley, a professor of Criminal Justice, the crime of "cattle theft is a matter of deadly seriousness in India," because it is an agrarian society where "many people live on the cheerless threshold of starvation". Cattle, states Bayley, are as important as children and grown adults "weep bitterly over the loss of their stock". In 1963 alone, over 20,000 cases of cattle thefts and arrests were reported in India. Contemporary situation. The above graphs show: (a) the amount of cattle theft in India per 100,000 people, also called the "rate", during the years 1953–2015 (shown in colour seagreen) and (b) the share (as percentage) of cattle theft in total major (cognizable) crime during the same period (shown in colour orchid). The graphs are based on tables of . According to Roshan Kishore, writing in "Live Mint", analysis of data published by India's National Crime Records Bureau shows that the proportion of cattle theft in overall theft in India declined during the period 1990–2014 both in the number of incidents reported and the value of the property taken. The above graph shows the annual numbers of reported cattle theft in India during the years 1953–2015, also based on tables of . A 2013 report by Gardiner Harris's in the "Delhi Journal" of "The New York Times" stated that cattle theft had increased in recent times in New Delhi, linked to an increase in the consumption of meat among Indians. The meat was primarily chicken, but included beef. Harris argued that cattle were left free to roam the streets, making them easy targets. According to "The Hindu" newspaper, analysis of data published by India's National Sample Survey 2016 shows that less than one per cent of Hindus in the Hindi belt consume beef or buffalo meat. Over the ten-year period, 1999-2000 to 2011–2012, the consumption of beef or buffalo meat by Hindus in India declined from 19 million to 12.5 million. According to "The New York Times", organized mafia gangs pick up the cattle they can find and sell them to illegal slaughterhouses. These crimes are locally called "cattle rustling" or "cattle lifting". According to media reports, India has numerous illegal slaughterhouses. For example, in the state of Andhra Pradesh, the officials in 2013 reported over 3,000 illegal slaughterhouses. According to Nanditha Krishna, there are an estimated 30,000 such illegal slaughter sites in India, typically operating in filthy conditions. The theft of cattle for slaughter and beef production is economically attractive to the mafias in India. In 2013, states Gardiner Harris, a truck can fit 10 cows, each fetching about 5,000 rupees (about US$94 in 2013), or over US$900 per cattle stealing night operation. In a country where some 800 million people live on less than US$2 per day, such theft-based mafia operations are financially attractive. According to Andrew Buncombe, when smuggled across the border, the price per cattle increases nearly threefold and the crime is even more attractive financially. Many states have reported rising thefts of cattle and associated violence, according to "The Indian Express". Cattle smuggling in India. Cattle smuggling in India is the movement of cattle for slaughter and processing from the states of India where cattle slaughter is illegal to those states where it is legal as well as to neighboring countries such as Bangladesh. It is widespread in India, with some estimates stating that over a million cattle are smuggled every year. Cattle smuggling, states Jason Cons – a professor of Anthropology with publications on India-Bangladesh border communities, is a significant source of communal tension as it implies "transportation of sacred cattle [cow] for slaughter in Muslim meat markets". It is also a source of crimes, violence and has trigerred disputes between the border officials at the India-Bangladesh border. Within India. According to Frederick Simoons, cattle smuggling was prevalent during the colonial era such as to the Portuguese Goa. It supplied the urban Goan demand for beef. In the post-colonial era, the reports and scale of cattle smuggling is astounding, where cattle is transported every day in thousand of trucks from Ganges Valley region to slaughterhouses in West Bengal in order to produce beef for exports. Cows are often smuggled from states such as Rajasthan to slaughterhouses elsewhere, states Amrita Basu. Between January 2009 and February 2016, the Rajasthan police registered over 3,000 cases of cow smuggling, arrested nearly 6,000 people for the crime, and seized over 2,700 vehicles used for cattle smuggling over the seven-year period, states a report in "The Hindustan Times". Cattle smuggling in India, states Reena Martins, is an organized and violent criminal network. In Bihar for example, cow smugglers chopped off the fingers of a railway crossing gate guard when he refused to allow smuggling trucks to pass through before a train. Corruption, bribes and cruelty to animals is a routine part of the operation. Martins states that the racket controlled by the "meat mafia" is worth $5 billion in India, and the smuggled cattle are sold for slaughter in "khattals" with much of the smuggling destined to supply the meat demand in Bangladesh. The Indian state of Jharkhand expanded its cattle slaughter-related laws in 2005 and has criminalized "killing, cruelty to and smuggling of cows". The Uttar Pradesh state officials announced in 2017 that they will prosecute cattle smugglers under the "NSA, Gangsters Act", which allows authorities to treat anyone caught smuggling cattle under its statutes for organized crime. Bangladesh. Smuggling of cattle and other forms of trafficking is widespread across the India-Bangladesh border. Estimates place the number of illegally smuggled to over one million a year. Vested interests across all parties have failed to curb the large scale smuggling, with some Hindus also involved in the cattle smuggling operations. Cattle smuggling and trade is lucrative and it is a key means for the local elites at the India-Bangladesh border for raising money for politics and for acquiring personal wealth. Cattle smuggling from India into Bangladesh is akin to drug smuggling networks, states Debdatta Chowdhury. A portion of the smuggled cattle – mainly cows and ox – is obtained from the western and northern states of India with predominantly non beef-eating Hindu population, transported across India and smuggled across the West Bengal border to satisfy the demand in the predominantly Muslim Bangladesh. The states which serve as main sources of this smuggled cattle include Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Gujarat, Bihar and Odisha. According to Chowdhury, between 5000 and 15,000 cows are smuggled everyday across the Bangladesh border. The smuggling generates an average of about US$20 per cow in income for the smuggler, about US$7 in bribes for Bangladeshi border officials and about US$8 in bribes for Indian border officials. Another report by Ashish, Patthak and Khan in "India Today" states that the operation is a well organized racket of smugglers who use bribes, rampant corruption and evade the law almost every day. They smuggle "young and ageing" cattle from India to Bangladesh slaughterhouses, while the payment is handled through hawala black market. Other sources estimate the cattle smuggling volume at a different level. According to "The Sunday Guardian", "cattle smuggling is rampant in Bengal, with an estimated 60,000 heads of cattle being smuggled out of India into Bangladesh, every day" in 2015, but the rate of this smuggling has dropped because of rising surveillance at the international border. The cattle smuggling rate is placed at nearly two million a year by Robert Wirsing and Samir Das in a 2016 report, with an annual value of about US$1.5 billion. Cattle smugglers, states "The Times of India", use dyes to recolor and camouflage the cattle. This makes cattle identification difficult to ease their smuggling across the border, while some groups use grazing pretext to evade the Indian Border Security Force. Hundreds of thousands of cows, states the British newspaper "The Independent" in a 2012 article, are illegally smuggled from India into Bangladesh every year to be slaughtered. Gangs from both sides of the border are involved in this illegal smuggling involving an estimated 1.5 million (15 lakhs) cattle a year, and cattle theft is a source of the supply, states Andrew Buncombe. According to a 2014 report by "The International Business Times", criminal gangs steal and smuggle cattle from India into Bangladesh, an operation that yields them "hundreds of millions of dollars annually in illicit profits". Not only it hurts the cattle owners, the activity is dangerous as it leads to deaths of the "perpetrators and innocent bystanders", states Palash Ghosh. According to "The New Indian Express", the villagers near the Bangladesh border state that cow thefts in the region increase before and during the Islamic festival of Ramzan and then these are smuggled across the border nearby. The Eid-ul-Zuha, or the Islamic festival of animal sacrifice, increases the demand for sacrificial cattle in Bangladesh and the illegal activity by the cattle smugglers across the porous border from West Bengal through Assam to Tripura, states "The Economic Times". Indian border officials have been using various strategies to reduce or end the smuggling across the Bangladesh border. They allege that their Bangladeshi counterparts are not doing as much as they could, states Katy Daigle, to prevent "illegal cross-border smuggling" of cattle. In contrast, some Bangladeshi officials state that cattle smuggling and associated crime would end if India would accept cow slaughter and legalize cow exports for beef production in Bangladesh. Bangladesh and India share over 4,000 kilometers of border, with many rivers, hills, highways and rural roads. The border is quite porous to goods and people movement. The border security is limited and cattle smuggling is a common crime, states Smruti Pattanaik. According to Zahoor Rather, trade in stolen cattle is one of the important crime-related border issues between India and Bangladesh. A 2017 Rajya Sabha panel led by the Congress leader P. Chidambaram criticized the West Bengal government for its failures related to rampant cattle smuggling to Bangladesh. Government authorities and local residents in areas surrounding Bangladesh have stated that frequent cattle-smuggling across the border from India is causing an increase in cattle theft." Hundreds of thousands of cows, states the British newspaper "The Independent" in a 2012 article, are illegally smuggled from India into Bangladesh every year to be slaughtered. Gangs from both sides of the border are involved in this illegal smuggling involving an estimated 1.5 million (15 lakhs) cattle a year, and cattle theft is a source of the supply, states Andrew Buncombe. According to a 2014 report by "The International Business Times", criminal gangs steal and smuggle cattle from India into Bangladesh, an operation that yields them "hundreds of millions of dollars annually in illicit profits". Not only it hurts the cattle owners, the activity is dangerous as it leads to deaths of the "perpetrators and innocent bystanders", states Palash Ghosh. (...) the illegal mass-theft of cattle is a huge problem thousands of miles away from the Chisum Trail – on the border between India and Bangladesh. Along the largely porous boundary between Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, cattle-raids and cattle-smuggling, often conducted by criminal gangs, raise hundreds of millions of dollars annually in illicit profits. The activity is so lucrative and dangerous that it often costs the lives of the perpetrators and innocent bystanders. (...) Bimal Pramanik, an independent researcher in Kolkata, told the Monitor that Bangladesh has an insatiable demand for beef. 'Bangladeshi slaughterhouses cannot source even 1 million cows from within the country. If Indian cows do not reach the Bangladeshi slaughterhouses, there will be a big crisis there,' he said, adding that he estimates three-fourths of all cows slaughtered in Bangladesh originated in India. In this thriving trade, [herds of] cows worth 50 billion rupees are sent across to Bangladesh every year. (...); Impact on cattle theft in India. Government authorities and local residents in areas surrounding Bangladesh state that frequent cattle-smuggling across the border from India is causing an increase in Cattle theft in India and other crimes:

.8 billion humans

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=183515

Retail is the process of selling consumer goods or services to customers through multiple channels of distribution to earn a profit. Retailers satisfy demand identified through a supply chain. The term "retailer" is typically applied where a service provider fills the small orders of many individuals, who are end-users, rather than large orders of a small number of wholesale, corporate or government clientele. Shopping generally refers to the act of buying products. Sometimes this is done to obtain final goods, including necessities such as food and clothing; sometimes it takes place as a recreational activity. Recreational shopping often involves window shopping and browsing: it does not always result in a purchase. Retail markets and shops have a very ancient history, dating back to antiquity. Some of the earliest retailers were itinerant peddlers. Over the centuries, retail shops were transformed from little more than "rude booths" to the sophisticated shopping malls of the modern era. Most modern retailers typically make a variety of strategic level decisions including the type of store, the market to be served, the optimal product assortment, customer service, supporting services and the store's overall market positioning. Once the strategic retail plan is in place, retailers devise the retail mix which includes product, price, place, promotion, personnel, and presentation. In the digital age, an increasing number of retailers are seeking to reach broader markets by selling through multiple channels, including both bricks and mortar and online retailing. Digital technologies are also changing the way that consumers pay for goods and services. Retailing support services may also include the provision of credit, delivery services, advisory services, stylist services and a range of other supporting services. Retail shops occur in a diverse range of types and in many different contexts – from strip shopping centres in residential streets through to large, indoor shopping malls. Shopping streets may restrict traffic to pedestrians only. Sometimes a shopping street has a partial or full roof to create a more comfortable shopping environment – protecting customers from various types of weather conditions such as extreme temperatures, winds or precipitation. Forms of non-shop retailing include online retailing (a type of electronic-commerce used for business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions) and mail order. Etymology. The word "retail" comes from the Old French verb "tailler", meaning "to cut off, clip, pare, divide in terms of tailoring" (c. 1365). It was first recorded as a noun in 1433 with the meaning of "a sale in small quantities" from the Middle French verb "retailler" meaning "a piece cut off, shred, scrap, paring". At the present, the meaning of the word "retail" (in English, French, Dutch, German and Spanish) refers to the sale of small quantities of items to consumers (as opposed to wholesale). Definition and explanation. Retail refers to the activity of selling goods or services directly to consumers or end-users. Some retailers may sell to business customers, and such sales are termed "non-retail activity." In some jurisdictions or regions, legal definitions of retail specify that at least 80 percent of sales activity must be to end-users. Retailing often occurs in retail stores or service establishments, but may also occur through direct selling such as through vending machines, door-to-door sales or electronic channels. Although the idea of retail is often associated with the purchase of goods, the term may be applied to service-providers that sell to consumers. Retail service providers include retail banking, tourism, insurance, private healthcare, private education, private security firms, legal firms, publishers, public transport and others. For example, a tourism provider might have a retail division that books travel and accommodation for consumers plus a wholesale division that purchases blocks of accommodation, hospitality, transport and sightseeing which are subsequently packaged into a holiday tour for sale to retail travel agents. Some retailers badge their stores as "wholesale outlets" offering "wholesale prices." While this practice may encourage consumers to imagine that they have access to lower prices, while being prepared to trade-off reduced prices for cramped in-store environments, in a strictly legal sense, a store that sells the majority of its merchandise direct to consumers, is defined as a retailer rather than a wholesaler. Different jurisdictions set parameters for the ratio of consumer to business sales that define a retail business. History. Retail markets have existed since ancient times. Archaeological evidence for trade, probably involving barter systems, dates back more than 10,000 years. As civilizations grew, barter was replaced with retail trade involving coinage. Selling and buying are thought to have emerged in Asia Minor (modern Turkey) in around the 7th-millennium BCE. In ancient Greece markets operated within the agora, an open space where, on market days, goods were displayed on mats or temporary stalls. In ancient Rome, trade took place in the forum. The Roman forum was arguably the earliest example of a permanent retail shop-front. Recent research suggests that China exhibited a rich history of early retail systems. From as early as 200 BCE, Chinese packaging and branding were used to signal family, place names and product quality, and the use of government imposed product branding was used between 600 and 900 CE. Eckhart and Bengtsson have argued that during the Song Dynasty (960–1127), Chinese society developed a consumerist culture, where a high level of consumption was attainable for a wide variety of ordinary consumers rather than just the elite. In Medieval England and Europe, relatively few permanent shops were to be found; instead, customers walked into the tradesman's workshops where they discussed purchasing options directly with tradesmen. In the more populous cities, a small number of shops were beginning to emerge by the 13th century. Outside the major cities, most consumable purchases were made through markets or fairs. Market-places appear to have emerged independently outside Europe. The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul is often cited as the world's oldest continuously-operating market; its construction began in 1455. The Spanish conquistadors wrote glowingly of markets in the Americas. In the 15th century, the Mexica (Aztec) market of Tlatelolco was the largest in all the Americas. By the 17th century, permanent shops with more regular trading hours were beginning to supplant markets and fairs as the main retail outlet. Provincial shopkeepers were active in almost every English market town. As the number of shops grew, they underwent a transformation. The trappings of a modern shop, which had been entirely absent from the sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century store, gradually made way for store interiors and shopfronts that are more familiar to modern shoppers. Prior to the eighteenth century, the typical retail store had no counter, display cases, chairs, mirrors, changing rooms, etc. However, the opportunity for the customer to browse merchandise, touch and feel products began to be available, with retail innovations from the late 17th and early 18th centuries. By the late eighteenth century, grand shopping arcades began to emerge across Europe and in the Antipodes. A shopping arcade refers to a multiple-vendor space, operating under a covered roof. Typically, the roof was constructed of glass to allow for natural light and to reduce the need for candles or electric lighting. Some of the earliest examples of shopping arcade appeared in Paris, due to its lack of pavement for pedestrians. While the arcades were the province of the bourgeoisie, a new type of retail venture emerged to serve the needs of the working poor. John Stuart Mill wrote about the rise of the co-operative retail store, which he witnessed first-hand in the mid-nineteenth century. The modern era of retailing is defined as the period from the industrial revolution to the 21st century. In major cities, the department store emerged in the mid- to late 19th century, and permanently reshaped shopping habits, and redefined concepts of service and luxury. Many of the early department stores were more than just a retail emporium; rather they were venues where shoppers could spend their leisure time and be entertained. Retail, using mail order, came of age during the mid-19th century. Although catalogue sales had been used since the 15th century, this method of retailing was confined to a few industries such as the sale of books and seeds. However, improvements in transport and postal services led several entrepreneurs on either side of the Atlantic to experiment with catalogue sales. In the post-war period, an American architect, Victor Gruen developed a concept for a shopping mall; a planned, self-contained shopping complex complete with an indoor plaza, statues, planting schemes, piped music, and car-parking. Gruen's vision was to create a shopping atmosphere where people felt so comfortable, they would spend more time in the environment, thereby enhancing opportunities for purchasing. The first of these malls opened at Northland Mall near Detroit in 1954. Throughout the twentieth century, a trend towards larger store footprints became discernible. The average size of a U.S. supermarket grew from square feet in 1991 to square feet in 2000. By the end of the twentieth century, stores were using labels such as "mega-stores" and "warehouse" stores to reflect their growing size. The upward trend of increasing retail space was not consistent across nations and led in the early 21st century to a 2-fold difference in square footage per capita between the United States and Europe. As the 21st century takes shape, some indications suggest that large retail stores have come under increasing pressure from online sales models and that reductions in store size are evident. Under such competition and other issues such as business debt, there has been a noted business disruption called the retail apocalypse in recent years which several retail businesses, especially in North America, are sharply reducing their number of stores, or going out of business entirely. Retail strategy. The distinction between "strategic" and "managerial" decision-making is commonly used to distinguish "two phases having different goals and based on different conceptual tools. Strategic planning concerns the choice of policies aiming at improving the competitive position of the firm, taking account of challenges and opportunities proposed by the competitive environment. On the other hand, managerial decision-making is focused on the implementation of specific targets." In retailing, the strategic plan is designed to set out the vision and provide guidance for retail decision-makers and provide an outline of how the product and service mix will optimize customer satisfaction. As part of the strategic planning process, it is customary for strategic planners to carry out a detailed environmental scan which seeks to identify trends and opportunities in the competitive environment, market environment, economic environment and statutory-political environment. The retail strategy is normally devised or reviewed every 3– 5 years by the chief executive officer. The strategic retail analysis typically includes following elements: At the conclusion of the retail analysis, retail marketers should have a clear idea of which groups of customers are to be the target of marketing activities. Not all elements are, however, equal, often with demographics, shopping motivations, and spending directing consumer activities. Retail research studies suggest that there is a strong relationship between a store's positioning and the socio-economic status of customers. In addition, the retail strategy, including service quality, has a significant and positive association with customer loyalty. A marketing strategy effectively outlines all key aspects of firms' targeted audience, demographics, preferences. In a highly competitive market, the retail strategy sets up long-term sustainability. It focuses on customer relationships, stressing the importance of added value, customer satisfaction and highlights how the store's market positioning appeals to targeted groups of customers. The retail marketing mix. Once the strategic plan is in place, retail managers turn to the more managerial aspects of planning. A retail mix is devised for the purpose of coordinating day-to-day tactical decisions. The retail marketing mix typically consists of six broad decision layers including product decisions, place decisions, promotion, price, personnel and presentation (also known as physical evidence). The retail mix is loosely based on the marketing mix, but has been expanded and modified in line with the unique needs of the retail context. A number of scholars have argued for an expanded marketing, mix with the inclusion of two new Ps, namely, "Personnel" and "Presentation" since these contribute to the customer's unique retail experience and are the principal basis for retail differentiation. Yet other scholars argue that the "Retail Format" (i.e. retail formula) should be included. The modified retail marketing mix that is most commonly cited in textbooks is often called the "6 Ps of retailing" (see diagram at right).The primary product-related decisions facing the retailer are the product assortment (what product lines, how many lines and which brands to carry); the type of customer service (high contact through to self-service) and the availability of support services (e.g. credit terms, delivery services, after sales care). These decisions depend on careful analysis of the market, demand, competition as well as the retailer's skills and expertise. Customer service is the "sum of acts and elements that allow consumers to receive what they need or desire from [the] retail establishment." Retailers must decide whether to provide a full service outlet or minimal service outlet, such as no-service in the case of vending machines; self-service with only basic sales assistance or a full service operation as in many boutiques and speciality stores. In addition, the retailer needs to make decisions about sales support such as customer delivery and after sales customer care. Place decisions are primarily concerned with consumer access and may involve location, space utilisation and operating hours. Retailers may consider a range of both qualitative and quantitative factors to evaluate to potential sites under consideration. Macro factors include market characteristics (demographic, economic and socio-cultural), demand, competition and infrastructure (e.g. the availability of power, roads, public transport systems). Micro factors include the size of the site (e.g. availability of parking), access for delivery vehicles. A major retail trend has been the shift to multi-channel retailing. To counter the disruption caused by online retail, many bricks and mortar retailers have entered the online retail space, by setting up online catalogue sales and e-commerce websites. However, many retailers have noticed that consumers behave differently when shopping online. For instance, in terms of choice of online platform, shoppers tend to choose the online site of their preferred retailer initially, but as they gain more experience in online shopping, they become less loyal and more likely to switch to other retail sites. Online stores are usually available 24 hours a day, and many consumers across the globe have Internet access both at work and at home. The broad pricing strategy is normally established in the company's overall strategic plan. In the case of chain stores, the pricing strategy would be set by head office. Broadly, there are six approaches to pricing strategy mentioned in the marketing literature: operations-oriented, revenue-oriented, customer-oriented, value-based, relationship-oriented, and socially-oriented. When decision-makers have determined the broad approach to pricing (i.e., the pricing strategy), they turn their attention to pricing tactics. Tactical pricing decisions are shorter term prices, designed to accomplish specific short-term goals. Pricing tactics that are commonly used in retail include discount pricing, everyday low prices, high-low pricing, loss leaders, product bundling, promotional pricing, and psychological pricing. Retailers must also plan for customer preferred payment modes – e.g. cash, credit, lay-by, Electronic Funds Transfer at Point-of-Sale (EFTPOS). All payment options require some type of handling and attract costs. Contrary to common misconception, price is not the most important factor for consumers, when deciding to buy a product. Because patronage at a retail outlet varies, flexibility in scheduling is desirable. Employee scheduling software is sold, which, using known patterns of customer patronage, more or less reliably predicts the need for staffing for various functions at times of the year, day of the month or week, and time of day. Usually needs vary widely. Conforming staff utilization to staffing needs requires a flexible workforce which is available when needed but does not have to be paid when they are not, part-time workers; as of 2012 70% of retail workers in the United States were part-time. This may result in financial problems for the workers, who while they are required to be available at all times if their work hours are to be maximized, may not have sufficient income to meet their family and other obligations. Retailers can employ different techniques to enhance sales volume and to improve the customer experience, such as Add-on, Upsell or Cross-sell; Selling on value; and knowing when to close the sale. Transactional marketing aims to find target consumers, then negotiate, trade, and finally end relationships to complete the transaction. In this one-time transaction process, both parties aim to maximize their own interests. As a result, transactional marketing raises follow-up problems such as poor after-sales service quality and a lack of feedback channels for both parties. In addition, because retail enterprises needed to redevelop client relationships for each transaction, marketing costs were high and customer retention was low. All these downsides to transactional marketing gradually pushed the retail industry towards establishing long-term cooperative relationships with customers. Through this lens, enterprises began to focus on the process from transaction to relationship. While expanding the sales market and attracting new customers is very important for the retail industry, it is also important to establish and maintain long term good relationships with previous customers, hence the name of the underlying concept, "relational marketing". Under this concept, retail enterprises value and attempt to improve relationships with customers, as customer relationships are conducive to maintaining stability in the current competitive retail market, and are also the future of retail enterprises. Presentation refers to the physical evidence that signals the retail image. Physical evidence may include a diverse range of elements – the store itself including premises, offices, exterior facade and interior layout, websites, delivery vans, warehouses, staff uniforms. The environment in which the retail service encounter occurs is sometimes known as the "retail servicescape." The store environment consists of many elements such as smells, the physical environment (furnishings, layout and functionality), ambient conditions (lighting, temperature, noise) as well as signs, symbols and artifacts (e.g. sales promotions, shelf space, sample stations, visual communications). Retail designers pay close attention to the front of the store, which is known as the "decompression zone". In order to maximise the number of selling opportunities, retailers generally want customers to spend more time in a retail store. However, this must be balanced against customer expectations surrounding convenience, access and realistic waiting times. The way that brands are displayed is also part of the overall retail design. Where a product is placed on the shelves has implications for purchase likelihood as a result of visibility and access. Ambient conditions, such as lighting, temperature and music, are also part of the overall retail environment. It is common for a retail store to play music that relates to their target market. Shopper profiles. Two different strands of research have investigated shopper behaviour. One strand is primarily concerned with shopper motivations. Another stream of research seeks to segment shoppers according to common, shared characteristics. To some extent, these streams of research are inter-related, but each stream offers different types of insights into shopper behaviour. Babin et al. carried out some of the earliest investigations into shopper motivations and identified two broad motives: "utilitarian" and "hedonic." Utilitarian motivations are task-related and rational. For the shopper with utilitarian motives, purchasing is a work-related task that is to be accomplished in the most efficient and expedient manner. On the other hand, hedonic motives refer to pleasure. The shopper with hedonic motivations views shopping as a form of escapism where they are free to indulge fantasy and freedom. Hedonic shoppers are more involved in the shopping experience. Many different shopper profiles can be identified. Retailers develop customised segmentation analyses for each unique outlet. However, it is possible to identify a number of broad shopper profiles. One of the most well-known and widely cited shopper typologies is that developed by Sproles and Kendal in the mid-1980s. Sproles and Kendall's consumer typology has been shown to be relatively consistent across time and across cultures. Their typology is based on the consumer's approach to making purchase decisions. Some researchers have adapted Sproles and Kendall's methodology for use in specific countries or cultural groups. Consumer decision styles are important for retailers and marketers because they describe behaviours that are relatively stable over time and for this reason, they are useful for market segmentation. Retail format: types of retail outlet. The "retail format" (also known as the "retail formula") influences the consumer's store choice and addresses the consumer's expectations. At its most basic level, a retail format is a simple marketplace, that is; a location where goods and services are exchanged. In some parts of the world, the retail sector is still dominated by small family-run stores, but large retail chains are increasingly dominating the sector, because they can exert considerable buying power and pass on the savings in the form of lower prices. Many of these large retail chains also produce their own private labels which compete alongside manufacturer brands. Considerable consolidation of retail stores has changed the retail landscape, transferring power away from wholesalers and into the hands of the large retail chains. In Britain and Europe, the retail sale of goods is designated as a "service activity." The European Service Directive applies to all retail trade including periodic markets, street traders and peddlers. Retail stores may be classified by the type of product carried. Softline retailers sell goods that are consumed after a single-use, or have a limited life (typically under three years) in they are normally consumed. Soft goods include clothing, other fabrics, footwear, toiletries, cosmetics, medicines and stationery. Grocery stores, including supermarkets and hypermarkets, along with convenience stores carry a mix of food products and consumable household items such as detergents, cleansers, personal hygiene products. Retailers selling consumer durables are sometimes known as "hardline retailers" – automobiles, appliances, electronics, furniture, sporting goods, lumber, etc., and parts for them. Specialist retailers operate in many industries such as the arts e.g. green grocers, contemporary art galleries, bookstores, handicrafts, musical instruments, gift shops. Types of retail outlets by marketing strategy include shopping arcade, anchor store, bazaar, boutique, category killer, chain store, co-operative store convenience store, department stores, discount stores, e-tailer, general store, give-away shop, hawkers also known as peddlers, costermongers or street vendors, high street store, hypermarket, pop-up retail, marketplace, market square, shopping center, speciality store, supermarket variety stores, vending machine, no frills, warehouse clubs, warehouse stores, automated retail, big-box stores, second-hand shop, and charity shop. Retailers can opt for a format as each provides different retail mix to its customers based on their customer demographics, lifestyle and purchase behavior. An effective format will determine how products are display products, as well as how target customers are attracted. Challenges. To achieve and maintain a foothold in an existing market, a prospective retail establishment must overcome the following hurdles: Consolidation. Among retailers and retails chains a lot of consolidation has appeared over the last couple of decades. Between 1988 and 2010, worldwide 40,788 mergers & acquisitions with a total known value of US$2.255 trillion have been announced. The largest transactions with involvement of retailers in/from the United States have been: the acquisition of Albertson's Inc. for US$17 billion in 2006, the merger between Federated Department Stores Inc with May Department Stores valued at 16.5 bil. USD in 2005 – now Macy's, and the merger between Kmart Holding Corp and Sears Roebuck & Co with a value of US$10.9 billion in 2004. Between 1985 and 2018 there have been 46,755 mergers or acquisitions conducted globally in the retail sector (either acquirer or target from the retail industry). These deals cumulate to an overall known value of around US$2,561 billion. The three major Retail M&A waves took place in 2000, 2007 and lately in 2017. However the all-time high in terms of number of deals was in 2016 with more than 2,700 deals. In terms of added value 2007 set the record with the US$225 billion. Here is a list of the top ten largest deals (ranked by volume) in the Retail Industry: Statistics. Global top ten retailers. As of 2016, China was the largest retail market in the world. Competition. Retail stores may or may not have competitors close enough to affect their pricing, product availability, and other operations. A 2006 survey found that only 38% of retail stores in India believed they faced more than slight competition. Competition also affected less than half of retail stores in Kazakhstan, Bulgaria, and Azerbaijan. In all countries the main competition was domestic, not foreign. Retail trade provides 9% of all jobs in India and 14% of GDP. Statistics for national retail sales. United States. The National Retail Federation and Kantar annually rank the nation's top retailers according to sales. The National Retail Federation also separately ranks the 100 fastest-growing U.S. retailers based on increases in domestic sales. 2020 Top 100 Retailers Chart Since 1951, the U.S. Census Bureau has published the Retail Sales report every month. It is a measure of consumer spending, an important indicator of the US GDP. Retail firms provide data on the dollar value of their retail sales and inventories. A sample of 12,000 firms is included in the final survey and 5,000 in the advanced one. The advanced estimated data is based on a subsample from the US CB complete retail & food services sample. Retail is the largest private-sector employer in the United States, supporting 52 million working Americans. Central Europe. In 2011, the grocery market in six countries of Central Europe was worth nearly €107bn, 2.8% more than the previous year when expressed in local currencies. The increase was generated foremost by the discount stores and supermarket segments, and was driven by the skyrocketing prices of foodstuffs. This information is based on the latest PMR report entitled Grocery retail in Central Europe 2012<ref name="http://www.pmrpublications.com/product/Grocery-retail-Central-Europe-2012"> Grocery retail in Central Europe 2012 Retail in Central Europe</ref> World. National accounts show a combined total of retail and wholesale trade, with hotels and restaurants. in 2012 the sector provides over a fifth of GDP in tourist-oriented island economies, as well as in other major countries such as Brazil, Pakistan, Russia, and Spain. In all four of the latter countries, this fraction is an increase over 1970, but there are other countries where the sector has declined since 1970, sometimes in absolute terms, where other sectors have replaced its role in the economy. In the United States the sector has declined from 19% of GDP to 14%, though it has risen in absolute terms from $4,500 to $7,400 per capita per year. In China the sector has grown from 7.3% to 11.5%, and in India even more, from 8.4% to 18.7%. Emarketer predicts China will have the largest retail market in the world in 2016. In 2016, China became the largest retail market in the world. See also. Types of sales person: Types of store or shop: Influential thinkers in sales and retail:

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Alcorn State University (Alcorn State, ASU or Alcorn) is a public historically black land-grant university in Lorman, Mississippi. It was founded in 1871 and was the first Black land grant college established in the United States. One of Alcorn's most notable alumni, Medgar Evers, a civil rights activist, graduated in 1952. Students at the college were part of the mid-twentieth century Civil Rights Movement, working to register residents for voting and to end racial inequality. The university is a member-school of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. Alcorn State's athletic teams known as the Braves and compete in the NCAA's Division I. All teams compete as members of the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) History. Alcorn State University was the first black land grant college in the country. Congress required that states with segregated educational institutions (as was maintained throughout the former Confederacy) designate black land grant colleges in order to receive land grant monies for white colleges, as Congress had authorized the program to benefit students of all races. Alcorn University started with what is recognized as three historic buildings. United States Senator Hiram R. Revels resigned his seat when he accepted the position as Alcorn's first president. The state legislature provided $50,000 in cash for ten successive years for the establishment and overall operations of the college. The state also granted Alcorn three-fifths of the proceeds earned from the sale of of land scrip for agricultural or land grant colleges under federal legislation. The land was sold for $188,928 with Alcorn receiving a share of $113,400. This money was to be used solely to support the agricultural and mechanical components of the college, which Congress wanted to develop nationally. From its beginning, Alcorn State University was a land-grant college. In 1878, the name Alcorn University was changed to Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College. The university's original of land have been expanded to develop a campus. The goals for the college set by the Mississippi legislature following the Reconstruction era emphasized training for blacks rather than academic education. The school, like other black schools during these years, was less a college than a vocational school intended to prepare students for the agricultural economy of the state and of most of their hometowns. At first the school was exclusively for black males, but women were admitted in 1895. Today, women outnumber men at the university 1800 to 1200. Alcorn began with eight faculty members in 1871. Today the faculty and staff number more than 500. The student body has grown from 179 mostly local male students to more than 4,000 students from all over the world. In 1974, Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College was renamed Alcorn State University, representing the development of its programs. Governor William L. Waller signed House Bill 298 granting university status to Alcorn and the other state-supported colleges. Alcorn had already become a more diversified university, with graduate programs. It provides an undergraduate education that enables students to continue their work in graduate and professional schools, engage in teaching, and enter other professions. It also provides graduate education to equip students for further training in specialized fields. In 2020, MacKenzie Scott donated $25 million to Alcorn State. Her donation is the largest single gift in Alcorn State's history. Alcorn State is accredited, with seven schools and degree programs in more than 50 areas, including a nursing and a Master of Business Administration program. The facilities number approximately 80 modern structures with an approximate value of $71 million. Academics. Alcorn State is the second largest historically black college or university (HBCU) and the fifth largest university in Mississippi with an enrollment of approximately 3,700 undergraduate students and 600 graduate students. The university has seven schools, offering more than 50 different fields of study. Alcorn State University consistently ranks among the top 25 HBCUs in the nation according to the annual U.S. News & World Report HBCU rankings. Alcorn State University is the only HBCU in Mississippi with a comprehensive nursing program. Alcorn's honors program is an option for highly qualified undergraduate students seeking to enhance their academic experience and leadership skills. Master of Business Administration (MBA) program. Alcorn State University offers a Master of Business Administration (MBA) program through its Natchez campus. Classes are conducted in the evening. Students may join the live lecture classes via a live internet feed. The program is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP), a global accrediting body for business degree programs. The MBA program has been popular with international and out-of-state students. Global programs. Besides coordinating study-abroad opportunities, Global Programs brings worldwide perspectives to campus through exchange programs and special events. Pre-professional programs. Alcorn offers pre-professional programs to better prepare students for a transition to specialized studies in the fields of law, engineering, nursing, physical therapy, medicine, pharmacy and dentistry. Accreditation. Alcorn State University is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award the Associate, Bachelor's, Master's, and Specialist in Education degrees. Alcorn's teacher education program is accredited by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education. The Bachelor of Science in Nutrition and Dietetics is accredited by the American Dietetics Association. The Associate of Science in Nursing degree, the Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree, and the Master of Science in Nursing degree programs are accredited by the National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission. Alcorn State University is an accredited institutional member of the National Association of Schools of Music, the National Association of Industrial Technology, and the American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences. Locations. The main campus is located in Lorman, an unincorporated area in Claiborne County, Mississippi. The Nursing School and the Business School's Master of Business Administration (MBA) program are located in Natchez, Mississippi. The university also has a class center in Vicksburg. Main campus. Male residence halls include Medgar Wiley Evers Heritage Village Complex and Hiram Revels Hall. Female residence halls include Medgar Wiley Evers Heritage Village Complex buildings A and B, John Burrus Hall, and the Female Honors Residence Hall. Recent Campus Additions include: Current and planned construction projects include: Athletics. Alcorn State's 15 NCAA Division I level varsity teams compete in the Southwestern Athletic Conference. Sounds of Dyn-O-mite. Alcorn State University's marching band was founded in the 1960s; the band is known as the "Sounds of Dyn-O-mite" (SOD). Led by four or five drum majors, SOD has more than 190+ members. The "Golden Girls" (GGs) is the danceline that has been featured with SOD since its inception. Founded in 1968, the GGs is the oldest danceline (no twirling batons) featured with a HBCU marching band which is why they often refer to themselves as the "Mother of the HBCU dancelines." Notable alumni.

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A free union is a romantic union between two or more persons without legal or religious recognition or regulation. The term has been used since the late 19th century to describe a relationship into which all parties enter, remain, and depart freely. The free union is an alternative to, or rejection or criticism of marriage, viewing it as a form of slavery and human ownership, particularly for women. According to this concept, the free union of adults is a legitimate relationship that should be respected. A free union is made between two individuals, but each individual may have several unions of their own. History. Much of the contemporary tradition of free union under natural law or common law comes from anarchist rejection of marriage, seeking non-interference of either church or state in human relations. Leaving behind what was seen as law imposed by man in favor of natural law began during the late Enlightenment, when many sought to rethink the laws of property, family, and the status of women. Utopian socialist Robert Owen (1771–1858), who decried marriage as principally linked to the principle of ownership, offers a foretaste of the free union by use of the term "marriage contract in front of nature." Philosopher and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) stated, "Marriage is an affirmation of the supremacy of man over woman [...] if I love a man, I want to love him while keeping my freedom." In the 1882, Élisée Reclus initiated the Anti-Marriage Movement, in accordance with which he and his partner allowed their two daughters to marry without any civil or religious ceremony, despite public and legal condemnation. Reclus had four partners throughout his lifetime, each with a different social contract. In more modern times, free unions were common among members of the Spanish anarchist CNT political party during the popular revolution that ran alongside the Spanish Civil War. The couple desiring contractual validation of their relationship would simple go to the Party Headquarters and request the forms, which would be destroyed if the relationship were to not work out. The couple however, were strongly encouraged to make it work, as separation created administrative work for the party. Additionally, many leading 20th Century intellectuals, including James Joyce, Pablo Picasso and their partners, and Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir never chose to marry, or delayed it until the end of life for legal reasons. De Beauvoir said of the institution, "When we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy that it implies, then the 'division' of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form." Contemporary law. In French law, the "union libre" is an agreement between adults which grants rights between parents and potential children, but holds no obligation of sexual fidelity, nor does it grant reciprocal duties and rights between partners. A free union can be between individuals of any gender, and an individual may have several concurrently, therefore making free union an option for LGBTQ or polyamorous relationships, as well as heterosexual and/or monogamous ones that do not wish to enter the contract of marriage for historical, social, or financial reasons. United States law has no exact legal equivalent of a free union, although comparisons are often made to common law marriage. In the United States, partners wishing to have legal rights without entering into a marriage contract may choose to complete documents such as a healthcare proxy, domestic partnership agreement, will, and power of attorney. Members of a free union may refer to each other as partners, spouses, or any other title, but may find themselves subject to the laws of common law marriage if they consistently refer to themselves as husband and wife according to their local jurisdiction. Roman Catholic criticism. According to Catholicism, the expression "free union" includes situations such as concubinage, rejection of marriage as such, or inability to make long-term commitments. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, being in a "free union" is a grave offense against the dignity of marriage, which it sees as a Sacrament. However, proponents maintain that the free union acts as a public recognition of a relationship without the obligations of church or state.

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The Kovan double murders was a double murder case that occurred on 10 July 2013 at Hillside Drive, Singapore. The murders were committed in the home of one of the victims, 67-year-old Tan Boon Sin. The other is his 42-year-old son, Tan Chee Heong, whose body was dragged for 1 km, under a car driven by the killer before being dislodged outside Kovan MRT station. Iskandar bin Rahmat, a senior sergeant policeman, was arrested and tried for the murders, and was condemned to hang for the murders. Currently, Iskandar remains incarcerated on death row at Changi Prison, awaiting his execution, which was not scheduled due to a pending legal proceeding. The crime. Incident at Kovan MRT Station. On the afternoon of 10 July 2013, commuters at Kovan MRT station witnessed a silver Toyota Camry driving past, with the body of a man being dragged face-down under the car itself, with his belt stuck to the underside of the car and a trail of blood following it. Seeing this, about 15 to 20 cars honked at it to stop but to no avail. It was only when the car drove past the MRT station then the body was completely dislodged outside the station. Police were contacted and the body was later found to have head injuries and neck injuries. There were also a total of 20 stab wounds found on the body, 17 of them were mainly at the head, neck and chest. Discovery of the second victim and eyewitness accounts. The police followed the blood trail, which stretched over 1 km and ended outside a house in Hillside Drive. The police were greeted by another corpse, that of an elderly man with a total of 27 knife wounds on his body, mostly at his head, neck and chest. There were sock prints found in a linear path, stained in blood. A lane along Upper Serangoon Road and roads leading to Hillside Drive were closed by the police, leading to a massive traffic jam. Crowds also gathered around the house and where the first body was found. Both places were cordoned off for more than eight hours. Before the horror at Kovan MRT station, there was an eyewitness - Salamah, a 28-year-old maid from a neighbour's house - who earlier saw the younger victim, who was said to be the elderly man's son, clutching his bleeding neck wound and collapsed in front of the house, and she claimed she saw another man running out of the house and got into the silver car to make his escape, which ran over the man's body and caused it to be dragged under the car, culminating into the scene that horrified members of the public at the MRT station. Anthony Fabian, a 56-year-old caretaker of a nearby vacant, disused school building, also saw the suspected killer moving the car over the younger victim's body and dragged it under the car; he claimed that after seeing this, he tried to shout at the driver to alert him but failed to catch up. These two people would become the prosecution's witnesses in the murder trial of the suspected Kovan double killer. The victims. The next day, the Toyota Camry, which belonged to the older victim, was found parked outside an apartment in Eunos. By then, the police had classified the case as murder, and established the identities of the victims. The older victim was 67-year-old Tan Boon Sin (陈文新 chén wén xīn), while the younger victim found at Kovan MRT Station was his 42-year-old elder son Tan Chee Heong (陈志雄 chén zhì xióng). According to his family, friends, colleagues and neighbours, Boon Sin was a very nice and hard-working person, a caring employer to his co-workers, and a kind, jovial and even-tempered man who was close to his wife and three children (including Chee Heong) and never smoke or gamble. Boon Sin's widow also said that her husband had never once resorted to violence even during the couple's arguments, and was someone she could trust her life with. A Malaysian employee of Boon Sin's car workshop recalled the kindness his late employer showed him when he handed him his six months' worth of salary even when he was not working to take care of his ailing wife in Malaysia. As for Chee Heong, he was said to be a university graduate and owner of an electronics business married with two sons, both aged 10 and 3 respectively at the time of his death. Chee Heong was described as a responsible family man to his wife and sons, and also a filial son to his parents. The investigations also revealed that Boon Sin was last seen alive at around 1 pm on that fateful afternoon, according to an employee who told police that the older victim had told him he had to leave and that he had reportedly withdrawn some items from the safe deposit box. By then, there were speculations over the motive behind the murder by the media, including a possible business dispute, but Boon Sin's car workshop business was strong and healthy, which dismissively refuted this particular theory. Arrest of the suspect. On 12 July 2013, the suspect was discovered to be eating and then arrested at Restoran Singgah Selalu in Danga Bay, Johor Bahru, Malaysia by plainclothes police officers from the Royal Malaysia Police (RMP). Investigations by the Singapore Police Force (SPF) had established that the suspect was a 34-year-old police officer, Senior Staff Sergeant Iskandar bin Rahmat from the SPF in the Bedok Police Division. This information was revealed only after Iskandar was brought back to Singapore. Iskandar had applied for a day's leave on the day of the murders from his supervisor and at 11 pm on the night itself, Iskandar had left Singapore into Johor, Malaysia via the Causeway on a scooter. Iskandar and some of the RMP officers involved were regulars of the seafood restaurant, which was a popular eating spot for Singaporeans who came into Malaysia across the Woodlands Checkpoint. Upon receiving the news of the suspect's arrest, Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean thanked the RMP, saying this was "an excellent example of the close and deeply valued partnership the law enforcement agencies of both countries have built over many decades". Extradition and charges: Reactions to arrest. Soon after his arrest, Iskandar was extradited back to Singapore on 13 July, and two days later, he was charged in the State Courts of Singapore for the murders of the father and son, Tan Boon Sin and Tan Chee Heong. By then, the DPM Teo Chee Hean and Police Commissioner Ng Joo Hee had addressed the public and reporters about his arrest in a press conference, and for the first time, they revealed Iskandar's identity. This revelation brought a shock to all Singaporeans, including former police officers, MPs and netizens, that a senior policeman was involved in the double deaths at Kovan. Not only did Teo offered his condolences to the bereaved families of the victims, he also expressed his shock over the first time when he heard that the suspect was a senior policeman, and his actions had tarnished the reputation of the Singapore Police Force. Teo also reiterated that there is zero tolerance for police officers who broke the law and his confidence that justice will be impartially served and asked the Police Commissioner to tell every police officer to perform their duties diligently to maintain the trust between the public and the police. Ng similarly stated that the identity of the suspect as a policeman made the investigating officers more resolved to solve the case. He stated in the press conference that it was painful to discover that a policeman was involved, and they would investigate why a policeman who sworn to fulfil his duty to uphold the law had broke it "in the most grievous way". He also acknowledged that due to the actions of Iskandar, there would be a public outcry, critically questioning the integrity and quality of the police force, but he stated that they would take every criticism in their own stride. He said that they will "prosecute him (Iskandar) to the greatest and maximum extent", and will ensure that they will not allow the tragedy to cause the public to lose their trust in the police. Additionally, the residents at Hillside Drive expressed their relief to reporters when the suspect is arrested. Upon receiving news of Iskandar's arrest and his identity as a police officer, the bereaved Tan family demanded justice and expressed their shame that a policeman was involved in the deaths of Boon Sin and Chee Heong. Remand of the suspect and funeral of Kovan victims. After Iskandar was charged, District judge Kessler Koh adjourned the case to the following week's Monday (22 July 2013) and Iskandar was remanded in police custody for further investigations. He was also taken to the crime scene to make an re-enactment of the alleged double murders, and was given an suspension from duty without pay by the police force. At the same time, a funeral was conducted at Teochew Funeral Parlour in Ubi for both Kovan victims and they were cremated on 16 July 2013. More than 100 relatives and friends attended the funeral, and several plainclothes policemen were deployed to inform reporters to keep their distance from the family. More visitors, including the long-time customers of Boon Sin's car workshop and the Workers' Party Members of Parliaments (MPs) Sylvia Lim (from Aljunied GRC) and Lee Li Lian (from Punggol East) also came to the funeral to pay their respects. Additionally, the police commissioner Ng Joo Hee also attended the funeral to offer his condolences to the family. According to "The Straits Times", the unnamed widow of Chee Heong, was devastated and inconsolable as her husband's coffin was pushed into the cremation chambers of Mandai Crematorium, and Chee Heong's unnamed elder son, who only received news of his father's death a few days later, also teared up when it was his turn to carry his father's photo while the younger son innocently waved at the coffins and say goodbye to his father. Ong Ah Tang, the widow of Boon Sin, with whom she was married for 40 years, was too distraught to take part in the Buddhist funeral rites. 39-year-old Tan Chee Wee, the younger son of Boon Sin, tearfully made a promise to his father and brother in Hokkien that he will take on the responsibility to take care of the family, and to treat his brother's children as his own. Even the teachers and counsellors from the school of Chee Heong's elder son were sent to help the Primary Four student and his family to cope through the double loss and difficult time they suffered. The drawings made by Chee Heong's two sons were placed in the two victims' coffins before they were cremated. 49-year-old Ong Boon Kok, an uncle of Chee Heong, also thanked the police for their part in investigations and the members of the public (including the eye-witnesses) who assisted in investigations, as well as the people who helped the family to cope through their sufferings. On 26 July 2013, Iskandar was remanded at the Changi Prison Complex Medical Centre for psychiatric evaluation. He also reportedly told his lawyers that he wanted to claim trial to all the charges against him. Iskandar bin Rahmat. Iskandar bin Rahmat, a Singaporean of Malay descent, was born on 3 February 1979. He was the only son of his family and had a sister. Not much is known about Iskandar's childhood or early life before his career and the murders. It is inferred from his Facebook page (which was eventually deleted) that he was very close to his family and that he also had a grandmother who died in 2009; an unnamed family friend told Channel NewsAsia that Iskandar was single and works to support his family financially. Iskandar was known to have a hobby of collecting vintage bikes (including the scooter which he used to flee Singapore). After completing his 4-year secondary school education and O-levels at Victoria School, Iskandar was enrolled in Singapore Polytechnic, where he studied for a year before dropping out. He then went on to serve National Service in the Singapore Police Force (SPF) and in March 1999, he formally joined the force as a corporal. Iskandar served with the Bedok Police Division and in 2007, Iskandar successfully applied to become an investigation officer. The SPF sponsored his diploma studies in management and police studies in Temasek Polytechnic, which he completed in 2012. He was an investigation officer until January 2013 and was said to have performed well in his work and received many commendations. A letter of appreciation from a Bedok resident had once praised Iskandar for his "outstanding work" when the resident filed a complaint about "noise pollution" in the neighbourhood and how Iskandar managed it well. This also led to the commanding officer praising him as "deserving of being the pride of Bedok North NPC". By the time of the double homicide case in Kovan, Iskandar had attained a rank of senior staff sergeant in the SPF. Iskandar was said to be crippled by debt and in deep financial trouble before and at the time of the murders. The debt was incurred from his previous marriage with an unnamed woman in 2003, where he made three bank loans - a housing loan, a renovation loan and a car loan - from Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC), which amounted to a few hundred thousand in SGD. After his divorce in early 2005, Iskandar sold his car and HDB flat to pay off some of his debts, and went to live with his parents and sister in a three-room flat at Kim Keat Avenue, and he also went on to pay off his debt by part-payments. As of June 2013, Iskandar owed the bank about S$61,599.66. A bankruptcy application was filed against Iskandar on 4 October 2012 and it was served on him at his workplace on 25 October 2012. In January 2013, Iskandar failed to declare his financial situation and difficulties like he did annually (it is a requirement for civil servants in Singapore to declare annually that they are not financially embarrassed like facing debt or undischarged bankruptcy). This led to disciplinary hearings held against Iskandar, and as a result, he was reassigned to perform administrative duties and barred from carrying arms. He was also given three months to settle his debts. According to Iskandar's superior Senior Station Inspector Nurussufyan bin Ali, Iskandar appeared confident of clearing his debt. Iskandar's performance at work was unaffected by the disciplinary hearings and investigations, said Nurussufyan, who described Iskandar as "a good worker, efficient and knowledgable". Deputy superintendent (DSP) Borhan bin Said, Iskandar's disciplinary officer, also testified that he reminded Iskandar of prioritising over paying off his debts when he heard that Iskandar went on a haj pilgrimage to Mecca despite his debts, claiming that he told Iskandar that he could have used the money he spent on the pilgrimage to pay off his debt, which amounted to more than three times his own salary. Despite the financial pressure, Iskandar never once discussed these to his family, girlfriend and acquaintances, and maintained a cheerful outlook to people known to him. An out-of-court settlement was offered by Iskandar to the bank's lawyer on 3 July 2013, in which he would make a full payment of $50,000. It was agreed, but Iskandar was ordered to pay it the next day. Later on, it was negotiated that Iskandar would pay the agreed amount by 11 July 2013 if he want to avoid bankruptcy. However, Iskandar did not pay by that deadline, hence he was declared bankrupt on 11 July, the day after he killed Tan Boon Sin and Tan Chee Heong. At the same time, due to his financial embarrassment, Iskandar faces a possible dismissal from the police force. Iskandar told the officers in his disciplinary hearing that he would borrow money from his cousin to pay off the debt (in fact, Iskandar did not have a cousin). The officer in charge had also mentioned to Iskandar that discharging his debts would help mitigate the consequences if he was found guilty of his failure to declare his financial problems. It was then Iskandar recalled that Tan Boon Sin had made a police report in November 2012 over a case of theft in his safety deposit box at Certis Cisco, and he was the investigating officer before the case was reassigned to another police officer. Out of desperation, Iskander decided to form a plan to rob the old man of his money in order to pay off his debts. Trial. Pre-trial conferences. On 6 September 2013, it was reported that Iskandar was assessed to be not of unsound mind and fit to plead and stand trial. His first pre-trial conference was set on 24 September after Iskandar undergone a further psychiatric examination while in remand. After the first pre-trial conference, Iskandar's lawyers told newspapers that Iskandar was likely to stand trial after March 2014, and another pre-trial conference was set in January 2014, due to the large number of court exhibits and police evidence sent for DNA analysis and the test results would only come out by then. On 19 October 2015, it was confirmed that Iskandar would officially go to trial on 20 October 2015. Beginning of Kovan double murder trial. The Kovan double murder trial began on 20 October 2015. Iskandar stood trial for the double charges of murder, which came under Section 300(a) of the Penal Code, which constitutes an offence of murder with intention to kill, and thus carries the mandatory death penalty if found guilty. Iskandar, whose case was heard before High Court judge Tay Yong Kwang of the High Court, was represented by a defence counsel of six lawyers, led by Mr Shashi Nathan. The trial received significant media attention, and there were 16 out of more than 100 witnesses testifying in the trial. Many members of the public, including law students, reporters and curious onlookers came to the court to witness the proceedings in the Kovan double murder trial. Forensic evidence and murder weapon. One of these witnesses, was associate professor and senior forensic consultant pathologist Dr Gilbert Lau from the Health Sciences Authority (HSA), who conducted an autopsy on the deceased father and son. Dr Lau testified in court that the elder victim Tan Boon Sin sustained 12 stab wounds and 15 incised wounds, which included five wounds to the neck, seven to the chest and nine to the face or scalp. All the wounds were likely to have been inflicted by a sharp instrument like a knife. What caused the elderly man's death were a deep and gaping incised wound that measured 8 cm by 5 cm across the front of the neck, which would have caused severe bleeding, and a 13 cm deep chest wound. There were four defensive wounds on the arms of the elder victim, and some defensive injuries on his fingers. As for the younger victim Tan Chee Heong, he sustained seven stab wounds and 13 incised wounds. There were four wounds to the neck and 13 to the face or scalp. A deep neck wound on Chee Heong, which measured 7 to 8 cm deep and had cut through three major blood vessels, was the injury that killed him. He had three defensive wounds on his forearm and also some injuries that resulted from the dragging by the car. Chee Heong's tooth was found outside the house, though it is not known how it was dislodged. When asked about the sequence of injuries inflicted, Dr Lau reportedly replied, "Stabbings are just so dynamic. Various injuries could have been inflicted in various ways. It is very difficult to determine the precise sequence... it may be possible on , but not in real life." As he was testifying and presenting his autopsy findings in court on the third day of the trial (26 October 2015), Dr Lau faced a severe cross-examination from defence lawyer Shashi Nathan, who put it to him that Iskandar had done the stabbing out of self-defence, which the pathologist rejected on the stand. Dr Lau, in return, stated that should it be the case that Boon Sin indeed attacked Iskandar, he would have conducted an autopsy on Iskandar instead. He said it would really require the inquiry of why Iskandar did the stabbing for twelve times instead of once, twice or thrice, labelling it as an excessive form of self-defence. Iskandar described that the knife used to stab the victims was a normal kitchen knife; he said that the knife had a grooved blade. From the handle to the tip, it was slightly shorter than the breadth of an A4-sized piece of paper. He also drew a sketch of what the knife looked like, drawing many small circles along the entire length of the cutting edge. He would later on say in his defence that the elder victim Tan Boon Sin used it to attack him when discovering his plan to rob him, and that he did not arm himself with a knife. However, the knives owned by the Tan family were all flat-edged. The fishing knives owned by Boon Sin, who liked to go fishing, were also too short. The murder weapon as described by Iskandar was never recovered, even from the location where Iskandar told police he disposed the weapon, as well as his bloodstained clothes. It was the case of the prosecution, from the above evidence, that the knife belonged to Iskandar and he armed himself with it to commit robbery and murder; however the defence argued that Iskandar was never armed and for the issue of who owned that particular knife, the defence lawyers representing Iskandar had subjected Boon Sin's widow Mdm Ong Ah Tang to extensive cross-examination. Regarding the issue of the knife while Dr Lau took the stand, Deputy Public Prosecutor Lau Wing Yum (unrelated to Dr Gilbert Lau) of the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC), who led the 4-member prosecution team, asked Dr Lau if the alleged murder knife could have caused the injuries. Dr Lau said that it could cause most of the injuries, but if the sketch was up to scale, the 9.2 cm-long blade would not have been able to cause two wounds on the older Mr Tan that were 11 cm and 13 cm deep. He also did not rule out the possibility of two knives being used during the murders, when cross-examined by the defence counsel. Iskandar's version of the case. On 29 October 2015, Iskandar elected to put up his defence. On the stand, the former police officer's recount of the events was consistent with his police statements, and he maintained that the deaths were a result of a poorly conceived robbery that gone wrong. He claimed that his intention was only to rob Tan Boon Sin by cheating him, grab the money and run. He also stated he was sorry and regretful for killing the victims. He recounted that day when he contacted Boon Sin, he introduced himself as Rahman instead of his real name Iskandar bin Rahmat, and pretended to be an intelligence officer wanting to conduct a sting operation to help Boon Sin catch the thief. He then took a dummy surveillance camera with him and a wristlet before meeting up with Boon Sin, whom he convinced to take out his valuables from the Certis Cisco and at the place, he installed the dummy surveillance camera and offered to escort Boon Sin back home; on the way he pretended to be talking to his "partner" on a fake walkie-talkie, which was made out of the wristlet he took from his home. A witness named Hor Boon Long confirmed this when he testified on the first day of the trial that he saw Iskandar together on the car with Boon Sin when Boon Sin's car cut in ahead of him in a queue of cars leaving a petrol station to the road, leading to him alighting his car to confront the men and thus saw what he told the court in his testimony. After this, the then police officer and Boon Sin reached Boon Sin's house in Hillside Drive, where Boon Sin offered Iskandar a drink and Iskandar stayed on to smoke while waiting for an opportunity to steal the money while the old man was not looking and maintaining the facade that his "partner" was on the way. It was at this juncture when Iskandar claimed, his ploy was later seen through and as a result, Boon Sin turned aggressive and went at him with a knife. Iskandar claimed that he acted in self-defence out of fear for his life and fatally injured Boon Sin, who collapsed next to the house's organ. The younger victim Tan Chee Heong, who had just arrived at his father's home, had discovered the murder of his father. At sight of his father's body and Iskandar, Chee Heong went at Iskandar, who turned around and saw Chee Heong after hearing someone calling the word "Pa", and out of panic, Iskandar claimed that he swung the knife wildly and was engaged in a sudden fight with Chee Heong. Iskandar stabbed him out of self-defence. Chee Heong collapsed after he staggered out of the house through the gates. He then quickly get onto Boon Sin's car and used it a get-away to escape the house; unknowingly to Iskandar, the belt of the younger Tan was caught under the car, which led to the dragging of the younger victim's body for 1 km before its complete dislodge at Kovan MRT station. He thought that the cars honked at him due to the bloodstains on the side of the car. On the day of the killings, according to Iskandar's superior, he received a request from Iskandar to have an urgent leave because he wanted to meet up with his cousin, which the superior agree and asked Iskandar to update him about it. The next day, through WhatsApp, Iskandar informed his superior that he fled to Malaysia because he knew he would be made a bankrupt, and wanted to resign from the police force despite attempts by the superior to dissuade him. The superior was said to be shocked over Iskandar's arrest for the alleged murders he committed at Kovan. According to Iskandar's police statements, during the two days on the run, he went to seek treatment for his wound on his right hand in a clinic in Johor. After lying to the doctor that the injury was a result of knocking into a lamp post while falling off his motorcycle, the doctor sutured his wounds and prescribed some antibiotics for him. Other than that, Iskandar spent his time living in hotels in Johor Bahru before his arrest at Restoran Singgah Selalu. The defence's arguments. Iskandar's lawyer Shashi Nathan argued about his client's lack of intention to kill, urging the court to accept both his defences of a sudden fight and self-defence and to convict him of a lesser charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, which carries the penalty of life imprisonment or up to 20 years' imprisonment, with the offender liable to caning or a fine. He said that, even if Iskandar had exceeded his right to self-defence and had committed murder, he should be convicted of a lesser limb of murder with lack of intention to kill under Section 300(c) of the Penal Code, which constitutes "an act where a person intentionally inflict a bodily injury on another person, and the bodily injury itself is sufficient in the ordinary cause of nature to cause death", for which the punishment is either a sentence of death or life imprisonment with/without caning. "I'm not asking you to acquit him of murder. He knows he has killed two people. He knows he has to suffer the consequences," Nathan told the court. "He did intend to cause injuries to get away from them... He never intended to kill them." Additionally, Nathan also said that the large number of injuries did not necessarily mean an intention to kill. He noted that there was no concrete evidence to show that his client had armed himself beforehand and the benefit of the doubt must be given to his client. He pointed out that if Iskandar had been searching the house, his bloodstained sock prints would be in all directions but in this case, they were in a linear path. The prosecution's arguments. As for the prosecution's case, the events before the murders were largely similar to that of the defence's case, and to Iskandar's police statements. However, DPP Lau Wing Yum argued that the double killings were premeditated. They argued that Iskandar should be convicted as charged for committing murder with intention to kill. They pointed out that Iskandar had intended to commit murder by arming himself with a knife, and that the number of stab wounds on the body, the location of the knife wounds (on the head, chest and neck), and the nature of these injuries were altogether an irreversible indication that Iskandar had intended to kill and silence the victims should his plot be discovered. They argued that the trail of sock prints could only mean that Iskandar had went to search for the valuables after killing Boon Sin before the arrival of Chee Heong (as there was only Boon Sin's DNA found on the sock prints) instead of looking for a towel to clean himself as what he claimed in the statements. They also claimed that Iskandar in fact hid in ambush and waited for Chee Heong to enter the house before killing him. They pointed out that Tan Boon Sin has a completely degenerated cartilage at his right knee, which made him having difficulty to walk or getting up from a sitting position (it was earlier revealed that Boon Sin was due to go for a knee operation not long after 10 July 2013, according to Boon Sin's orthopaedic surgeon Dr Kevin Lee). Despite the fact that his weight and height was comparatively close to those of Iskandar's, Boon Sin was much older than Iskandar, which made him a whole lot less agile in his lower limb movements. This also shown that Boon Sin could not have possibly be able to charge at Iskandar. Besides, in Chee Heong's case, even though he was 4 cm taller than the 173-cm-tall Iskandar, Chee Heong, whose weight is 56 kg, was 27 kg lighter than Iskandar, whose weight is 83 kg, so there is no doubt that the harm done was excessive for self-defence since Chee Heong was not really physically threatening to him. The prosecutors also pointed out the absence of defensive wounds on Iskandar, other than a superficial bite wound on his left hand (left by Boon Sin before his death) and a deep cut on his right palm, has further disputed the defence of self-defence or sudden fight. The prosecution also conceded that even if there was no intention to kill from the start, this formed when the plan began to fall apart which might risk expose his identity and robbery plan. Iskandar's lack of explanation of why he inflict so many wounds on the victims and the inconsistencies between his account and the objective evidence were also included in the arguments of the prosecution in favour of a conviction of murder. After a nine-day trial, the defence and prosecution made their closing submissions on 23 November 2015, and the judgement was reserved until 4 December 2015. Verdict. On 4 December 2015, more than 2 years after the deaths of both Tan Boon Sin and Tan Chee Heong in Kovan, Justice Tay Yong Kwang delivered his verdict, with around 60 people (including the victims' families and Iskandar's family) sitting in the courtroom to hear it. Justice Tay found Iskandar bin Rahmat guilty of murder under Section 300(a) of the Penal Code, and sentenced him to death. In convicting Iskandar of murder, Justice Tay found that he had attacked the victims "cruelly and relentlessly with the clear intention of causing death" as shown by the wounds found on the vital areas of the victims' corpses. He did not believe that Boon Sin, a generally calm and mild-tempered person, would suddenly turn aggressive and wield a knife after welcoming Iskandar to his home. He also said that Chee Heong was "collateral damage" and Iskandar killed him to silence him for witnessing the murder of his father. Justice Tay thus rejected the defences put up by Iskandar, and he also pointed out in the judgement that there are four golden opportunities for Iskandar to be able to grab the money and run without having to attract the attention of Boon Sin if it was true that he indeed had no intent to hurt anyone or merely to just take the money and run. Justice Tay also found that Iskandar was actually armed beforehand since he was precise with the description of the knife, meaning he had time to observe it before it became stained with blood during Iskandar's murderous rampage. The judge also said that Iskandar's plan to rob Boon Sin was "foolhardly" since it involved many contigencies. Despite his dismissal of Iskandar's account and defence, he did accept that Iskandar did not ambush Chee Heong and kill him based on the review of the forensic evidence and that he had no intention of using the car as a "mean murder machine" to deliberately get Chee Heong's body to be dragged under the car to kill him while he drove it to escape the crime scene. Nearing the end of his judgement, Justice Tay commended the police officers in charge of the investigation for their part in the swift arrest of Iskandar (as assisted by the Royal Malaysian Police), and their unbiasedness and objective attitudes in the investigations of the double deaths at Kovan despite the accused being a police officer. He also gratefully addressed both the prosecution and the defence for their efforts, professional attitude and conduct in the course of the trial, allowing the trial's conclusion to take place within a short period of time. Iskandar was reportedly emotionless as the High Court found him guilty and convict him of the murders. Justice Tay pronounced and passed the mandatory death sentence on Iskandar as everyone in the court was told to stand and keep silent while the judge did so. Shashi Nathan later confirmed that his client will be appealing against his sentence and conviction. Reactions to the High Court verdict. On 8 December 2015, 4 days after the conclusion of the murder trial, a press conference was held by the bereaved Tan family. Tan Boon Sin's 42-year-old daughter Tan Siew Ling, son Tan Chee Wee and their uncle Ong Boon Kok spoke to reporters from the "Straits Times" in the Hillside Drive house (where the murders took place), telling them about their feelings towards the case. Chee Wee said that the verdict was expected but its outcome could not heal the pain continually endured by the family from the incident, and in his words, he reportedly said, "A happy family was broken in seconds. Life has changed for us totally." The widow of Boon Sin, who was not present at the time of the media interview, continued to live alone in the house after the murders. The family also expressed their gratitude to the police officers and the prosecution for bringing Iskandar to justice, as well as the kindness and condolences of many strangers. Boon Sin's widow was reported to have been struggling with accepting the deaths of her husband and son, and had not made any reaction to the Kovan murder verdict. As for Iskandar's family, it was reported that they were saddened to hear that Iskandar was sentenced to serve a mandatory death sentence for the double murder. Iskandar's friends, who were also present in the courtroom when Iskandar was sentenced, were also equally saddened at the sentence. Appeal. Hearing of the appeal. On 26 October 2016, Iskandar's appeal was heard in the Court of Appeal, before three judges, Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon and Judges of Appeal Chao Hick Tin and Andrew Phang. The newly appointed defence counsel (led by defence lawyer Wendell Wong) presented the arguments which were made in the original trial to the Court of Appeal. Not only did they raised the original defences of sudden fight and self-defence, they also raised a new defence of diminished responsibility by submitting a psychiatric report that diagnosed that Iskandar was suffering from adjustment disorder and acute stress reaction at the time of the murders, and he was depressed by his potential bankruptcy and dismissal from the police force. The prosecution, in turn, argued that the medical report is ought to be rejected, describing it as "self-serving". The judgement was reserved until 3 February 2017. Appeal dismissed. On 3 February 2017, the same day when Iskandar celebrated his 38th birthday, the Court of Appeal released their decision, with Justice Andrew Phang delivering the court's decision. By a unanimous decision, the Court of Appeal dismissed Iskandar's appeal, and upheld his death sentence. The three-judge panel found Iskandar had intended to kill both Tan Boon Sin and Tan Chee Heong and described his account as "incredible" and "unbelievable". Justice Phang read out, "Even if his incredible account of a rob-and-run ploy were true, any right of self-defence belonged to the younger victim (Tan Chee Heong), who came home to the sight of his slain and bloodied father on the floor." He stressed in the court's judgement that the intention of murder "need not be pre-planned or premeditated, and can be formed on the spur of the moment". Like Justice Tay Yong Kwang in the original trial, they rejected Iskandar's defences of sudden fight and self-defence. Especially on the part of the younger victim, Justice Phang said that "(Chee Heong) had just witnessed (Iskandar) lowering his father’s limp and bloodied body on the floor. Furthermore, (Iskandar), who was much heavier than (Chee Heong), was still holding on to the knife at the time. It would have been only natural for (Chee Heong) to try and apprehend (Iskandar) and defend his father". The judges also rejected the newly raised defence of diminished responsibility, questioning why it was not brought up in the original trial or during Iskandar's time of psychiatric remand. They said, "Accused persons should and are expected to put their best case forward at the earliest time possible. Indeed, this court might exercise its discretion to reject such drip-feed applications in the future". After hearing the appeal verdict, Iskandar was given the chance to speak to his 16 family members and friends, including his parents and sister. Some of them wept. The family declined to speak to the media, and the victims' families were not present to hear the decision. Subsequent legal proceedings. Clemency petition and outcome. After the dismissal of his appeal, Iskandar filed for clemency from the President of Singapore in January 2018. Similarly, in February 2018, Iskandar's family also filed for clemency in hopes to have his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment. Both petitions were received by the President's Office to be reviewed and considered. In July 2019, more than 18 months after the submission of the clemency petitions, the Istana Office informed Iskandar's new lawyer, Mr Peter Ong Lip Cheng (who was the lawyer of the 15-year-old youth whom notorious killer Anthony Ler Wee Teang manipulated to murder his wife), that President Halimah Yacob, on the advice of the Cabinet, decided to dismiss Iskandar's clemency plea, which effectively finalized Iskandar's death sentence and thus condemning the former police officer to hang for the Kovan double murders. When asked about the outcome of the clemency petition, Mr Ong, who runs his own law firm, Peter Ong Law Corporation, said to the newspaper "The Straits Times", "This has been a very challenging task, given the circumstances of the case, and I tried my best." Allegations of former legal counsel's misconduct. Simultaneously, while he was under a sentence of death and awaiting the outcome of his clemency application, Iskandar filed a complaint against his original lawyers to have them subject to disciplinary tribunal for not handling the case ethically and properly. But it was dismissed by the Law Society of Singapore (LawSoc) in June 2019. Later on, Iskandar filed an appeal against this decision to the High Court, asking for a review of LawSoc's decision, but the High Court dismissed the appeal in October 2019. The judgement for this appeal to the High Court was released on 28 February 2020. Inside the judgement, High Court judge Valerie Thean, who heard the appeal, commented that the ex-police officer's "true discontentment, it seemed, was that the trial defence team had not prolonged his trial by use of all means imagined.". She also said that there is "no prima facie case of ethical breach or other misconduct" in the case of Iskandar's former lawyers to warrant a formal investigation on them. On 8 January 2021, it was reported that Iskandar was given an approval by the Court of Appeal to proceed with his appeal against the High Court's decision to dismiss his allegations of his former lawyers' misconduct, as the court ruled that the complainants who are pursuing disciplinary probes against lawyers have the right to appeal all the way to Singapore's highest court as they dismissed the application by LawSoc to strike out Iskandar's appeal. The appeal will be heard at a later date. Due to this, it is for certain that for the time being, Iskandar will not be hanged while pending this particular appeal. Legal challenge against the forwarding of letters by prisons to AGC. Not only the legal lawsuits against his lawyers, Iskandar was also involved in another lawsuit. The lawsuit was about claims that the private letters between the death row inmates and both their lawyers and families were being forwarded from prisons to the Attorney General's Chambers of Singapore (AGC), and it led to these said inmates pursuing legal proceedings against the AGC or its members for alleged breaches of conduct to protect the inmates' rights, misconduct in public office and seeking damages for any harm caused by such. Iskandar, together with 21 other death row inmates (most of whom sentenced for drug trafficking), were represented by human rights lawyer M Ravi to seek the identities of whoever ordered or carried out the sending of the inmates' information to the AGC. The lawsuit was dismissed on 16 March 2021. High Court judge See Kee Onn ruled that it may be allowed for prisons to make copies of the inmates' correspondence for screening and recording letters, they were not allowed to forward them to the AGC. Unless a prisoner consented so, the AGC will be denied access to these sources. However, the judge said that it was a mistake which the AGC had inadvertently overlooked instead of an attempt to gain advantage in the court proceedings. The judge said that the lawsuit is ought to not be dealt with in the courts but in the Law Society's Disciplinary Tribunal as the inmates' lawsuits "may potentially have a cause of action against the Government through a civil action filed against the AG", citing the potential risk should pre-action disclosures are allowed to be made against the Government. In his own words, Justice See said, "In my view, if pre-action disclosures could be ordered against the Government, it would conceivably create a situation where it could be easier to obtain information from the Government via pre-action disclosures than via the conventional discovery processes associated with judicial review." The inmates, including Iskandar, are ordered to pay $10 in costs for the lawsuit.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=31027064

Francisco Antonio de Cabello y Mesa (1764–1814) was a Spanish soldier and writer. He edited the first newspapers of the current nations of Peru, Argentina and Uruguay and founded "El telégrafo Mercantil" in Buenos Aires in 1801. He wrote under the pseudonym Jaime Bausate y Meza. Born in Extremadura, he joined the army without having completed law studies he had begun in Salamanca. He was sent to the Viceroyalty of Peru, where he was commissioned to defend the border of the province of Jauja, in the Amazon jungle, with the rank of colonel in 1790. Returning from that duty, he edited the first newspaper published in South America, called "The Curious Journal, Scholar and Trade", in Lima. He was one of the founders of the Patriotic Society of Friends of the Country, a typical group in the Age of Enlightenment. He was also an attorney from the Audiencia of Lima. In 1798 he went off to Spain, but his travels came to an end in Buenos Aires, for health reasons, and because he had difficulty finding passage. In the capital of the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata, he contacted local representatives of the Enlightenment, including Secretary of Consulate in Buenos Aires, Manuel Belgrano. He founded there the Society of Friends of the Country, but it was unsuccessful. This short-lived society had historical significance because, in partnership with the Consulate, the Society published the first newspaper in present-day Argentina, El Telegraph Commercial, Rural, Political, Economic and historiography, although it was not often known by its full name. The first issue appeared in April 1801, as a collaboration between Cabello, Manuel Belgrano and José de Lavardén. The last issue was published in October, 1802, after ten issues as a result of poor circulation and declining subscribers. Cabello belonged to the "Lodge Independence", active since 1805 in Buenos Aires, directed by Juan José Castelli, which intended to garner British support for separating the Spanish territories from their parent country. During the British invasion, many Creoles collaborated with the British. Many of them did so in secret, but Cabello agreed to hold a public position in the government of invading Governor William Carr Beresford. When the Reconquista occurred by the Creole and Spanish, Cabello was arrested and charged with treason against the King, and was taken prisoner at Montevideo. The following year, in 1807, Cabello was arrested in the eastern city during the second British invasion. He was released when that city fell into the hands of General Samuel Auchmuty, and his successor in command, John Whitelocke, put him in charge of the editorial of a newspaper in British propaganda, the Southern Star, a bilingual publication with which the British hoped to ingratiate themselves with the natives. After the Battle of Buenos Aires, which forced the British to withdraw also from Montevideo, the British invaders refused to take Cabello with them. He was arrested by order of Viceroy Liniers and sent, a prisoner to Spain, where he expected to be condemned to death. The French invasion of the peninsula saved his life for a few years. He was released, and joined the Liberal Party Spanish in Sevilla. He took refuge in Cadiz, protected by the English fleet, until the restoration of King Ferdinand VII of Spain. He could not escape more. He was shot in Seville in 1814.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=53747606

There are around 6,000 level crossings in the United Kingdom, of which about 1,500 are public highway crossings. This number is gradually being reduced as the risk of accidents at level crossings is considered high. The director of the UK Railway Inspectorate commented in 2004 that "the use of level crossings contributes the greatest potential for catastrophic risk on the railways." The creation of new level crossings on the national network is banned (the exception being reopening unavoidable crossings on new/reopening railway lines, and on heritage railways), with bridges and tunnels being the more favoured options. The cost of making significant reductions, other than by simply closing the crossings, is substantial; some commentators argue that the money could be better spent. Some 5,000 crossings are user-worked crossings or footpaths with very low usage. The removal of crossings can improve train performance and lower accident rates, as some crossings have low rail speed limits enforced on them to protect road users (e.g. AOCLs). In fact, between 1845 and 1933, there was a speed limit on level crossings of turnpike roads adjacent to stations for lines whose authorising Act of Parliament had been consolidated in the Railways Clauses Consolidation Act 1845 although this limit was at least sometimes (and possibly often) disregarded. History. Gated level crossings were mandatory from 1839, but initial rules were for the gates to be ordinarily kept closed across the highway. The original form of road level crossing on British railways dates from 1842 onwards, it consisted of two or four wooden gates (one or two on each side of the railway). When open to road traffic, the gates were closed across the railway to prevent horses and livestock inadvertently escaping onto the railway. The gates were operated by railway staff usually by hand or later by capstan wheel from a signal box and they were generally interlocked with the signal/s protecting the crossing. Where a signal box was not nearby but road traffic still warranted a full gated crossing a dedicated crossing keeper would be employed, often living in a railway-owned cottage adjacent to the crossing and in communication with the signal boxes via the telegraph system. In 1955 various European countries were visited and automatic crossings examined by two inspecting officers from the Railways Inspectorate (HMRI), two road engineers from the Ministry of Transport, and two officers from the British Transport Commission (see Hixon rail crash). They visited 46 crossings in 10 days in three countries; Belgium, France and the Netherlands. The report was signed on 14 March 1957, and automatic and automated crossings came into use, with the first automatically operated level crossing commencing operation at Spath near Uttoxeter in Staffordshire in May 1961. Automatic half-barrier crossings later came into being after another enquiry abroad in 1963, consisting of a single arm each side of the road, which block only oncoming traffic leaving the exits clear. Half barriers were originally considered to have an advantage as they had a short closure time and did not require to be interlocked with signals. After the Hixon rail crash in 1968, it became clear that more warnings were needed for large vehicles at AHBCs (Automatic Half Barrier Crossings). The vehicle in question (a low-load transporter carrying a large electrical transformer), despite being escorted by police, was struck by a train whilst crossing the tracks at on an AHBC installed a year before. The changes made to AHBCs were additional information signage, telephones to signal boxes and the addition of a preliminary amber light to the pair of red lights at all crossings (plus a now defunct 'Another train coming' illuminated box; now just a piece of signage is needed). Provision of telephones at these crossings had been opposed by Colonel Reed of the Railways Inspectorate (HMRI), although some BR managers still installed them. Colonel McMullen of HMRI had stated in 1957 that if AHBs (Automatic Half Barriers) were adopted "the principle must be recognised that it is the responsibility of the individual to protect himself from the hazards of the railway in the same was as from the hazards of the road". Wynns, the operator of the low-load transporter had received a terse reply from British Rail when they wrote about a near-disaster with a slow transporter in Leominster in 1966. The Automatic Open Crossing (now known as AOCL, with the L standing for Locally monitored) was introduced in 1963. These have no barriers, a St Andrew's Cross above each warning light, and have an indicator light to show correct working. The first to be installed was at Yafforth in North Yorkshire in 1963. These crossings were cheaper than installing AHBCs and were much suited to quiet country lanes, which is why many more were installed in the 1970s, albeit destined to be replaced by AOCRs (Automatic Open Crossing Remotely monitored) as they had a greater line speed potential and were even cheaper than AOCLs. The first of these AOCRs to be installed was at Naas crossing near Lydney, Gloucestershire in 1983. These continued to be installed until the Lockington rail crash occurred in 1986, which saw the demise of this type of crossing with nearly all AOCRs being upgraded to AHBCs. Only one remains in the UK at present; on the national network at Rosarie, near Keith, Moray. The Ufton Nervet rail crash in 2004 was an eye-opener for many people involved with level crossings and since then the highlight on crossing safety has increased, with crossings being closed or upgraded; most notably AOCLs being upgraded to Automatic Barrier Crossing Locally monitored (ABCL) status. In 2009 after the Halkirk crossing crash in Scotland, it was seen that the AOCLs on the network were the most dangerous crossing and a scheme to eradicate them was put forward. In order to do it quickly and cheaply, the full conversion to ABCL status was not done, and instead the simple addition of barriers to create an AOCL+B was the go to option. Upgrades and closures still continue into the future, with newer systems (and trials of different equipment) such as the AFBCL (Automatic Full Barrier Crossing Locally monitored) being installed in Ardrossan in 2018. Safety. After the Ufton Nervet rail crash, there have been increased efforts to review the placing of level crossings and to eliminate them where this is practicable. In the UK it has also been suggested that cameras similar to the type used to detect drivers who run traffic lights be deployed at level crossings, and that penalties for ignoring signals should be much more severe. British Transport Police typically prosecute motorists who jump the barriers, for either trespass or failing to conform with a traffic signal. A particular problem has been that the responsibility for road safety at crossings is entirely outside the control of the railways. In 2006 there were legal proposals to permit Network Rail to be involved in the road side safety of crossings. This would allow the introduction of anti-slip surfaces and also barriers to prevent motorists driving around crossing arms and, it is hoped, reduce the number of crossing-related deaths. Network Rail is pursuing a policy of closing level crossings at the rate of over 100 a year in the interests of safety, and replacing them with road bridges or footbridges. The number of level crossings on rail lines controlled by Network Rail went from 7,937 in 2003-04 to 6,322 in 2013-14, and 5,887 by 2016-17. The number of crossings rose to 5,939 in 2017-18. This was due to the increased number of footpath crossing with and without lights compared to the number reported in 2016-17. This is due to a change in the categorisation of level crossings when they are added to the All Level Crossing Risk Model (ALCRM) and doesn't represent a physical increase in the number of crossings on the network. For the episode of British motoring television programme "Top Gear" on 25 February 2007, Network Rail staged an incident in which a locomotive was driven into a Renault Espace at around at an AHB level crossing at Hibaldstow, Lincolnshire to graphically illustrate the dangers of "running the risk" (see British Rail Class 31 in the media). Types of crossing. MG – manually controlled gates. These legacy gated crossings are locally operated by a signaller or other railway staff. They consist of wooden or metal gates that close against road traffic and may be operated by hand; operated by a wheel; driven by a motor; or more recently at Redcar, gates that are electrically telescopic. When closed to road traffic, the gates are detected/locked and the protecting signal/s can be released. Some crossings are also provided with road lights that operate before the gates are closed. These crossings no longer meet current safety standards and are being renewed with more modern designs of barrier crossings. MCB – manually controlled barriers. An MCB crossing is controlled by an adjacent signalbox where the signalman can view the road closure and determine that the crossing is clear before releasing the protecting signals. Normally an MCB crossing either has two full road width barriers or four half road width barriers that fully close the road. This type of crossing is also often provided with standard road-lights and alarms that operate when closing, though there are a couple of crossings without lights, one being at Arbroath. The first crossing of this type was tested at Warthill, North Yorkshire in 1952. MCBR – manually controlled barriers remotely monitored. An MCBR is exactly the same as an MCB crossing except that the controlling signalbox is not directly next to the crossing, but can be within of the crossing. The signaller requires a clear view of the crossing to determine that the crossing is clear before releasing the protecting signals. In poor viewing conditions such as mist, fog or falling snow it may be necessary to appoint an additional person placed at the crossing to advise the signaller that the crossing is clear. An example of this type of crossing is at Driffield, East Riding of Yorkshire. MCB-CCTV – manually controlled barriers monitored with closed circuit television. A MCB-CCTV is the same as an MCB crossing except that it may be many miles away from the controlling signal box. CCTV cameras mounted in close proximity to the crossing enables the signaller to monitor the road closure and to determine the crossing is clear, before releasing the protecting signals. This type of crossing has caused many crossing signal boxes to become redundant on various lines across the country. The first crossing of this type was trialled at Funtham's Lane, near Peterborough, Cambridgeshire in 1970. MCB-OD – manually controlled barriers monitored by obstacle detection. These crossings are MCBs except that instead of a signaller, the obstacle detection equipment monitors the closure of the crossing and determines that the crossing is clear before releasing the protecting signal. The crossing is initiated by approaching trains and has no direct signaller involvement when working normally, apart from monitoring the process. The obstacle detection uses LIDAR and RADAR systems to detect that the crossing is clear, if it is not the sequence is disrupted and any approaching train would come to a stand at the protecting signal. The signaller would then be required to initiate an alternative operating procedure. This type of crossing has become much more common on many lines through the country and these crossings are now considered the safest of the modern types. The first crossing of this type was developed and tested in 2010, at a level crossing at Filey, North Yorkshire however this crossing has now been converted to an MCB-CCTV with a small amount of equipment from the MCB-OD crossing remaining. MCB-OC – manually controlled barrier crossing on call. These crossings are exactly the same as MCB-CCTV crossings except the barriers stay down and the lights stay off. When a user wants to cross, they have to press a button to notify the signaller, who will raise the barriers if there is no train. There are only a handful of these in the UK, one being at Barnetby, Lincolnshire. AHBC – automatic half barrier crossing. Automatic Half Barrier crossings are initiated by approaching trains and are not interlocked with signals, although they are monitored by a signaller for correct operation. The maximum rail line speed over these crossings is and only a maximum of two tracks can be crossed. The crossings have two half-barriers that only close the entrance lanes to the crossing, standard crossing road-lights and audible alarms. At the maximum rail line speed, the crossing warning time is typically about 27sec from the Amber light first showing to the train arriving at the crossing. These crossing were originally designed for use on roads with infrequent traffic. No new crossings of this type are likely to be installed and many AHBs are being renewed as MCB-OD or MCB-CCTV. In recent years, some audible alarms at AHBs have been updated to include spoken warnings as a means to improve safety. The first crossing of this type in the UK was installed in the town of Spath, near Uttoxeter in Staffordshire, and began operating on 5 February 1961. AOCL – automatic open crossing locally monitored. An open crossing, with conventional road-lights and audible alarms, but no barriers. On twin tracks an 'Another Train Coming' light is provided which flashes a red light with an 'another train coming' message when appropriate. Designed for low traffic railway lines and low traffic roads, the maximum line speed over these crossings is . On the railway approach, a Drivers Crossing Indicator (DCI) shows a flashing red light when the crossing is open to road traffic. The crossing should initiate when a train passes a sign with a black St Andrew's Cross on a white background, on the approach to the crossing. If the crossing is operating correctly, the flashing red light changes to a flashing white light. The driver of the train is responsible for monitoring that the flashing white light is showing and that the crossing is clear before proceeding at up-to line speed over the crossing, if not the train should be brought to a stand before the crossing and the relevant rules followed before proceeding. Sometimes, mostly when the crossing is next to a station, the driver has to stop and operate a plunger (button) to start the crossing sequence. This type of crossing was initially popular as many crossings were destaffed reducing costs. However, after the 1986 Lockington level crossing accident and the Stott independent review of automatic open level crossings, many AOCLs were renewed as ABCLs. Since that time, a disproportionate number of accidents have occurred on the remaining AOCLs, leading to many having barriers being added and changing the designation to AOCL+Bs. The first AOCL was installed at Yafforth, North Yorkshire in 1963. AOCR – automatic open crossing remotely monitored. These crossings were popularly installed when one was first trialled in 1983 (at Naas level crossing, near Lydney, Gloucestershire), because they lowered costs due to the lack of barriers, and they could be used on many country lanes. Acting in the same way as an AHBC, they do not interlock with signals, but they had a line speed. After the Lockington rail crash in 1986, their demise began due to their safety issues, and now only one still exists on Network Rail at Rosarie in Scotland near Keith, Moray. ABCL – automatic barrier crossing locally monitored. This type of crossings is a direct development of the AOCL which resulted after the Stott independent review of automatic open level crossing following the 1986 Lockington level crossing accident. They have a maximum line speed over the crossing of . Many AOCRs and AOCLs were subsequently renewed as ABCLs. The crossing initiation and operation of the Drivers Crossing Indicators is the same as the AOCL/AOCL+B. The first to be installed was on the A146 Beccles bypass, Suffolk, in 1988. AOCL+B – automatic open crossing locally monitored + barriers. These have existed since 2012, the first being at Ardrossan Harbour, North Ayrshire, and are the cheap version of the ABCL, brought about by RAIB suggesting Network Rail fit barriers to AOCLs after a crash at an AOCL in Halkirk, Highland. In an AOCL+B upgrade, the barriers are added into the AOCL's circuitry instead of replacing the whole system as at an ABCL upgrade. They can be recognised by the alarm switching off before the barriers rise once a train has passed, and by not having telephones as ABCLs do. AFBCL – automatic full barrier crossing locally monitored. This is a recent type of crossing, the first being at Ardrossan Princes Street crossing in early 2018 and two more installed at Dingwall Middle and No.1 crossings in November 2018. These crossings are the enhanced version of the ABCL, with full barriers. This is intended for locally monitored crossings with a high level of misuse by pedestrians, or a risk of misuse. Obstacle detection equipment (LIDAR only) is provided, since automatic full barrier crossings without them can trap a vehicle if not proven it's clear before lowering. The exit (offside) barriers will not descend unless the crossing is proved clear of vehicles and pedestrians by obstacle detection equipment. Unlike the standard full barrier type crossings, the alarms remain on when the barriers have completed their descend, just like any automatic half-barrier crossing, and will stay on until the red lights stop flashing. TMO – trainman-operated crossing. On small branch lines (e.g. Cambrian Line), these crossings are common as they require no monitoring by any signallers, and simply have to be observed by the train driver as being closed. The guard will push a button close to the crossing that activates it, and once lowered the train can cross safely. These appear to be MCB type crossings to the driver, but have a much shorter closing time (with the drawback of the train having to stop completely to activate the crossing). Some crossings are provided with swinging gates instead of barriers. An example of this is at Teignmouth. MWL/MSL – miniature warning light/miniature stop light crossing. These crossings are designed for use at foot crossings or private roads (where the user has to operate the barriers/gates themselves at the latter). A small set of red and green lights alert the user as to the state of the railway; green for safe to cross, red for STOP, train approaching. These started to appear around 1964, and are still common today. OC – open crossing. The open crossing only really exists on underused country lanes crossing lines with low and/or slow rail traffic. With a speed limit of to and no lights or barriers/gates, these are rare, and are only marked by the signage and the St Andrew's Cross. Whistle boards are provided on rail approaches to the crossing. Sometimes, a stop board may be provided requiring train drivers to stop and blow the whistle before proceeding. Many can be found in southern Kent on the Dungeness branch of the Marshlink Line, and some in Cornwall on scenic railways. Others also scatter the country. UWC – user worked crossing. The most common type of crossing on the railway network (around two-thirds of the total) and also the most basic type. These can either be a basic footpath crossing; a crossing with gates and instructional signage; or a crossing with a telephone to the nearest signalbox. In order to cross safely, users must read the instructions and comply with them. Whether they have to raise the barriers, open the gates, phone the signalman or simply cross under their own judgement varies depending on the danger the crossing poses. Normally phones are provided at crossings on high speed lines. Barrow crossing. A barrow crossing is one found purely in railway stations which allows passengers, or other through users if it is a public right of way (PROW), the opportunity to cross between platforms. The name derives from the fact that it was used by station staff to carry the luggage of passengers across the tracks on barrows. Some barrow crossings are still in use at stations that do not have footbridges such as at or at , which does have a footbridge, but that footbridge is not accessible to wheelchair users. Some barrow crossings have a light display system of protection telling users when they can and cannot cross, or sometimes the station staff will accompany users. Equipment. Modern level crossings in Britain use a variety of different equipment to stop any traffic when an oncoming train crosses: Warning lights. The modern warning lights used on level crossings in the UK consist of one amber light at the bottom and two red lights at the top, all on a black board with a checkerboard outline in red and white (the red and white borders weren't introduced until 1992; the borders were just white beforehand). The amber light has been in existence since the Hixon rail crash; previously there were just two red lights. The whole warning light module is known colloquially as a "wigwag" (due to the nature of the alternate flashes). They are also used at lifting and swing bridges, some airports, fire stations, police stations and ambulance stations in the UK. When a level crossing activates, the yellow light is usually illuminated for 3–5 seconds and then the two red lights flash alternately for the duration of the closure. The lights are normally rectangular and landscape orientated, but where space is limited or to improve visibility special lights can be fitted that are portrait orientated. In some cases a now non-standard traffic light type was fitted (still seen at Marshbrook, Minffordd and on the Isle of Man), consisting of the individual lights arranged vertically in a red–amber–red arrangement. Many of the lights nowadays are LEDs due to the cost efficiency, easy maintenance, and clarity, the first LED wigwags were trialled at Bentley Heath level crossing in 2006 but not fully adapted until July 2007. Incandescent halogen lights are no longer manufactured as they are wasteful on electricity and can cause accidents such as at Beech Hill Crossing in Nottinghamshire, in which a fatality occurred due to the lights' dimness in the low sunlight. However old halogen lights and even LED lights are sometimes donated to heritage railways and used at their crossings, or simply scrapped in the case of some halogen lights. As well as road traffic, smaller pedestrian lights are used in populous areas or at dangerous crossings, where extra warning is needed. These consisting of a flashing red silhouette of a pedestrian, similar to what you would see at a pedestrian crossing. Some AOCL(+B) crossings with two tracks very occasionally have an 'Another Train Coming' warning light, a small red light with the overlay 'ANOTHER TRAIN COMING' that flashes when two trains are approaching. Historically, at twin track AHBCs, there was an 'ANOTHER TRAIN COMING` Neon sign that would flash when another train was approaching. Since the early 1980s, most of these have been removed and replaced with simpler signage, but they weren't fully extinct until around 2007/2008 (Beech Hill LC being one of the last with the illuminated 'another train coming' sign). Audible alarms. Originally electrical bells were used at many crossings to produce a loud ringing alarm when the crossing was activated, and stopped when the barriers descended. This could either be a single-stroke bell that would ding once or twice a second, or a multi-stroke constantly ringing bell. These bells became normal practice until audible tone alarms started to be installed, replacing the ageing bells. Bells on some crossings can still be seen today although some are not as audible as today's standards. They can come attached to the post that the warning lights are on, or can come fitted to some older barrier pedestals. Audible alarms (also known as 'Yodalarms') were first implemented on crossings in the late 1970s/early 1980s and continue to be used today as they are the safest way of warning traffic and pedestrians audibly of an approaching train. The Yodalarms (depending on what model) usually have different tones, alternate rates and different volumes (controlled by potentiometers) at different crossings, depending on how busy the crossing is, and whether residents are living nearby. Modern alarms have night modes (controlled by the crossing relays) that lower the volume in the night, the pitch usually goes lower and the alternate rate normally goes faster (depending on which yodalarm model it is), on some crossings (mainly of the older types) the alarms are switched off completely by the crossing controller at night. The alarm sounds from the moment the amber light is illuminated up to the point the barriers shut on a full barrier crossing, and the crossing is deactivated on all automatic crossings. The Yodalarm YO3 Electronic Alarm (Clifford & Snell / R.Stahl) type alarms were the original ones used and still are the most common. They produce a two tone (high pitch bleep, followed by a lower pitched bleep) alarm, that does tend to change over time due to general wear. They are found at almost every MCB crossing in Britain, and many more besides. At crossings with half barriers and two tracks, if another train is approaching after a first has crossed, the alarm will increase in speed to inform the users at the crossing that another train is due. Another type of alarm is the A105NAX Electronic Alarm (E2S), which started to be implemented on some crossings in 2010, and produce a more lower pitch assertive two tone sound. These alarms function the same as a Yodalarm at a half barrier crossing except their main property is that intermittently a verbal warning will play. This can either be "Warning, more than one train may be approaching" repeated twice during closure, or "Warning, another train is approaching" repeated twice if another train is due. Some crossings with equipment manufactured by Bombardier and Schweizer Electronic use a PA system instead of separate alarm units and play an audio file of the Yodalarm alternating signal. Some also play voice messages similar to the E2S signal in which "Warning, another train may be approaching" is repeated. Gates and barriers. Wooden gates were the most common form of protecting level crossings in the UK, and were operated either by a signalman or a crossing keeper. All gated crossings across public highways had each gate fitted with a large red circle or more rarely, a diamond, to highlight that the gate was closed. Gates open to road traffic, mostly closed across the railway to stop herded livestock from straying onto the track. If a train was due, the gates would be swung manually or by a wheel mechanism from the adjacent signal box. When closed to road traffic, the gates would be interlocked with the signalling systems, locking the gates from opening and releasing the signals. These legacy crossings do not meet current standards and many have been renewed with modern systems. However, there are still a few on Network Rail and also on heritage lines. A system of motor-driven boom-gates replaced some older gates, they had a motorised wheel that drove the gate across the road. These have nearly all been replaced due to reliability issues, most notable at Redcar. Barriers are the normal level crossing protector to be seen in the UK and now come in various models. All barriers at crossings are illuminated with barrier lights on the barrier arm, and are highlighted in red and white reflective stickers. Half barriers at level crossings are a simple boom arm that descends on the left-hand footway and left-hand lanes of a road when the crossing activates and the warning lights have been on for about 10 seconds. Full barrier crossings have either two barriers covering the whole width of the road on either side, or four barriers covering half of the road on either side, that descend on the left-hand lanes first and then the right-hand lanes. These are supplied with a white skirting (red and white in older crossings) that fold up in the upright position and stops small children, animals, and potential trespassers from crossing when the barriers are down. Where pedestrian traffic is sparse or there is a barrier separating the footway from the road, only partial or no skirting ('skirts') may be used. In rare cases, both full and half barrier crossings can have three barriers that all descend at once. Some early motor/gearbox driven and electro/hydraulic pedestals/barriers were made by Godwin Warren Engineering (GWE). The GWE Mk1 pedestal/barriers were installed at Manned Controlled Barrier (MCB) crossings between the late 1960s to the early 1980s. The Mk1 pedestals/barrier booms are recognised by the complex clamping arrangement on the pedestal sidearm which hold the aluminium booms and by the pogo-stick fitted to the end of the barrier used to support it in the down position. BR Western Region barriers were also installed at around the same time as the GWE barriers, these were hydraulically powered. Some were much longer than current electro/hydraulic barriers, but the hydraulics were hard to maintain and had noisy hydraulic pump motors. Both these legacy crossing systems has been targeted for renewal in recent years and few examples are now left. The standard pedestals/barriers used since the early 1980s are the Mk2(BR843 specification) type. These were originally made by GWE and later by 'Smiths Industries Hydraulics Company', who were re-branded 'SPX Fluid Power' in 2001, and re-branded again to their current name 'SPX Rail Systems' (as of 2005). The barrier booms are of aluminium and have a simple two bolt fixing which is designed to easily separate without damage should the barrier be hit. The booms descend by gravity and raise using an electro/hydraulic power pack mounted in the pedestal. As well as these, as mentioned in the first paragraph, the troublesome gates at Redcar were replaced in 2015 with a new, exclusive telescopic sliding gate that slides across the road when a train is due. These were fitted with modern red and white reflective stripes as well as the red circle warning a seen on gates almost 100 years ago. The gates were implemented as a trial, and their future does not seem good as they have failed a couple of times in recent years. Finally, the most recent tests of not only barriers but barrier system was undertaken at Selby Road level crossing near Doncaster in April 2018. These were Bombardier's EBI Gate 2000 barriers (also called the EBI Gate 630) which were used alongside the Bombardier EBI Gate 2000 system. These have barrier arms that are safer in the event of them being hit, as they break in set places. They also have supporter pogo-sticks at the end of the barrier as did the GWE barriers beforehand. Several more of these crossings are due to be fitted and trialled in the north east. Telephones. In the aftermath of the Hixon level crossing accident, the inquiry emphasised a need to both provide telephones at automatic level crossings, and to strength signage and rules to make it unambiguous to road users who needed to call the signaler for permission before crossing. Plessey introduced a phone system in 1970 that enabled widespread introduction and standardization of level crossing telephones. The design of the system enabled road users to call a signaler, the signaler to call the crossing, detect faults and notify the signaler if the fault has been corrected and distinguish between calls from the different phones at the crossing. Crossing phones were classified into three types: barrier, roadside and emergency. Roadside phones were located on the approach of crossings, intended for drivers who required to request permission to cross, such as long, slow or heavy vehicles or people with livestock. Barrier phones were located on the left-hand side of crossings, either beside or integrated into a level crossing barrier housing and typically intended for use by railway staff servicing equipment. Emergency phones are located on the right side of the roadway, intended for members of the public who need to report an emergency to signalers. In the 1980s, the advanced roadside phone was phased out and the distinction between 'emergency' calls and other calls was phased out. The telephone in the signal box for the signaler was a GPO telephone Type 710 with no dial, and two lamp buttons, one red (call) and one red (fault). A separate case held the bell and buzzer equipment that sounded when a call was initiated from the crossing. In 1986, British Rail commissioned Whiteley Electronics of Mansfield to improve upon and supersede the system by Plessey, which was limited in the ability to indicate fault states, required relays that were becoming harder to maintain. This lead to the development of Public Emergency Telephone System (PETS).

telephone network

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17259399

The 601st Anti-Aircraft Artillery Group (GAA 601 or "Grupo de Artillería Antiaérea 601"), historically known as GADA 601 ("Grupo de Artillería de Defensa Aérea 601") is the main anti-aircraft artillery unit of the Argentine Army. Its headquarters are just north of Mar del Plata. The unit's name was changed to GAA 601 "Teniente General Pablo Ricchieri" in 1999. The group played a key role during the 1982 Falklands War. The GAA 601 compound is the main air defence training center in Argentina. Origins. The origin of the anti-aircraft artillery of the Argentine Army dates back to 1939, when the "Grupo de Artillería Antiaérea" was established in Campo de Mayo, the main headquarters of the army, along with the "Centro de Instrucción Antiaéreo", a training unit. Meanwhile, the authorities of the resort town of Mar del Plata were seeking the settling of an army base there. In 1940, a local independent commission, under the auspices of Juan Fava and Rufino Inda, both of them former socialist Mayors of the city, made a formal request to the Ministry of War. Incidentally, the socialists ruled Mar del Plata during the two major combat deployments in the unit's history (1962 and 1982), although the country was under a military dictatorship in both occasions. By the end of 1944, the two anti-aircraft groups were merged and effectively transferred to Mar del Plata, under the name of "Escuela Antiaérea" ("Antiaircraft Artillery School"). Weapons. The first AAA weapons deployed were 76.2 mm Skoda guns and 20 mm cannons. Several years later, between 1949 and 1962, the army purchased Bofors 40 mm guns and 90 mm guns. During 1951, the first long-range radar, a Westinghouse, was imported from the USA. The group changed its name from Training Center of Air Defense (CIADA) to Artillery Group of Air Defense 601 (GADA 601) in 1964. Its first commander was Lieutenant Colonel Esteban Rodriguez. The GADA was composed of batteries, each one divided into three sections. The section, led by a 2nd Lieutenant, usually comprised two artillery pieces. In 1968, a new sub-unit, Battery "C", was established, incorporating new material like the 40 mm L 70 Bofors-Contraves radar-guided system. The first missile Battery was equipped with Tigercat triple launchers in 1970. In 1980, after a border crisis with Chile, the army acquired the 35 mm Oerlikon-Contraves radar-guided system. Furthermore, a new unit had been added to the GADA in 1976, the AADA 602, to deal first with the Tigercats and some years later with Roland-2 missiles. After losing half of the 35 mm systems and one of the four Rolands in the war of 1982, the group was reinforced with 40 mm Bofors and 30 mm Hispano-Suiza guns. Operational history. Political unrest (1955–1978). From the second term in office of Juan Perón to the dictatorships of the 1970s, there were several periods of political unrest and violence involving the military. Argentina witnessed the overthrowing of constitutional governments followed by sporadic clashes between rival factions of the armed forces and the surge of leftist militant organizations. The GADA took part on a number of these incidents: 1955: Revolución Libertadora. During the last days of Peronism in power, following a huge purge on its ranks, the Army became the only force inside the military with a majority of officers supporting Perón. This was also the case of the GADA. There was a first ill-fated attempt against the government, led mainly by the Navy, on 16 June, when rebel aircraft launched a series of air strikes around Plaza de Mayo, killing nearly 350 people. In Mar del Plata, the group kept a close watch on the naval base, taking positions on the hills surrounding the port. Eventually, the uprising succeeded on 16 September. This time, the attitude of the GADA officers was hesitant. During the morning of the 19, the cruiser (the former USS "Boise") and five destroyers shelled the group's barracks, already abandoned by the troops. A long-range radar tower and other equipment was destroyed. The commander changed sides shortly after this action. 1962: After the fall of President Arturo Frondizi and his replacement by a puppet civilian government under the supervision of the armed forces, the military remained divided over the issue of the banning of some political parties. While there was a wide consensus on the proscription of leftist ideologists, things became not so clear regarding Peronism. The hard-line group was dubbed "colorados" ("the purples"), and the "legalist" - against an indiscriminate ban - "azules" ("the blues"). In September 1962, the army's commander in chief and the Ministry of Defence were controlled by the "colorados". An internal uprising started inside the army on September 18, when the "azules", led by General Onganía defied the central authority. President José María Guido remained neutral. On 20 September, the units involved marched to the capital. One of these was a 30 Sherman tanks strong column departed from their base at Magdalena, south east of La Plata. The Commander-in-Chief set up a roadblock near Florencio Varela, a city in the midway between Buenos Aires and La Plata. A GADA's detachment, under the command of Major Merbilháa, was called to duty to reinforce the position with their Bofors 40 mm guns. The half-hearted engagement began at mid-morning when a reconnaissance plane was scared off by anti-aircraft fire. The post was eventually overpassed by the armoured column, but according to Colonel Federico de la Fuente, the group commander, the 40 mm guns disabled between 4 and 5 Shermans. Historian Félix Luna, instead, suggests the loss of only two tanks. During a previous action, a patrol of scouts had been captured by members of the GADA. After a full day of clashes, the crisis ended with the dismissal Commander in Chief and the Minister of Defence when the armoured forces reached Buenos Aires. Onganía claimed victory for the "azules" and their "constitutional" point of view. However, he would take the presidential seat from president Arturo Illia by a coup d'état in 1966. 1970–1978: The Dirty War. Amid leftist violence and social unrest, the military engaged in indiscriminate repression along this period. The first significant GADA activity was the deployment, in 1975, of a full battery of light anti-aircraft guns in Tucumán province, which by the time was the scenario of a rough counterinsurgency campaign against the ERP. The guns were intended to deal with the alleged presence of a helicopter Hiller 1100 stolen by the guerrillas from a Government-owned company. The conflict struck home on 11 February 1976, when a splinter organisation of the ERP ambushed and killed GADA's commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Rafael Raúl Reyes, in Mar del Plata's downtown. A few weeks later, the military overthrew the government of Isabel Perón. The coup gave them the full control of the country and established a military dictatorship. The group, along with special intelligence officers, mounted operations not only against militants, but also against those ideologically affiliated to them. These illegal arrests were carried out with the collaboration of the Air Force, which built a clandestine detention facility near the city's airport, dubbed "La Cueva" (The Cave). Most of these detainees became missing or "desaparecidos". One of the intelligence officers involving in these activities, Captain Fernando Cativa Tolosa, was killed in a shoot-out with militants on 8 October 1976. In 2008, former GADA commander Colonel Pedro Barda was indicted over human right abuses and eventually sentenced to life in prison. Barda died in Buenos Aires in August 2011. A psychologist, Marta García de Candeloro, later testified against Barda and described how she and her husband, attorney Jorge Candeloro, were arrested at their house in the province of Neuquén and transferred to the anti-aircraft unit where her husband along with five other attorneys from Mar del Plata were detained and last seen alive on 6 July 1977, in what later became known as "The Night of the Neckties". Crisis with Chile (1978). A dispute over the islands of the Beagle Channel prompted a conflict with Chile in 1978. On 12 December, the bulk of the GADA was deployed in northern Patagonia. The "Grupo de Artillería de Defensa Aérea Mixto 602", in charge of the Tigercat missiles were moved by railway to the town of Río Colorado, close to the river of the same name, in Río Negro province. Meanwhile, the remainder of the force continued the trip further west, to the city of Zapala, in Neuquen province. The troops then marched to the buildup area near Plaza Huincul. The group established three outposts along the rivers Colorado and Limay in order to provide AAA defence to key bridges. After a diplomatic breakthrough achieved by the Vatican envoy, Cardinal Antonio Samoré, the GADA came back to Mar del Plata on 30 January 1979. Falklands War (1982). Just before the start of the crisis that would lead to the Falklands War, the army group was reinforced when an Argentine Air Force detachment, the "Grupo 1 de Artillería Antiaérea" (1st Group of Antiaircraft Artillery) was transferred from Tandil to Mar del Plata in October 1981. The Air Force group was reinforced with personnel from Río Gallegos. Both forces would operate together during the conflict in the defence of Stanley airport, renamed "BAM Malvinas" by the Argentine Air Force and Goose Green airstrip, designated "BAM Cóndor" (Cóndor Military Air Base). GADA 601 was mobilised to Comodoro Rivadavia, along the Patagonian coast, on 12 April. The equipment was loaded at the naval base of Mar del Plata on board the cargo ship "Córdoba", bound for Puerto Deseado. As the ship was damaged whilst at anchor, the artillery, missiles systems and vehicles were airlifted to Comodoro Rivadavia. A battery comprising a Roland-2 missile unit, a Skyguard radar and two 35 mm Oerlikon twin cannons was left behind to provide air defence for the mainland air bases of Puerto San Julián and Río Gallegos. The remainder of the troops and their materiel finally crossed to the Islands by air between 12 April and 24 April. The troops were deployed in three batteries (A, B and C), with three sections each, plus AADA 602 with a Roland-2 launcher. Each section manned two twin Oerlikon-Contraves guns controlled by a "Skyguard" radar. A second anti-aircraft group of the army, the GADA 101 from Ciudadela, Buenos Aires, arrived in Stanley on 29 April. They were armed with eight single HS-831 30 mm cannons. The main early warning system for the army was an AN/TPS-44 tactical surveillance radar (Alert Mk II A/O), manned by GADA 601 personnel, mounted on the eastern slopes of Sapper Hill. The main areas to defend were the airfields (Stanley and Goose Green), Command and Control centres and artillery positions. The Air Force "Grupo 1 de Artillería Antiaérea" was in charge of the airport, with nine twin 20 mm cannons and a Super-Fledermaus Fire Control radar with three Oerlikon 35 mm twin guns, similar to the Skyguard Fire Control radar. GADA 601 deployed one of its own 35 mm section near the east end of the airstrip. The other sections and the Roland unit were initially located in an arc from Moody Brook to the eastern slopes of Sapper Hill. The third section of B battery was transported by helicopter to Goose Green on 29 April. 1st May: Opening actions. The GADA radar on Sapper Hill was the first to detect the Black Buck raid of 1 May. Unsure of its position after such a long flight at low level over water, the commander (Flt Lt Martin Withers) of Vulcan bomber XM607 briefly climbed to gain a radar fix from the mountains east of Stanley. In performing this manoeuvre, his aircraft was briefly detected by the crew of the AN/TPS-44 surveillance radar before descending back to low-level. Initially, the crew of the radar were uncertain if the aircraft they had detected was hostile, leading to delays in alerting the air defence system. The airbase was warned at 4:20 am local time but the low-level approach of the Vulcan bomber combined with active jamming from DASH 10 ECM pod prevented the AAA defences from engaging. The stick of 21 1000 lb bombs damaged the airport tower, scored a single direct hit in the centre of the runway and killed two Air Force personnel. Nevertheless, the airstrip was still operational. At 7:40 four Sea Harriers from carried out a second attack from the west. Argentine sources claimed that a Roland-2 downed one of these aircraft, however, British sources indicate that none of the aircraft were hit. Another five Sea Harriers came in from the east received heavy 35 and 20 mm AAA, both from GADA and the Air Force's Grupo 1. The Harriers dropped a combination of 1000 lb bombs and cluster bombs setting fire to a fuel depot and causing minor damage to the airport facilities. GADA claimed to have shot down two aircraft that morning, one to 35 mm fire, the other to a Tigercat missile. British sources, whilst conceding that ground fire was intense, said there was only a 20 mm hit on the tail of the Sea Harrier piloted by Lt. Cdr. David Morgan and no British aircraft were lost. Friendly fire incident. Later that day, a Mirage III, damaged in combat by a Sea Harrier was the victim of a friendly fire incident while attempting an emergency landing on the airbase. A GADA 601 battery fired three bursts of 35 mm rounds at the Mirage, the aircraft had been already targeted by Argentine Navy 30mm guns deployed along the town. The Official History of the Argentine Air Force put the blame on the lack of coordination between the Joint Antiaircraft Command and troops on the ground, who fired small arms and machine guns at the Mirage, unleashing a chain reaction among the Navy and Army's gunners. The pilot, Capt García Cuerva, was killed. Goose Green. In contrast to the vigorous anti-aircraft response in Stanley, the GADA 601/Grupo 1 team at Goose Green was taken by surprise. The ground crews there were assisting a number of Pucará aircraft that were about to take off to avoid being caught on the airstrip. At 8:00, the air warning was downgraded to "blue" to allow the Pucará's departure. The anti-aircraft guns were ordered to perform a training exercise. To make matters worse, the gear of one of the planes became embedded in mud, delaying the operation. A few minutes later, three Sea Harriers commenced their attack. The leader of the formation dropped two 1,000 lb bombs, which missed their intended targets (the airstrip and an ammunition depot). The other two aircraft dropped cluster bombs and several bomblets hit one the still grounded Pucará, killing the pilot, Lt Jukic and the Argentine aircraft burst in flames. Another bomb dispensed its load of bomblets over the tents of the support personnel; seven men were killed and 13 wounded. The other bombs started a fire very close to a stockpile of ammunition boxes but fire crews prevented further explosions. First success. After a few days without airstrikes, on May 4 a flight of three Sea Harriers from 800 Naval Air Squadron armed with cluster bombs raided Goose Green. However, this time potential targets were well camouflaged, and the airbase had been put under a 24-hour full alert. The 35 mm cannons were relocated to the north and south of the small Goose Green peninsular from their original position west of the airstrip. The raid's leading aircraft, piloted by Lt Cdr Gordie Batt, was locked up by the Skyguard system while flying from the east at very low altitude. Batt became aware of this from his onboard systems and deployed Chaff whilst breaking right so the Skyguard lost lock. However, behind the lead was Sea Harrier XZ450 piloted by Lt Nick Taylor. This aircraft lacked a Radar Warning Receiver (RWR) as it had been removed before the war to fit instrumentation for the new Sea Eagle missile, that was undergoing trials. Unaware of the threat ahead, Taylor was hit by a second salvo from the 35 mm cannons in the fuselage and caught fire, losing the left-wing and crashed at a 10° angle. Taylor's body was thrown through the canopy and fell 80 meters away from the crash site. The crash was caught on the gun camera film, of Flt Lt Ted Ball, which showed a large explosion in the region of the fuselage that was clearly unsurvivable. The third aircraft, piloted by Flt Lt Ted Ball, released its bombs but no targets were hit and returned to "Hermes". The remains of Lt Nick Taylor were buried on the edge of the airfield where he fell, with full military honours, and his grave is still tended by the residents of Goose Green. Taylor's aircraft, XZ450, was also the aircraft that made the Sea Harrier's maiden flight on 20 August 1978. Examination of the wreckage of XZ450 yielded the panel for the launch of Sea Eagle missiles, British sources have speculated that the Argentines concluded that Sea Eagle had been made operational and this was another factor that kept the Argentine navy in port. The shot down prompted a change of tactics in the employment of the Sea Harriers, in order to avoid further losses of such a valuable air defence assets and pilots, the subsequent air-to-ground operations were carried out from high altitude, well above the reach of the enemy ground fire. It was not until the arrival of the first GR3 Harriers that limited low-level missions were launched, most of them in close air support role, or against high-value targets, such artillery or radar. The GR.3 Harrier, however, repeated the experience of its naval counterpart. A series of losses and aircraft damaged left just three GR3 Harrier operational of 1(F) Squadron by June 1 (although reinforcements joined the Task Force later that day by flying directly from Ascension Island). To fix the problem, the RAF increased the number of Chaff and flares packages onboard and enhancing its radar-detection capabilities. The GR3 were also supported by Sea Harrier's diversionary missions. Second friendly fire incident. On May 12, another friendly-fire incident struck the GADA after three A4 Skyhawks conducted a successful attack on . One of the returning jets flew by mistake over a banned zone in Goose Green and was shot down with the loss of the pilot, Lt Gavazzi. The Argentine Air Force conceded that this time the incident was triggered by the pilot's navigation error. GR3 Harriers in action. With the beginning of Operation Sutton, the Harrier GR3s of 1(F) Squadron stepped up attacks upon ground targets. These included low-level strikes with cluster bombs and rockets as well as nuisance raids in which 1000-lb bombs were launched in loft and high-altitude profiles. During some high-altitude bombings the radar-guided guns locked onto the falling 1,000-lb bombs and, it is claimed, destroyed them on at least three occasions. It is also claimed that a Roland-2 blew up another bomb in mid-air after the release aircraft successfully broke radar lock. On May 22, the section deployed in Goose Green engaged a strike package of four Harrier GR3s from 1(F) Squadron. One of the Harriers, piloted by Sqn Ldr Jerry Pook, released chaff approximately 2 km from the target zone, blinding the radar and triggering an anti-missile alarm (confirmed by the reports of the GADA's antiaircraft battery under Second Lt. Claudio Oscar Braghini). Nevertheless, Braghini reports that they re-locked Pook's Harrier and fired several 35-mm rounds. British after-action reports indicate that the Argentine forces engaged all of the Harriers with heavy AAA fire but that it was the Harrier GR3 piloted by Sqn Ldr PV Harris that was subsequently locked up by a Super Fledermaus-type radar. Harris pressed his attack but his cluster bombs hung up. Argentine forces report that the air attack produced no damage but the after-action report by the British indicates secondary explosions following the attack with cluster bombs. On the night of May 24, the GADA 601 section issued a warning to the airbase at Goose Green about the presence of a helicopter and the possible landing of special forces. Several minutes later, members of the SAS mounted a diversionary attack on Darwin Hill. On May 27, during the first stages of the battle of Goose Green, several Harrier sorties hit the Argentine advanced positions to the north in support of the assault, but the Close Air Support mission was complicated by bad weather and poor communications. After making four passes, Sqn Ldr Bob Iveson's aircraft was hit by heavy AAA fire from GADA 601 35-mm cannon. The aircraft, Harrier XZ998, exploded in the air about 5,000 meters from GADA 601's position. Sqn Ldr Iveson bailed out safely and was rescued by friendly forces three days later. Many of the aircraft shot down or damaged by ground defences were hit after making repeated passes over the target, and the wisdom of these tactics was repeatedly questioned. Direct fire on Darwin Hill. The next morning, on May 28, British troops from the 2nd PARA Regiment took Darwin Hill after fierce fighting and the GADA detachment, observed several platoons advancing down the southern slopes of the ridge. After identifying them as British, GADA 601 section engaged with direct fire. The 35 mm bursts blocked the advance of the leading companies, killing one man Private Mark Holman-Smith who was trying to recover a machine gun and wounding eleven including their commander, Major Hugh Jenner and his signaller. This fire forced the rear platoon, attached from A Company, to remain behind Darwin Hill for the remainder of the battle. The last direct-fire mission of GADA 601's section targeted the Darwin school-house, a position recently taken by troops of D Company. The building, already set on fire by British white phosphorus grenades, was destroyed by 35 mm rounds. Private Steve Dixon, from D Company, was killed when he was hit by a splinter from a 35 mm shell. The British advance from this area was halted on the orders of Major Chris Keeble who decided to stop the advance and consolidate his position. Shortly after, the GADA position was subjected to mortar fire and the power generator for the guns was damaged beyond repair. A later Harrier GR.3 strike failed to hit the GADA 601 position. With the garrison now isolated and surrounded, the Argentine commanding officer surrendered the following day. The battle for the capital. After the fall of Goose Green, British effort concentrated on the final assault on Port Stanley (called "Puerto Argentino" by the Argentines). Between May 2 and May 28, three Vulcan sorties were planned, but only one was carried out against "Base Aérea Militar Malvinas". Argentine sources reveal that two soldiers were slightly injured but no damage was done to the airstrip. Another attempt against the airstrip was carried out during May 24 when a flight of four GR3s, flying at low level, dropped retarded bombs on the runway, supported by two Sea Harriers tossing air burst bombs from altitude to deceive the air defences. The retarded bombs produced only surface damage, which was repaired six hours after the strike. Argentine sources acknowledge that a Pucará and an Aermacchi were damaged. One of the GR3s was also hit either by debris, according to the British version, or by antiaircraft fire, according to Argentine sources. On May 25, the group suffered its first fatality when a soldier was killed by the blast of an unexploded cluster bomblet. On May 30 a pair of GR3 was initially tasked to attack, with SNEB rockets, entrenched troops on Mount Wall, west of Stanley, one of the first strikes against the defensive ring around the Falklands capital. The air patrol was led by Sqn. Ld. Jerry Pook in XZ963. The original target was changed for a helicopter landing zone, some distance eastward. After approaching from the south, Pook flew over a column of vehicles and troops and was greeted by automatic fire around 4 km from the target's area. Argentine authors assert instead that the aircraft was hit by 35 mm fire from GADA's 1st section, B battery, which was completing a redeployment from Moody Brook to a position between Sapper Hill and the Stanley racecourse, under the command of 2nd Lieutenant Roberto Enrique Ferre. Pook's first-hand account recalls to have felt a "heavy thump", which is compatible with the impact of a large anti-aircraft shell. Nevertheless, the actual target's position given by Pook in his book was too far to the west to being acquired and shot at by GADA's gunners, albeit he is not too much assertive about having been hit by small arms rounds. A British official report states, however, that on June 12 another GR3 was peppered by "AAA splinters" east of Mount Harriet, almost the same location where Pook's jet was damaged. After finding no targets in the assigned area, both Harriers attacked the original objective further west. At this time it became clear that Pook's jet was leaking fuel as a consequence of the hit. With the engine in the verge of burning out and an incipient hydraulic failure, Pook climbed to 7,000 meters and ejected some 45 NM from "Hermes". He was rescued only 10 minutes later. On May 31, Stanley airport was hit by the combined action of Vulcan and Harrier aircraft. The Vulcan fired Shrike anti-radar missiles, which went stray when the Argentine radar-operators switched off their devices. The Sea Harriers dropped bombs from high level, and three Harriers strafed the airstrip with cannon fire and rockets, in the belief that A4 Skyhawks had recently landed there. A Skyguard section claimed to have hit two GR3s just before the aircraft opened fire and the RAF acknowledged that the two aircraft were hit, but the source of the damage is unclear. The engine of the leading Harrier, XV789 was replaced onboard "Hermes", and remained grounded for five days. The other fighter, XZ977, needed minor repairs. On June 1, the Roland-2 system shot down a Sea Harrier over the airport. The aircraft, XZ456, belonging to the 801 Naval Air Squadron from , was in a recce mission 7 km south of Stanley, apparently out of the reach of the missile, but tracked by its radar. The Argentine officer in charge of the unit, Lt. Carlos Leónidas Regalini, fired the Roland despite the target being 7,000 meters away. The pilot, Flt. Lt. Ian Mortimer, climbed, confident that he had outmanoeuvred the missile. A couple of seconds later, the rear bay of his jet was torn apart by the explosion of the proximity fuze, leaving only the cockpit. Mortimer's ejection was witnessed by hundreds of Argentine troops. After a 9-hour ordeal at sea, he was recovered by a British helicopter. On June 3 GADA lost four men to a missile strike. While at least two Skyguard units were fighting off an air attack – believed at that time to be conducted by Harriers - two missiles were fired by one Vulcan bomber involved in the operation Black Buck six. The long-range radars switched off their emissions as usual, but the two Skyguard systems waited until it was too late for one of them. Second Lt. Fernando Ignacio Huergo's section claims that they locked on to a "bomb" and destroyed it in mid-air – it maybe they hit one of the missiles - but at the same time of this explosion, another blast was heard. The other missile, mounted on the radar wave of the 1st section of battery A's Skyguard had hit its target. First Lt. Alejandro Dachary, and three of his men were killed. Another soldier survived the attack. Apparently, the operator, warned by the alarm, turned off the radar, but the missile was already in terminal phase and struck home anyway. The bomber, Vulcan XM597, was forced to divert to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil during the returning trip after its in-flight refuelling probe broke. One of the missiles it was carrying was ditched into the ocean to reduce drag, but the other remained stuck on the pylon and could not be released. Sensitive documents containing classified information were jettisoned into the sea via the crew hatch, and a "Mayday" signal was sent. The aircraft was eventually cleared to land by Brazilian authorities. The Vulcan remained interned for nine days and returned along with its crew on 11 June. However, the remaining Shrike missile was confiscated. On 9 June, Harrier XZ997 was hit by splinters over Sapper Hill, defended by at least one 35 mm and a Tigercat section . The aircraft wings and upper fuselage were holed in several places, and the Harrier suffered a minor hydraulic failure on recovery. During a naval bombardment against Sapper Hill, on the early morning of June 12, the GADA's main radar was damaged and a soldier killed. In what was the last GADA 601 success in this war, Harrier XW919 was hit by shrapnel, possibly from a Tigetcat missile, and seriously damaged on June 12, while dropping CBUs on an artillery position near Sapper Hill. During the recovery, the aircraft caught fire on "Hermes" flight deck, owing to a fractured reaction pipe. Argentine sources claim that the aircraft was hit by AAA immediately after the attack. A 155 mm howitzer was lightly damaged and six soldiers injured. The Harrier had extensive repairs and, though still operational, it was ultimately transferred to the SFDO (School of Flight Deck Operations) at Culdrose. This Harrier was eventually donated to the Polish Aviation Museum of Kraków. In the final hours of the war, the westernmost section of the group took part of the battle of Wireless Ridge, supporting the withdrawal of the Infantry Regiment 7 with 35 mm fire. After the Argentine surrender, the group's 35 mm Oerlikon guns, abandoned and disabled by their operators, were captured by British forces. A total of 12 GDF-002 Argentine Army and 3 GDF-002 Argentine Air Force guns were captured and later shipped back to Britain in "Operation Skyguard", 5 Surviving Skyguard FC radars and the Argentine Air Force's Super Fledermaus FC radar were also shipped back to Britain. The Roland 2 fire unit was also sent back to Britain as a valuable prize. The GDF-002 guns were later refurbished by BMARC and used to form a Royal Auxiliary Air Force squadron at RAF Waddington. Four Skyguard radar units are employed by RAF Police to survey UK military flights over residential areas and to give warning of low-flying aircraft on sensitive facilities since 1993. The bulk of the group's personnel left the Islands on 17 June 1982. The officers were released a month later. Peacekeeping missions. GADA 601 have taken part in several UN peacekeeping missions since 1992 with a contingent of 200 troops. The main peacekeeping operation involving the GADA was UNPROFOR. The GADA was under the command of the "Batallón Ejército Argentino" (BAE), deployed in Western Slavonia from February 1992 to November 1995. About 70 officers and NCOs of the force also joint the "Fuerza de Tareas Argentina" (FTA) in Cyprus. 1999 Merge. As part of an Army reform, the GADA 101 was moved from Ciudadela to Mar del Plata and merged into the GADA 601 in 1999. The joint force was renamed Grupo de Artillería Antiaérea 601 "Teniente General Pablo Ricchieri". The commander of the group during the Falklands conflict, Héctor Lubin Arias, was appointed honorary commander on 20 November 2010.

UK interpretation

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=31943259

Mark Costello (November 10, 1955 – August 23, 2015) was an American politician and businessman who served as Commissioner of Labor of Oklahoma from 2011 to 2015. A Republican, he was elected in 2010, defeating the Democratic incumbent, Lloyd Fields. Before his election he was a businessman who founded several technology companies. After taking office, he established a non-profit advocacy group to oppose the positions of public employee unions, and fought federal regulations on family farms. Personal life. Costello was born in Bartlesville and graduated from College High School, then attended the University of Kansas while working summers on oil rigs in the North Sea. He married Cathy Cerkey in 1982; they had five children. Costello founded American Computer & Telephone (AMCAT) in 1991, a telephone software company based in Oklahoma City. AMCAT was sold in 2007. He founded another telecommunications company, USA Digital Communications, in 1997. He identified as Catholic and pro-life, and was a member of the National Rifle Association. Death. Costello was fatally stabbed by his son, Christian, on August 23, 2015, at a Braum's restaurant in Oklahoma City. His son was arrested following the incident, and was reported to have a history of mental illness. In 2018, Christian Costello was declared not guilty by reason of insanity, and was committed to a state mental hospital.

congregation serving others instead of making profits

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=10728633

Mount Fumaiolo is a mountain of the northern Apennines range of Italy located in the southernmost corner of the Emilia-Romagna region, c. 70 km from the town of Cesena. It is at the border Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany. With an elevation of , Mount Fumaiolo overlooks the villages of Balze di Verghereto, Bagno di Romagna and Verghereto, in Romagna, and thanks to its extensive fir and beech forests, it is a well-appreciated tourist area of natural interest. It is most famous for being the source of the Tiber, as well as the river Savio. The Springs of the river Tiber. The source of the river Tiber (Tevere in Italian) consisted of two springs a few meters away from each other on the Mount Fumaiolo steeps. Although nowadays only one spring remains active, the area is still called "Le Vene del Tevere". The spring is located in a beautiful beech forest at 1,268 meters above sea level on the Southern steeps of Mount Fumaiolo, near the village of in the Emilia Romagna region. In 1927, under Benito Mussolini dictatorship an antique marble column from the Roman Forum was placed on the spot, with an inscription on it: ("Here springs the river / sacred to the destinies of Rome"), to mark the association of the Fascist regime with the ancient Roman empire. A Roman eagle stands on the top of the column, and three wolf heads holding a ring in their mouths are visible on the sides. In its first kilometers the river Tiber runs in Emilia Romagna, then it enters in , in Tuscany, before crossing the Umbria region and the Lazio region and Rome. After 405 kilometers, the river Tiber pours its waters into the Tirrenian sea. The Tiber is the third Italian river by length (after the rivers Po and Adige), and the second per water discharge, after the river Po.

a sole fountain

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=45514391

Highseas is a historic early 20th-century summer estate in Bar Harbor, Maine. It is located on Schooner Head Road on the east side of Mount Desert Island, surrounded by the lands of Acadia National Park. Built in 1912, it is one of the few grand summer estates to survive the island's devastating 1947 fire. It is now owned by the Jackson Laboratory and used as housing for students enrolled in its prestigious Summer Student Program. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. Description and history. Highseas is set on a bluff overlooking Frenchman Bay south of the main village of Bar Harbor. It is a massive Colonial Revival structure, 2-1/2 stories in height, built out of brick laid in tapestry bond, with a hip roof and a granite foundation; the brick was manufactured in Philadelphia. The roof is topped by a deck with railing, and is pierced by five brick chimneys and numerous dormers with gabled or hipped roofs. The building is roughly rectangular and its block is ten bays in width, with flanking wings of decreasing size. Most of the windows are sash, although the south wing is set up as a solarium with large casement windows. The main entrance is on the west side of the building, sheltered by a single-story portico with Ionic columns and a railing around its top. The entry area is flanked by projecting hip-roof sections. The east side of the building, facing the bay, has a single-story porch extending across the center six bays, supported by an Ionic colonnade. Highseas was designed by local architect Fred Savage and built in 1912 for Rudolph Brunnow, a professor at Princeton University. He sold it in 1924 to Mrs. Eva Van Cortland Hawkes, a wealthy heiress and descendant of Gouverneur Morris. Her heirs donated the property to Jackson Laboratory, which has facilities nearby in Bar Harbor. The laboratory now uses the property as housing for summer students.

descending measure

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=354711

Joseph Locke FRSA (9 August 1805 – 18 September 1860) was a notable English civil engineer of the nineteenth century, particularly associated with railway projects. Locke ranked alongside Robert Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel as one of the major pioneers of railway development. Early life and career. Locke was born in Attercliffe, Sheffield in Yorkshire, moving to nearby Barnsley when he was five. By the age of 17, Joseph had already served an apprenticeship under William Stobart at Pelaw, on the south bank of the Tyne, and under his own father, William. He was an experienced mining engineer, able to survey, sink shafts, to construct railways, tunnels and stationary engines. Joseph's father had been a manager at Wallbottle colliery on Tyneside when George Stephenson was a fireman there. In 1823, when Joseph was 17, Stephenson was involved with planning the Stockton and Darlington Railway. He and his son Robert Stephenson visited William Locke and his son at Barnsley and it was arranged that Joseph would go to work for the Stephensons. The Stephensons established a locomotive works near Forth Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, to manufacture locomotives for the new railway. Joseph Locke, despite his youth, soon established a position of authority. He and Robert Stephenson became close friends, but their friendship was interrupted, in 1824, by Robert leaving to work in Colombia for three years. Liverpool and Manchester Railway. George Stephenson carried out the original survey of the line of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, but this was found to be flawed, and the line was re-surveyed by a talented young engineer, Charles Vignoles. Joseph Locke was asked by the directors to carry out another survey of the proposed tunnel works and produce a report. The report was highly critical of the work already done, which reflected badly on Stephenson. Stephenson was furious and henceforth relations between the two men were strained, although Locke continued to be employed by Stephenson, probably because the latter recognised his worth. Despite the many criticisms of Stephenson's work, when the bill for the new line was finally passed, in 1826, Stephenson was appointed as engineer and he appointed Joseph Locke as his assistant to work alongside Vignoles, who was the other assistant. However, a clash of personalities between Stephenson and Vignoles led to the latter resigning, leaving Locke as the sole assistant engineer. Locke took over responsibility for the western half of the line. One of the major obstacles to be overcome was Chat Moss, a large bog that had to be crossed. Although, Stephenson usually gets the credit for this feat, it is believed that it was Locke who suggested the correct method for crossing the bog. Whilst the line was being built, the directors were trying to decide whether to use standing engines or locomotives to propel the trains. Robert Stephenson and Joseph Locke were convinced that locomotives were vastly superior, and in March 1829 the two men wrote a report demonstrating the superiority of locomotives when used on a busy railway. The report led to the decision by the directors to hold an open trial to find the best locomotive. This was the Rainhill Trials, which were run in October 1829, and were won by "Rocket". When the line was finally opened in 1830, it was planned for a procession of eight trains to travel from Liverpool to Manchester and back. George Stephenson drove the leading locomotive "Northumbrian" and Joseph Locke drove "Rocket". The day was marred by the death of William Huskisson, the Member of Parliament for Liverpool, who was struck and killed by "Rocket". Grand Junction Railway. In 1829 Locke was George Stephenson's assistant, given the job of surveying the route for the Grand Junction Railway. This new railway was to join Newton-le-Willows on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway with Warrington and then on to Birmingham via Crewe, Stafford and Wolverhampton, a total of 80 miles. Locke is credited with choosing the location for Crewe and recommending the establishment there of shops required for the building and repairs of carriages and wagons as well as engines. During the construction of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, Stephenson had shown a lack of ability in organising major civil engineering projects. On the other hand, Locke's ability to manage complex projects was well known. The directors of the new railway decided on a compromise whereby Locke was made responsible for the northern half of the line and Stephenson was made responsible for the southern half. However Stephenson's administrative inefficiency soon became apparent, whereas Locke estimated the costs for his section of the line so meticulously and speedily, that he had all of the contracts signed for his section of the line before a single one had been signed for Stephenson's section. The railway company lost patience with Stephenson, but tried to compromise by making both men joint-engineers. Stephenson's pride would not let him accept this, and so he resigned from the project. By autumn of 1835 Locke had become chief engineer for the whole of the line. This caused a rift between the two men, and strained relations between Locke and Robert Stephenson. Up to this point, Locke had always been under George Stephenson's shadow. From then on, he would be his own man, and stand or fall by his own achievements. The line was opened on 4 July 1837. New methods. Locke's route avoided as far as possible major civil engineering works. The main one was the Dutton Viaduct which crosses the River Weaver and the Weaver Navigation between the villages of Dutton and Acton Bridge in Cheshire. The viaduct consists of 20 arches with spans of 20 yards. An important feature of the new railway was the use of double-headed (dumb-bell) wrought-iron rail supported on timber sleepers at 2 ft 6 in intervals. It was intended that when the rails became worn they could be turned over to use the other surface, but in practice it was found that the chairs into which the rails were keyed caused wear to the bottom surface so that it became uneven. However this was still an improvement on the fish-bellied, wrought-iron rails still being used by Robert Stephenson on the London and Birmingham Railway. Locke was more careful than Stephenson to get value for his employers' money. For the Penkridge Viaduct Stephenson had obtained a tender of £26,000. After Locke took over, he gave the potential contractor better information and agreed a price of only £6,000. Locke also tried to avoid tunnels because in those days tunnels often took longer and cost more than planned. The Stephensons regarded 1 in 330 as the maximum slope that an engine could manage and Robert Stephenson achieved this on the London and Birmingham Railway by using seven tunnels which added both cost and delay. Locke avoided tunnels almost completely on the Grand Junction but exceeded the slope limit for six miles south of Crewe. Proof of Locke's ability to estimate costs accurately is given by the fact that the construction of the Grand Junction line cost £18,846 per mile as against Locke's estimate of £17,000. This is amazingly accurate compared with the estimated costs for the London and Birmingham Railway (Robert Stephenson) and the Great Western Railway (Brunel). Locke also divided the project into a few large sections rather than many small ones. This allowed him to work closely with his contractors to develop the best methods, overcome problems and personally gain practical experience of the building process and of the contractors themselves. He used the contractors who worked well with him, especially Thomas Brassey and William Mackenzie, on many other projects. Everyone gained from this cooperative approach whereas Brunel's more adversarial approach eventually made it hard for him to get anyone to work for him. Marriage. In 1834 Locke married Phoebe McCreery, with whom he adopted a child. He was elected to the Royal Society in 1838. Lancaster and Carlisle Railway. A significant difference in philosophy between George Stephenson and Joseph Locke and the surveying methods they employed was more than a mere difference of opinion. Stephenson had started his career at a time when locomotives had little power to overcome excessive gradients. Both George and Robert Stephenson were prepared to go to great lengths to avoid steep gradients that would tax the locomotives of the day, even if this meant choosing a circuitous path that added on extra miles to the line of the route. Locke had more confidence in the ability of modern locomotives to climb these gradients. An example of this was the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway, which had to cope with the barrier of the Lake District mountains. In 1839 Stephenson proposed a circuitous route that avoided the Lake District altogether by going all the way round Morecambe Bay and West Cumberland, claiming: 'This is the only practicable line from Liverpool to Carlisle. The making of a railway across Shap Fell is out of the question.' The directors rejected his route and chose the one proposed by Joseph Locke, one that used steep gradients and passed over Shap Fell. The line was completed by Locke and was a success. Locke's reasoned that by avoiding long routes and tunnelling, the line could be finished more quickly, with less capital costs, and could start earning revenue sooner. This became known as the 'up and over' school of engineering (referred to by Rolt as 'Up and Down,' or Rollercoaster). Locke took a similar approach in planning the Caledonian Railway, from Carlisle to Glasgow. In both railways he introduced gradients of 1 in 75, which severely taxed fully laden locomotives, for even as more powerful locomotives were introduced, the trains that they pulled became heavier. It may therefore be argued that Locke, although his philosophy carried the day, was not entirely correct in his reasoning. Even today, Shap Fell is a severe test of any locomotive. Manchester and Sheffield Railway. Locke was subsequently appointed to build a railway line from Manchester to Sheffield, replacing Charles Vignoles as chief engineer, after the latter had been beset by misfortunes and financial difficulties. The project included the three-mile Woodhead Tunnel, and the line opened, after many delays, on 23 December 1845. The building of the line required over a thousand navvies and cost the lives of thirty-two of them, seriously injuring 140 others. The Woodhead Tunnel was such a difficult undertaking that George Stephenson claimed that it could not be done, declaring that he would eat the first locomotive that got through the tunnel. Subsequent commissions. In the north, Locke also designed the Lancaster and Preston Junction Railway; the Glasgow, Paisley and Greenock Railway; and the Caledonian Railway from Carlisle to Glasgow and Edinburgh. In the south, he worked on the London and Southampton Railway, later called the London and South Western Railway, designing, among other structures, Nine Elms to Waterloo Viaduct, Richmond Railway Bridge (1848, since replaced), and Barnes Bridge (1849), both across the River Thames, tunnels at Micheldever, and the 12-arch Quay Street viaduct and the 16-arch Cams Hill viaduct, both in Fareham (1848). He was actively involved in planning and building many railways in Europe (assisted by John Milroy), including the Le Havre, Rouen, Paris rail link, the Barcelona to Mataró line and the Dutch Rhenish Railway. He was present in Paris when the Versailles train crash occurred in 1842, and produced a statement concerning the facts for General Charles Pasley of the Railway Inspectorate. He also experienced a catastrophic failure of one of his viaducts built on the new Paris-Le Havre link. . The viaduct was of stone and brick at Barentin near Rouen, and was the longest and highest on the line. It was 108 feet high, and consisted of 27 arches, each 50 feet wide, with a total length of over 1600 feet. A boy hauling ballast for the line up an adjoining hillside early that morning (about 6.00 am) saw one arch (the fifth on the Rouen side) collapse, and the rest followed suit. Fortunately, no one was killed, although several workmen were injured in a mill below the structure. Locke attributed the catastrophic failure to frost action on the new lime cement, and premature off-centre loading of the viaduct with ballast. It was rebuilt at Thomas Brassey's cost, and survives to the present. Having pioneered many new lines in France, Locke also helped establish the first locomotive works in the country. Distinctive features of Locke's railway works were economy, the use of masonry bridges wherever possible and the absence of tunnels. An illustration of this is that there is no tunnel between Birmingham and Glasgow. Relationship with Robert Stephenson. Locke and Robert Stephenson had been good friends at the beginning of their careers, but their friendship had been marred by Locke's falling out with Robert's father. It seems that Robert felt loyalty to his father required that he should take his side. It is significant that after the death of George Stephenson in August 1848, the friendship of the two men was revived. When Robert Stephenson died in October 1859, Joseph Locke was a pallbearer at his funeral. Locke is reported to have referred to Robert as 'the friend of my youth, the companion of my ripening years, and a competitor in the race of life'. Locke was also on friendly terms with his other engineering rival, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. In 1845, Locke and Stephenson were both called to give evidence before two committees. In April a House of Commons Select Committee was investigating the atmospheric railway system proposed by Brunel. Brunel and Vignoles spoke in support of the system, whilst Locke and Stephenson spoke against it. The latter two were to be proved right in the long run. In August the two gave evidence before the Gauge Commissioners who were trying to arrive at a standard gauge for the whole country. Brunel spoke in favour of the 7 ft gauge he was using on the Great Western Railway. Locke and Stephenson spoke in favour of the 4 ft 8½in gauge that they had used on several lines. The latter two won the day and their gauge was adopted as the standard. Later life and legacy. Locke served as President of the Institution of Civil Engineers in between December 1857 and December 1859. He also served as Member of Parliament for Honiton in Devon from 1847 until his death. Joseph Locke died on 18 September 1860, apparently from appendicitis, whilst on a shooting holiday. He is buried in London's Kensal Green Cemetery. He outlived his friends/rivals Robert Stephenson and Isambard Brunel by less than a year; all three engineers died between 53 and 56 years of age, a circumstance attributed by Rolt to sheer overwork, accomplishing more in their brief lives than many achieve in a full three score and ten. Locke Park in Barnsley was dedicated to his memory by his widow Phoebe in 1862. It features a statue of Locke plus a folly, 'Locke Tower'. Locke's greatest legacy is the modern day West Coast Main Line (WCML), which was formed by the joining of the Caledonian, Lancaster & Carlisle, Grand Junction railways to Robert Stephenson's London & Birmingham Railway. As a result, around three-quarters of the WCML's route was planned and engineered by Locke.

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Young Eagles is a program created by the US Experimental Aircraft Association designed to give children between the ages of 8 to 17 an opportunity to experience flight in a general aviation airplane while educating them about aviation. The program is offered free of charge with costs covered by the volunteers. It was launched in 1992 and, by 2016, has flown more than 2 million children in 90 countries. The program's presenting sponsors are Phillips 66 and Sporty's Pilot Shop. Program history. In 1991, a survey of long-time EAA members was conducted to help determine the organization's future priorities. Nearly 92 percent said EAA's primary objective should be to involve more young people in aviation. The survey also showed that a flight experience inspired respondents toward aviation. On May 13, 1992, following several months of coordination by EAA's then-President Tom Poberezny and members of the EAA Board of Directors, management, staff and volunteers, the Young Eagles Program was unveiled at a Washington, D.C. news conference. The mission of the EAA Young Eagles Program is to provide a meaningful flight experience – free of charge – in a general aviation aircraft for young people (primarily between the ages of 8 and 17). Flights are provided by EAA members worldwide. The initial goal of the program was to fly one million children prior to the 100th anniversary of flight celebration (Dec. 17, 2003). That goal was achieved on November 13, 2003. An ongoing annual goal of introducing 100,000 young people to the Young Eagles experience has been established. In March 2011 EAA reported the results of a study on the program that showed that program participants are 5.4 times more likely to become a pilot than those who never participated and that 9% of those new pilots are female, an increase of 50% compared to the general population of pilots, which is 6% female. The study also indicated that the older a child is when taking their flight that it is the more likely that child will become a pilot, with two out of every 100 participants who are 17 years old continuing to complete a pilot certificate. The program is administered by the Young Eagles Office at EAA headquarters in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. At AirVenture Oshkosh 2011, EAA unveiled a new program called "International Young Eagles Day," a day set aside to encourage all EAA members and Chapters to participate that is held on the second Saturday of June annually. At AirVenture Oshkosh 2012, EAA unveiled a new program called "Eagle Flights," which will offer rides for adults. International Young Eagles. In Canada the Canadian Owners and Pilots Association participated in the Young Eagles program between 1992 and 2008. COPA members have flown more than 81,000 Young Eagles. COPA participation was ended on May 31, 2008 due to insurance concerns. Pilot participation. More than 43,000 pilots have participated in the program, donating their time and paying the full cost of providing the flights for the children in their own or rented aircraft. While some pilots have only flown a few Young Eagles there are many pilots who have flown more than three thousand children. Program Chairman. At the program's inception EAA decided to continuously recruit a well-known person and pilot to act as Chairman and raise the profile of the program. The program's founding chairman was Academy Award-winning film actor Cliff Robertson, who served in that capacity from 1992 to 1994. Robertson was succeeded in 1994 by retired USAF General and test pilot Chuck Yeager, the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound. Yeager stepped down as chairman in 2004 and, in March 2004, franchise film actor Harrison Ford became Chairman of the Young Eagles program. Ford has flown more than 300 Young Eagles, including the 2-millionth Young Eagle, in several types of aircraft, and finished his five-year term in 2009. In September 2009, Captain Chesley Sullenberger and First Officer Jeffrey Skiles, who became famous in the US Airways Flight 1549 Hudson River ditching on 15 January 2009, were named as the program's new co-chairmen. In July 2013, aerobatic world champion pilot Sean D. Tucker replaced Sullenberger and Skiles as chairman. In July 2018, NFL tight end Jimmy Graham joined Tucker as the organization's co-chairman. Scholarships and sponsors. Rolls Royce scholarship. Rolls Royce contributed in 2010 six flight scholarships for basic flight training, and one for advanced training toward a private pilot certificate. The "Next Step". In May 2009, EAA joined with Sporty's Pilot Shop of Batavia, Ohio, to provide the "Next Step" to the Young Eagles Flight experience. Sporty's has made their on line Complete Flight Training Course available to any interested Young Eagle following their flight. Sporty's also provides pilot logbooks to allow Young Eagles to record their flight and any subsequent aviation experiences. Gathering of Eagles. The Gathering of Eagles is an annual fundraiser auction event to support the Young Eagles program. The organization hosts the event each year in the EAA AirVenture Museum during its EAA AirVenture Airshow. Among items auctioned were a SR-71 themed "Blackbird" Ford Mustang donated by Ford Motor Company, Jack Roush, and EAA member Carroll Shelby. One-of-a-Kind Auctioned Cars

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Biodegradable electronics are electronic circuits and devices with a limited lifetime owing to their tendency to biodegrade. Such devices are proposed to represent useful medical implant, and temporary communication sensors. Organic electronic devices as compostable material platforms have been fabricated on aluminum foil and paper to accommodate these expanded functionalities. In one embodiment of this idea, paper films were utilized as a combination substrate and gate dielectric for use with pentacene-based active layers. This idea was expanded upon to create complete circuits using foldable paper-based substrates. Silk coatings could underpin an electronic devices because it melts away when the device is no longer needed. One test device, a heating circuit powered by beaming radio waves at it, was implanted under the skin of a rat with a wound. After the wound had healed, the implant simply melts away. The US military research agency DARPA funded research on building a tiny dissolving camera with this silk coating for use as a disposable spy camera. Cable bacteria give insight to how biodegradable electronics could be made.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=875900

A body of water or waterbody (often spelled water body) is any significant accumulation of water, generally on a planet's surface. The term most often refers to oceans, seas, and lakes, but it includes smaller pools of water such as ponds, wetlands, or more rarely, puddles. A body of water does not have to be still or contained; rivers, streams, canals, and other geographical features where water moves from one place to another are also considered bodies of water. Most are naturally occurring geographical features, but some are artificial. There are types that can be either. For example, most reservoirs are created by engineering dams, but some natural lakes are used as reservoirs. Similarly, most harbors are naturally occurring bays, but some harbors have been created through construction. Bodies of water that are navigable are known as waterways. Some bodies of water collect and move water, such as rivers and streams, and others primarily hold water, such as lakes and oceans. The term "body of water" can also refer to a reservoir of water held by a plant, technically known as a phytotelma. Bodies of water are affected by gravity which is what creates the tidal effects on Earth. Types. Note that there are some geographical features involving water that are not bodies of water, for example waterfalls, geysers and rapids.

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The port town of Olympia, Washington, United States, has been a center of post-hardcore, anti-folk, and other youth-oriented musical genres since at least the late 1970s; It was during the mid-1970s, 80s to the 1990s of which the world witnessed the impact music from this town will eventually create and inspire further generations to come. Before that, Olympia's The Fleetwoods enjoyed several Billboard chart successes between 1959-1963. It is a town which along with Washington D.C saw the rise in feminism within the musical industry where topics of rape, domestic abuse, sexuality, racism, patriarchy, classism, anarchism and female empowerment were commonly addressed in songs . Along with Washington, D.C., Olympia was a center for the riot grrrl movement in the early 1990s, with Bikini Kill and Bratmobile as prominent proponents of the movement. The Historical Capitol Theater in Olympia’s town square also has hosted the International Pop Underground Convention in 1991 which follows a punk and indie rock music theme and has also hosted the Yoyo-A-Go-Go festival in 1994,1997,1999 and 2001. Olympia is also home to a number of record labels and companies that have expanded to gain considerable attention. These include K Records, 2060 Records, and Kill Rock Stars, the latter of which has signed artists such as Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney, Unwound and Elliott Smith. These record companies have allowed for the success and image of Olympia to be displayed in their artist's movements and forever present in their music. Furthermore, famous artists such as John Forstser, Beck, Ivan Svenonius, Kurt Cobain, and Krist Novoselic have frequented Olympia. Notable musicians and groups. Olympia has been home to many worldwide famous artists and bands as well as producers. It is a town of which many artists in their craft have used as inspiration in their songs or have used to either create music or to base themselves within the town. A common trend which is found within this list is many artists who were in a band that lasted a short period of time then created another band. The following list includes the famous or related bands to Olympia, Washington and the brief relation they have to the town itself. Record labels. K Records was established in 1982 in Olympia, Washington. It was initially focused on releasing artists such as Beck and Modest Mouse. The label was started by Calvin Johnson and managed by Candice Pedersen. Although it primarily released indie rock, it is regarded as one of the earliest pioneers of the Riot Grrrl movement. Kill Rock Stars was founded in 1991 by Tinuviel Sampson and Slim Moon. The label primarily released work from bands in the Olympia area. Genres of Music Present in Olympia. Olympia, Washington has influenced the popularity of punk rock, indie, folk, grunge and rock and roll music. Over time these genres have not been so popular but have sparked a generation of movement and are heavily influenced by Generation X and the Media. Musical Genres are often complex things and are based on ideological categories. Punk Rock: was originally used to describe the garage musicians of the ’60s, this has now changed over time. With each decade, the 60s described it as ‘starting up and playing out with no musical or vocal instruction’ . Progressing to the 70s where it was described as ‘dressing outrageously, living extravagantly and producing loud trashy rock and roll vibes’ from artists such as David Bowie and the New York Dolls. By the late 70s and early 80s, it was defined by an artist's location, camaraderie and shared musical influences. During this time, there was a Punk explosion resulting in the beginning of a solid musical force splitting into numerous sub-genres. In relation to Olympia, bands such as Bikini Kill often described their sound as Punk Rock as it followed a powerful explosion of sound and meaning. Indie: Independent Music or Indie Music can simply not be defined as one type of style. Indie artists are influenced by each other and often using similar sounds. The sound of which is commonly used is melodic and the instruments are well textured. Often the lyrics are powerfully emotional and spark emotions from the audience of which are listening to the music. In Olympia, Indie music often came from emotional-driven music created by bands such as Nirvana. Folk: With Folk Music, often two meanings describe the definition of the genre. The first refers to the meaning of traditional music. Traditional folk music is often passed from word of mouth down, from generation to generation. In addition to this, Folk music can also be described as “acoustic music” and acoustic instruments that are commonly used in the recording of songs. Rock and Roll: was music born in the 1950s which flourished during the 1960s amongst the youth culture across the world. During the late 1990s, Rock and Roll were often associated with heavy use of instruments with a “longstanding association of rebellion, individuality and coolness” In the entire United States of America as of May 2018, Rock (56.8%), Pop (56.15) and Country (49.95) are the three leading music genres. For Olympia, the popularity of alternative/indie/punk music was ‘embraced by the media and the masses’. In the early 1990s, bands that were considered underground became mainstream and were often marketed on commercial television, on the radio or in shopping centers . Media played a major factor in the acceleration of this type of music and with the mid-1990s indie bands such as Nirvana, Oasis and No Doubt saw the so-called ‘alternative nation’ sweep across all of America. The television station known as MTV was at the forefront of this movement of introducing these genres to the population's everyday life. In addition to this, genres such as punk rock and indie came from the generation itself of Gen X. This is due to the city of New York where often unlikely settings and art forms were born. Indie rock took off in other cities such as Athens, Georgia, Washington, Kentucky and Louisville. However, the town of Olympia is now formally recognised and associated with these genres of music. The town of Olympia also influenced the genre's popularity. Since the atmosphere of Olympia was more sympathetic to women, art schools and college radio, Generation X’s preferences were often heard and highly advertised. Music Movements from and in Olympia. Yoyo A Go Go. The Yoyo A Go Go music festival was a series of concerts in Olympia, Washington, that began in 1994. It featured a variety of local and international acts, sharing the stage. The first Yoyo enterprise was a recording studio built inside Olympia's Capitol Theater by audio engineer Pat Maley. Maley eventually decided to initiate an independent musical event, inspired by Olympia's earlier International Pop Underground Convention (IPU), a highly regarded 1991 festival that has been deemed "a watershed moment in indie rock". Ladyfest. Ladyfest is a global music and art festivals organized by women and feminist artists. They typically feature a variety of performers, events and workshops. Individual Ladyfests differ, but usually feature a combination of bands, musical groups, performance artists, authors, spoken word and visual artists, films, lectures, art exhibitions and workshops; it is organized by volunteers . The first Ladyfest was held in 2000 in Olympia, Washington. It featured artists The Gossip, The Need, Sleater Kinney, and The Rondelles. Similar artists involved in Riot Grrl. Since the first Ladyfest, The event has branched all over the world run by volunteers. International Pop Underground Convention. The International Pop Underground Convention or IPU was a 1991 punk and alternative rock music festival in Olympia, Washington. This festival continued on for six days at the local Capitol Theater. During the festival bands and artists have the ability to play, mingle and connect with other Olympia Music personalities and record labels. Girls to the Front! In 1991, the same year of which the Riot Grrrl manifesto came out the International Pop Underground Convention held their six-day festival. During one night classified as 'girls night' due to Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Kicking Giant and Heaves to Betsy all played. At the peak of this time, Kathleen Hanna famously yelled out the request "girls to the front!" . This then sparked the conversations of Girls and Women's experiences during gigs to be safer and to enjoy themselves without fear. The Impacts of the Music of Olympia. When the beginnings of the Riot Grrl movement first began, punk was predominantly male. In Seattle during this time, grunge bands such as Nirvana were dominating the scene. Meanwhile, in Olympia, Washington, many feminist activists began forming and writing their own narratives in zines in response to female issues in society. The new movement of rioting girls, celebrating sexuality and addressing women issues openly has helped society during the 90s to acknowledge the struggles women face in this music atmosphere. As the 90s continued on, various bands that led the Riot Grrrl and the feminist music scene began to disband or started to form new groups with differing agendas. However, channeling the core of what Olympia music was about and the feminist movement of which was so predominant allowed these fresh waves of new bands and artists to address similar issues in their work. Even though many changes have happened in society in relation to sexism, gender equality, homophobia, transphobia and racism, they are still very present today. Allowing for the Music of Olympia to be heavily influenced by societal opinions and attitudes allows for the world to witness artists response from both women and male perspectives on these issues. The town itself has been home to worldwide artists and bands but the most impactful movement to come from this town would be the rise of feminism within 90s music.

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The Troy Transit Center is an unstaffed train station in Troy, Michigan, United States, that is served by Amtrak's "Wolverine", which runs thrice daily between Chicago, Illinois, and Pontiac, Michigan (via Kalamazoo, Ann Arbor, and Detroit, Michigan). It is also served by Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART). The transit center replaced the nearby Birmingham Amtrak station in October 2014. Description. The transit center is located in the southwest corner of Troy at 1201 Doyle Drive. It is about southwest of the former Birmingham Station and is situated behind the Midtown Square shopping center. The Oakland/Troy Airport is located just a few blocks away, on the east side of Coolidge Highway. The transit center has fairly easy access from both I-75 and Woodward Avenue (M-1). The Troy Transit Center brings together the services of Amtrak, SMART buses and taxis. Designed by local architectural firm Neumann/Smith, the one story, brick building includes a waiting room and restrooms, as well as large expanses of glass that allow natural light to flood the interior. There are 124 spaces for both long and short term free parking. A pedestrian bridge over the tracks allows access to the western platform and protects passengers from inclement weather. There is no ticketing, nor even a Quik-Trak kiosk, and baggage cannot be checked. Station hours are midnight to 2:00 am, 5:00 am to 6:30 am, 10:00 am to 11:30 am, and 5:00 pm to 6:30 pm daily. The station has an elevation of . There is a bus stand in front of the station and, according to the Troy Chamber of Commerce, there would be an estimated 18,200 SMART passengers stopping adjacent to the new transit center annually (about 50 per day). However, SMART buses were banned from the station in December 2016 as part of a long-running issues with the former owner of the land on which the station sits. A deal was struck in June 2017 allowing SMART to directly access the station again. Of the 22 Michigan stations regularly served by Amtrak, Troy was the thirteenth-busiest in the Fiscal Year 2015, boarding or detraining an average of approximately 64 passengers daily. Although the Troy Transit Center replaced Birmingham station in early October 2014, the ridership for remained consistent following the change of stations. History. In 2000 a real estate developer, Grand/Sakwa Properties, LLC, gave the city of Troy title to land on which to build a new station near the former Birmingham station. However, title to the land was given with the express provision that funding for a transit center be secured within not more than ten years. In 2011, the cities of Birmingham and Troy were awarded a federal grant to assist in replacing the station with a new, multimodal transit center across the tracks in Troy. However, the city of Birmingham backed out of the project in 2008 and the mayor of Troy, Janice Daniels, rejected the funding on ideological grounds, thus terminating the project. The $6.3 million (equivalent to $ million in ) project was resurrected by a subsequent Troy city administration, with a groundbreaking on November 27, 2012 and final completion in October 2013. However, a legal dispute over title to the land under the transit center kept it from opening for another year. In late September 2014, a settlement by Troy to acquire the land was reached, allowing it to lease the site over the next twenty years to Amtrak. As part of the settlement the City of Troy was ordered to pay $1.05 million (equivalent to $ million in ) to Grand/Sakwa Properties, LLC for the land in dispute. After 14 years of effort, the station finally opened on October 14, 2014, with the nearby Birmingham station having permanently closed the day before. Notwithstanding, the initial settlement to acquire the land, it took nearly another year before a final settlement was reached between the City of Troy and Grand/Sakwa Properties, LLC. The final settlement required an "additional" payment of $3.1 million (equivalent to $ million in ) to Grand/Sakwa Properties, LLC.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=22645659

Transparent conducting films (TCFs) are thin films of optically transparent and electrically conductive material. They are an important component in a number of electronic devices including liquid-crystal displays, OLEDs, touchscreens and photovoltaics. While indium tin oxide (ITO) is the most widely used, alternatives include wider-spectrum transparent conductive oxides (TCOs), conductive polymers, metal grids and random metallic networks, carbon nanotubes (CNT), graphene, nanowire meshes and ultra thin metal films. TCFs for photovoltaic applications have been fabricated from both inorganic and organic materials. Inorganic films typically are made up of a layer of transparent conducting oxide (TCO), most commonly indium tin oxide (ITO), fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) or doped zinc oxide. Organic films are being developed using carbon nanotube networks and graphene, which can be fabricated to be highly transparent to infrared light, along with networks of polymers such as poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) and its derivatives. Transparent conducting films are typically used as electrodes when a situation calls for low resistance electrical contacts without blocking light (e.g. LEDs, photovoltaics). Transparent materials possess wide bandgaps whose energy value is greater than those of visible light. As such, photons with energies below the bandgap value are not absorbed by these materials and visible light passes through. Some applications, such as solar cells, often require a wider range of transparency beyond visible light to make efficient use of the full solar spectrum. Transparent conducting oxides. Overview. Transparent conductive oxides (TCO) are doped metal oxides used in optoelectronic devices such as flat panel displays and photovoltaics (including inorganic devices, organic devices, and dye-sensitized solar cells). Most of these films are fabricated with polycrystalline or amorphous microstructures. Typically, these applications use electrode materials that have greater than 80% transmittance of incident light as well as electrical conductivities higher than 103 S/cm for efficient carrier transport. In general, TCOs for use as thin-film electrodes in solar cells should have a minimum carrier concentration on the order of 1020 cm−3 for low resistivity and a bandgap greater than 3.2 eV to avoid absorption of light over most of the solar spectra. Mobility in these films is typically limited by ionized impurity scattering due to the large amount of ionized dopant atoms and is on the order of 40 cm2/(V·s) for the best performing TCOs. Current transparent conducting oxides used in industry are primarily n-type conductors, meaning their primary conduction is as donors of electrons. This is because electron mobilities are typically higher than hole mobilities, making it difficult to find shallow acceptors in wide band gap oxides to create a large hole population. Suitable p-type transparent conducting oxides are still being researched, though the best of them are still orders of magnitude behind n-type TCOs. The lower carriers' concentration of TCOs with respect to metals shift their plasmonic resonance into the NIR and SWIR range. To date, the industry standard in TCOs is ITO, or indium tin oxide. This material boasts a low resistivity of ~10−4 Ω·cm and a transmittance of greater than 80%. ITO has the drawback of being expensive. Indium, the film's primary metal, is rare (6000 metric tons worldwide in 2006), and its price fluctuates due to market demand (over $800 per kg in 2006). For this reason, doped binary compounds such as aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) and indium-doped cadmium oxide have been proposed as alternative materials. AZO is composed of aluminum and zinc, two common and inexpensive materials, while indium-doped cadmium oxide only uses indium in low concentrations. Several transition metal dopants in indium oxide, particularly molybdenum, give much higher electron mobility and conductivity than obtained with tin and Ta is a promising alternative dopant for tin oxide. Other novel transparent conducting oxides include barium stannate and the correlated metal oxides strontium vanadate and calcium vanadate. Binary compounds of metal oxides without any intentional impurity doping have also been developed for use as TCOs. These systems are typically n-type with a carrier concentration on the order of 1020 cm−3, provided by interstitial metal ions and oxygen vacancies which both act as donors. However, these simple TCOs have not found practical use due to the high dependence of their electrical properties on temperature and oxygen partial pressure. In current research, labs are looking to optimize the electrical and optical characteristics of certain TCOs. Researchers deposit TCO onto the sample by using a sputtering machine. The targets have been changed and researchers are looking at materials such as IZO (Indium Zinc Oxide), ITO (Indium Tin Oxide) and AZO (Aluminum Zinc Oxide), and they are optimizing these materials by changing parameters within the sputtering deposition machine. When researchers vary parameters such as concentration of the gases within the sputtering, the pressure within the sputtering machine, power of the sputtering, and pressure, they are able to achieve different carrier concentrations and sheet resistivities within the machine. Carrier concentrations affect the short circuit current of the sample, and a change in sheet resistivity affects the fill factor of the sample. Researchers have varied parameters enough and found combinations that will optimize the short circuit current as well as the fill factor for TCOs such as indium tin oxide. Fabrication. Doped metal oxides for use as transparent conducting layers in photovoltaic devices are typically grown on a glass substrate. This glass substrate, apart from providing a support that the oxide can grow on, has the additional benefit of blocking most infrared wavelengths greater than 2 μm for most silicates, and converting it to heat in the glass layer. This in turn helps maintain a low temperature of the active region of the solar cell, which degrades in performance as it heats up. TCO films can be deposited on a substrate through various deposition methods, including metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), metal organic molecular beam deposition (MOMBD), solution deposition, spray pyrolysis, ultrasonic nozzle sprayed graphene oxide and air sprayed Ag Nanowire and pulsed laser deposition (PLD), however conventional fabrication techniques typically involve magnetron sputtering of the film. The sputtering process is very inefficient, with only 30% of planar target material available for deposition on the substrate. Cylindrical targets offer closer to 80% utilization. In the case of ITO recycling of unused target material is required for economic production. For AZO or ZnAl sputtering target material is sufficiently inexpensive that recovery of materials use is of no concern. There is some concern that there is a physical limit to the available indium for ITO. Growth typically is performed in a reducing environment to compensating acceptor defects within the film (e.g. metal vacancies), which degrade the carrier concentration (if n-type). For AZO thin film deposition, the coating method of reactive magnetron sputtering is very economical and practical way of mass production. In this method,Zn-Al metal target is sputtered in an oxygen atmosphere such that metal ions oxidize when they reach the substrates surface. By using a metal target instead of an oxide target, direct current magnetron sputtering may be used which enable much faster deposition rates. Theory. Charge carriers in these n-type oxides arise from three fundamental sources: interstitial metal ion impurities, oxygen vacancies, and doping ions. The first two sources always act as electron donors; indeed, some TCOs are fabricated solely using these two intrinsic sources as carrier generators. When an oxygen vacancy is present in the lattice it acts as a doubly charged electron donor. In ITO, for example, each oxygen vacancy causes the neighboring In3+ ion 5s orbitals to be stabilized from the 5s conduction band by the missing bonds to the oxygen ion, while two electrons are trapped at the site due to charge neutrality effects. This stabilization of the 5s orbitals causes a formation of a donor level for the oxygen ion, determined to be 0.03 eV below the conduction band. Thus these defects act as shallow donors to the bulk crystal. Common notation for this doping is Kröger–Vink notation and is written as: Here "O" in the subscripts indicates that both the initially bonded oxygen and the vacancy that is produced lie on an oxygen lattice site, while the superscripts on the oxygen and vacancy indicate charge. Thus to enhance their electrical properties, ITO films and other transparent conducting oxides are grown in reducing environments, which encourage oxygen vacancy formation. Dopant ionization within the oxide occurs in the same way as in other semiconductor crystals. Shallow donors near the conduction band (n-type) allow electrons to be thermally excited into the conduction band, while acceptors near the valence band (p-type) allow electrons to jump from the valence band to the acceptor level, populating the valence band with holes. It is important to note that carrier scattering in these oxides arises primarily from ionized impurity scattering at high dopant levels (>1 at%). Charged impurity ions and point defects have scattering cross-sections that are much greater than their neutral counterparts. Increasing the scattering decreases the mean-free path of the carriers in the oxide, which leads to low electron mobility and a high resistivity. These materials can be modeled reasonably well by the free electron model assuming a parabolic conduction band and doping levels above the Mott Criterion. This criterion states that an insulator such as an oxide can experience a composition-induced transition to a metallic state given a minimum doping concentration nc, determined by: where H* is the mean ground state Bohr radius. For ITO, this value requires a minimum doping concentration of roughly 1019 cm−3. Above this level, the conduction type in the material switches from semiconductor to metallic. Transparent conducting polymers. Conductive polymers were reported in the mid the 20th century as derivatives of polyaniline. Research continued on such polymers in the 1960s and 70s and continued into the turn of the 21st century. Most conductive polymers are derivatives of polyacetylene, polyaniline, polypyrrole or polythiophenes. These polymers have conjugated double bonds which allow for conduction. By manipulating the band structure, polythiophenes have been modified to achieve a HOMO-LUMO separation (bandgap) that is large enough to make them transparent to visible light. Applications. Transparent conductive polymers are used as electrodes on light emitting diodes and photovoltaic devices. They have conductivity below that of transparent conducting oxides but have low absorption of the visible spectrum allowing them to act as a transparent conductor on these devices. However, because transparent conductive polymers do absorb some of the visible spectrum and significant amounts of the mid to near IR, they lower the efficiency of photovoltaic devices. The transparent conductive polymers can be made into "flexible" films making them desirable despite their lower conductivity. This makes them useful in the development of flexible electronics where traditional transparent conductors will fail. Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT). Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) has conductivity of up to around 1,000 S/cm. Thin oxidized PEDOT films have approx. 10% or less absorption in the visible spectrum and excellent stability. However, PEDOT is insoluble in water making processing more difficult and costly. The bandgap of PEDOT can be varied between 1.4 and 2.5 eV by varying the degree of π-overlap along the backbone. This can be done by adding substituents along the chain, which result in steric interactions preventing π-overlap. Substituents can also be electron-accepting or donating which will modify the electronic character and thus modify the bandgap. This allows for the formation of a wide bandgap conductor which is transparent to the visible spectrum. PEDOT is prepared by mixing EDT monomer with an oxidizing agent such as FeCl3. The oxidizing agent acts as an initiator for polymerization. Research has shown that increasing the ratio of [FeCl3]/[monomer] decreases the solubility of the PEDOT. This is thought to be a result of increased crosslinking in the polymer making it more difficult to dissolve in a solvent. Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) PEDOT: poly(styrene sulfonate) PSS. Doping PEDOT with poly(styrene sulfonate) can improve the properties over the unmodified PEDOT. This PEDOT:PSS compound has become the industry leader in transparent conductive polymers. is water-soluble, making processing easier. PEDOT:PSS has a conductivity ranging from 400 to 600 S/cm while still transmitting ~80% of visible light. Treatment in air at 100 °C for over 1000 hours will result in a minimal change in conductivity. Recently, it was reported that the conductivity of PEDOT:PSS can be improved to be more than 4600 S/cm. PEDOT:PSS is prepared by polymerizing EDT monomer in an aqueous solution of PSS using Na2S2O8 as the oxidizing agent. This aqueous solution is then spin coated and dried to make a film. Poly(4,4-dioctyl cyclopentadithiophene). Poly(4,4-dioctyl cyclopentadithiophene) can be doped with iodine or 2,3-dichloro-5,6-dicyano-1,4-benzoquinone (DDQ) to form a transparent conductor. The doped polymer has low absorption of the visible spectrum with an absorption band centered around 1050 nm. When doped with iodine, a conductivity of 0.35 S/cm can be achieved. However, the iodine has a tendency to diffuse out in air, making the iodine-doped poly(4,4-dioctyl cyclopentadithiophene) unstable. DDQ itself has a conductivity of 1.1 S/cm. However, DDQ-doped poly(4,4-dioctyl cyclopentadithiophene) also tends to decrease its conductivity in air. DDQ-doped polymer has better stability than the iodine-doped polymer, but the stability is still below that of PEDOT. In summary, poly(4,4-dioctyl cyclopentadithiophene) has inferior properties relative to PEDOT and PEDOT:PSS, which need to be improved for realistic applications. Poly(4,4-dioctyl cyclopentadithiophene) is solution polymerized by combining monomer with iron(III) chloride. Once the polymerization is complete the doping is done by exposing the polymer to iodine vapor or DDQ solution. Carbon nanotubes. Advantages. Transparent conductors are fragile and tend to break down due to fatigue. The most commonly used TCO is Indium-Tin-Oxide (ITO) because of its good electrical properties and ease of fabrication. However, these thin films are usually fragile and such problems as lattice mismatch and stress-strain constraints lead to restrictions in possible uses for TCFs. ITO has been shown to degrade with time when subject to mechanical stresses. Recent increases in cost are also forcing many to look to carbon nanotube films as a potential alternative. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have attracted much attention because of their materials properties, including a high elastic modulus (~1–2 TPa), a high tensile strength (~13–53 GPa), and a high conductivity (metallic tubes can theoretically carry an electric current density of 4×109 A/cm2, which is ~1000 times higher than for other metals such as copper). CNT thin films have been used as transparent electrodes in TCFs because of these good electronic properties. Preparation of CNT thin films. The preparation of CNT thin films for TCFs is composed of three steps: the CNT growth process, putting the CNTs in solution, and, finally, creation of the CNT thin film. Nanotubes can be grown using laser ablation, electric-arc discharge, or different forms of chemical vapor deposition (such as PECVD). However, nanotubes are grown en-masse, with nanotubes of different chiralities stuck together due to van der Waals attraction. Density gradient ultracentrifugation (DGU) has recently been used to get rid of this problem. Using DGU, transparent conductors were constructed using only metallic tubes. Because DGU allows for separation by density, tubes with similar optical properties (due to similar diameters) were selected and used to make CNT conductive films of different colors. In order to separate the grown tubes, the CNTs are mixed with surfactant and water and sonicated until satisfactory separation occurs. This solution is then sprayed onto the desired substrate in order to create a CNT thin film. The film is then rinsed in water in order to get rid of excess surfactant. One method of spray deposition used for CNT film creation is an ultrasonic nozzle to atomize CNTs in solution to form PEDOT layers. By optimizing spray parameters, including surfactant, drop size (dictated by the ultrasonic nozzle frequency) and solution flow rate, sheet resistance characteristics can be tuned. Due to the ultrasonic vibration of the nozzle itself, this method also provides an additional level of sonification during the spray process for added separation of agglomerated CNTs. Comparing CNTs to TCOs. CNTs can also be used in addition to transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) in thin-film photovoltaic devices. Two TCOs which are often used are ZnO/Al and In2O3/Sn indium tin oxide (ITO). PV devices made with these TCOs attained energy-conversion efficiencies of 19.5% in CuIn1−xGaxSe2-based (CIGS) solar cells and 16.5% in CdTe-based solar cells. These photovoltaic devices had much higher efficiencies compared to the devices made with CNT thin films: Britz "et al." report an efficiency of 8%, with an open circuit voltage (Voc) of 0.676 V, a short circuit flux (Jsc) of 23.9 mA/cm2, and a fill factor of 45.48%. However, CNT thin films show many advantages over other transparent electrodes in the IR range. CNT thin films were reported to have a transmittance of over 90% in this range (400 nm – 22 μm). This paves the way for new applications, indicating that CNT thin films can be used as heat dissipaters in solar cells because of this high transmittance. As stated previously, nanotube chirality is important in helping determine its potential aid to these devices. Before mass production can occur, more research is needed in exploring the significance of tube diameter and chirality for transparent conducting films in photovoltaic applications. It is expected that the conductivity of the SWNT thin films will increase with an increase in CNT length and purity. As stated previously, the CNT films are made using randomly oriented bundles of CNTs. Ordering these tubes should also increase conductivity, as it will minimise scattering losses and improve contact between the nanotubes. Conducting nanowire networks and metal mesh as flexible transparent electrodes. Randomly conducting networks of wires or metal meshes obtained from templates are new generation transparent electrodes. In these electrodes, nanowire or metal mesh network is charge collector, while the voids between them are transparent to light. These are obtained from the deposition of silver or copper nanowires, or by depositing metals in templates such as hierarchical patterns of random cracks, leaves venation and grain boundaries etc. These metal networks can be made on flexible substrates and can act as flexible transparent electrodes. For better performance of these conducting network based electrodes, optimised density of nanowires has to be used as excess density, leads to shadowing losses in solar cells, while the lower density of the wires, leads to higher sheet resistance and more recombination losses of charge carriers generated in solar cells.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=158015

Cosmetics are constituted from a mixture of chemical compounds derived from either natural sources or synthetically created ones. Cosmetics designed for skin care can be used to cleanse, exfoliate and protect the skin, as well as replenishing it, through the use of cleansers, toners, serums, moisturizers, and balms; cosmetics designed for more general personal care, such as shampoo and body wash, can be used to cleanse the body; cosmetics designed to enhance one's appearance (makeup) can be used to conceal blemishes, enhance one's natural features (such as the eyebrows and eyelashes), add color to a person's face and, in the case of more extreme forms of makeup used for performances, fashion shows and people in costume, can be used to change the appearance of the face entirely to resemble a different person, creature or object. Cosmetics can also be designed to add fragrance to the body. Though the legal definition of cosmetics in most countries is broader, in some Western countries, cosmetics are commonly taken to mean only makeup products, such as lipstick, mascara, eye shadow, foundation, blush, highlighter, bronzer, and several other product types. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates cosmetics, defines cosmetics as products "intended to be applied to the human body for cleansing, beautifying, promoting attractiveness, or altering the appearance without affecting the body's structure or functions". This broad definition includes any material intended for use as an ingredient of a cosmetic product, with the FDA specifically excluding pure soap from this category. Etymology. The word "cosmetics" derives from the Greek (), meaning "technique of dress and ornament", from (), "skilled in ordering or arranging" and that from (), meaning "order" and "ornament". History. Cosmetics have been in use for thousands of years. The absence of regulation of the manufacture and use of cosmetics, as well as the absence of scientific knowledge regarding the effects of various compounds on the human body for much of this time period, led historically to a number of negative adverse effects upon those who used cosmetics, including deformities, blindness and in some cases death. Examples of the prevalent usage of harmful cosmetics include the use of ceruse (white lead) throughout a number of different cultures, such as during the Renaissance in the West, and blindness caused by the mascara Lash Lure during the early 20th century. One of the earliest cultures to use cosmetics was ancient Egypt, where both Egyptian men and women used makeup to enhance their appearance. The use of black kohl eyeliner and eyeshadows in dark colours such as blue, red, and black was common, and was commonly recorded and represented in Egyptian art, as well as being seen in Egyptian hieroglyphs. Ancient Egyptians also extracted red dye from fucus-algin, 0.01% iodine, and some bromine mannite, but this dye resulted in serious illness. Lipsticks with shimmering effects were initially made using a pearlescent substance found in fish scales, which are still used extensively today. Despite the hazardous nature of some Egyptian cosmetics, ancient Egyptian makeup was also thought to have antibacterial properties that helped prevent infections. Ancient Sumerian men and women also wore makeup, being possibly the first culture to invent and wear lipstick roughly 5,000 years ago, by crushing gemstones and decorating the face with them, mainly on the lips, as well as around the eyes. The ancient Indus Valley Civilisation (3000-1500 BC) also utilised makeup, with women applying red tinted lipstick to their lips for decoration. Other cultures to use cosmetics include the ancient Greeks and the Romans. Cosmetics are also mentioned in the Old Testament, such as in 2 Kings , where the biblical figure Jezebel painted her eyelids (approximately 840 BC). Cosmetics are also mentioned in the book of Esther, where beauty treatments are described. According to one source, early major developments in cosmetics include: Use of cosmetics continued into the Middle Ages, where the face was whitened and the cheeks rouged; during the later 16th century in the West, the personal attributes of the women who used makeup created a demand for the product among the upper class. Cosmetics continued to be used in the following centuries, though attitudes towards cosmetics varied throughout time, with the use of cosmetics being openly frowned upon at many points in Western history. In the 19th century, Queen Victoria publicly declared makeup improper, vulgar, and acceptable only for use by actors, with many famous actresses of the time, such as Sarah Bernhardt and Lillie Langtry using makeup. Many cosmetic products available at this time were still either chemically dubious or derived from natural resources commomly found in the kitchen, such as food colouring, berries and beetroot. During the 19th century, there was a high number of incidences of lead poisoning due to the fashion for red and white lead makeup and powder, leading to swelling and inflammation of the eyes, weakened tooth enamel and blackening skin, with heavy use known to lead to death. Usage of white lead was not confined only to the West, with the white Japanese face makeup known as also produced using white lead. However, in the second part of the 19th century, scientific advances in the production of makeup lead to the creation of makeup free of hazardous substances such as lead. Regardless of the changes in social attitudes towards cosmetics, ideals of appearance were occasionally achieved through the use of cosmetics by many women. 19th century fashion ideals of women appearing delicate, feminine and pale were achieved by some through the use of makeup, with some women discreetly using rouge on their cheeks and drops of "belladonna" to dilate their eyes to appear larger. Though cosmetics were used discreetly by many women, makeup in Western cultures during this time was generally frowned upon, particularly during the 1870s, when Western social etiquette increased in rigidity. Teachers and clergywomen specifically were forbidden from the use of cosmetic products. Throughout the later 19th century and early 20th century, changes in the prevailing attitudes towards cosmetics led to the wider expansion of the cosmetics industry, with the market developed in the US during the 1910s by figures such as Elizabeth Arden, Helena Rubinstein, and Max Factor. These firms were joined by Revlon just before World War II and Estée Lauder just after. By the middle of the 20th century, cosmetics were in widespread use by women in nearly all industrial societies around the world, with the cosmetics industry becoming a multibillion-dollar enterprise by the beginning of the 21st century. The wider acceptance of the use of cosmetics, however, led some to come to see makeup as a tool utilised in the oppression and subjection of women to unfair societal standards. In 1968 at the feminist Miss America protest, protestors symbolically threw a number of feminine products into a "Freedom Trash Can", with cosmetics among the items the protestors called "instruments of female torture" and accoutrements of what they perceived to be enforced femininity. As of 2016, the world's largest cosmetics company is L'Oréal, founded by Eugène Schueller in 1909 as the French Harmless Hair Colouring Company (now owned by Liliane Bettencourt 26% and Nestlé 28%; the remaining 46% is traded publicly). Although modern makeup has been traditionally used mainly by women, an increasing number of men are using cosmetics usually associated with women to enhance or cover their own facial features such as blemishes and dark circles, as well the use of eyeshadow, mascara and lipstick by some. Cosmetics brands have increasingly also targeted men in the sale of cosmetics, with some products targeted specifically at men. Types. Though there are a large number of differing cosmetics used for a variety of different purposes, all cosmetics are typically intended to be applied externally. These products can be applied to the face (on the skin, lips, eyebrows and eyes), to the body (on the skin, in particular the hands and nails), and to the hair. These products may be intended for use as skincare, personal care or to alter the appearance, with the subset of cosmetics known as makeup primarily referring to products containing colour pigments intended for the purpose of altering the wearer's appearance; some manufacturers will distinguish only between "decorative" cosmetics intended to alter the appearance and "care" cosmetics designed for skincare and personal care. Most cosmetics are also distinguished by the area of the body intended for application, with cosmetics designed to be used on the face and eye area usually applied with a brush, a makeup sponge, or the fingertips. Skincare. Cleansing is a standard step in skin care routines. Skin cleansing includes some or all of these steps or cosmetics: Hair care. Hair care is a category of cosmetics devoted to products which are used to improve the appearance of hair. Perfume. Perfumes or fragranes is a liquid which can be sprayed to produce a long-lasting smell. It is created by mixing different compounds together. There are different groups of perfumes which are categorised according to their concentration. Tools. A makeup brush is used to apply makeup onto the face. There are two types of makeup brushes: synthetic and natural. Synthetic brushes are best for cream products while natural brushes are ideal for powder products. Using the appropriate brush to apply a certain product allows the product to blend into the skin smoothly and evenly. In addition to brushes, a makeup sponge is a popular applicator. Makeup sponges can be used to apply foundation, blend concealer, and apply powder or highlighter. Loofahs, microfiber cloths, natural sponges, or brushes may be used to exfoliate skin, simply by rubbing them over the face in a circular motion. Gels, creams, or lotions may contain an acid to encourage dead skin cells to loosen, and an abrasive such as microbeads, sea salt and sugar, ground nut shells, rice bran, or ground apricot kernels to scrub the dead cells off the skin. Salt and sugar scrubs tend to be the harshest, while scrubs containing beads or rice bran are typically very gentle. Ingredients. A variety of organic compounds and inorganic compounds comprise typical cosmetics. Typical organic compounds are modified natural oils and fats as well as a variety of petrochemically derived agents. Inorganic compounds are processed minerals such as iron oxides, talc, and zinc oxide. The oxides of zinc and iron are classified as pigments, i.e. colorants that have no solubility in solvents. Natural. Handmade and certified organic products are becoming more mainstream, due to the fact that certain chemicals in some skincare products may be harmful if absorbed through the skin. Products claimed to be organic should, in the U.S., be certified "USDA Organic". Mineral. The term "mineral makeup" applies to a category of face makeup, including foundation, eye shadow, blush, and bronzer, made with loose, dry mineral powders. These powders are often mixed with oil-water emulsions. Lipsticks, liquid foundations, and other liquid cosmetics, as well as compressed makeups such as eye shadow and blush in compacts, are often called mineral makeup if they have the same primary ingredients as dry mineral makeups. However, liquid makeups must contain preservatives and compressed makeups must contain binders, which dry mineral makeups do not. Mineral makeup usually does not contain synthetic fragrances, preservatives, parabens, mineral oil, and chemical dyes. For this reason, dermatologists may consider mineral makeup to be gentler to the skin than makeup that contains those ingredients. Some minerals are nacreous or pearlescent, giving the skin a shining or sparking appearance. One example is bismuth oxychloride. There are various mineral-based makeup brands, including: Bare Minerals, Tarte, Bobbi Brown, and Stila. Porous minerals. Porous minerals is a subcategory of mineral makeup ingredients where the porosity of the mineral particles enables extraordinary absorption capacity compared to non-porous mineral materials. This feature improves sebum control, long-lasting mattifying effect or gives a matte texture when used in makeup. Porous minerals can also act as carriers, absorbing a wide range of substances into its porous network. Advertised benefits of mineral-based makeup. Although some ingredients in cosmetics may cause concerns, some are seen as beneficial. Titanium dioxide, found in sunscreens, and zinc oxide have anti-inflammatory properties. Many mineral based makeup create a barrier between the skin and outside elements, which allows it to provide some protection against the sun and its possible harmful effects. Mineral makeup is noncomedogenic (as long as it does not contain talc) and offers a mild amount of sun protection (because of the titanium dioxide and zinc oxide). Cosmetic packaging. The term cosmetic packaging is used for primary packaging and secondary packaging of cosmetic products. Primary packaging, also called cosmetic container, is housing the cosmetic product. It is in direct contact with the cosmetic product. Secondary packaging is the outer wrapping of one or several cosmetic container(s). An important difference between primary and secondary packaging is that any information that is necessary to clarify the safety of the product must appear on the primary package. Otherwise, much of the required information can appear on just the secondary packaging. Cosmetic packaging is standardized by the ISO 22715, set by the International Organization for Standardization and regulated by national or regional regulations such as those issued by the EU or the FDA. Marketers and manufacturers of cosmetic products must be compliant to these regulations to be able to market their cosmetic products in the corresponding areas of jurisdiction. Industry. The manufacture of cosmetics is dominated by a small number of multinational corporations that originated in the early 20th century, but the distribution and sales of cosmetics is spread among a wide range of businesses. The world's largest cosmetic companies are L'Oréal, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Shiseido, and Estée Lauder. In 2005, the market volume of the cosmetics industry in the US, Europe, and Japan was about EUR 70 Billion/a year. In Germany, the cosmetic industry generated €12.6 billion of retail sales in 2008, which makes the German cosmetic industry the third largest in the world, after Japan and the United States. German exports of cosmetics reached €5.8 billion in 2008, whereas imports of cosmetics totaled €3 billion. The worldwide cosmetics and perfume industry currently generates an estimated annual turnover of US$170 billion (according to Eurostaf – May 2007). Europe is the leading market, representing approximately €63 billion, while sales in France reached €6.5 billion in 2006, according to FIPAR (Fédération des Industries de la Parfumerie – the French federation for the perfume industry). France is another country in which the cosmetic industry plays an important role, both nationally and internationally. According to data from 2008, the cosmetic industry has grown constantly in France for 40 consecutive years. In 2006, this industrial sector reached a record level of €6.5 billion. Famous cosmetic brands produced in France include Vichy, Yves Saint Laurent, Yves Rocher, and many others. The Italian cosmetic industry is also an important player in the European cosmetic market. Although not as large as in other European countries, the cosmetic industry in Italy was estimated to reach €9 billion in 2007. The Italian cosmetic industry is dominated by hair and body products and not makeup as in many other European countries. In Italy, hair and body products make up approximately 30% of the cosmetic market. Makeup and facial care, however, are the most common cosmetic products exported to the United States. According to Euromonitor International, the market for cosmetics in China is expected to be $7.4 billion in 2021 up from $4.3 billion in 2016. The increase is due to social media and the changing attitudes of people in the 18-to-30-year age bracket. Due to the popularity of cosmetics, especially fragrances and perfumes, many designers who are not necessarily involved in the cosmetic industry came up with perfumes carrying their names. Moreover, some actors and singers (such as Celine Dion) have their own perfume line. Designer perfumes are, like any other designer products, the most expensive in the industry as the consumer pays for the product and the brand. Famous Italian fragrances are produced by Giorgio Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, and others. Procter & Gamble, which sells CoverGirl and Dolce & Gabbana makeup, funded a study concluding that makeup makes women seem more competent. Due to the source of funding, the quality of this Boston University study is questioned. Cosmetics products may be retailed in beauty stores, department stores and hypermarkets, drugstores, variety stores, grocery stores, beauty supply stores, and many other formats, and in similar types of online stores or the online presence of these types of physical stores. Controversy. During the 20th century, the popularity of cosmetics increased rapidly. Cosmetics are used by girls at increasingly young ages, especially in the United States. Because of the fast-decreasing age of makeup users, many companies, from high-street brands like Rimmel to higher-end products like Estee Lauder, cater to this expanding market by introducing flavored lipsticks and glosses, cosmetics packaged in glittery and sparkly packaging, and marketing and advertising using young models. The social consequences of younger and younger cosmetics use has had much attention in the media over the last few years. Criticism of cosmetics has come from a wide variety of sources including some feminists, religious groups, animal rights activists, authors, and public interest groups. It has also faced criticism from men, some of whom describe it as a form of deception or "fakeup". Safety. In the United States: "Under the law, cosmetic products and ingredients do not need FDA premarket approval." The EU and other regulatory agencies around the world have more stringent regulations. The FDA does not have to approve or review cosmetics, or what goes in them, before they are sold to the consumers. The FDA only regulates against some colors that can be used in the cosmetics and hair dyes. The cosmetic companies do not have to report any injuries from the products; they also only have voluntary recalls of products. There has been a marketing trend towards the sale of cosmetics lacking controversial ingredients, especially those derived from petroleum, sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS), and parabens. Formaldehyde is no longer used in cosmetics but has been replaced by formaldehyde releasers. Formaldehyde is dangerous to human health. In 2011, the US National Toxicology Program described formaldehyde as "known to be a human carcinogen". The danger of formaldehyde is a major reason for the development of formaldehyde releasers which release formaldehyde slowly at lower levels. Numerous reports have raised concern over the safety of a few surfactants, including 2-butoxyethanol. In some individuals, SLS may cause a number of skin problems, including dermatitis. Additionally, some individuals have had an emergence of vitiliago after using cosmetics containing the ingredient rhododendrol. Parabens can cause skin irritation and contact dermatitis in individuals with paraben allergies, a small percentage of the general population. Animal experiments have shown that parabens have a weak estrogenic activity, acting as xenoestrogens. Perfumes are widely used in consumer products. Studies concluded from patch testing show fragrances contain some ingredients which may cause allergic reactions. Balsam of Peru was the main recommended marker for perfume allergy before 1977, which is still advised. The presence of Balsam of Peru in a cosmetic will be denoted by the INCI term "Myroxylon pereirae". In some instances, Balsam of Peru is listed on the ingredient label of a product by one of its various names, but it may not be required to be listed by its name by mandatory labeling conventions (in fragrances, for example, it may simply be covered by an ingredient listing of "fragrance"). Some cosmetics companies have made pseudo-scientific claims about their products which are misleading or unsupported by scientific evidence. Animal testing. As of 2019 an estimated 50-100 million animals are tested on each year in locations such as the United States and China. Suchtests have involved general toxicity, eye and skin irritants, phototoxicity (toxicity triggered by ultraviolet light), and mutagenicity. Due to the ethical concerns around animal testing, some nations have legislated against animal testing for cosmetics. An updated list can be found on the Humane Societies website. According to the Humane Society of the United States, there are nearly 50 non-animal tests that have been validated for use, with many more in development, that may replace animal testing and are potentially more efficacious. In the United States, mice, rats, rabbits, and cats are the most used animals for testing. In 2018, California banned the sale of animal tested cosmetics. Cosmetics testing is banned in the Netherlands, India, Norway, Israel, New Zealand, Belgium, and the UK, and in 2002, the European Union agreed to phase in a near-total ban on the sale of animal-tested cosmetics throughout the EU from 2009, and to ban all cosmetics-related animal testing. In December 2009, the European Parliament and Council passed the EC Regulation 1223/2009 on cosmetics, a bill to regulate the cosmetic industry in the EU. EC Regulation 1223/2009 took effect on July 11, 2013. In March 2013, the EU banned the import and sale of cosmetics containing ingredients tested on animals. China required animal testing on cosmetic products until 2014, when they waived animal testing requirements for domestically produced products. In 2019, China approved nine non-animal testing methods, and announced that by 2020 laws making animal testing compulsory would be lifted. In June 2017, legislation was proposed in Australia to end animal testing in the cosmetics industry. In March 2019, the Australian Senate passed a bill banning the use of data from animal testing in the cosmetic industry after July 1, 2020. Legislation. Europe. In the European Union, the manufacture, labelling, and supply of cosmetics and personal care products are regulated by Regulation EC 1223/2009. It applies to all the countries of the EU as well as Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland. This regulation applies to single-person companies making or importing just one product as well as to large multinationals. Manufacturers and importers of cosmetic products must comply with the applicable regulations in order to sell their products in the EU. In this industry, it is common fall back on a suitably qualified person, such as an independent third party inspection and testing company, to verify the cosmetics' compliance with the requirements of applicable cosmetic regulations and other relevant legislation, including REACH, GMP, hazardous substances, etc. In the European Union, the circulation of cosmetic products and their safety has been a subject of legislation since 1976. One of the newest improvement of the regulation concerning cosmetic industry is a result of the ban animal testing. Testing cosmetic products on animals has been illegal in the European Union since September 2004, and testing the separate ingredients of such products on animals is also prohibited by law, since March 2009 for some endpoints and full since 2013. Cosmetic regulations in Europe are often updated to follow the trends of innovations and new technologies while ensuring product safety. For instance, all annexes of the Regulation 1223/2009 were aimed to address potential risks to human health. Under the EU cosmetic regulation, manufacturers, retailers, and importers of cosmetics in Europe will be designated as "Responsible Person". This new status implies that the responsible person has the legal liability to ensure that the cosmetics and brands they manufacture or sell comply with the current cosmetic regulations and norms. The responsible person is also responsible of the documents contained in the Product Information File (PIF), a list of product information including data such as Cosmetic Product Safety Report, product description, GMP statement, or product function. United States. In 1938, the U.S. passed the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act authorizing the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to oversee safety via legislation in the cosmetic industry and its aspects in the United States. The FDA joined with 13 other federal agencies in forming the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods (ICCVAM) in 1997, which is an attempt to ban animal testing and find other methods to test cosmetic products. The current law on cosmetics in the USA do not require cosmetic products and ingredients to have FDA approval before going on the market except from color additives. The Cosmetic Safety Enhancement Act was introduced in December 2019 by Representative Frank Pallone. Brazil. ANVISA (Agência Nacional de Vigilância Sanitária, "Brazilian Health Surveillance Agency") is the regulatory body responsible for cosmetic legislation and directives in the country. The rules apply to manufacturers, importers, and retailers of cosmetics in Brazil, and most of them have been harmonized so they can apply to the entire Mercosur. The current legislation restricts the use of certain substances such as pyrogallol, formaldehyde, or paraformaldehyde and bans the use of others such as lead acetate in cosmetic products. All restricted and forbidden substances and products are listed in the regulation RDC 16/11 and RDC 162, 09/11/01. More recently, a new cosmetic Technical Regulation (RDC 15/2013) was set up to establish a list of authorized and restricted substances for cosmetic use, used in products such as hair dyes, nail hardeners, or used as product preservatives. Most Brazilian regulations are optimized, harmonized, or adapted in order to be applicable and extended to the entire Mercosur economic zone. International. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) published new guidelines on the safe manufacturing of cosmetic products under a Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) regime. Regulators in several countries and regions have adopted this standard, ISO 22716:2007, effectively replacing existing guidance and standards. ISO 22716 provides a comprehensive approach for a quality management system for those engaged in the manufacturing, packaging, testing, storage, and transportation of cosmetic end products. The standard deals with all aspects of the supply chain, from the early delivery of raw materials and components until the shipment of the final product to the consumer. The standard is based on other quality management systems, ensuring smooth integration with such systems as ISO 9001 or the British Retail Consortium (BRC) standard for consumer products. Therefore, it combines the benefits of GMP, linking cosmetic product safety with overall business improvement tools that enable organisations to meet global consumer demand for cosmetic product safety certification. In July 2012, since microbial contamination is one of the greatest concerns regarding the quality of cosmetic products, the ISO has introduced a new standard for evaluating the antimicrobial protection of a cosmetic product by preservation efficacy testing and microbiological risk assessment.

correct cosmetic tool

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=47016435

Humphrey Mackworth was an English politician and soldier of Shropshire landed gentry origins. He was military governor of Shrewsbury, in succession to his father and namesake, for almost five years under the Protectorate, from 1655 until late in 1659. He represented Shrewsbury in the First, Second and Third Protectorate Parliaments. Origins and early life. Mackworth was probably born in September 1631 as he was baptised on the 10th of the month in St Chad's Church, Shrewsbury, his local parish church. His parents were: The younger Humphrey is sometimes stated to be the second child of the marriage. He had an older brother Thomas Mackworth (1627–96), who played a considerable part alongside him in the politics of Shropshire. However, there was another brother, William, who had died in a few months before his own birth. Later came three sisters, starting with Anne, born a year after Humphrey. the family lived at Betton Strange, although Humphrey the elder also had official lodgings in town. The children were presumably brought up as Puritans. In autumn 1633, during a canonical visitation of St Chad's by Robert Wright, the Bishop of Lichfield, the incumbent Peter Studley included Humphrey Mackworth among the heads of twenty families who refused to bow at the name of Jesus or to kneel at the altar rail—a refusal which meant they were "wilful refusers to communicate for the gestures sake." His mother, Anne, died when the young Humphrey was four years old and was buried at St Chad's on 26 May 1636. The young Humphrey entered Shrewsbury School in 1638, the same year as his elder brother. In July of the same year his father married Mary Venables, by whom he was to have two more children. The elder Humphrey continued to agitate against Laudianism and was a supporter of Parliament from the outset of its conflict with the king. At the outbreak of the English Civil War in the late summer of 1642, the royalists under Francis Ottley, a relative of the Mackworths, seized the initiative and occupied Shrewsbury and began arresting or expelling the Puritan clergy. Ottley invited Charles I to come to Shrewsbury and the royal army occupied the town from 20 September to 12 October. Moving south, the king paused at Bridgnorth to issue a proclamation ordering the arrest of "some persons of good quality," whom he intended to put on trial for high treason. Only three were named and Mackworth senior was one of them. The family's home and estates were sequestered by the royalists, and apparently under Ottley's control, as it was he who later received correspondence on the matter from Dorothy Gorton, young Humphrey's paternal grandmother, and also the widow of Ottley's uncle, whose jointure properties had been confiscated. It is not clear exactly where and how family life continued over the succeeding two or three years, as the elder Humphrey was constantly mobile, participating in Parliamentarian county committees and their offshoots all over the West Midlands, and helping to organise the reconquest of Shropshire from an initial foothold at Wem. However, he was in London for a considerable time early in 1644, in connection with the trial of Archbishop William Laud Humphrey's elder brother, Thomas, was admitted to Gray's Inn, their father's Inn of Court, on 6 February 1645, so it is possible the family took refuge in the capital while the war was at its height in Shropshire. However, the published record of Thomas's admission to Gray's Inn calls him the "son and heir of Humphrey M., of the city of Coventry," which perhaps shows that city was regarded as the normal residence of the Mackworths. The supposition is strengthened by Parliament's reprimand to Mackworth senior later in the year for spending too much time in Coventry, where he was the steward, the senior record keeper and archivist of the city. With the capture of Shrewsbury by the Parliamentarians in February 1645, Mackworth senior was acclaimed governor by his colleagues of the Shropshire committee, although he had to wait until June 1646 for confirmation by Parliament. At some stage, as a degree of security was established, the family probably joined him at Shrewsbury, although there were still royalist uprisings. The most serious threat came in 1651 with the appearance of Charles Stuart at the head of a large Scottish army, to whom Colonel Mackworth refused to surrender. It is known that Thomas was a captain commanding a garrison troop at Shrewsbury in the days preceding the arrival of the Scots. It is likely that Humphrey too gained military experience around this time: certainly he was paid as a captain during the first year of his governorship. Political emergence. However Mackworth junior's most important early appointments were legal, not military. He seems to have been appointed town clerk of Shrewsbury in 1652 and was certainly active in the post during the following year. Unlike Thomas, he had no previous legal training and so was admitted to Gray's Inn on 19 November 1652. It is possible that he was at least offered the post of recorder, a post previously held by his father. However, it was Thomas Jones who was to serve as recorder through the younger Humphrey's governorship. Colonel Mackworth was appointed to the Protector's Council in February 1654 and he and his wife were given a government mews house in London. His commitments in London were heavy and must have necessitated a trustworthy deputy in Shrewsbury. Oliver Cromwell decided on a parliamentary experiment later in the year, and elections were held under the Instrument of Government for a single-chamber legislature with a new distribution of seats and a £200 property qualification. Mackworth senior was returned as one of the four MPs for Shropshire while the younger Humphrey was one of the two representatives for Shrewsbury. According to Hilda Johnstone, he "apparently played no great part," as with his other stints in parliamentary. However, on 26 September "Mr Mackworth" was appointed to a very important committee, reviewing the future of the army and navy and on 5 October to a committee on elections in Ireland. Johnstone credits both of these to Mackworth senior, but he was elsewhere given his rank of Colonel, so they seem more likely to have figured the younger Humphrey. A deadlock between the mainly Presbyterian parliament and the Protector meant that no legislation was passed. After subjecting its members to a hectoring closing speech, Cromwell prorogued the parliament in January 1655. Governor of Shrewsbury. Colonel Mackworth died intestate in London some time in late December 1654, while the parliament was not yet dissolved, and was buried on 26 December in Westminster Abbey. The younger Humphrey seems to have succeeded smoothly as effective governor of Shrewsbury. He describes himself in action, confidently making decisions and issuing orders, in a letter to John Thurloe, Secretary to the Protector's Council and Cromwell's spy chief, on 8 March 1655. The royalist rising of 1655. The occasion for Mackworth's copious correspondence with Thurloe was an attempted royalist uprising in Shropshire. The royalist strategy was to draw out Protectorate forces from the capital before launching more serious uprisings in Kent, Surrey and London itself. However, the overall plan was betrayed to Cromwell by Sir Richard Willis, 1st Baronet, a double agent and the local garrisons warned. The tactics for Shropshire and the Welsh Marches were revealed to a local Parliamentarian in a note from an informer received on 7 March, the day before the planned rising, and passed on to the authorities. A "troope or smalle army of cavalleers," under Sir Arthur Blaney, was to eliminate Parliamentarian gentry in the Oswestry area before seizing Chirk Castle. Larger parties, under Sir Thomas Harris of Boreatton and Ralph Kynaston of Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain, were to surprise and take Shrewsbury. Cromwell had written to William Crowne, the husband of Mackworth's aunt, on 5 March, "it being justly apprehended that the Cavalier party intends speedy execution of a very evil design in the parts about Shrewsbury, which they specially intend because of the weakness of the garrison, and the multitude of Malignants thereabouts," that reinforcements were on the way, together with commissions to raise more troops, and that he was to join Mackworth at Shrewsbury. This letter too arrived the night before the rising. Mackworth wrote to warn Sir Thomas Middleton at Chirk Castle and summoned reinforcements from Hereford but, as the matter was becoming too urgent to wait, he and Crowne were thrown back on their own resources to disrupt the royalist arrays. Mackworth called in all the Castle garrison, placed checkpoints on all the town gates and sited artillery in commanding positions. Crowne mobilised, at his own expense, a force of 50 infantry and cavalry, made up friends from Shrewsbury and the immediate area, which served until the main cavalry reinforcements arrived a full ten days later: the total cost was £37, which Crowne reclaimed from State coffers the following July. Mackworth requisitioned twenty horse for a raid on Boreatton, hoping to seize the ringleaders before the royalists could assemble their forces. A short first-hand account of the affair was given some years later in a petition of John Evanson of Shrewsbury to Richard Cromwell: The attempt on Chirk Castle also was foiled. By 9 March Kynaston had been captured and revealed under interrogation by Thomas Lloyd, High Sheriff of Montgomeryshire, that the plotters had intended to gain access to Shrewsbury by sending in soldiers in female dress to pose as sight-seers to help secure the gates. The town was then to be seized by a much larger number of royalists, who would be concealed as drinkers in the surrounding ale-houses. However, measures against the rebels were soon hampered by the regime's habitual parsimony. On 10 March Crown wrote to Cromwell, reporting that Harris still denied involvement in any plot, but that many local people wanted the conspirators pursued, something he was keen to do if he only had the money and manpower. Half of Cromwell's promised reinforcements had arrived on the day of the uprising, but too late to act: the other half had not yet arrived from Derby. Mackworth wrote to Colonel Philip Jones, a member of the Protector's Council, to beg his intercession for more resources, as they had insufficient forces even to guard the prisoners. However, he admitted that he had rounded up some who were simply well-known royalist sympathisers rather than actual suspects. Mackworth and Crowne began to question witnesses and suspects. Some, like Joseph Jenkes of Frankwell were informers keen to incriminate neighbours and acquaintances. Others, like John Griffiths of Stanwardine in the Field, had small but useful pieces of information about Harris and the other plotters. Some of the gentry, like Edward Vaughan, had heard a great deal of the activities of the main plotters, but had actually witnessed little. However, Arthur Vaughan, his brother was able to confirm that Kynaston had been recruiting plotters in the alehouses. And so it went on, with John Thurloe receiving numerous reports during the latter part of March and April. Reynolds wrote to Thurloe on 17 March, praising Mackworth's zeal: "The young governour hath behaved himselfe verry discreetly and faithfully, and will, I hope, receive encouragement in these his hopefull beginings." Although some of those detained later alleged torture, little real evidence emerged, partly because Mackworth's prompt action had itself prevented large numbers from committing themselves to the rising. Even those who were clearly guilty were treated leniently, as Evanson's report made clear of Harris, who suffered only two years' sequestration of his estates. He was too well-connected for serious punishment because he had married a daughter of the illustrious Parliamentarian Major General Mytton, as later did Thomas Mackworth. Harris's confidant Eyton escaped from Shrewsbury prison down a bedsheet, although wearing leg-irons: an incident for which Mackworth apologised to Oliver Cromwell in August. To ensure the garrison itself was less open to local influence, on 10 April Cromwell ordered a company from Worcester to replace the Shrewsbury company, although the Worcester men arrived late and Mackworth was still trying on 24 July to get arrears of pay for their predecessors. Later that day the Protector's Council decided to make him head of a further company of soldiers, who were to be sent to him. Meanwhile, he and his designated second-in-command were to be paid as captain and lieutenant. On 13 September the Council noted that funding for this company was yet to be provided and resolved to put the matter right. In so doing, it accorded Mackworth the title Colonel, perhaps for the first time officially. The Ottley case. In October 1655 Mackworth wrote to Richard Ottley warning of a petition that had been lodged with Cromwell against him. The relationship between the Ottley family and the Mackworths was at least ambivalent. Although related by both blood and marriage, the elder Humphrey Mackworth and Sir Francis Ottley had taken radically opposed stances during the Civil War and participated closely in the sequestration of each other's estates. There may have been a continuing feud, as Mackworth seems to have been behind one or more attempts to pursue Sir Francis in the law courts under the Commonwealth. According to Mackworth's letter, Richard Ottley was facing a large claim for compensation from a Mary Moloy. She was, according to her petition, the daughter of a hero of the Nine Years' War in Ireland and the widow of Hugh Lewis, a London goldsmith. In a letter to Ottley, Mackworth alleged that during the Civil War Sir Francis Ottley had confiscated from Lewis jewellery worth £600. When Moloy later sued him, Sir Francis had offered £300 as compensation. After his death she had pursued the matter with Richard, his son and successor, who had given her nothing. Her petition to Cromwell had resulted in the matter being referred to Mackworth on 13 October for him to find a speedy resolution or else report back. Mackworth required Ottley either to return to Shrewsbury or otherwise come to a settlement with Moloy. Referring to the uprisings, he recommended Ottley to come to an arrangement, as he would "find his Highness so far Exasperated to the King's party or any that did Adhere to him that upon Mrs. Molloy's proofe of her Petition I am very Confident he and his Councell will Adjudge her the Whole, which how you will be able to withstand I know not." Some hard negotiation must have followed as Ottley ended by paying Moloy the much smaller sum of £60: Moloy's receipt, dated 28 November 1655 and foreswearing all future claims, is preserved in his papers. It is unclear whether the younger Humphrey Mackworth was pursuing a family feud as the available evidence is insufficient to show whether he had encouraged Moloy to bring the action or was simply trying to find a fair settlement. It seems unlikely that he considered the Ottleys easy to intimidate, as both Richard and his brother Adam were fellow members of Gray's Inn, at least as well versed in the law as himself. Order and dissolution. Much of Mackworth's work was probably fairly mundane. On 23 April 1655 he made his first recorded appearance on the magistrate's bench at the quarter sessions in Shrewsbury. He appeared at the remaining sessions of the year, on 17 July and at Michaelmas, alongside his brother Thomas and various Roundhead veterans like Robert Corbet of Stanwardine and Lancelot Lee. The business was varied, including much that could be seen as local government alongside the administration of justice: cautions and warrants for good behaviour, appointment of a gaol keeper for Bridgnorth and constables for Walford and Yockleton, orders for payment of arrears and support of illegitimate children, settlement of vagrants, repairs to churches and bridges, ale licences. There were other small but important matters. In September Mackworth helped Richard Swayne, a Shrewsbury butcher, to obtain justice. Swayne was imprisoned for debt, yet was owed £4 8s. 8d. () annually by the State because a patch of his land had been taken to extend the fortifications of Shrewsbury Castle. He had received only £20 in 11 years: the outstanding rent would see him released from prison. Mackworth supported his petition and the Protector's Council resolved he or his wife should receive £20 () forthwith. Later in the year there began a short-lived break in the normal pattern of administration, the Rule of the Major-Generals. James Berry, an Independent, was appointed the regional representative of central government and arrived in Shrewsbury on 28 November and leaving on a tour of inspection on 3 December: both arrival and departure were celebrated by the mayor and aldermen with expensive feasts at inns in the town. By the time he returned in early January, he had formed a poor opinion of Shropshire's governing class: Berry went on to commend Thomas Hunt, a steadfast committee man of the Civil War period, who was a Presbyterian, but a man he considered reliable. He persuaded Hunt to become Sheriff. There was no specific criticism of Mackworth but Berry never mentioned him, which was criticism enough. On 12 December he sent a self-congratulatory letter to Thurloe, remarking: There was indeed a slightly larger attendance by the justices of the peace at the January quarter sessions—15, compared with 12 in October, although there had been only 4 the previous January. However, those who attended were regulars. Berry made the justices sign several public declarations and the one he refers to in his letter may have been against undesirable ale-houses, which was signed by Mackworth, Mytton, Corbet and several others. Berry railed against Roman Catholics and, like other Puritans, was fearful and suspicious of the Quakers, who had preachers active in Shrewsbury in 1656. However, the Major-Generals were retired early the next year and little came of Berry's reforming zeal. Mackworth apparently did not share it in great measure and meanwhile seems to have become happily attached to the town of Shrewsbury, giving up all larger ambition. This was illustrated by a conversation he had with John Bampfield, formerly an enthusiastic royalist but later a supporter of the Protectorate. Accused of further disloyalty, Bampfield reported: It seems that it was Mackworth himself who raised suspicions of Bampfield, who continued to assert his own loyalty. Member of Parliament. Mackworth was again MP for Shrewsbury in the Second Protectorate Parliament of 1656–8, which was elected under the Instrument of Government, like its predecessor, although with results markedly more favourable to the government. There is a possibility of confusing him in the records with his brother Thomas, who sat for Shropshire, but there are few mentions of Mackworth in the House of Commons Journal for the parliament. One definite appointment was on 27 September 1656 to a committee considering an Act for the Increase and Preservation of Timber. Mackworth was also returned to a Parliament, with the old, unreformed distribution of seats and a small upper chamber, that assembled to hear an opening address from Richard Cromwell on 27 January 1659. Once again, he played little part in the proceedings, although an incident shortly before the parliament was dissolved starkly revealed his financial difficulties. On 9 April 1659, after noting huge holes in the accounts, the House of Commons resolved to call to account all the Farmers of the Excise of Beer and Ale who lived in or near London at two days notice. These were the contractors who collected the tax for the government and included numerous MPs and officials. Mackworth held the farm for Lancashire and a summons was delivered to his landlord at his lodgings. The next sitting of the house, on 11 April, duly noted that he owed £822 10s. – a very large sum but the lowest of those listed, although many of the rest were owed by consortia of excise farmers. Mackworth stood to announce that he had paid in more than £200 that day and promised to pay the remainder within two weeks. However, the parliament came into conflict with the army. Under threat of a "coup" led by Charles Fleetwood, Richard Cromwell dissolved the parliament on 22 April. Disappearance. The Protectorate was now in crisis and a revival of royalist feeling was evident in Shropshire. As early as October 1658 Mackworth had organised a petition to the Council, complaining of the seditious activities of John Tench, a local royalist who was now agitating openly. More worrying, however, was that John Betton, the mayor, had begun to install Tench and other royalists in public office. However, when Mackworth himself was replaced, some time in late 1659, it was with Edmund Waring, a steadfast Puritan and Commonwealth man who was to suffer repeated persecution after the triumph of Charles II, often at the hands of Richard Ottley. Mackworth seems to have signed for his final instalment of pay as governor on 27 September, covering the period up to 31 August 1659. A brief note of quarter sessions held in May 1660 shows him appearing as a justice of the peace for the last time: the justices dealt with petitions from five paupers. He served the Commonwealth to the bitter end and disappeared. After the Restoration he was never mentioned again in public records. Even the date of his death is unknown. Family. No children of Mackworth are known. Bampfield's reported comments show that Mackworth was unmarried at least until 1657 and there is no record of his marrying thereafter. As a younger son of an intestate father, his marriage prospects among the local gentry would have been limited and Bampfield's encouragement to look for a political marriage was probably sincere. However, Bampfield also remarks on his "dissolute company," which seems to have escaped the notice of the observant, frank and humorous James Berry. This raises the possibility of secret extra-marital relationships, possibly homosexual.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=42966106

Instrumentation and control engineering (ICE) is a branch of engineering that studies the measurement and control of process variables, and the design and implementation of systems that incorporate them. Process variables include pressure, temperature, humidity, flow, pH, force and speed. ICE combines two branches of engineering. Instrumentation engineering is the science of the measurement and control of process variables within a production or manufacturing area. Meanwhile, control engineering, also called control systems engineering, is the engineering discipline that applies control theory to design systems with desired behaviors. Control engineers are responsible for the research, design, and development of control devices and systems, typically in manufacturing facilities and process plants. Control methods employ sensors to measure the output variable of the device and provide feedback to the controller so that it can make corrections toward desired performance. Automatic control manages a device without the need of human inputs for correction, such as cruise control for regulating a car's speed. Control systems engineering activities are multi-disciplinary in nature. They focus on the implementation of control systems, mainly derived by mathematical modeling. Because instrumentation and control play a significant role in gathering information from a system and changing its parameters, they are a key part of control loops. As profession. High demand for engineering professionals is found in fields associated with process automation. Specializations include industrial instrumentation, system dynamics, process control, and control systems. Additionally, technological knowledge, particularly in computer systems, is essential to the job of an instrumentation and control engineer; important technology-related topics include human–computer interaction, programmable logic controllers, and SCADA. The tasks center around designing, developing, maintaining and managing control systems. The goals of the work of an instrumentation and control engineer are to maximize: As academic discipline. Many universities teach instrumentation and control engineering as an academic courses at the graduate and postgraduate levels. It is possible to approach this field coming from many standard engineering backgrounds, being the most common among them Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, since these branches cover strong foundational subjects in control systems, system dynamics, electro-mechanical machines and devices, as well as electric circuits.

locked transportation speed

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=236597

Impalement, as a method of torture and execution, is the penetration of a human by an object such as a stake, pole, spear, or hook, often by the complete or partial perforation of the torso. It was particularly used in response to "crimes against the state" and regarded across a number of cultures as a very harsh form of capital punishment and recorded in myth and art. Impalement was also used during times of war to suppress rebellions, punish traitors or collaborators, and punish breaches of military discipline. Offences where impalement was occasionally employed included contempt for the state's responsibility for safe roads and trade routes by committing highway robbery or grave robbery, violating state policies or monopolies, or subverting standards for trade. Offenders have also been impaled for a variety of cultural, sexual and religious reasons. References to impalement in Babylonia and the Neo-Assyrian Empire are found as early as the 18th century BC. Methods. Longitudinal impalement. Impaling an individual along the body length has been documented in several cases, and the merchant Jean de Thevenot provides an eyewitness account of this from 17th-century Egypt, in the case of a Jewish man condemned to death for the use of false weights: Survival time. The length of time which one managed to survive upon the stake is reported as quite varied, from a few seconds or minutes to a few hours or even a few days. The Dutch overlords at Batavia seem to have been particularly proficient in prolonging the lifetime of the impaled, one witnessing a man surviving six days on the stake, another hearing from local surgeons that some could survive eight days or more. A critical determinant for survival length seems to be precisely "how" the stake was inserted: If it went into the "interior" parts, vital organs could easily be damaged, leading to a swift death. However, by letting the stake follow the spine, the impalement procedure would not damage the vital organs, and the person could survive for several days. Transversal impalement. Alternatively, the impalement could be transversely performed, as in the frontal-to-dorsal direction, that is, from front (through abdomen, chest or directly through the heart) to back or "vice versa". In the Holy Roman Empire (and elsewhere in Central/Eastern Europe), women who killed their newborn babies were placed in open graves, and stakes were hammered into their hearts, particularly if their cases contained any implications of witchcraft. A detailed description of an execution that was carried out in this manner comes from 17th-century Košice (then in Hungary, now in eastern Slovakia). The case of a woman who was to be executed for infanticide involved an executioner and two assistants. First, a grave some one-and-a-half ell deep was dug. The woman was then placed within it, her hands and feet were secured by driving nails through them. The executioner placed a small thorn bush upon her face. He then placed, and held vertically, a wooden stave on her heart in order to mark its location, while his assistants piled earth on the woman, keeping her head free of earth at the behest of the clerics, because to do otherwise would have quickened the death process. Once the earth had been piled upon her, the executioner used a pair of tongs to grab a rod made of iron, which had been made red hot. He positioned the glowing iron rod beside the wooden stave, and as one of his assistants hammered the rod in, the other assistant emptied a trough of earth upon the woman's head. It is said that a scream was heard, and the earth moved upwards for a moment, before it was all over. Variations. Gaunching. Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, travelling on botanical research in the Levant 1700–1702, observed both ordinary longitudinal impalement, but also a method called "gaunching", in which the condemned is hoisted up by means of a rope over a row of sharp metal hooks. He is then released, and depending on how the hooks enter his body, he may survive in impaled condition for a few days. Forty years earlier than de Tournefort, de Thévenot described much the same process, adding that it was seldom used because it was regarded as too cruel. Some 80 years prior to de Thevenot, in 1579, Hans Jacob Breuning von Buchenbach witnessed a variant of the gaunching ritual. A large iron hook was fixed on the horizontal cross-bar of the gallows and the individual was forced upon this hook, piercing him from the abdomen through his back, so that he hung from it, hands, feet and head downward. On top of the cross bar, the executioner situated himself and performed various torture on the impaled man below him. Hooks in the city wall. While gaunching as de Tournefort describes involves the erection of a scaffold, it seems that in the city of Algiers, hooks were embedded in the city walls, and on occasion, people were thrown upon them from the battlements. Thomas Shaw, who was chaplain for the Levant Company stationed at Algiers during the 1720s, describes the various forms of executions practised as follows: According to one source, these hooks in the wall as an execution method were introduced with the construction of the new city gate in 1573. Before that time, gaunching as described by de Tournefort was in use. As for the actual "frequency" of throwing persons on hooks in Algiers, Capt. Henry Boyde notes that in his own 20 years of captivity there, he knew of only one case where a Christian slave who had murdered his master had met that fate, and "not above" two or three Moors besides. Taken captive in 1596, the barber-surgeon William Davies relates something of the heights involved when thrown upon hooks (although it is somewhat unclear if this relates specifically to the city of Algiers, or elsewhere in the Barbary States): "Their ganshing is after this manner: he sitteth upon a wall, being five fathoms [30 feet, or about 9m] high, within two fathoms [12 feet or about 3.6m] of the top of the wall; right under the place where he sits, is a strong iron hook fastened, being very sharp; then he is thrust off the wall upon this hook, with some part of his body, and there he hangeth, sometimes two or three days, before he dieth." Davies adds that "these deaths are very seldom", but that he had personally witnessed it. Hanged by the ribs. A slightly variant way of executing people by means of impalement was to force an iron meat hook beneath a person's ribs and hang him up to die slowly. This technique was in 18th-century Ottoman-controlled Bosnia called the "cengela", but the practice is also attested in 1770s Dutch Suriname as a punishment meted out to rebellious slaves. Bamboo torture. A recurring horror story on many websites and popular media outlets is that Japanese soldiers during World War II inflicted bamboo torture upon prisoners of war. The victim was supposedly tied securely in place above a young bamboo shoot. Over several days, the sharp, fast growing shoot would first puncture, then completely penetrate the victim's body, eventually emerging through the other side. However, no conclusive evidence exists that this form of impalement ever actually happened. History. Antiquity. Mesopotamia and the ancient Near East. The earliest known use of impalement as a form of execution occurred in civilizations of the ancient Near East. The Code of Hammurabi, promulgated about 1772 BC by the Babylonian king Hammurabi specifies impaling for a woman who killed her husband for the sake of another man. In the late Isin/Larsa period, from about the same time, it seems that, in some city states, mere adultery on the wife's part (without murder of her husband mentioned) could be punished by impalement. From the royal archives of the city of Mari, most of it also roughly contemporary to Hammurabi, it is known that soldiers taken captive in war were on occasion impaled. Roughly contemporary with Babylonia under Hammurabi, king Siwe-Palar-huhpak of Elam made official edicts in which he threatened the allies of his enemies with impalement, among other terrible fates. For acts of perceived great sacrilege, some individuals, in diverse cultures, have been impaled for their effrontery. For example, roughly 1200 BC, merchants of Ugarit express deep concern to each other that a fellow citizen is to be impaled in the Phoenician town Sidon, due to some "great sin" committed against the patron deity of Sidon. Pharaonic Egypt. During Dynasty 19, Merneptah had Libu prisoners of war impaled ("caused to be set upon a stake") to the south of Memphis, following an attempted invasion of Egypt during his Regnal Year 5. The relevant determinative for "ḫt" ("stake") depicts an individual transfixed through the abdomen. Other Egyptian kings employing impalements include Sobekhotep II, Akhenaten, Seti, and Ramesses IX. Neo-Assyrian Empire. Evidence by carvings and statues is found as well from the Neo-Assyrian empire (c. 934–609 BCE). The image of the impaled Judeans is a detail from the public commemoration of the Assyrian victory in 701 BC after the siege of Lachish, under King Sennacherib (r. 705–681 BC), who proceeded similarly against the inhabitants of Ekron during the same campaign. From Sennacherib's father Sargon II's time (r. 722–705 BCE), a relief from his palace at Khorsabad shows the impalement of 14 enemies during an attack on the city of Pazashi. A peculiarity about the "Neo-Assyrian" way of impaling was that the stake was "driven into the body immediately under the ribs", rather than along the full body length. For the Neo-Assyrians, mass executions seem to have been not only designed to instill terror and to enforce obedience, but also, it can seem, as proofs of their "might" that they took pride in. Neo-Assyrian King Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883–859 BC) was evidently proud enough of his bloody work that he committed it to monument and eternal memory as follows: Paul Kern, in his (1999) "Ancient Siege Warfare", provides some statistics on how different Neo-Assyrian kings from the times of Ashurnasirpal II commemorated their punishments of rebels. Although impalement of rebels and enemies is particularly well-attested from Neo-Assyrian times, the 14th-century BCE Mitanni king Shattiwaza charges his predecessor, the usurper Shuttarna III for having delivered unto the (Middle) Assyrians several nobles, who had them promptly impaled. Some scholars have said, though, that it is only with king Ashur-bel-kala (r. 1074–1056) that we have solid evidence that punishments like flaying and impaling came into use. From the Middle Assyrian period, we have evidence about impalement as a form of punishment relative to other types of perceived crimes as well. The law code discovered and deciphered by Dr. Otto Schroeder contains in its paragraph 51 the following injunction against abortion: Achaemenid Persia. The Greek historian Herodotus recounts that, when Darius I, king of Persia, conquered Babylon, he impaled 3000 Babylonians. In the Behistun Inscription, Darius himself boasts of having impaled his enemies. Darius speaks proudly of the ruthlessness with which these revolts were put down. In Babylon Nidintu-Bel was impaled along with 49 of his companions: In 522 BCE Phraortes proclaimed that he was a descendant of the Median king Cyaxares and took the throne, he seized Ecbatana, the capital of Media and rebelled against the Achamenied yoke, this revolt was suppressed by Darius king of Persia and Phraortes was captured and impaled: Biblical evidence. A Bible passage in the Book of Esther concerning the fate of the 5th-century BC Persian minister Haman and his ten sons has been treated differently by different translators, leading to an ambiguity as to whether they were impaled or hanged. The passage explains that Haman conspired to have all the Jews in the empire killed but his plan was thwarted, and he was given the punishment he had thought to mete out to Mordecai. The English Standard Version of Esther 5:14 describes this as "hanging", whereas The New International Reader's version opts for "impalement". The Assyriologist Paul Haupt opts for impalement in his 1908 essay "Critical notes on Esther", while Benjamin Shaw has an extended discussion of the topic on the website ligonier.org from 2012. Other passages in the Bible may allude to the practice of impalement, such as II Samuel 21:9 concerning the fate of the sons of Saul, where some English translations use the verb "impale", but others use "hang". Although we lack conclusive evidence either way for whether Hebrew law allowed for impalement, or for hanging (whether as a mode of execution or for display of the corpse), the Neo-Assyrian method of impalement as seen in carvings could, perhaps, equally easily be seen as a form of "hanging" upon a pole, rather than focusing upon the stake's actual "penetration" of the body. Rome. From John Granger Cook, 2014: ""Stipes" is Seneca's term for the object used for impalement. This narrative and his "Ep". 14.5 are the only two textually explicit references to impalement in Latin texts:" Europe. Transversal impalement. Within the Holy Roman Empire, in article 131 of the 1532 Constitutio Criminalis Carolina, the following punishment was stated for women found guilty of infanticide. Generally, they should be drowned, but the law code allowed for, in particularly severe cases, that the old punishment could be implemented. That is, the woman would be buried alive, and then a stake would be driven through her heart. Similarly, burial alive, combined with transversal impalement is attested as an early execution method for people found guilty of adultery. The 1348 statutes of Zwickau allowed punishment of an adulterous couple in the following way: They were to be placed on top of each other in a grave, with a layer of thorns between them. Then, a single stake was to be hammered through them. A similar punishment by impalement for a proven male adulterer is mentioned in a 13th-century ordinance for Bohemian mining town Jihlava (then and German Iglau), whereas in a 1340 Vienna statute, the husband of a woman caught "in flagrante" in adultery could, if he wished to, demand that his wife and her lover be impaled, or alternatively demand a monetary restitution. Occasionally, women found guilty of witchcraft have been condemned to be impaled. In 1587 Kiel, 101-year-old Sunde Bohlen was, on being condemned as a witch, buried alive, and afterwards had a stake driven through her heart. Rapists of virgins and children are also attested to have been buried alive, with a stake driven through them. In one such judicial tradition, the rapist was to be placed in an open grave, and the rape victim was ordered to make the three first strokes on the stake herself; the executioners then finishing the impalement procedure. Serving as an example of the fate of a child molester, in August 1465 in Zurich, Switzerland, Ulrich Moser was condemned to be impaled, for having sexually violated six girls between the ages four and nine. His clothes were taken off, and he was placed on his back. His arms and legs were stretched out, each secured to a pole. Then a stake was driven through his navel down into the ground. Thereafter, people left him to die. Longitudinal impalement. Cases of "longitudinal" impalement typically occur in the context of war or as a punishment for robbery, the latter being attested to as the practice in Central and Eastern Europe. Individuals accused of collaborating with the enemy have, on occasion, been impaled. In 1632 during the Thirty Years' War, the German officer Fuchs was impaled on suspicion of defecting to the Swedes, a Swedish corporal was likewise impaled for trying to defect to the Germans. In 1654, under the Ottoman siege of the Venetian garrison at Crete, several peasants were impaled for supplying provisions to the besieged. Likewise in 1685, some Christians were impaled by the Hungarians for having provided supplies to the Turks. In 1677, a particularly brutal German General Kops leading the forces of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I who wanted to keep Hungary dominated by the Germans, rather than allow it to become dominated by the Turks, began impaling and quartering his Hungarian subjects/opponents. An opposing general on the Hungarian side, , responded in kind, by flaying alive Imperial troops, and fixing sharp iron hooks in fortress walls, upon which he threw captured Germans to be impaled. Finally, Emperor Leopold I had enough of the mutual bloodshed, and banished Kops in order to establish a needed cessation of hostilities. After the Treaty of The Hague (1720), Sicily fell under Habsburg rule, but the locals deeply resented the German overlords. One parish priest (who exhorted his parishioners to kill the Germans) is said to have broken into joy when a German soldier arrived at his village, exclaiming that a whole eight days had gone by since he had last killed a German, and shot the soldier off his horse. The priest was later impaled. In the short-lived 1784 Horea Revolt against the Austrians and Hungarians, the rebels gained hold of two officers, whom they promptly impaled. On their side, the imperial troops got hold of Horea's 13-year-old son, and impaled him. That seems to have merely inflamed the rebel leader's determination, although the revolt was quashed shortly afterwards. After the revolt was crushed by early 1785, some 150 rebels are said to have been impaled. From 1748 onwards, German regiments organized manhunts on "robbers" in Hungary/Croatia, impaling those who were caught. Heinous murderers. Occasionally, individual murderers were perceived to have been so heinous that standard punishments like beheading or being broken on the wheel were regarded as incommensurate with their crimes, and extended rituals of execution that might include impalement were devised. An example is that of Pavel Vašanský (Paul Waschansky in German transcript), who was executed on 1 March 1570 in Ivančice in present-day Czech Republic, on account of 124 confessed murders (he was a roaming highwayman). He underwent a particularly gruelling execution procedure: first, his limbs were cut off and his nipples were ripped off with glowing pincers; he was then flayed, impaled and finally roasted alive. A pamphlet that purports to give Wasansky's verbatim confession, does not record how he was apprehended, nor what means of torture was used to extract his confessions. Other such accounts of "heinous murderers" in which impalement is a prominent element include cases in 1504 and 1519, the murderer nicknamed Puschpeter executed in 1575 for killing thirty people, including six pregnant women whose unborn children he ate in the hope of thereby acquiring invisibility, the head of the Pappenheimer family in 1600, and an unnamed murderer executed in Breslau in 1615, who under torture had confessed to 96 acts of murder by arson. Vlad the Impaler. During the 15th century, Vlad III ("Dracula"), Prince of Wallachia, is credited as the first notable figure to prefer this method of execution during the late medieval period, and became so notorious for its liberal employment that among his several nicknames he was known as Vlad the Impaler. After being orphaned, betrayed, forced into exile and pursued by his enemies, he retook control of Wallachia in 1456. He dealt harshly with his enemies, especially those who had betrayed his family in the past, or had profited from the misfortunes of Wallachia. Though a variety of methods were employed, he has been most associated with his use of impalement. The liberal use of capital punishment was eventually extended to Saxon settlers, members of a rival clan, and criminals in his domain, whether they were members of the boyar nobility or peasants, and eventually to any among his subjects that displeased him. Following the multiple campaigns against the invading Ottoman Turks, Vlad would never show mercy to his prisoners of war. After The Night Attack of Vlad Țepeș in mid-June 1462 failed to assassinate the Ottoman sultan, the road to Târgoviște, the capital of Vlad's principality of Wallachia, eventually became inundated in a "forest" of 20,000 impaled and decaying corpses, and it is reported that Mehmet II's invading army of Turks turned back to Constantinople in 1462 after encountering thousands of impaled corpses along the Danube River. Woodblock prints from the era portray his victims impaled from either the frontal or the dorsal aspect, but not vertically. Ottoman Empire. Longitudinal impalement is an execution method often attested within the Ottoman Empire, for a variety of offenses, it was done mostly as a warning to others or to terrify. Siege of Constantinople. The Ottoman Empire used impalement during, and before, the last siege of Constantinople in 1453. During the buildup phase to the great siege the year before, in 1452, the sultan declared that all ships sailing up or down through the Bosphorus had to anchor at his fortress there, for inspection. One Venetian captain, Antonio Rizzo, sought to defy the ban, but his ship was hit by a cannonball. He and his crew were picked up from the waters, the crew members to be beheaded (or sawn asunder according to Niccolò Barbaro), whereas Rizzo was impaled. In the early days of the siege in May 1453, contingents of the Ottoman army made mop-up operations at minor fortifications like Therapia and Studium. The surrendered soldiers, some 40 individuals from each place, were impaled. Civil crimes. Within the Ottoman Empire, some civil crimes (rather than rebel activity/treasonous behavior), such as highway robbery, might be punished by impalement. For some periods at least, executions for civil crimes were claimed to have been rather rare in the Ottoman Empire. lived in the realm for 14 years from 1699 to 1713 and claimed that he had not heard of twenty thieves in Constantinople during that time. As for highway robbers, who surely had been impaled, Aubry heard of only 6 such cases during his residence there. Staying at Aleppo from 1740–54, Alexander Russell notes that in the 20 years gone by, there were no more than "half a dozen" public executions there. Jean de Thévenot, traveling in the Ottoman Empire and its territories like Egypt in the late 1650s, emphasizes the "regional" variations in impalement frequency. Of Constantinople and Turkey, de Thévenot writes that impalement was "not much practised" and "very rarely put in practice." An exception he highlighted was the situation of Christians in Constantinople. If a Christian spoke or acted out against the "Law of Mahomet", or consorted with a Turkish woman, or broke into a mosque, then he might face impalement unless he converted to Islam. In contrast, de Thévenot says that in Egypt impalement was a "very ordinary punishment" against the Arabs there, whereas Turks in Egypt were strangled in prison instead of being publicly executed like the natives. Thus, the actual frequency of impalement within the Ottoman Empire varied greatly, not only from time to time, but also from place to place, and between different population groups in the empire. Highway robbers were still impaled into the 1830s, but one source says the practice was rare by then. Travelling to Smyrna and Constantinople in 1843, Stephen Massett was told by a man who witnessed the event that "just a few years ago", a dozen or so robbers were impaled at Adrianople. All of them, however, had been strangled prior to impalement. Writing around 1850, the archaeologist Austen Henry Layard mentions that the latest case he was acquainted with happened "about ten years ago" in Baghdad, on four rebel Arab sheikhs. Impalement of "pirates", rather than highway robbers, is also occasionally recorded. In October 1767 Hassan Bey, who had preyed on Turkish ships in the Euxine Sea for a number of years, was captured and impaled, even though he had offered 500,000 ducats for his pardon. Klephts and rebels in Greece. During the Ottoman rule of Greece, impalement became an important tool of psychological warfare, intended to inflict terror into the peasant population. By the 18th century, Greek bandits turned guerrilla insurgents (known as "klephts") became an increasing annoyance to the Ottoman government. Captured klephts were often impaled, as were peasants that harbored or aided them. Victims were publicly impaled and placed at highly visible points, and had the intended effect on many villages who not only refused to help the klephts, but would even turn them in to the authorities. The Ottomans engaged in active campaigns to capture these insurgents in 1805 and 1806, and were able to enlist Greek villagers, eager to avoid the stake, in the hunt for their outlaw countrymen. Impalement was, on occasion, aggravated with being set over a fire, the impaling stake acting as a spit, so that the impaled victim might be roasted alive. Among other severities, Ali Pasha, an Albanian-born Ottoman noble who ruled Ioannina, had rebels, criminals, and even the descendants of those who had wronged him or his family in the past, impaled and roasted alive. Thomas Smart Hughes, visiting Greece and Albania in 1812–13, says the following about his stay in Ioannina: During the Greek War of Independence (1821–1832), Greek revolutionaries and civilians were tortured and executed by impalement. A German witness of the Constantinople massacre (April 1821) narrates the impalement of about 65 Greeks by Turkish mob. In April 1821, thirty Greeks from the Ionian island of Zante (Zakynthos) had been impaled in Patras. This was recorded in the diary of the French consul Hughes Pouqueville and published by his brother François Pouqueville. Athanasios Diakos, a klepht and later a rebel military commander, was captured after the Battle of Alamana (1821), near Thermopylae, and after refusing to convert to Islam and join the Ottoman army, he was impaled. Diakos became a martyr for a Greek independence and was later honored as a national hero. Non-combatant Greeks (elders, monks, women etc.) were impaled around Athens during the first year of the revolution (1821). Occurrences in genocides. Aurora Mardiganian, a survivor of the Armenian genocide of 1915–1923, said that impalement of girls was used in that genocide.

steel rod

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23191444

In quantum mechanics, given a particular Hamiltonian formula_1 and an operator formula_2 with corresponding eigenvalues and eigenvectors given by formula_3, then the numbers (or the eigenvalues) formula_4 are said to be good quantum numbers if every eigenvector formula_5 remains an eigenvector of formula_2 "with the same eigenvalue" as time evolves. Hence, if: formula_7 then we require for all eigenvectors formula_5 in order to call formula_10 a good quantum number (where formula_11s and formula_12s represent the eigenvectors and the eigenvalues of the Hamiltonian, respectively). In other words, the eigenvalues formula_4 are good quantum numbers if the corresponding operator formula_2 is a constant of motion (commutes with the time evolution). Good quantum numbers are often used to label initial and final states in experiments. For example, in particle colliders: 1. Particles are initially prepared in approximate momentum eigenstates; the particle momentum being a good quantum number for non-interacting particles. 2. The particles are made to collide. At this point, the momentum of each particle is undergoing change and thus the particles’ momenta are not a good quantum number for the interacting particles during the collision. 3. A significant time after the collision, particles are measured in momentum eigenstates. Momentum of each particle has stabilized and is again a good quantum number a long time after the collision. Theorem: A necessary and sufficient condition for formula_10 (which is an eigenvalue of an operator formula_2) to be good is that formula_2 commutes with the Hamiltonian formula_1. Proof: Assume formula_19. Ehrenfest Theorem and Good Quantum Numbers. The Ehrenfest Theorem gives the rate of change of the expectation value of operators. It reads as follows: Commonly occurring operators don't depend explicitly on time. If such operators commute with the Hamiltonian, then their expectation value remains constant with time. Now, if the system is in one of the common eigenstates of the operatorformula_29 (and formula_1 too), then the system remains in this eigenstate as time progresses. Any measurement of the quantity formula_29 will give us the eigenvalue (or the good quantum number) associated with the eigenstates in which the particle is. This is actually a statement of conservation in quantum mechanics, and will be elaborated in more detail below. Conservation in Quantum Mechanics. Case I: Stronger statement of conservation: When the system is in one of the common eigenstates of formula_1 and formula_29 Let formula_29 be an operator which commutes with the Hamiltonian formula_1. This implies that we can have common eigenstates of formula_29 and formula_1. Assume that our system is in one of these common eigenstates. If we measure of formula_29, it will definitely yield an eigenvalue of formula_29 (the good quantum number). Also, it is a well-known result that an eigenstate of the Hamiltonian is a stationary state, which means that even if the system is left to evolve for some time before the measurement is made, it will still yield the same eigenvalue. Therefore, If our system is in a common eigenstate, its eigenvalues of A (good quantum numbers) won't change with time. Conclusion: If formula_40 and the system is in a common eigenstate of formula_29 and formula_1, the eigenvalues of formula_29 (good quantum numbers) don't change with time. Case II: Weaker statement of conservation: When the system is not in any of the common eigenstates of formula_1 and formula_29 As assumed in case I, formula_40. But now the system is not in any of the common eigenstates of formula_1 and formula_29. So the system must be in some linear combination of the basis formed by the common eigenstates of formula_1 and formula_29. When a measurement of formula_29 is made, it can yield any of the eigenvalues of formula_29. And then, if any number of subsequent measurements of formula_29 are made, they are bound to yield the same result. In this case, a (weaker) statement of conservation holds: Using the Ehrenfest Theorem, formula_40 doesn't explicitly depend on time: formula_55 This says that the expectation value of formula_29 remains constant in time. When the measurement is made on identical systems again and again, it will generally yield different values, but the expectation value remains constant. This is a weaker conservation condition than the case when our system was a common eigenstate of formula_29 and formula_1: The eigenvalues of formula_29 are not ensured to remain constant, only its expectation value. Conclusion: If formula_40, formula_29 doesn't explicitly depend on time and the system isn't in a common eigenstate of formula_29 and formula_1, the expectation value of formula_29 is conserved, but the conservation of the eigenvalues of formula_29 is not ensured. Analogy with Classical Mechanics. In classical mechanics, the total time derivative of a physical quantity formula_29 is given as: where the curly braces refer to Poisson bracket of formula_29 and formula_1. This bears a striking resemblance to the Ehrenfest Theorem. It implies that a physical quantity formula_29 is conserved if its Poisson Bracket with the Hamiltonian vanishes and the quantity does not depend on time explicitly. This condition in classical mechanics is analogous to the condition in quantum mechanics for the conservation of an observable (as implied by Ehrenfest Theorem: Poisson bracket is replaced by commutator) Systems which can be labelled by good quantum numbers. Systems which can be labelled by good quantum numbers are actually eigenstates of the Hamiltonian. They are also called stationary states. They are so called because the system remains in the same state as time elapses, in every observable way. The states changes mathematically, since the complex phase factor attached to it changes continuously with time, but it can't be observed. Such a state satisfies: where The evolution of the state ket is governed by the Schrödinger Equation: It gives the time evolution of the state of the system as: Examples. The hydrogen atom. In non-relativistic treatment, formula_78 and formula_79 are good quantum numbers but in relativistic quantum mechanics they are no longer good quantum numbers as formula_80 and formula_81 do not commute with formula_1 (in Dirac theory). formula_83 is a good quantum number in relativistic quantum mechanics as formula_84 commutes with formula_1. The hydrogen atom: no spin-orbit coupling. In the case of the hydrogen atom (with the assumption that there is no spin-orbit coupling), the observables that commute with Hamiltonian are the orbital angular momentum, spin angular momentum, the sum of the spin angular momentum and orbital angular momentum, and the formula_86 components of the above angular momenta. Thus, the good quantum numbers in this case, (which are the eigenvalues of these observables) are formula_87. We have omitted formula_79, since it always is constant for an electron and carries no significance as far the labeling of states is concerned. Good quantum numbers and CSCO However, all the good quantum numbers in the above case of the hydrogen atom (with negligible spin-orbit coupling), namely formula_87 can't be used simultaneously to specify a state. Here is when CSCO (Complete set of commuting observables) comes into play. Here are some general results which are of general validity : 1. A certain number of good quantum numbers can be used to specify uniquely a certain quantum state only when the observables corresponding to the good quantum numbers form a CSCO. 2. If the observables commute, but don't form a CSCO, then their good quantum numbers refer to a set of states. In this case they don't refer to a state uniquely. 3. If the observables don't commute they can't even be used to refer to any set of states, let alone refer to any unique state. In the case of hydrogen atom, the formula_90 don't form a commuting set. But formula_91 are the quantum numbers of a CSCO. So, are in this case, they form a set of good quantum numbers. Similarly, formula_92 too form a set of good quantum numbers. The hydrogen atom: spin-orbit interaction included. If the spin orbit interaction is taken into account, we have to add an extra term in Hamiltonian which represents the magnetic dipole interaction energy. Now, the new Hamiltonian with this new formula_94 term doesn't commute with formula_95 and formula_96; but it does commute with L2, S2 and formula_97 , which is the total angular momentum. In other words, formula_98 are no longer good quantum numbers, but formula_99 are. And since, good quantum numbers are used to label the eigenstates, the relevant formulae of interest are expressed in terms of them. For example, the spin-orbit interaction energy is given by where As we can see, the above expressions contain the good quantum numbers, namely formula_102

unusual quantum situation

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5811042

Theni is a town and a municipality in Theni district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. As of 2011, the town had a population of 94,453. Demographics. According to 2011 census, Theni Allinagaram had a population of 94,453 with a sex-ratio of 999 females for every 1,000 males, much above the national average of 929. A total of 9,138 were under the age of six, constituting 4,738 males and 4,400 females. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes accounted for 16.44% and .03% of the population respectively. The average literacy of the town was 77.55%, compared to the national average of 72.99%. The town had a total of 25371 households. There were a total of 37,654 workers, comprising 520 cultivators, 2,798 main agricultural labourers, 694 in house hold industries, 30,450 other workers, 3,192 marginal workers, 56 marginal cultivators, 643 marginal agricultural labourers, 116 marginal workers in household industries and 2,377 other marginal workers. As per the religious census of 2011, Theni Allinagaram had 95.04% Hindus, 3.18% Muslims, 1.63% Christians, 0.02% Sikhs, 0.01% Buddhists, 0.12% following other religions and 0.01% following no religion or did not indicate any religious preference. History. Theni has a historic background during the 19th century. There were many antagonists against British rule like Marutha Nayagam. The famous Saneeswaran (God of Saturn) temple is located in the Kucchanur Village. It is a Suyambhu statue and Pathirakaliyamman Temple, Pathirakalipuram. "Theni In the western gates of Allinagaram village, in the cradle of pansalaru river there is a suyambhu statue created in the name of VEERAPPA AYYANAR TEMPLE is also there. Culture. Theni district is rich in flora and fauna. Many dams have been constructed on the rivers, including Vaigai Dam, Sothupparai Dam, Manjalaru Dam, and Meghamalai Dam. Several famous waterfalls are here: Suruli Falls, Kumbakarai Falls and Meghamalai Falls. Theni is surrounded by many tourist attractions like Kodaikannal, Thekkady, Meghamalai, Munnar, Kumbakkarai, Sothuppaarai and Vaigai dam. Because Theni's scenic environment, it is one of the most favoured shooting spots of the Tamil film industry. Thekkady wildlife sanctuary is a nearby attraction which lies in the border between Kerala and Tamil Nadu. There is a temple where Kannaki (historic character) was believed to be turned statue. The district is famous, because of the celebration of Veerapandy festival at Veerapandy, Veerappa Ayyanar festival at Theni, Kamatchi Amman festival at Devadhanapatti and Saneeswaran Temple at Kuchanoor. Every year in the first or second week of May, people in the Theni district celebrate the Pathirakalipuram Pathirakaliyamman temple festival,Veerapandi Goumari Amman temple Festival. above two festivals goes for eight days and its very grand around Thivakaran Economy. The cotton ginning, extraction of oil from various oil seeds, cotton and chilly trading are the main business in this district. Many Textile industries are located in and around Theni as the climate is suitable for Textile Industries and it provides employment opportunity for the local people. Vermiculate used for manufacturing cement and paints are available in Cumbum Valley area. Once famous for its agricultural products, it retains its agricultural tint of economy and remains a backward industrial area. Industrial estates have come up with orientation for small scale and cottage industries. This clubbed with liberalised financing by nationalized banks and new enter prenatal stimuli, a dimensional change in the district's economy is visible in the last decade. Hand-loom weaving is the major household industry in the district. Other important items of making toys and dolls, processing of food articles, manufacturing of safety matches and its allied articles etc. are worth to mention. Coarse blankets are made in Periyakulam taluk. This is generally used by tribal women of this area. Wax printing is done at Periyakulam. This was prevalent on a large scale during olden time. This art is slowly declining due to mechanical printing. Textiles industry is growing on a steady state in Theni. There are many textile industries and they do spinning, weaving, and stitching . The main products are yarns, terry towels, fabrics, polyester. consumer garments, industrial garments and other textile products. These mills making have grown in and around Theni, providing jobs for many people. Education. Horticultural College & Research Institute (HC & RI), one of the constituent colleges of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, is located at Periyakulam, on the Theni Dindigul high way in Tamil Nadu State. The college campus is situated at 10oN latitude with an elevation of 300m MSL. The climatic conditions are congenial for the cultivation of an array of horticultural crops. The college campus encompasses over 100 hectares of farm lands to cater the needs of teaching, research, training, seed production and plant propagation activities. This is the only full-fledged Institute providing horticulture education in Southern Peninsular India. A Fruit Research Station was set up in 1957 at Periyakulam, with a view to meet the needs and aspirations of the fruit crops growing farmers of the erstwhile Madurai district. In the year 1971, Horticultural Research Station (HRS), Periyakulam, was developed which marked the expansion of the research mandate to all major horticultural crops. The Government Theni Medical College was opened to cater the needs of the people of the district. It has a capacity of 100 students. A large number of patients from neighboring districts of Kerala are treated here. It also has schools run by the government and other organisations. CPA College is an arts and science college in Bodinayakanur town, which is near Theni. In 2010 a new government polytechnic college is to be started in Theni, at Kottur village. Madurai Kamarajar University Art and Science College will be started soon in Theni, at Kottur Village. Theni Kammavar Matriculation Higher Secondary School, NRT Nagar, Palaniyappa memorial higher secondary school,Palanichetti patti, Government Higher Secondary School,G.Kalluppatti, Government Higher Secondary School, Allinagaram, Kalikadevi high school, Pathirakalipuram, Mannar Pandithuraithevar School, Visuvasapuram, The Little Kingdom School,Theni, THNU Matriculation school, THEVARAM, Theni Melapettai Hindu Nadar Uravinmurai Schools, Shemford Theni 10+2 School, Amala Annai Higher Secondary School,T.Sindalacherry, Velammal Matriculation school, Velammal Vidhyalaya, Renuga Vidhyala Matriculation school, Lakshmipuram, Aringar Anna Primary School.G.Kalluppatti, SUM Primary & Higher Secondary Schools, Royappanpatti, Sri Krishna Ayyar Higher Secondary School, Chinnamanur and Kamma Dharma High School,Govinthanagaram are the prominent schools in the town. Theni kammavar sangam college of engineering and technology, Jeyaraj Annabakiyam Women's College of Arts & Science, Nadar Saraswathi Women's College Of Arts & Science, Nadar Saraswathi College Of Engineering, VPV College of Engineering, Devathanapatti, Kalapandian Polytechnic College, Odaiyappa College of Engineering and Technology, Bharath Niketan Polytechnic College, Devangar Polytechnic College, , Government Polytechnic College, Kala Pandian Polytechnic College, Thangam Muthu Polytechnic College, Theni Kammavar Sangam Polytechnic College, Theni Government Medical College and Theni College Of Arts and Science are the prominent colleges in Theni. Administration. Theni houses the office of the (revenue) District Collector. Periyakulam has the (judicial) district court, which was built and operated in the British period. As the town of Theni is expanding, several local buses are run for commuting inside the town. Economy. Theni's economy is mostly agricultural. Utilisation of land area for cultivation in Theni district is 40.33%. The principal crop production (in tonnes) in 2005-2006 was: sugarcane 1,201,221, cotton 95,360 (561 bales of 170. kg lint each), rice (paddy) 66,093, millets and other cereals 57,081, pulses 6,677, groundnut 4,021 and gingelly 325. Silk, bananas, coconuts, tea, coffee, cardamom, grapes, and mangoes are other main produce of the district. Surulipatti is a major centre for grape production, with 4,000 small farmers producing over 90,000 tonnes of Muscat grapes, known locally as "panneer dhrakshai", and about 10,000 tonnes of Thomson seedless grapes. The unique feature here is that the grapes are harvested throughout the year, while in most grape-growing centres elsewhere the season ends with summer. Cotton-spinning mills and sugar mills are the major industries in this district. In Andipatti Taluk handloom weaving and power looms are flourishing. In Uthamapalayam Taluk, the Highwavis Estate produces a significant amount of tea. Bodinayakanur is a major market place for cardamom, coffee, tea and black pepper. This city is also called "Cardamom City" because of the large quantity of cardamom trade in this area. It has an auction centre for cardamom.It is also the second biggest town in this district. The Periyar and Surliar Hydro Power Stations and the Vaigai Micro Hydro Power Station have 181 MW installed capacity and actual power generation of 494 MW in 1996 in this District. Theni is one of the active business hubs in the western side of Tamil Nadu, inviting more industries to its locality. The district currently has 41.09 km of metre-gauge track serving three railway stations that connect to Madurai. Theni district has Cumbum town in it, which is famously known behind the name "Cumbum Valley", the only valley in Asia that harvests grapes thrice in a year. Paddy, maize, cotton, sugarcane, grapes, mango, coconut are main agricultural products from Theni. Theni also acts as a distribution hub for Potato, Cabbage, and Cauliflower cultivated in hilly regions to foothill towns in Tamil Nadu. Also it is the hub for distributing Toor dal, Urud dal, Moong dal, Channa dal, Vegetable oils etc. to the hill regions and to Kerala. Other than agriculture, Theni city has textiles mills, brick industries, iron oxide pigments and masala factories. People do business based on the agricultural commodities.

dispensation headquarters

5909-2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=7761604

Pope Paul III and His Grandsons () is a painting in oil on canvas by Titian, housed in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples. It was commissioned by the Farnese family and painted during Titian's visit to Rome between autumn 1545 and June 1546. It depicts the scabrous relationship between Pope Paul III and his grandsons, Ottavio and Alessandro Farnese. Ottavio is shown in the act of kneeling, to his left; Alessandro, wearing a cardinal's dress, stands behind him to his right. The painting explores the effects of ageing and the manoeuvring behind succession; Paul was at the time in his late seventies and ruling in an uncertain political climate as Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor came into ascendancy. Paul was not a religious man; he viewed the papacy as a means to consolidate his family's position. He appointed Alessandro as cardinal against accusations of nepotism, fathered a number of illegitimate children, and spent large sums of church money collecting art and antiquities. Around 1545 Charles took the political and military advantage, weakening Paul's hold on the papacy. Aware of the changing tides of influence, Titian abandoned the commission before completion, and for the next 100 years the painting languished unframed in a Farnese cellar. "Pope Paul III and His Grandsons" ranks as one of Titian's finest and most penetrating works. Although unfinished and less technically accomplished than his "Portrait of Pope Paul III" of a few years earlier, it is renowned for its rich colouring; the deep reds of the tablecloth and the almost spectral whites of Paul's gown. The panel contains subtle indications of the contradictions in the character of the Pope, and captures the complex psychological dynamic between the three men. Background. Alessandro Farnese, as Paul III, was the last of the popes appointed by the ruling Medici family of Florence. He was socially ambitious, a careerist and not particularly pious. He kept a concubine, fathered four children out of wedlock and viewed the throne as an opportunity to fill his coffers while he placed his relatives in high positions. A talented and cunning political operator, Paul was precisely the sort of man the Florentines needed to assist them in their defence against French and Spanish threats. He became pope in 1534 when he was 66 years old, and immediately appointed members of his family to key positions. He anointed his eldest grandson Alessandro, the eldest child of his illegitimate son Pier Luigi, cardinal at the age of 14, marking a break with the Farnese tradition of marrying off the first-born to carry on the family name. This move was considered necessary because the next oldest grandson, Ottavio, was then just 10 years old; such a young cardinal would have been politically unacceptable. Paul's advanced years meant that the family could ill afford to wait until the younger brother was of age. Thus Alessandro became a cardinal deacon; this appointment did not necessitate taking major orders, but it compelled him to celibacy and to forgo the rights of primogeniture, which instead went to Ottavio. Alessandro was to bitterly regret the obligations. Paul appointed Ottavio as Duke of Camerino in 1538, and in the same year married him to Charles V's daughter, Margaret, later Margaret of Parma. Both of Paul's grandsons' advancements were widely criticised as evidence of nepotism. Ottavio's marriage troubled Alessandro; he struggled with the burden of chastity and entertained fantasies of marrying a princess. He resented his younger brother's arrangement; during the wedding ceremony he "became more deathly pale than death itself, and, so they say, is unable to bear this thing, that he, the first-born, should see himself deprived of such splendid status and of the daughter of an Emperor." In 1546 Paul gave Pier Luigi the duchies of Parma and Piacenza as papal fiefs, a highly political move by the pope: in doing so he gave titles and wealth to Pier and appointed a lord who was subservient and owed a debt of gratitude, guaranteeing that the duchies would remain under papal control. At the same time, Ottavio was posted to the North of Italy to support Charles. By 1546 Ottavio was 22 years old, married to Margaret of Austria and an accomplished and distinguished individual. In 1547 his father was assassinated and Ottavio claimed the dukedom of Parma and Piacenza against the express wishes of both Charles, his father-in-law, and Paul. In doing so, Ottavio acted in opposition to the pope's desire to maintain the duchies as papal fiefs, and to Charles, whom he believed responsible for the plot to assassinate Pier Luigi. Titian was a personal friend of Charles; the commissioning of the portrait was most likely intended by Paul as a signal of allegiance to the emperor. Pressure from reforming monarchs in France and Spain, coupled with a general shift of influence in France's favour, ended the Farnese hold on the papacy soon after Paul's death. Ottavio excelled as a military commander and was awarded the Golden Fleece by the emperor. While the post had been given as a means to strengthen the family position, it did not come without cost. His success bred resentment amongst his family, as he began to see himself unaccountable to Rome. At the time of the portrait Paul had convinced Alessandro to retain the post, hinting that he would later succeed him as pope – an aspiration that was ultimately frustrated. As Alessandro realised the emptiness of the promise he lost confidence in both his grandfather's word and political credibility. Commission. The painting was commissioned in 1546 after Titian had made a number of portraits of Paul. He had already depicted Pier Luigi and three of his children – Vittoria, Alessandro and Ranuccio. Ottavio was perhaps again portrayed by him in 1552, and most likely commissioned the original Naples panel in Titian's Danaë series, although Lodovico Dolce believed it was Alessandro who had approached Titian. The artist's reputation was such that he had already been called to Rome a number of times in the early 1540s; first by Cardinal Pietro Bembo and then by the Farnese family. By the mid-1540s Titian was the preferred portraitist for the Farnese. Following a number of earlier portraits of Pier Luigi and Paul, they commissioned a set to mark their ascendancy after Paul's papacy, all of which were – given their political awareness and ambition – clearly intended as public statements on their social elevation. Paul was aware of Titian's influence in Venice, and after 1538 allowed only Titian to portray him. Titian disliked travelling and refused the offers. When Paul travelled to northern Italy for negotiations with Charles in 1543 he met Titian for the first time and sat for "Portrait of Paul III without a Cap". Around this time, Titian's son Pomponio decided to enter the clergy, and the painter sought to use his contacts with the papacy to gain a church and lands for him. Working through his contacts with Cardinal Alessandro, he asked that in return for the Farnese portraits Pomponio be granted the abbey of San Pietro in Colle Umberto, in grounds bordering Titian's own in Ceneda. Charles respected Titian and so the painter had influence in negotiating with the Farnese. When he received their offers of a commission and invitation to Rome, he made it clear he would only undertake the patronage in return for the grant of the benefice. This was at first rejected, but on 20 September 1544 Titian seemed assured enough to send a message to Cardinal Alessandro that he would visit to "paint Your Honor's illustrious household down to the last cat". Even so, Titian made no move until October of the following year. When he did finally arrive in Rome, he was treated as the most important guest to the city and given an apartment at the Belvedere. In the end the portrait was not completed. Probably once the benefice was granted, he no longer felt there was any reason to remain in Rome and abandoned the composition. Description. The portrait depicts the tensions and manoeuvrings of 16th century court politics. The deep red background and heavy brushstrokes establish an anxious and tense atmosphere, and the uneasy relationship between the Pope and his suitors. The pope is old, ill and tired and, to some critics' eyes, glares at Ottavio in an accusatory manner. His hat or "camauro" cloaks his baldness, but there are tell-tale signs of age in his long nose, dark beady eyes, stooped shoulders and long uneven beard. He is noticeably older than in the second Naples portrait of 1543. This fact is reinforced by the clock placed on the table beside him, which serves both as a "memento mori" and a reminder that time is running out. Given this, the presence of his grandsons indicates that the commission was prompted by thoughts of succession. Nevertheless, Paul retains elements of a powerful and alert patriarch. The painting is set at a curious angle, so that although Paul is positioned low in the pictorial space, the viewer still looks upwards towards him as if in respect. He is dressed in full pomp, wearing wide fur-lined sleeves (a typical Venetian device to convey status), and his cape is laid across his upper body to suggest physical presence. The work is often compared to Raphael's "Pope Leo X with Cardinals" of 1518–19 and the 1511–12 portrait of Julius II for its colouring and psychological dynamic. Titian follows the older master in some respects, emphasising the pope's age and showing him in a naturalistic, rather than reverential, setting, but Titian goes further: while Raphael's portraits show a high-minded and introspective pope, Titian presents his subject glaring outwards, caught in a moment of fearful but ruthless calculation. His piercing glare has been described by art historian Jill Dunkerton as having captured his "small bright eyes, but ... missed his genius". The canvas is dramatically divided in two by a diagonal line separated by colour and tone. The lower two-thirds are dominated by heavy red and white pigments; browns and whites are prominent in the upper right-hand section. This division is delineated by a diagonal reaching from the upper edge of the curtain down to Ottavio's leggings in the right mid-ground. Other echoes of the colours and patterns include the red of Paul's robes against the velvet of his chair and the overhanging curtain. This dramatic colour and luminosity can be in part attributed to this design, and to the manner in which Titian reverses the usual painterly technique in building tone: he began with a dark background, then layered the lighter hues before the darker passages. The effect has been described as a ""tour de force" of symphonic colourism", and a high point of his blending of red and ochre pigments. Titian uses a variety of brushstrokes. While the pope's robes are painted with very broad strokes, his cape ("mozzetta"), ageing face and visible hand were captured in minute detail with thin brushes, with his hairs rendered at the level of individual strands. Ottavio, shown as tall and muscular, is about to kneel to kiss the Pope's feet, a contemporary manner of greeting a pope: a guest would make three short bows followed by the kissing of the papal feet. Titian indicates this step in the ceremony by showing Paul's shoe decorated with a cross, poking from underneath his gown. Ottavio's head is bowed, but his stern facial expression conveys that he is acting as protocol dictates, rather than with genuine diffidence. Nicholas Penny notes that "... at a Renaissance court bowing and scraping were usual. This affects modern attitudes to [the portrait], making the cordial respect of youth seem like the obsequiousness of a crafty courtier." The grandsons are depicted in very different styles: Alessandro acts in a formal manner and wears clothes of similar colour and tones to Paul. Ottavio, by contrast, wears the browns of the upper right-hand passage, an area of the painting that cuts him physically from the pope. His pose is awkward and difficult to interpret, but he is rendered in a more naturalistic manner than his brother. Alessandro has a distracted, brooding expression. He holds the knob of Paul's backrest, in an echo of Raphael's portrait where Clement VII holds the chair of Leo X as an indicator of his ambitions of succession. Thus Alessandro seems better placed politically, standing to Paul's right in a pose that recalls traditional depictions of Paul the Apostle, and his hand is raised as if in blessing. In the end, Paul was unable to influence his succession after Charles V weakened the Medici hold on the office. The work is unfinished; a number of details, most noticeably the pope's right hand, are missing. Other passages are bland and uniform, with some key areas still blocked by the underdrawing. Many of Titian's characteristic finishing touches are missing; Paul's fur-lined sleeves do not contain the polishing white strokes of the 1543 portrait, or his usual final overglaze or glossing. Interpretation. Although the work is often thought of as an unflattering and cold look at an ageing pope besieged by cunning and opportunistic relatives, the reality is more complex and the artist's intention more subtle. It is certainly a very unguarded portrait of one of the most powerful men of his day, and in stark contrast to Titian's two earlier portraits of Paul, both of which were deferential. It is widely accepted as one of the most politically difficult portrait commissions in art history, requiring an understanding of the interplay of relationships with a depth "worthy of Shakespeare", in the opinion of art historians Rodolfo Pallucchini and Harold Wethey. However, it was one Titian seems to have resolved; while the complexity of the relationships is all on the canvas, it may have been intended as an indicator to Charles that Paul retained his position as the dominant patriarch – old and frail but still a man of vitality, and in control of his squabbling descendants. Moreover, working under commission from the Farnese family, Titian would not have sought to portray the sitters in an obviously unsympathetic manner. While Paul is shown as old and frail, he is given a broad chest and cunning eyes that indicate his intelligence and guile. Ottavio is presented as cold and impervious, but this was probably a device to show his strength of character and conviction. Alessandro is favoured by his positioning closest to the Pope, yet x-ray analysis reveals he had originally stood to the left of the pope and was moved, probably on request by Alessandro himself, to a position where his hand was resting on the papal throne, indicating his claim on the papacy. Provenance. Titian abandoned the painting before completion and for the next hundred years it was kept unframed and unhung in a Farnese cellar. Alessandro's large collection of art and antiques, which included the Titian portraits commissioned by Paul, was eventually inherited by Elisabetta Farnese (1692–1766). Elisabetta, who married Philip V of Spain in 1714, passed on the collection to her son Carlos, who became Duke of Parma and later King of Spain. In 1734, he conquered the kingdoms of Sicily and Naples, and the collection was transferred to Naples. In 1738 Carlos built the Palace of Capodimonte, which includes the Museo di Capodimonte, in part to house the Farnese art collection. The painting remains there today, hanging in the Farnese Gallery section. The Museo di Capodimonte was designated a national museum in 1950.

maroon environment

2085-2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1589741

False pregnancy (or pseudocyesis, from the Greek "false" and "pregnancy") is the appearance of clinical or subclinical signs and symptoms associated with pregnancy although the individual is not physically carrying a baby. The false belief that one is pregnant includes signs and symptoms such as tender breasts with secretions, abdominal growth, delayed menstrual periods, and subjective feelings of a moving fetus. Examination, ultrasound, and pregnancy tests can be used to rule out false pregnancy. False pregnancy has a prominent psychiatric component as well as physical manifestations of pregnancy. It can be caused by trauma (either physical or mental), a chemical imbalance of hormones, and some medical conditions. Contributing psychological factors include a strong desire for pregnancy or misinterpretation of objective bodily sensations. Although rare, men can experience false pregnancy symptoms, called Couvade syndrome or "sympathetic pregnancy", which can occur when their significant other is pregnant and dealing with pregnancy symptoms. Psychotherapy, pharmacotherapy with antidepressants or antipsychotics, hormonal therapy, and uterine curettage are sometimes needed as treatment. While extremely rare in the United States because of the frequent use of medical imaging, in developing regions such as India and sub-Saharan Africa, the incidence of false pregnancy is higher. Rural areas see more instances of false pregnancy because such women are less often examined by a health care professional or midwife during the duration of believed pregnancy. Classification. In the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" (DSM-5), false pregnancy is a somatic symptom disorder; it is listed as "not elsewhere classified", meaning it is in a category by itself, different from other somatic symptom disorders such as functional neurological symptom disorder (formerly known as conversion disorders). The word "pseudocyesis" comes from the Greek words which means "false" and which means "pregnancy". False pregnancy is sometimes referred to as "delusional pregnancy", but the distinction between the two conditions is inexact. Delusional pregnancy is typically used when there are no physical signs of pregnancy, but false pregnancy can also be delusional. Some authors consider the two conditions can be used interchangeably for research purposes. Signs and symptoms. The symptoms of pseudocyesis are similar to the symptoms of a true pregnancy. Signs of false pregnancy include amenorrhea (missed periods), galactorrhea (flow of milk from breast), breast enlargement, weight gain, abdominal growth, sensations of fetal movement and contractions, nausea and vomiting, changes in the uterus and cervix, and frequent urination. Abdominal distention is the most common symptom. In pseudocyetic abdominal swellings, the abdomen becomes uniformly swollen, and the navel stays inverted. The wall of the abdomen adopts a muscular, tympanic character. Duration of symptoms typically ranges from several weeks to nine months. Causes and mechanism. The exact mechanisms behind false pregnancy are not completely understood, but psychological and endocrine components may play a substantial role. Women who experience false pregnancy often experience related feelings of stress, fear, anticipation, and general emotional disturbance. These strong emotions, along with dysfunctional changes in hormonal regulation, can significantly increase prolactin levels. Prolactinemia (high prolactin levels) can lead to many of the symptoms of true pregnancy, such as amenorrhea, galactorrhea, and tender breasts. Heightened activity of the central nervous system may contribute to the abdominal distension, sensations of fetal movement, and assumed contraction pains experienced by many women with false pregnancy. Endocrine changes observed in pseudocyesis include an increase in dopamine levels, nervous system activity, or dysfunction in the central nervous system. These changes may be responsible for amenorrhea, galactorrhea, and hyperprolactinemia seen in falsely pregnant women. Elevated sympathetic activity has been linked to the increased in abdominal size as well as the apparent feel of fetal movement and contractions. How abdominal distension develops is not fully understood and several causes have been proposed. A buildup in fat around the abdominal cavity, heavy constipation, habitual lordosis, and other causes may produce the appearance of a distended abdomen, and the resulting swelling can remain for months. After women with false pregnancy are placed under anesthesia, or are successfully persuaded that they are not pregnant, the distention promptly disappears, indicating that the proposed mechanisms are supplementary factors behind, but not the ultimate causes of, abdominal swelling. Manipulation of abdominal wall muscles, such as the diaphragm, is the most likely contributor to abdominal distention. For example, continuously contracting the diaphragm may give the appearance of a distended abdomen while forcing the intestinal units downwards. The sensations of fetal movement may also be related to contractions of the abdominal wall due to peristalsis, or movements of the gastrointestinal tract. About one in six false pregnancies is potentially influenced by concomitant medical or surgical conditions including gallstones, abdominal tumors, hyperprolactinaemia, constipation, tubal cysts, esophageal achalasia. Psychiatric disorders, such as anxiety or mood disorders, personality disorders, and schizophrenia are common among women with false pregnancy, and may be linked to its development. Some women with depression may gain weight due to decreased physical activity and poor eating habits. Antipsychotics can induce pregnancy-like symptoms such as amenorrhea, galactorrhea, breast tenderness, and weight gain via raising prolactin levels. Risk factors. Psychological factors are associated with false pregnancy, including a strong desire for pregnancy; a misunderstanding of sensory changes in the body (for example, bloating or increased pressure on the pelvis); and depressive disorders that can lead to changes in the neuroendocrine system. Other social factors impacting include low educational status, marital issues, unstable relationship patterns, history of partner abuse, social deprivation, poverty, lower socioeconomic status, and unemployment. Other factors such as mental and physical trauma—like experiencing a miscarriage, infertility, loss of child, or sexual abuse— can manifest false pregnancy. Symptoms may arise in women who are experiencing grief after loss in their reproductive abilities, rejecting the idea of motherhood and pregnancy, or facing challenges in gender identity. Other psychological factors include recurrent abortions, stress of imminent menopause, tubal ligation (sterilization surgery), and hysterectomy. Diagnosis. Evaluation required to confirm false pregnancies includes a pelvic exam, a blood or urine pregnancy test, and an ultrasound. A pelvic exam can show if conception has occurred, blood and urine can be tested for hormones released in pregnancy, and ultrasound shows the absence of the fetus. An ultrasound can accurately distinguish between a false and true pregnancy. There is no universal laboratory profile for women with false pregnancy; measured concentrations for prolactin, progesterone, follicle stimulating hormone, estrogen, and luteinizing hormone vary widely. In some cases, false pregnancy symptoms may mask underlying medical conditions such as abdominal tumors, central nervous tumors, ovarian cysts, or gallstones. Medical tests and imaging are recommended to rule out potentially life-threatening conditions. Differential. Delusional pregnancy is distinct from false pregnancy; although the distinction is "blurred", physical signs of pregnancy are not present in delusional pregnancy, while false pregnancy includes symptoms of true pregnancy. According to Gogia "et al." (2020), false pregnancy "involves a false belief that one is pregnant, but differs from delusional pregnancy in that it is a psychosomatic rather than psychotic or purely delusional belief". In delusional pregnancy, schizophrenia accounts for more than a third of cases. The symptoms of false pregnancy can be misinterpreted by the individual as a true pregnancy when the symptoms are actually caused by diseases (like hormone-secreting tumors, alcoholic liver disease, cholecystitis, urinary tract infection, gallstones) or exposure to a substance (like a medication), or other conditions like constipation. Management. Additional interventions such as psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy are sometimes needed. Psychotherapy may be used when individuals have difficulty coming to terms with their false pregnancy, or remain symptomatic after knowing their false diagnosis. It allows patients to confront reality and accept the symptoms as illusions and provides an opportunity resolve other psychological stressors and trauma that may be implicated in manifestations of false pregnancy. There is no direct evidence for treating false pregnancy with pharmacotherapy, but medications may be used to restore hormonal and neurotransmitter imbalances which are implicated in physical manifestations of false pregnancy. Reduction in catecholamine levels have been observed in people with symptoms such as hyperprolactinemia and abdominal distentions. For most people, psychotherapy, pharmacotherapy (with antidepressants or antipsychotics), hormonal therapy, and uterine tissue removal is adequate to treat the condition. Antipsychotics have been shown to increase lactation and amenorrhea, and can trigger delusions. The delusion may be resolved with medication changes or adjustments. When underlying medical conditions or surgical conditions including gallstones, abdominal tumors, hyperprolactinemia, and constipation are identified, treatment may reduce the severity of the delusion. Epidemiology. The rate of pseudocyesis in the United States has declined significantly since 1940. The rate in 1940 of one occurrence for approximately every 250 pregnancies had dropped by 2007 to between one and six occurrences for every 22,000 births. In Nigeria, the frequency of false pregnancies was 1 in 344 true pregnancies, and in Sudan false pregnancies were reported to be 1 in 160. There were about 550 cases documented in the literature as of 2016, with most cases in those between the ages of 20 and 44. Women of reproductive age comprise the majority of pseudocyesis occurrences. About 80% of women who experience pseudocyesis are married. False pregnancies are more common in societies with certain cultures and religions, particularly in areas where there is a high degree of pressure for women to have multiple children, and for those children to be male. Although rare, pseudocyesis occurs more commonly in developing countries. It is reported more frequently in countries that place heavy emphasis on fertility and childbearing; such pronatalist beliefs are often highly prominent in developing countries. In sub-Saharan Africa, a woman is allowed to share her husband's property only if she bears children. In these countries (and other developing nations), infertile women often experience abuse, blame, and discrimination. In Africa, it is reported to occur in 1 out of every 344 pregnancies. Societal factors enforce the importance of female fertility in these countries, thus possibly contributing to pseudocyesis rates. In addition to men, mothers of pregnant women may experience Couvade syndrome, and a woman can experience multiple episodes of pseudocyesis in her lifetime. History. The perception of false pregnancy has evolved over time. In the late 17th century, French obstetrician François Mauriceau believed that the enlarged abdomens of falsely pregnant patients were caused by bad air. Physicians slowly began to acknowledge other potential causes of pseudocyesis, including its origin in the mind and in the body. In 1877, a physician named Joshua Whittington Underhill observed that physical symptoms can convince a woman of pregnancy, or a “disordered brain” can convince her that ordinary abdominal pains or bowel movements are instead fetal movements. The idea that pseudocyesis could result from a woman's perception of herself led to investigation into the role of emotions in cases of pseudocyesis. An investigator in the early 20th century observed that strong emotions can dry a woman's milk supply. The investigator went on to infer that the opposite was also true, and it was believed that strong emotions could bring about its production in women who are not pregnant. Alternatively, some physicians questioned the legitimacy of pseudocyesis as a condition. For instance, French obstetrician Charles Pajot stated in the 19th century, “there are no false pregnancies, only false diagnoses.” Society and culture. In the mid-1960s, a woman who appeared to be in labor was not properly examined because delivery appeared imminent; it was thought that her water broke but the expelled liquid was urine. In 2010, a woman in the United States who was suspected of being in labor was given a C-section but there was no fetus. Mary Tudor, also known as "Bloody Mary", had a false pregnancy. After coming to terms with it, she reportedly believed that God had not made her pregnant because she had not sufficiently punished heretics. Anna O (Josef Breuer's patient as mentioned in 1895 by Breuer and Sigmund Freud in "Studies on Hysteria"), experienced false pregnancy in the context of preexisting mental health problems. After being diagnosed with hysteria, she believed she was pregnant by Breuer, her therapist. She even believed she was in labor as she was trying to have another session with Breuer. More recent publications suggest she had central neurological signs with a chronic cough that improved during high altitude stays. Those characteristics, as well as the ineffectiveness of psychoanalytic cures, seem to indicate a more organic diagnosis such as tuberculous meningitis or tuberculous encephalitis with partial temporal epileptic component.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=414721

In human anatomy, the forehead is an area of the head bounded by three features, two of the skull and one of the scalp. The top of the forehead is marked by the hairline, the edge of the area where hair on the scalp grows. The bottom of the forehead is marked by the supraorbital ridge, the bone feature of the skull above the eyes. The two sides of the forehead are marked by the temporal ridge, a bone feature that links the supraorbital ridge to the coronal suture line and beyond. However, the eyebrows do not form part of the forehead. In "Terminologia Anatomica", "sinciput" is given as the Latin equivalent to "forehead". (Etymology of "sinciput": from "semi-" "half" + "caput" "head".) Structure. The bone of the forehead is the squamous part of the frontal bone. The overlying muscles are the occipitofrontalis, procerus, and corrugator supercilii muscles, all of which are controlled by the temporal branch of the facial nerve. The sensory nerves of the forehead connect to the ophthalmic branch of the trigeminal nerve and to the cervical plexus, and lie within the subcutaneous fat. The motor nerves of the forehead connect to the facial nerve. The ophthalmic branch of the trigeminal nerve, the supraorbital nerve, divides at the orbital rim into two parts in the forehead. One part, the superficial division, runs over the surface of the occipitofrontalis muscle. This provides sensation for the skin of the forehead, and for the front edge of the scalp. The other part, the deep division, runs into the occipitofrontalis muscle and provides frontoparietal sensation. Blood supply to the forehead is via the left and right superorbital, supertrochealar, and anterior branches of the superficial temporal artery. Function. Expression. The muscles of the forehead help to form facial expressions. There are four basic motions, which can occur individually or in combination to form different expressions. The occipitofrontalis muscles can raise the eyebrows, either together or individually, forming expressions of surprise and quizzicality. The corrugator supercilii muscles can pull the eyebrows inwards and down, forming a frown. The procerus muscles can pull down the centre portions of the eyebrows. Wrinkles. The movements of the muscles in the forehead produce characteristic wrinkles in the skin. The occipitofrontalis muscles produce the transverse wrinkles across the width of the forehead, and the corrugator supercilii muscles produce vertical wrinkles between the eyebrows above the nose. The procerus muscles cause the nose to wrinkle. Society and culture. In physiognomy and phrenology, the shape of the forehead was taken to symbolise intellect and intelligence. "Animals, even the most intelligent of them,", wrote Samuel R. Wells in 1942, "can hardly be said to have any forehead at all, and in natural total idiots it is very diminished". Pseudo-Aristotle, in "Physiognomica", stated that the forehead is governed by Mars. A low and little forehead denoted magnanimity, boldness, and confidence; a fleshy and wrinkle-free forehead, litigiousness, vanity, deceit, and contentiousness; a sharp forehead, weakness and fickleness; a wrinkled forehead, great spirit and wit yet poor fortune; a round forehead, virtue and good understanding; a full large forehead, boldness, malice, boundary issues, and high spirit; and a long high forehead, honesty, weakness, simplicity, and poor fortune. In fighting, slamming one's forehead into one's opponent is termed a headbutt.

more in depth dissection

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13157534

Gaius Julius Quadratus Bassus (70 – 117) was a Roman senator and general. He rose from provincial aristocratic origins to occupy the highest offices of Rome. He served as a legionary commander and as imperial governor of Judea, Cappadoccia, Galatia, Syria and Dacia. He is known to have been active under Trajan in the Dacian and Parthian Wars. Bassus was suffect consul in the "nundinium" of May to August 105 with Gnaeus Afranius Dexter as his colleague. Family. Gaius Julius Quadratus Bassus was born in Pergamon to a family related to the Attalid dynasty and the Galatian tetrarchs. His father was Gaius Julius Bassus, who was Proconsul of Bithynia in 100 to 101. He is known to have had at least one son, Gaius Julius Bassus, who was suffect consul in 139. Career. His career began as military tribune in Legio XIII Gemina around 87 to 89. This was followed by membership in the "tresviri monetalis", one of the magistracies that comprised the "vigintiviri", a preliminary and required first step toward gaining entry to the Roman Senate. This order is unusual: normally membership in the "vigintiviri" came before serving as military tribune in a legion. Dabrowa notes that this reversed order was not unusual for men who were born to the equestrian order but intended to enter the Senate. However, Bassus was made one of the "tresviri monetalis": this magistracy was reserved either for patricians or men favored by the emperor. Dabrowa suggests that Bassus gained entry to this coveted board through the intervention of his relative Gaius Antius Aulus Julius Quadratus, three-time consul and "a man of high political and social standing". After the "vigintiviri" Bassus was a quaestor, a junior position administering the public treasury, in the province of Crete and Cyrenaica around the year 92. This office gained him formal entry into the senate. He advanced to the traditional Roman magistracy of aedile, then around 98 he won election as a praetor. This last magistracy qualified Bassus to either govern provinces or serve as a "legatus legionis" or commander of a legion. Bassus sought a military career. First he was "legatus" of Legio XI Claudia from 99 to 101. This was followed by command of a vexillation drawn from several legionsincluding the IV Scythica and XII Fulminatain the Dacian War for the years 101 and 102. Then Bassus served as commander of Legio X Fretensis, a posting that was combined with the governorship of Judaea from 102/103 to 104/105. During the summer of 105 he spent four months as consul; becoming a consul was considered the highest honour of the Roman state and the Emperor would have chosen candidates to fill it carefully. After his term as consul Bassus was admitted to the College of Pontiffs, the highest-ranking priests of the state religion; a significant social achievement for a man born as an equestrian. This was followed by a posting as governor of Cappadocia and Galatia in 114 to 115, and later Syria. During this time he was made commander of a second vexillation of soldiers drawn from a number of legionsincluding III Gallica and XIII Geminathat fought in the Parthian War. Bassus was serving as "legatus Augusti pro praetore", or imperial governor, in the province of Dacia when he died in the Dacian revolt of 117.

inverted structure

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26066384

The Clan of Ostoja (ancient Polish: "Ostoya") was a powerful group of knights and lords in late-medieval Europe. The Clan encompass families in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (including present-day Belarus and Ukraine), Hungary and Upper Hungary (now Slovakia), Transylvania, and Prussia. The Clan crest is the Ostoja coat of arms, and the battle cry is "Ostoja" ("Mainstay") or "Hostoja" ("Prevail"). The Clan adopted the Royal-Sarmatian tamga "draco" (dragon) emblem. During the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Clan adopted several Lithuanian and Belarusian families, generally of Ruthenian princely origin, and transformed into a Clan of landlords, senators and nobility. Members of the Clan worked together closely, often living close to each other. They held high positions, and held a great amount of land and properties in both Commonwealth and in Upper Hungary (today mostly present-day Slovakia) in medieval times, including many great gothic style castles. Members of the Clan of Ostoja ruled several feudal lordships in Upper Hungary between 1390 and 1434 and Transylvania in 1395-1401 and again in 1410–1414, during the time of Duke Stibor of Stiboricz. A line of the Clan, which included relatives of Stibor of Stiboricz who followed him to Hungary, is included in Hungarian aristocracy as Imperial Barons (Reichfreiherr) of the Hungarian kingdom in 1389. Stibor of Stiboricz and his son, Stibor of Beckov were both members of the Order of the Dragon. At the same time in Poland between 1390 and 1460, several members of the Clan of Ostoja ruled Voivodeships and cities as castellans, voivods and senators on behalf of the King and the Clan was therefore in control of Pomerania, Kuyavia, and partly Greater Poland, which were a considerable part of the Kingdom of Poland at that time. The Clan was involved in every war Poland participated in, and during the partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth they can be seen in every movement and uprising, fighting against foreign forces. The clan put high value on education and were, in general, good administrators of their properties as well as the properties of the King (starostwo). They were also inventors, poets, scientists, and great diplomats. Background. Polish clans and surnames. Polish clans, while having members related by male-line genealogy, also had many genealogically unrelated families, either because of families' formal adoption into various clans, or because of misattributions petrified in heraldic literature. The genealogically unrelated families were brought together in the Polish heraldic tradition through use of the same coat of arms and the same clan (coat-of-arms) appellation (name). In contrast to other European countries, medieval Polish clans were unusually powerful compared to the Polish monarch. Though each clan was found in a certain territory, each clan also had family members in many other areas of Poland as they moved during medieval times also to settle down on the property(pl:posag) of their wife's or because they were assigned to settle down and serve the Crown, holding office and in some cases, were granted land in the area. Clan members supported each other in court sessions and in the battles, sharing same battle cry and later sharing same coat of arms. The powerful member was usually also the head of the clan, helping and caring for other clan members, calling for them when need for battle. Polish family names were appended with –"cki" or –"ski" in reference to the name of their properties; for example, if a person named Chelmski acquired the town of Poniec, he would change his surname to Poniecki. Furthermore, Jerzykowski (de Jerzykowo) that owned property of Baranowo changed his surname to Baranowski (de Baranowo) and Baranowski that owned property of Chrzastowo change the surname to Chrzastowski (de Chrzastowo). The medieval Ostoja Clan seems to have been situated in more than 163 original nests and divergent locations, reflected in various surnames. A clan became partly a name for the family members with different surnames. Clan members could help both military and in the court, supporting each other in many different way. Chronology. Legendary origin. According to one legend, the Coat of arms were given in 1058 to a brave feudal knight, (Colonel) Ostoja, by Bolesław II the Generous. However, there may be another, older origin: Ostoja family members often used the name of Stibor (Scibor, Czcibor), on the basis of a family origin from Czcibor, victorious in the Battle of Cedynia brother of Mieszko I of Poland – . Piekosinski indicates that the early crest of Ostoja was almost identical with the Piast dynasty crest. It has two "moons" and a cross, and the crest of the Piast dynasty was very similar, lacking the "moon" on top. Another legend tells however that the Ostoja coat of arms origin from another brave Knight, Jan z Jani of Ostoja, first Polish voivode/duke of Pomerania and Gdańsk. Chased by a group Teutonic Knights, he had succeeded in crossing a river on horse despite being clad in full armor, and then raised his voice so the Lord would hear him and said "Ostałem" which means "I still stay" from which comes the name of Ostoja. However, this legend is undermined by the term "Ostoja" being known far before the time of Jan z Jani. Origin. The Ostoja coat of arms evolved from Sarmatian tamga emblems. The dragon in the Ostoja coat of arms relates to the Sarmatian dragon that had been used by Royal Sarmatians who, according to Strabo and Ptolemy, had lived in the area between Bessarabia and the lower Danube Valley and were descendants of the Royal Scythians. This dragon was adopted by Roman legions and was used by Sarmatian cataphracts (armored heavy cavalry). The term "draconarius" was applied to the soldier who carried the "draco" standard. Early history. The earliest historical records that mention the Clan use the name Stibor, which derives from Czcibor (Scibor, Czcibor, Cibor, Czesbor, Cidebur) which comes from "czcic" (to honor) and "borzyc" (battle), thus denoting a person who “Battles for Honor” or who is the “Defender of Honor”. An early Clan location is a village "Sciborzyce", located in Lesser Poland that before 1252 was a property of Mikołaj of Ostoja. There are also notes about villages of "Sciborowice" and "Stiborio" (or Sthibor) around the same area in 1176 and 1178. Mikołaj of Ostoja ended building of the Roman church in Wysocice; on the walls of the church he cut an early sign of the Stibor family before it became a coat of arms that is called "Ostoja". This sign is identical with the first known seal of Ostoja dated to 1381. Mikołaj's sons, Strachota and Stibor "Sciborzyce" to the church of Wysocice in 1252 and moved from Lesser Poland. Strachota moved to Mazovia and Stibor to Kujawy where in 1311 a note was found about a village called "Sciborze", which become the nest of the kujawian line of Stibors that later become famous in Slovakia and Hungary. By 1025, when Mieszko II Lambert was crowned, the Kingdom of Poland had borders that resemble modern-day Poland. Many landlords (comes, comites) were against centralized power in the kingdom. Rivalry arose between the Lords of Greater Poland, whose capital was Poznań, and those of Lesser Poland, whose main city was Kraków. The Stibors are thought to have been a mainstay of the Piast dynasty, Poland's first ruling dynasty. The Piasts were able to expand Poland during the 10th and the beginning of the 11th century. Clan members were appointed commanding officers of the army units that protected and administered these new counties. The expansion of Poland and of Clan properties seem to have gone hand in hand; for example, when Kuyavia and Greater Poland (Wielkopolska) were incorporated, the Clan expanded into the same area. Records refer to Stibor as Comes of Poniec in 1099, and also refer to another Stibor as Comes of Jebleczna. However, Poniec property belonged to the Crown in 11-12th century and information about Stibor of Poniec year 1099 seems not correct. According to Tadeusz Manteuffel and Andrew Gorecki the Clan consisted of people related by blood and descending from a common ancestor in early medieval time. Before the time of Mieszko I of Poland that united different tribes, the tribes were ruled by the Clan. During the time of Bolesław I Chrobry (967 – 17 June 1025) and Bolesław III Wrymouth clans included "free mercenaries" from different part of Europe but especially from Normandy to defend their properties and country. The original nests of the Ostoja family were situated in Lesser Poland and the Clan expanded north to Kujawy and Pomerania during the formation of the Polish state. It is possible that part of the families in the Clan of Ostoja also originated from free mercenaries, but most, Ostoja families originated from Royal Sarmatians, the Draconarius. Before 1226 the Ostoja Battle Cry transformed to a coat of arms when the concept of heraldry came into prominent use in Poland. Knights began to have their shields and other equipment decorated with marks of identification. These marks and colors evolved into a way to identify the bearer as a member of a certain family or Clan. The dragon in Ostoja has been used and identified by the majority of Ostoja families since the 2nd century. Late medieval period. Because of several conflicts, the seniority principle was broken and the country divided into several principalities for over 200 years until Wladyslaw I the Elbow-high (Lokietek) was crowned King of Poland in 1320. Instead of duchies in the hands of the Piast dynasty, those duchies turned into several Voivodeship where the Voivode (Duke, Herzog, Count Palatine, Overlord) was appointed by the King and given to loyal landlords. The last King of Poland from the Piast dynasty was the son of Wladyslaw I, Casimir III the Great, who died in 1370. The Clan of Ostoja continued, during that time, to expand their land and was granted several high offices. Kraków replaced Poznań, the capital of Greater Poland, as the capital of Poland in 1039. The Clan expanded their land possessions mostly in the voivodeship of Kraków, Częstochowa and Sandomierz in the Lesser Poland region of Poland. Documents tells about: Mongol and Tatar states in Europe were common at that time. In 1259, Poland faced a second Tatar raid that was supported by Russian and Lithuanian forces. The defense of the town and castle of Sandomierz was in the command by Lord castellan Piotr of Krepy from Ostoja. As the defense did not receive help from outside, the situation was hopeless for the defending side and finally Piotr and his brother Zbigniew were killed. The legend says that their blood then run down to the Vistula river and turned it red. A legend of the third Tatar raid tells how Lady Halina of Krepy, daughter of Lord Piotr of Sandomierz Castle used a secret tunnel from the castle and duped the Tatars by telling them that she could lead them back through the secret tunnel right to the heart of the Castle. The Tatar side verified that she had come through the secret tunnel, but she guided them deep inside the tunnel which was an extensive maze, and then released a white pigeon that she had with her to use as a prearranged signal. When the pigeon found its way out, the Polish closed the tunnel, trapping the Tatars. Empire of Ostoja 1370-1460. As Poland was under pressure from the west from the rising power of the Teutonic Knights, Poland turned east to ally with Lithuania. In 1386 Ladislaus II Jogaila (Wladyslaw II Jagiello) was crowned as King of Poland and his brother Vytautas (Witold) become Grand Duke of Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In 1410 Poland and Lithuania broke Teutonic domination in Prussia at the Battle of Grunwald and Tannenberg. The Union of Horodlo of 1413 declared the intent that the two nations cooperate. 47 Lithuanian families were adopted into 47 Polish clans, sharing the same coat of arms. This expansion eventually led to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which was for a time the biggest confederated country in Europe. The Clan of Ostoja did not participate in the Union of Horodlo. The Ostoja expansion went in parallel with the expansion of Poland, members being found in Lithuania, Belarus, Prussia/ Pomerania and Ukraine. Some families were adopted into the clan in 1450. In Pomerania, the powerful knight family of Janie owned several big land estates in the area and Jan z Jani became the first Voivode of Pomerania in 1454. Jan Długosz (1415–1480) was known as a Polish chronicle and was best known for "Annales seu cronici incliti regni Poloniae" (The Annals of Jan Długosz), covering events in southeastern Europe, but also in Western Europe, from 965 to 1480. In this work, he described Ostojas as brave and talkative. Between 1400 and 1450, many Ostojas attended the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, where Clan solidarity was very important. Around 1400 the Ostoja families owned over 250 properties in Poland, mainly in the area of Greater Poland and Kujawy, Kraków County, Częstochowa County and Sandomierz County with Kraków being the political center of Poland. As two families moved to Lithuania, one to Prussia and few more Lithuanian families was adopted including Russian Prince families like Palecki and Boratynski, the Clan of Ostoja was standing on good economic and military ground. This together with high education and loyalty towards the Clan members made it possible to raise in power. Poland. The list of offices that members of the Ostoja family held in the late medieval era shows the power the Ostojas held, ruling a considerable part of Poland on the behalf of the King. From the original nests and properties, members of the Clan of Ostoja created names of different branches of the Clan. All those properties and nests can be found within borders of Poland of today. The expansion of the Clan went both east, south and north, in the beginning of the 15th century Ostoja families also owned land in Pomerania, Prussia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Moravia, Croatia, Transylvania, Upper Hungary and Germany. However, the biggest land area that the Clan owned was to be found in Upper Hungary (today mostly present-day Slovakia). The political and economical power of the Ostojas in Poland reached its peak at this time. As Jan z Jani lead Prussian confederation together with Mikołaj Szarlejski followed by excellent diplomatic work of Stibor de Poniec, the Clan was ruling in Pomerania, Kujavia and partly Greater Poland. Adding the power entrusted by the King to Piotr Chelmski, Jan Chelmski, Piotr of Gaj or Mikołaj Błociszewski, the Clan of Ostoja was among those that hold prime position in Poland at the time. Upper Hungary and Hungary. The connection between Poland and Hungary is dated to the 12th century, when the Piast and Árpád dynasty were cooperating. From that time royal families of both countries were family related through several marriages between ruling houses. It was therefore easy to find Hungarian nobles in Poland and Polish nobles in Hungary and Slovakia. Abel Biel was the first of the Ostojas to serve on the Hungarian Court, and was also the first to receive land in Upper Hungary. Most of the Ostoja families supported the House of Anjou on Polish throne and when Luis I the Great entered the Polish throne in 1370 after Casimir III the Great, it made it possible for the Clan of Ostoja to expand south. Hungary at that time was a modern and expansive kingdom, after Italy it was the first European country where the renaissance appeared. When Luis the Great died without a male heir some anarchy broke out in both the Kingdom of Poland and the Hungarian Empire. The Ostoja families continued to support the House of Anjou on both the Polish and Hungarian thrones. This did however not happen since Poland chose to ally with Lithuania and elected Ladislaus Jogaila to the Polish throne. Stibor of Stiboricz and Sigismund von Luxemburg. Stibor of Stiboricz (1347–1414) of the Clan of Ostoja, son of Moscic Stiboricz (Duke of Gniewkowo), held the position of Lord of regality (Starosta) of Brzesc as he also served Louis I of Hungary but when the King died, he lost the position as Starost of Brzesk because of his support the House of Anjou and left Poland for Hungary. Although Stibor received office of Lord of the regality (Starost) of Kuyavia in 1383, he turned to help his friend Sigismund von Luxemburg (later Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor) on Hungarian throne 1386 and become his most loyal ally. Sigismund was the Prince of Brandenburg before rising to the Hungarian throne. He later became Holy Roman Emperor, King of Germany, Bohemia, Hungary (including present-day Slovakia, Balkan states, Romanian and Bulgarian lands), Italian republics and Prince of Luxembourg. At the age of 13, he was sent to Krakow in order to study Polish language and customs. He married Mary, daughter of Louis the Great and became one of the most powerful Emperors in Europe. In Poland, as Stibor of Stiboricz recognized the competitors of Jogaila on Polish throne, he immediately entered Poland with an army of 12,000 men, commanded by Sigismund von Luxemburg, to assure that younger sister of Mary, Queen of Hungary, would mary Ladislaus Jogaila and end the battle for Polish Crown. 1384 Jadwiga was Crowned as Queen of Poland and in 1386 Jogaila married her and became King of Poland. Sigismund recognized Stibor of Stiboricz as his most loyal friend and adviser. In 1387 he granted Stibor the position as Master of Hungarian Court and also the Governor of Galicia (Eastern Europe). The King gave also Stibor the exclusive right to receive high offices in the Empire. In 1395, Stibor became Duke of Transylvania, a nomination that made him lord of almost half of Romania of today. In 1396 Sigismund led the combined armies of Christendom against the Ottoman Empire. The Christians were defeated at the Battle of Nicopolis. Stibor of Stiboricz, one of the generals and commanders of the army, rescued Sigismund, who was in great danger while retreating from the battlefield. In May 1410, King Sigismund entrusted Stibor and the Palatine Nicholas II Garay to mediate between the Teutonic Knights and King Władysław II of Poland, but when negotiations failed, war broke out. The Battle of Grunwald took place, with almost all of the Ostojas leaving Hungary to join Polish forces. At the end of 1411, Stibor, his brothers and other members of the Clan of Ostoja was in charge of leading troops to fight against the Venetian Republic in Friuli. In 1412 Stibor was meeting with Zawisza Czarny (The Black Knight) in his Castle of Stará Ľubovňa in Slovakia, preparing the negotiation between Sigismund and Polish King Vladislav Jogaila, which ended with the Treaty of Lubowla. Stibor proved to be a great diplomat who combined loyalty to King Sigismund with his diplomatic work on behalf of Poland. In 1397 Sigismund chose Stibor as his representative in negotiations with the Polish King Jogaila, who appointed Mikołaj "Bydgoski" to represent Polish Crown. Thus the two brothers, Stibor and Mikołaj, met as leaders of their respective diplomatic delegations. Later on, around 1409, King Jogaila appointed his most trusted diplomat Mikołaj Błociszewski of the Clan of Ostoja to lead the negotiations. In the end, it was the Clan of Ostoja that was the leading force in breaking down Teutonic side, they did it not only by using fine art of sword but also with outstanding diplomatic skills. Land and nominations. In 1388 King Sigismund granted Stibor the Beckov and Uhrovec castles in Upper Hungary. In 1389 Stibor also became the Ispán of the Pozsony County, including the Bratislava Castle, where he appointed a castellan to administer the property. He also was granted the town Nové Mesto nad Váhom. In 1392 Stibor became the Ispán of the Trencsén and Nyitra counties, where he appointed clan members as castellans of the county. Furthermore, Stibor was granted the possession of Csejte and Holics (Čachtice and Holíč in present-day Slovakia). In 1394 he received Berencs, Detrekő, Éleskő, Jókő and Korlátkő castles, which are respectively modern Branč, Plaveč, Ostrý Kameň Castle, Dobrá Voda castle and Korlátka, also in Upper Hungary. In 1395 he became the Voivode of Transylvania and in 1403 he was entrusted to govern the possessions of the Archdiocese of Esztergom and the Diocese of Eger. Stibor was one of the founding members of the very exclusive Order of the Dragon in 1408, which consisted of European royals and powerful princes as well as some of most distinguished Hungarian Lords. In 1409, Stibor was reappointed Voivode of Transylvania, and was recognized as Duke of Transylvania. Altogether, Stibor of Stiboricz was – together with his son - Ispán of several counties, Prince of Galizia, Duke of Transylvania, owner of over 300 villages, towns which in total was about half of western Slovakia of today. He was owner of 31 castles and in control of a further five in Upper Hungary, many of which could be found along all the 409 km-long Vah river. Because of that, Stibor stiled himself “Lord of whole Vah”. He was governor of Archdiocese of Esztergom, Diocese of Eger, Master of Hungarian Court, closest friend and adviser to the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund. Adding the land, Castles and nominations that was granted to the Clan, close family of Stibor and the fact that Stibor of Stiboricz gave all important offices in his power almost only to family and Clan members, the Clan of Ostoja was in a strong position at the time. Close family of Stibor of Stiboricz The castles that the clan received in Upper Hungary were of great importance as they controlled the borders, Vah river and important roads. They were all built to give good defense against an enemy. Inside the strongholds, the clan had own army unites, their upkeep was paid from the income Ostojas gained from their land that they owned or controlled. They could also afford to hire mercenaries when necessary and they were in close cooperation with each other, often visiting and helping to maintain the power they have been given. All of them were in possession of land that was much bigger than any of the clan members had in Poland. Although Sigismund's most loyal Stibors were not to help him anymore, the presence of the Clan in Upper Hungary was still significant. The testament told that the fortune of the Stibors was to be passed to the closest family which included children and grandchildren of Stibor of Stiboricz's brothers, all except the Beckov Castle with belongings that were supposed to be given to Katarina, daughter to Stibor Stiboric of Beckov. This testament was approved by the emperor Sigismund and his wife, the queen. The testament of his son, Stibor of Beckov, was in line with his father's, but with one important difference. It was written 4 August 1431 and the difference in the testament from his father's wish told that in case Stibor of Beckov did not have a son, all the properties that he personally owned would pass to his daughter Katarina. This however was under the condition that she would marry Przemyslaus II, Duke of Cieszyn of the Piast dynasty. In case of his death, Katarina was to marry his brother. If the marriage of Kararina and Duke Przemyslaus II did not result in any heir, all the properties would go back to the close family of Scibor of Beckov, as in the testament of his father. By this marriage, the Stibors of Ostoja would have dynastic claims in case of extinction of the Piast Dynasty in the future. Fighting many wars with Ottoman Empire could not stop the Turkish side to grow and take more land in east, west and south. Sigismund found himself in a difficult position. He already took a loan from Polish king when signing the Treaty of Lubovla but the royal coffers were empty since he used every penny in the war against rebellious Venice. Since he could not pay back the loan given by Polish king, he lost 16 towns in Spiš area to Polish side. Emperor Sigismund saw his enemies expanding in almost every direction. The Ottoman Empire in the east, Italian republics in south, the Hussite threat in north. However, the pact with Albert II of Germany that was supposed to marry Elisabeth of Bohemia, the daughter and heiress of Emperor Sigismund of Luxemburg, and the pact with the Clan of Ostoja was protecting north side of the Kingdom. And through marriage between Katarina of Beckov and the Duke Przemyslaw of the Piast dynasty, the Kingdom could count on more support in the battle against Hussite side. It was all set to form powerful coalition. As Albert II would be the successor on the Hungarian throne and the Clan of Ostoja would hold the position in Upper Hungary and south of Poland together with the Piast dynasty, the focus could then be to stop Ottoman Empire to expand more in west direction. Stibor of Beckov. His son Stibor of Beckov (also known as Stibor II), continued his father's work and succeeded in extending land holdings further. He was also appointed Lord of Árva County including Orava (castle) and was also a member of the Order of the Dragon. The son of Stibor's brother Andrzej, also known as Stibor, was the Bishop of Eger in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Eger. When Sigismund took the nomination from him, he moved back to Poland but never accepted Sigismund's decision, ultimately calling himself Bishop of Eger to the end of his life. Although he was granted several nominations in Poland and held several properties, they could never match the properties that he was in charge of in Hungary. In 1407 Stefan of the Wawrzyniec line of Ostoja moved to Upper Hungary where Stibor gave him the position of Castellan of Košecy. In 1415 he was in charge of the whole Trencsén on the behalf of Stibor. He expanded his properties with Ladce, Horné and Dolné Kočkovce, Nosice and Milochov which he left to his six sons. Stibor of Stiboricz died in 1414 and was supposedly laid to rest in his own chapel inside St. Katarina's Church in Krakow. This was also supposedly the resting place for his son. It was also written that both father and son were buried in the chapel until 1903 when a grave of red marble stone was found in Buda. This was of Stibor Stiboric of Beckov, dated to 1431. In recent times, a grave was found in Székesfehérvár which had been broken into pieces as a result of Turkish destruction. However, it has now been established that this was the grave of Stibor of Stiboricz. It was made of the same stone, red marmor and when the piece of coat of arms was finally found and there was no doubt. Stibor was granted a place beside other members of the Hungarian royalty. Since Stibor of Beckov (died 1434) did not have any heirs who could inherit existing properties, the testament told that it would be passed onto the closest family, including Beckov Castle that was made as power center of the clan in Upper Hungary. This Castle was made to be one of the most significant residences of that time, including great paintings, sculptures and chapel that was formed by artist from many different countries. Several testaments have been approved by the Emperor Sigismund and also his wife. The main issue in those was that all the properties of the Stibors in the kingdom of Hungary would be divided by closest family in case of lack of hair in the line. In that way, the land would stay in family hands. Unfortunately, Stibor de Beckov died suddenly in battle against Hussite forces soon after the agreement between Emperor Sigismund, Albert II of Germany and the Piast dynasty had been made. Just a few weeks later, a peace agreement with the Hussites was signed. It was now up to Katarina to marry Duke Przemyslaw II in accordance with her father's wish. However, this was not to happen as Katarina later married Lord Pál Bánffy of Alsolindva. Soon after, Stibor the Bishop of Eger lost his office and the Wawrzyniec lost all their offices and properties including the Castle of Košecy (which had previously been granted by Stibor of Stiboricz). All this was a result of their support for the Hussites. According to the testament, all lands possessed by the Ostoja clan in Upper Hungary was to be passed to the closest family of Stibor. Mikołaj Szarlejski. When all hereditary lines mentioned with the testament became extinct, Mikołaj Szarlejski inherited all the land holdings and properties. He was the son of Mikołaj Bydgoski, Lord castellan of Bydgoszcz and brother of Stibor of Stiboricz. Szarlejski was, at the time of the death of Stibor of Beckov, the Commander of the Polish forces in Prussia as well as Voivode of Brzesc-Kujawy. Besides this, he was also lord of several regalities and ultimately one of the most powerful and influential lords within Poland. However, Szarlejski supported the Hussites and was undertaking several hostile raids on Hungarian properties and strongholds which was not in accordance with the policy of the family. Since the land of Ostoja in Slovakia was the primary defense against the Hussites, it would now be in hands of the enemy. In this situation and because Katarina did not marry her Prince of Piast, Emperor Sigismund gave orders to the Hungarian Court to cancel the testament of Stibor of Beckov. The testament was cancelled on 28 March 1435. Mindful of Stibor's past loyalty and friendship, Sigismund did not leave Katarina of Beckov without financial support. She received one-fourth of the value of all properties in cash. Also on the day of his death, Sigismund gave Beckov Castle and belongings to Pál Bánffy. This was under the condition that he marry Katarina which was also fulfilled. Although Katarina received only 25% of the total property value, this some was considered significant but did not stay in the Ostoja family. In 1440 Władysław III of the Jagiellon dynasty assumed the Hungarian throne and for 4 years he was king of both Poland and Hungary. However, he died in the Battle of Varna and his brother Casimir IV Jagiellon became King of Poland in 1447. Casimir married Elisabeth of Austria (1436–1505), daughter of the late King of Hungary Albert II of Germany and Elisabeth of Bohemia (daughter of Sigismund, the Emperor and King of Hungary). The Jagiellon House challenged the House of Habsburg in Bohemia and Slovakia. Following the death of Albert II of Germany in 1439 when defending Hungary against Turks, Mikołaj Szarlejski recognized opportunity to regain the land of his family and the Clan in Slovakia. Szarlejski tried to convince Hungarian Royal Council that family properties have been taken in violation of the law. However, Hungarian Lords and Royal Council in Hungary had no intention to give back all of the north defence to their enemy. Then in 1439 Szarlejski decided to raise army against Hungary. With help of the Hussite side, he succeeded to siege several strongholds in the Vah area. Supported by Jan de Jani of Ostoja, the Voivode of Pomerania and Gdańsk and several other powerful Lords from the Clan of Ostoja and with support of many friends, the war against Hungarian Empire and Germany was in the beginning successful. Unfortunately, Szarlejski although being in charge of Polish forces in Prussia, did not have any significant commanding talent and ironically, both Stibor of Stiboricz and his son Stibor Stiboric of Beckov made great improvements in the fortification of their Castles which made siege of many of them almost impossible. Beckov Castle would later hold siege from Turkish side about 100 years later. As result of that and because the enemy was too strong, military action failed. The line of Stibor of Stiboricz was extinct, other lines of Stibor's family that derived from Stibor of Stiboricz brothers and that was called Stiborici in Hungaria (the Barons of Hungarian Kingdom) was also extinct. Szarlejski had no heir of his own and his large properties in Poland was past to the Kościelecki family of Ogończyk Clan as the daughter of Stibor Jedrzny married Jan Kościelecki, close friend and ally of Szarlejski. Economic power of Jan de Jani was broken because of all wars with Teutonic knights that he had to pay for himself and all the lines of the Moscic of Stiboricz (Stibor of Stiboricz's father) was extinct. However, other lines of the Clan that still was considered as close family to the Stibors was in position to be the successors of the land in Slovakia in case of death of Szarlejski. Stibor of Poniec. The great diplomatic work achieved by Stibor and Mikołaj was to be continued by Stibor of Poniec some 50 years later. He raised funds in Gdańsk (Danzig) for a campaign against the Teutonic Knights who held Malbork (Marieburg). The Teutonic Knights had financial difficulties at this time and were in great debt to the bulk of their main defensive force which consisted of Czech/Moravian mercenaries. Using the money from Gdańsk, Stibor de Poniec was able to persuade the mercenaries to leave the stronghold and he took control of Malbork without battle; King Casimir IV Jagiellon entered the castle in 1457. This led to the Second Treaty of Thorn, sealed in 1466 by Sibor of Poniec. Furthermore, he negotiated on behalf of the Polish king with Denmark which had supported the Teutonic Knights, and succeeded in ending a Danish blockade on Polish commerce in the Baltic Sea. Other members of the Clan of Ostoja were also recognized as formidable knights in the conflict against the Teutonic Order. Stefan of Liesková (Leski) of Wawrzyniec line of Ostoja. Stefan of Liesková (Leski) of the Wawrzyniec line of the Clan had six sons. All their properties in Hungary were confiscated in 1462 by Matthias Corvinus of Hungary because of their support for the Hussites. Košeca together with all other properties were given instead to the Mad’ar (Magyar) family that were fighting against the Hussites at the time. In 1467, Wawrzyniec and his Hussite allies successfully repossessed Košeca Castle but shortly after lost control again to the Hungarians. The Mad’ar family became extinct in 1491 and Košeca Castle with other properties were given to the Zápolya family in 1496. At that time the Jagiellon dynasty were kings of both Poland–Lithuania and Hungary. The Wawrzyniec line protested against the Zápolya family being in possession of their properties, however, the Zápolya family were too powerful and also hereditary-linked with the Jagiellons since Barbara Zapolya became Queen of Poland in 1512 and Jan Zapolya (János Szapolyai) became King of Hungary in 1526. Also in Poland, the Wawrzyniec line of Ostoja together with other members of the Clan, claimed the property of Szarlejski that passed to Kościelecki as well as Janski (de Jani) family claimed compensation from the King but also here the resistance was great big and finally they gave up plans to reclaim these properties. Aftermath. Ostoja landholdings were extensive and were a source of power. The Stibors in Slovakia were one of the most powerful families in Europe. Comparing with the Habsburg dynasty, the Clan had good chance to challenge if they would stay united and with the Stibors as leading force in Upper Hungary. However, it was necessary for the Stibors to be related with ruling dynasties or those that have been ruling to be able to claim power in the future. Marriage with prime families of central Europe was not enough. The family needed to be connected with royal blood. Instead of challenging Habsburgs, Stibor of Beckov and the Clan of Ostoja made agreement of cooperation which would benefit both sides. Both sides had equal forces and before Albert II of Germany become king of Hungary, Stibor of Stiboricz successfully challenge Austria, burning down the country to the ground except for Vienna that he left alone. Lack of heirs that could continue politics of the Clan successfully was also part of the reason of economical problems. While in most countries properties was past to younger lines in the family, in Poland women have same rights to inherit the properties as males. Since all main lines of the Clan suddenly faced lack of males at same time, it were the daughters that inherited the properties and brought them into other families through marriage. As did Katarina when she married Pal Banffy. The Banffy family inherited all the founds given to Katarina by the Emperor Sigismund when giving her 1/4 of all property value in cash. The Beckov castle was in the hands of the Banffy until also this family became extinct and Beckov returned to the Hungarian Crown. Finally, it was coordinated politics of the Clan of Ostoja that made it powerful. It was also Szarlejski's own politics that in the end ruined family power in Slovakia. Although the Clan supported Poland against Teutonic Knights, they did not support the Jagiellon dynasty in the beginning as the kings of Poland. Clan members staying and living in Poland was however granted power by Jagiellon kings in return for their support. In many cases, the Clan was forced to raise funds from their own treasury in order to defend Polish borders. In the end, it was during the reign of the Jagiellon dynasty, the Clan of Ostoja lost its power and all doubts that the Clan had against those kings from the beginning, become very true. Also in Hungarian history, Jagiellon dynasty have been described as weak and incompetent, which was the result of the politics of the Lords of Lesser Poland as they were responsible of electing kings who would sign documents in favor of their financial ambitions rather than choosing strong kings with benefit for the kingdom. As the main properties in both Slovakia and Poland were finally lost, the economic power was broken and the Clan of Ostoja was outside the politics of Poland for next 100 years, concentrating mostly in increasing their land properties, holding offices on local level. Commonwealth era. In the late medieval period, the Clan set out rebuilding the power base that had been weakened through attrition of its senior lines. In 1450, the Clan adopted families of powerful knights, leading provincial nobility, and several princes. The Union of Horodło of 1413 initiated a significant drive toward unification of Polish and Lithuanian / Belarus nobility and clergy. 47 prominent Catholic Lithuanian / Belarus and Ruthuanian families were symbolically adopted into 47 Polish clans. Subsequently, several other families from the east joined the Clan structure in the next adoption wave in 1450. These Lithuanian, Belarus and Russian nobility were granted the same rights as their Polish equivalents. Piekosinski provides a list of adopted families as well as families that received nobility. It appears that no more than 20 families in total joined the Clan of Ostoja in 1450. At the end of 15th and beginning of the 16th century the Commonwealth was the biggest and one of the most powerful countries in Europe. In 1569, the Union of Lublin created a real union of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, replacing the personal union of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It encompassed territories from Poland, Lithuania, Prussia, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldavia, Podolia, part of Spisz and part of Russia including Smolensk. The Union of Lublin marked the end of a 150 years period of Commonwealth expansion and consolidation. The skills needed to expand and secure national borders were different from what was required when the expansion was completed. The new nation needed new kind of administration, and as new goals become paramount the age of brave knights passed. Clan organization lost importance, and interfamilial cooperation lessened. Throughout the Commonwealth, the administrative structure was generally similar, albeit with some important differences. In Poland, the use of titles by the nobility was formally discontinued by the constitution of 1638, the nobility being equal according to the law, which was confirmed in 1641 and 1673. However, in actual practice families with close descent from the major dynastic origins such as the Ostoja families of Stibor line or some to the Clan adopted families, who had held important positions in Poland during medieval times and thus held titles such as comes or dux (duke, voivode, count palatine) never accepted the equality system and they continued to utilize their titles, particularly when traveling abroad or on diplomatic missions. The titles were in the 13th century used during the lifetime but it was common to pas it to next generation although according to the law, all nobility had equal rights and hold equal rank. Looking for influential families in Poland, one must look for the senatorial position and not the titles that have been given to Poles during the partition time of the Commonwealth. Those families were never equal to simple noblemen or knights but more equal to English peers, with the difference that the title was inherited by all members of the family, not only the oldest son like it is in England. All of those old and powerful medieval families that played central role in building Polish Empire was part of hereditary High Nobility. Knights that became part of the Clan of Ostoja in medieval times were never equal to the mighty Lords of Ostoja but were in the 14th and 15th century given rights equal to medieval German Baron that origin from knights and in time also become in function more like German Freiherr. The Union of Lublin made an exception for the Lithuanian Prince families and therefore the Commonwealth could see several Lithuanian, Russian or Belarus families with titles. Some of those families was very powerful and wealthy. In time of the Commonwealth they expanded their properties to be of such size that there were few families in Europe to match them. They were the magnates of the Commonwealth. Magnates of the Commonwealth are often called the aristocracy of the Commonwealth but the definition of what constitutes aristocracy differs from the rest of Europe in that the Magnate families were much more powerful, often comparable to Princes. A good example is the extinct family of Pac that ruled the Duchy of Lithuania in the 17th century. The Pac family had not descended from a Prince, and therefore did not use any title at all. During the partition of the Commonwealth the Pac family received the title of Count. However, when looking at the size of the Pac properties and their position in the Commonwealth, a simple Count title seems not adequate to their power and property size that was far beyond imagination of most of the European Lords. Partly in Poland but certainly in Grand Dutchy of Lithuania and Ukraine, almost all important positions was in the hands of the Magnates and it was passed through generations. The only question was which of those about 20 great Magnate families would rule most Voivodeship, Counties and Provinces. The list of those Magnates during the days of the Commonwealth include following families: Princely Houses: Radziwill, Sapieha, Wisniowiecki, Lubomirski, Czartoryski, Ostrogski, Sanguszko. Other Magnat families: Chodkiewicz, Pac, Tyszkiewicz, Zamoyski, Hlebowicz (without any hereditary title), Mniszech, Potocki. Those families had most significant impact on the politics of the Commonwealth. They chose the candidate for the King and they made sure that the candidate was chosen to serve their interest. The nobility voted for the candidate that Magnates and other aristocracy told them to vote on. The Magnates became the true power in the Commonwealth and the King was, with some few exceptions, only a Marionette of the Magnates in their political game. Furthermore, there were then some 50-60 influential and very wealthy families and with great family history, sometimes with Prince titles. However, those families did not have same impact on the politics of the Commonwealth, still being considered as Magnats of the Commonwealth. Among them there are most magnificent families like Lanckoronski, Tarnowski, Tęczyński, Prince Holszanski, Rzewuski, Gonzaga-Myszkowski or Prince Czertwertynski. The next 300-400 families (of in total tens of thousands of noble families) counting in power and land possession in the Commonwetlh could more likely be equal to the European aristocracy when referring to counts and barons. Those families should also be included as aristocrats but most publications refer only to titled nobility as the aristocracy which is not in accordance with Polish rank system during the time of the Commonwealth. There were many wealthy and influential families that hold several offices in the family like Voivode, Castellan, Bishop or Hetman which gave them a place in the Senat of the Commonwealth. This group hold many great families like Sieniawski, Arciszewski, Ossolinski, Koniecpolski, Prince Giedrojc and finally also many families included in the Clan of Ostoja. According to the Etymological Dictionary of the Polish Language, "a proper magnate should be able to trace noble ancestors back for many generations and own at least 20 villages or estates. He should also hold a major office in the Commonwealth". By this definition, the number of magnates in the Clan of Ostoja is considerably high. Lords like Radziwiłł, Wiśniowiecki or Stibor of Stiboricz who was among the richest and most influential dukes in Europe were much more than local magnates. They ruled a nation, either Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine or Slovakia. Aristocratic titles given to noble families in the time of partition of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth by Russian, Prussian and Austrian emperors as well as by the Holy Vatican City State cannot be compared with the titles from medieval times. Those are, except single cases, foreign titles. The constitution of 1921 (§96) in March, removed all the titles in Poland including the nobility itself. However, the constitution of 1935, did not confirm paragraph 96 in the constitution of 1921. Therefore, families that received or bought titles from foreign Emperors could still legally use them. As the titles were not legally forbidden, the peerage of old families in Poland was also taken into consideration. However, usually when referring to titles in Poland, this is understood to mean the titles given during the partition. In this way, families included in the Clan of Ostoja and having origin from medieval time, are all considered as High Nobility. 16th century. Polish Ostoja families almost totally disappeared from political life in the 16th century. Nevertheless, the late 16th century features some notable Clan members. Kacper Karliński, Lord castellan of Olsztyn, is known for his legendary defence of the town in 1587. Maciej Kawęczyński reformed the printing system in Lithuania. Mikołaj Kreza was Rittmeister of the Crown. Michał Maleczkowski was Magnus procurator (Latin for "ruler") of Lesser Poland 1576–1577. Gabriel Słoński (1520–1598) was architect and Burgrave of Krakow. 17th century. The 17th century provided much more activity from the Clan. First half of the century was the Golden Age of the Commonwealth. In Lithuania families were fighting for supremacy in the Grand Duchy which led to many confrontations. The leading families were those of Prince Radziwiłł, Prince Sapieha and Pac. In Volyn, Podole and Ukraine the Wisniowiecki family reached the supremacy of the area. The estimated number of people working for Wisniowiecki on his estates was almost 300,000 at that time. In Lithuania, the Sluszka and Unichowski families of the Clan of Ostoja raised in great power. Krzysztof Słuszka became Voivode of Livonia and Aleksander Słuszka Castellan of Samogitia and later Voivide of Minsk, then Voivode of Novogrod and ended as Voivode of Trakai in 1647. Samuel Unichowski of Ostoja followed up 40 years later and also became the Voivode of Trakai. Lady Elżbieta Słuszka (1619–1671) was the richest and most powerful Lady of the Commonwealth. She was the Crown Court Marshall and after the death of her first husband inherited the Kazanowski Palace in Warsaw. Josef Bogusław Sluszka (1652–1701) was Hetman and Castellan of Trakai and Vilnius. Dominik Michał Słuszka (1655–1713) was the Voivode of Polotsk and finally Aleksander Jozef Unichowski became the Castellan of Samogitia. Other families in Lithuania that were part of the Clan of Ostoja became very wealthy. Prince Boratynski's family joined the Clan already in 1450 and was often holding high military rank. Prince Palecki's family also joined at the same time. The Danielewicz family was included in the Pac family by adoption of Michał Danielewicz, son of Katarzyna Pac (daughter of Voivode of Trakai) and inherited part of their great land possessions including Bohdanow and the town of Kretinga. In Poland, the Szyszkowski family of Ostoja became very powerful. Piotr Szyszkowski was the Catellan of Wojno 1643, Marcin Szyszkowski was the Bishop of Kraków and Prince of Siewierz and Mikołaj Szyszkowski became the Prince-bishop of Warmia in 1633. Both Prince Mikołaj and Prince Marcin had great impact on the politics of the Commonwealth. Following information is mainly taken from Polish Wikipedia. Salomon Rysiński (1565–1625) was famous writer at the time, Krzysztof Boguszewski was one of the most famous painters and artists of Greater Poland and Stanisław Bzowski (1567–1637) was member of Dominican Order, friend of reforms, appointed by Vatikan City to write down its history. Wojciech Gajewski was the Castellan of Rogozin 1631–1641, Łukasz Gajewski became Castellan of Santok in 1661, Michał Scibor-Rylski the Castellan of Gostyn in 1685, Mikołaj Scibor Marchocki, the Castellan of Malogoski (Żarnòw) 1697 and Jan Stachurski was leading the army against the Cossack uprising as Major General in 1664. The most famous Clan members in that century were Kazimierz Siemienowicz, General of artillery, military engineer, artillery specialist and the pioneer of rocketry, whose publication was for 200 years used as the main artillery manual in Europe, and Michał Sędziwój (Michael Sendivogius, Sędzimir) (1566–1636), from the Sędzimir branch of the Clan, was a famous European alchemist, philosopher and medical doctor. A pioneer of chemistry, he developed ways of purification and creation of various acids, metals and other chemical compounds. He discovered that air is not a single substance and contains a life-giving substance-later called oxygen-170 years before Scheele and Priestley. He correctly identified this 'food of life' with the gas (also oxygen) given off by heating nitre (saltpetre). This substance, the 'central nitre', had a central position in Sędziwój's schema of the universe. Sędziwój was famous in Europe, and was widely sought after as he declared that he could make gold from quicksilver, which would have been a useful talent. During a demonstration on how to make the gold, in presence of the Emperor Rudolph II, Sędziwój was captured and robbed by a German alchemist named Muhlenfels who had conspired with the German prince, Brodowski, to steal Sędziwój's secret. 18th century. The 18th century Commonwealth suffered from a series of incompetent kings of foreign origin whose main interest was fighting personal wars against other countries. Persistent wars and general turmoil bankrupted the national finances, and many power-hungry Magnates cooperated with foreign forces. The last king, Poniatowski, was paid by Catherine II of Russia and was obliged to report to Russian ambassador Otto Magnus von Stackelberg. He was furthermore richly paid to facilitate the constitution of May 3, 1791 but because of his character or rather lack of it, he did not fulfill his promise. On the other hand, Poniatowski did care about cultural life in Poland, supported necessary education of young patriots and also did not go against members of the Bar confederation. Most families that signed Poniatowski's election, including many Ostoja families, were signing for the Czartoryski family who wanted to make necessary changes in the Commonwealth. However, to support those changes Czartoryski asked for help from Russia, an offer that Russia could not resist. At the beginning of the period, the Ostoja families in Lithuania and Poland avoided engagement in this political chaos. The king was appointing those that supported his own ambitions, which was the beginning of some new great fortunes. This political disaster ended in Partitions of Poland, 1772 when Prussia, Austria and Russia decided to divide defenseless Commonwealth between them. Poniatowski's reign until 1795 became the darkest chapter in Polish history. The Constitution of May 3, 1791 came far too late. This was the first time that the Commonwealth included Ruthenians and not just Poland and Lithuania. New Commonwealth was to be formed of three nations. Also this intention came far too late. However, the Constitution of May 3 united families that wanted to make necessary changes and that would serve the nation. In this movement we suddenly see lot of activity from the Ostoja families. Almost all of them supported the movement and in many cases all members of the family joined, women and men. In the first half of the century, the Ostoja families hold many offices and was still prospecting. In the second half of the century, they clearly turned into military commanders and supporters of the resistance, leading Confederations and armies against foreign forces and specially against Russia. Ignacy Ścibor Marchocki of Ostoja (1755–1827) created famous "Kingdom of Mińkowce". Marchocki proclaimed his estates an independent state and installed on its borders pillars with the name plates, identifying that this is "The border of Minkowce state". The "Kingdom" hold one town, 18 villages and 4 Castles (one for each season) with some 4200 souls living in the "Kingdom". Marchocki liberated peasants from serfdom, granted them self-government, established jury (court with jury and court of appeal), built school, pharmacy, orphanage, churches and monuments, cloth and carriage factories, factory of anis apple oil production, with brickyard, varnish and paint plants, with mulberry trees gardens. Its own paper was manufactured there and lime – calcined. He opened his own printing house, where different decrees (like "agreement between the Lord and the peasants"), directions, resolutions and even sermons, later delivered by him in Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. The government of the Kingdom that included Jews, serfs, town citizens, peasants and foreigners. He also employed two doctors within the property. The central body of the State was the County Court as well as Court of Appeal. The main thing in the State was to give all citizens equal legal rights. All of this was of course reported to Russian Administration that in the beginning was stunned, thinking that it was an act of madness. However, the "Kingdom" was working excellent and the Lord of the Kingdom was getting richer and more famous, buying even more properties and land to expand the "Kingdom" including 40.000 ha land around Odessa. Life inside his estate was considered as heaven comparing to normal life peasants outside the border pillars which would more correctly be referred as hell. Peasants was at that time normally property of the estate that could be sold any time. In the "Kingdom" people was living in wealth and prosperity and Marchocki himself was the most successful administrator of his goods in Russian Empire. This eccentric man was summertime wearing a Roman Toga during official meetings on the property that looked like picture taken from paradise. In the end, this started to worry Russian administration that gave order to burn down all the printing so this madness would not spread to other provinces. This could cause a revolution because suddenly it was clear that making democracy inside a property was making owners rich and people happy. Soon, every citizen of not noble origin in the area wanted to live in the "Kingdom of Mińkowce". It was a plague that started to spread all over the countryside and infect entire system. To stop this revolution, the Tsar ordered Marchocki captured and imprisoned. Following information and source is taken from Polish Wikipedia. Lady Krystyna Ścibor-Bogusławska (d. 1783) - was Lady of regality of Wągłczew by nomination received by the King Poniatowski and Aleksander Scibor Marchocki became the Castellan of Malogoski after Mikołaj. Franciszek Gajewski became the Castellan of Konarsk-Kuyavia and Florian Hrebnicki the Uniat Archbishop of Polotsk. Antoni Gajewski (d. 1775) was Castellan of Naklo, Lord of the regality of Łęczyca and of Kościany. His relative (1714–76) became the Castellan of Rogozin. Józef Jakliński was then the Castellan of Kamensk/Spicymir 1759–1775. At the end of the century, Józef Siemoński, the General adj. of King Poniatowski became supreme commander of Sandomierz uprising initiated by Kościuszko and Karol Podgorski escaped the Russian side by joining the Prussian army where he became General Major. Also in other parts of the Commonwealth the resistance against Poniatowski and Russia formed Confederations. Michał Władysław Lniski was vice Voivode and Marshal of the Confederation of Bar in Pomerania and Franciszek Ksawery Ścibor-Bogusławski was Rittmeister of same Confederation. Then Wojciech Marchocki was the Castellan of Sanok County and Józef Andrzej Mikorski the Castellan of Rawa County from 1791. The Ostaszewski and the Blociszewski of Ostoja families hold many family members that were fighting against forces behind the partition of the Commonwealth. Of them, Tadeusz Błociszewski was General Major and Michał Ostaszewski (1720–1816) was one of main initiators of the Confederation of Bar in Subcarpathian Voivodeship. Tomasz Ostaszewski was helping the Confederation in his position as the Bishop of Plock. Finally, Antoni Baranowski of Ostoja was awarded and appointed as General Major of Royal Army by Tadeusz Kościuszko. Baranowski participated as the head of the division in the Battle of Maciejowice. Subsequently, remained off-duty, in 1812 he organized levée en masse in Lublin and Siedlce. National resurgence. 19th century. It was the time of the boom for the nationalism and it was also the century of Adam Mickiewicz, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Frédéric Chopin and many others. By the 19th century the Commonwealth had ceased to exist, its territory having been partitioned between and occupied by Prussia, Russia and Austria. The local nobility rallied to fight this occupation and actively participated in the Napoleonic Wars. In addition to larger conflicts there were also over a hundred smaller military actions; Ostoja families participated in many of these, often serving as leaders. rising up against the ruling authorities. Many Ostoja families were wealthy aristocrats owning palaces, manor houses and large properties in Poland, Lithuania and throughout Europe. However, some Ostoja families, who participated these nationalistic uprisings and other military actions, were punished by having their properties confiscated. For example, according to Norman Davis, the consequences of the January Uprising in 1863 in the Russian part of the former Commonwealth included deportation of 80,000 people to Siberia and other working camps. Confiscated Ostoja properties were given over to those who were loyal to Russia, Austria or Prussia. In such way, several families gained in power during the partition, receiving high offices, nominations and lot of land. They were also given noble titles of Baron or Count or even Prince for their support and service. But Ostojas were not only good at fighting the enemy. Families kept part of their properties, manor houses and palaces outside the conflict and war to be able to support refugees, wounded and those in need. They acted both openly against foreign forces and in conspiracy using same successful tactics as families did in the time of Stibor of Stiboricz. Following information is taken from articles in Polish Wikipedia. Adam Ostaszewki of Ostoja (1860–1934) was a pioneer of Polish aviation construction. He held a doctorate in philosophy and law. He was furthermore a writer, poet and translator of poetry from all over the world as he knew some 20 languages. He worked with astronomy, made sculptures, painted and was also interested in several different fields including optics, physics, electricity and magnetism, history, archaeology, chemistry, botany, and zoology. This remarkable man was often called "Leonardo from Wzdow". Kacper Kotkowski (1814–1875) was Catholic priest, head and commissar of the Sandomierz uprising while Stanisław Błociszewski received the Order of Virtuti Militari for his patriotic fight as an officer against Russian forces. Jan Czeczot was famous poet and ethnographer in Belarus. In Russia, Andrzej Miklaszewski was Actual State Councillor (e.g., Marshall and General - Table of Ranks) and in his position being able to help many families, saving them from exile in Siberia. In the meantime, Jan Kazimierz Ordyniec was owner and publisher of "Dziennik Warszawski" was heating up the resistance with articles. In the end, he was forced to emigrate and joined famous society at Hôtel Lambert in Paris. Spirydion Ostaszewski (1797–1875) was writing down Polish legends which was important for the cause and fight for the liberty of Poland. He participated in November Uprising 1830-1831 and helped many families returning from Siberia to settle down in west part of Ukraine. In the meantime, Teofil Wojciech Ostaszewski initiated first program against Serfdom. He was also the Marshal of Brzostowo County. Łukasz Solecki was Bishop of Przemyśl and professor of the Lviv University, Jan Aleksander Karłowicz became well known ethnographer, linguist, documenting the folklore while Mieczysław Karłowicz was composer of several symphonies and poems. Zygmunt Czechowicz was one of the initiators of the uprising of the Belarus Nation. Ladies Emma and Maria A. from Ostaszewski branch of Ostoja (1831–1912 and 1851–1918) were both devoted social activists and patriots. They raised funds for helping wounded and poor during the time of uprisings. Lady Karolina Wojnarowska (1814–1858) born Rylska was author writing under the pseudonym "Karol Nowowiejski". 20th century to 1945. Several Ostoja families still owned castles and manor houses between the First and Second World Wars. From the end of the 18th century to the end of World War II, many Clan members served as military officers. In the Second World War, some served in the Polish Army (Armia Krajowa), some of them left Russian Camps and Siberia to join the Anders Army, and others joined the British Royal Air Force. Hipotit Brodowicz and Adam Mokrzecki reached the rank of General Major in the army, the later widely decorated for commanding troops in Polish–Soviet War between 1919 and 1921. Stefan Mokrzecki was also a general in the Polish army. Witold Ścibor-Rylski (1871–1926) was officer that emigrated to the US in 1898 but came back to Poland in 1914 to help the Country in World War I holding the rank of Colonel. He was serving Poland through the Polish-Soviet War and left for United States after the campaign. His service for Poland was widely recognized and he also finally received the rank of General from President August Zaleski. Włodzimierz Zagórski (1882–1927) was a general in the Polish army. During the years of 1914–1916 he was a chief of staff of Polish Legions. Since November 1918 in Polish Armed Forces. As former intelligence officer, he accused Józef Piłsudski for being spy in favour of Austria. Outside the military service, Władysław Chotkowski (1843–1926) was a professor and head of Jagiellonian University and another Adam Ostaszewski was President of Plock until 1934. Adam Hrebnicki-Doktorowicz (1857–1941) was a professor in agriculture development, founder of Institute in Ukraine and Karzimierz Zagórski (1883–1944) was widely recognized adventurer-pioneer, photographer. Bronisław Bohatyrewicz (1870–1940) was a general in the Polish army, died in Katyn, general Kazimierz Suchcicki also died in Katyn 1940. General Zbigniew Ścibor Rylski (born 1917) succeeded to survive World War II and his wife, Zofia Rylska was during the war a master spy under the cover name of "Marle Springer". Her information led to localization and destruction of the German battleship . Stanislaw Danielewicz worked on breaking Enigma machine ciphers. Karola Uniechowska(1904–1955) was voluntary medical doctor during World War II, she also participated in the Battle of Monte Cassino while Zofia Uniechowska (1909–1993) - achieved Order of Virtuti Militari for conspiracy against Nazi government in Poland. Stefan Ścibor-Bogusławski (1897–1978) was richly awarded Colonel, also for his decisive actions in the Battle of Monte Cassino. Stanisław Chrostowski (1897–1947) was a professor and artist. Maxim Rylski (1895–1969) became a famous poet in Ukraine. There is a park and institution named after him in Kyiv, there are also three statues of him in this town in memory for his great contribution to the people of Ukraine. Another Hrebnicki, Stanisław Doktorowicz-Hrebnicki (1888–1974), was a decorated professor in geology. Wacław Krzywiec (1908–1956) was a famous warship komandor with the destroyer . He was falsely accused by the communist regime in Poland after World War II, and was sent to prison after a famous trial, dying shortly after release. The Słoński brothers served in the RAF as pilots and officers, all three dying in the course of duty. Zbigniew Rylski, a major in the Polish army, was widely decorated for many important sabotage actions during World War II. Zygmund Ignacy Rylski (1898–1945), legendary "Major Hańcza", later advanced to the rank of Colonel. He was one of most devoted and widely decorated officers during World War II. Lady Izabela Zielińska, born in Ostaszewska in 1910, had experience of 101 years of past changes and many wars. Being a musician, she was decorated with the medal of Gloria Artis in 2011. Marcelina Antonina Scibor-Kotkowska of Ostoja was the mother of Witold Gombrowicz. Late 20th and 21st centuries. After World War II, many Ostoja were treated as enemies of the state, and many chose exile, emigrating internationally. Some stayed in Poland, or returned from France, England, Scotland or where they had been placed on military service during WW II. With the exception of the Ostaszewski Palace in Kraków, communist governments in Poland, Belarus, Lithuania and Ukraine confiscated all Ostoja property. After the fall of communism, none of these properties have been returned and no compensation has been given. Most of the old family properties were burned down by fighting armies during WW I, WW II and during Polish-Soviet War of 1919–1921. The existing "Ostoya Palace" around Rzeszow taken care by Rylski branch of Ostoja is an exception. Antoni Uniechowski (1903–1976) was a widely recognized painter in Poland, known for his drawings. Aleksander Ścibor-Rylski (1928–1983) was a poet, writer and film director and Tadeusz Sędzimir (1894–1989) was worldwide known inventor. His name has been given to revolutionary methods of processing steel and metals used in every industrialized nation of the world. In 1990 Poland's large steel plant in Kraków (formerly the Lenin Steelworks) was renamed to Tadeusz Sendzimir Steelworks. Joseph Stanislaus Ostoja-Kotkowski (1922–1994) was famous artist that worked with photography, film-making, theater, design, fabric design, murals, kinetic and static sculpture, stained glass, vitreous enamel murals, op-collages, computer graphics and also laser art. He was a pioneer regarding laser kinetics and "sound and image". Tadeusz Ostaszewski (1918–2003) was professor of fine arts in University of Krakow, Adam Kozłowiecki (1911–2007) was Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Lusaka in Zambia, Andrzej Zagórski (1926–2007) was devoted officer of Armia Krajowa that wrote over 250 publications about Polish underground resistance and Kazimierz Tumiłowicz (1932–2008) was creator of "Siberian association of remembrance" and social worker in Greater Poland. Andrzej Ostoja-Owsiany (1931–2008) was Senator in Poland after the fall of the communism. Błażej Ostoja Lniski is professor in fine arts at Warsaw Art Academy and Martin Ostoja Starzewski is professor in Mechanical Science & Engineering at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 2014, the Ostoja Clan Association was officially registered in Court with residence at Ostoya Palace in Jasionka, Rzeszów. Notable members. Notable members of the Clan of Ostoja. Criteria used: published in Polish, German, Hungarian, Slovakian, Lithuanian Encyclopedia as well as in Ukraine and Belarus, listed in publications, articles and documentary films.

peculiar gentleman

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=151588

The NewTek Video Toaster is a combination of hardware and software for the editing and production of NTSC standard-definition video. The plug-in expansion card initially worked with the Amiga 2000 computer and provides a number of BNC connectors on the exposed rear edge that provide connectivity to common analog video sources like VHS. The related software tools support video switching, chroma keying, character generation, animation, and image manipulation. Together, the hardware and software provided in the early 1990s a low-cost video editing suite for a few thousand U.S. dollars that rivaled the output of professional systems costing ten times as much at the time. It allowed small studios to produce high-quality material and resulted in a cottage industry for video production not unlike the success of the Macintosh in the desktop publishing (DTP) market only a few years earlier. The Video Toaster won the Emmy Award for Technical Achievement in 1993. Other parts of the original software package were spun off as stand-alone products, notably LightWave 3D, and achieved success on their own. As the Amiga platform lost market share and Commodore International went bankrupt in 1994 as a result of declining sales, the Video Toaster was moved to the Microsoft Windows platform where it is still available. The company also produces what is essentially a portable pre-packaged version of the Video Toaster along with all the computer hardware needed, as the TriCaster. These became all-digital units in 2014, ending production of the analog Video Toaster line. First generation systems. The Video Toaster was designed by NewTek founder Tim Jenison in Topeka, Kansas. Engineer Brad Carvey (brother of American actor/comedian Dana Carvey) built the first wire wrap prototype, and Steve Kell wrote the software for the prototype. Many other people worked on the Toaster as it developed. The Toaster was announced at the World of Commodore expo in 1987 and released as a commercial product in December 1990 for the Commodore Amiga 2000 computer system, taking advantage of the video-friendly aspects of that system's hardware to deliver the product at an unusually low cost of $2,399. The Amiga was well adapted to this application in that its system clock at was precisely double that of the NTSC color carrier frequency, , allowing for simple synchronization of the video signal. The hardware component is a full-sized card that is installed into the Amiga 2000's unique single video expansion slot rather than the standard bus slots, and therefore cannot be used with the A500 or A1000 models. The card has several BNC connectors in the rear, which accepts four video input sources and provided two outputs (preview and program). This initial generation system is essentially a real-time four-channel video switcher. One feature of the Video Toaster is the inclusion of LightWave 3D, a 3D modeling, rendering, and animation program. This program became so popular in its own right that in 1994 it was made available as standalone product separate from the Toaster systems. Aside from simple fades, dissolves, and cuts, the Video Toaster has a large variety of character generation, overlays and complex animated switching effects. These effects are in large part performed with the help of the native Amiga graphics chipset, which is synchronized to the NTSC video signals. As a result, while the Toaster was rendering a switching animation, the computer desktop display is not visible. While these effects are unique and inventive, they cannot be modified. Soon Toaster effects were seen everywhere, advertising the device as the brand of switcher those particular production companies were using. The Toaster hardware requires very stable input signals, and therefore is often used along with a separate video sync time-base corrector to stabilize the video sources. Third-party low-cost time-base correctors (TBCs) specifically designed to work with the Toaster quickly came to market, most of which were designed as standard ISA bus cards, taking advantage of the typically unused Bridgeboard slots. The cards do not use the Bridgeboard to communicate, but simply as a convenient power supply and physical location. As with all video switchers that use a frame buffer to create DVEs (digital video effects), the video path through the Toaster hardware introduced delays in the signals when the signal was in "digital" mode. Depending on the video setup of the user, this delay could be quite noticeable when viewed along with the corresponding audio, so some users installed audio delay circuits to match the Toaster's video-delay lag, as is common practice in video-switching studios. A user still needs at least three video tape recorders (VTR) and a controller to perform A/B roll linear video editing (LE), as the Toaster serves merely as a switcher, which can be triggered through general-purpose input/output (GPIO) to switch on cue in such a configuration, as the Toaster has no edit-controlling capabilities. The frame delays passing through the Toaster and other low-cost video switchers make precise editing a frustrating endeavor. Internal cards and software from other manufacturers are available to control VTRs; the most common systems go through the serial port to provide single-frame control of a VTR as a capture device for LightWave animations. A Non-linear editing system (NLE) product was added later, with the invention of the Video Toaster Flyer. Although initially offered as just an add-on to an Amiga, the Video Toaster was soon available as a complete turn-key system that included the Toaster, Amiga, and sync generator. These Toaster systems became very popular, primarily because at a cost of around US$5,000, they could do much of what a $100,000 fully professional video switcher (such as an Evans & Sutherland) could do at that time. The Toaster was also the first such video device designed around a general-purpose personal computer that is capable of delivering broadcast-quality NTSC signals. As such, during the early 1990s the Toaster was widely used by consumer Amiga owners, desktop video enthusiasts, and local television studios, and was even used during "The Tonight Show" regularly to produce special effects for comedy skits. It was often easy to detect a studio that used the Toaster by the unique and recognizable special switching effects. The NBC television network also used the Video Toaster with LightWave for its promotional campaigns, beginning with the 1990-1991 broadcast season ("NBC: The Place To Be!"). All of the external submarine shots in the TV series "seaQuest DSV" were created using LightWave 3D, as were the outer-space scenes in the TV series "Babylon 5" (although Amiga hardware was only used for the first three seasons). Because of the heavy use of dark blues and greens (for which the NTSC television standard is weak), the external submarine shots in "seaQuest DSV" could not have made it to air without the use of the ASDG Abekas driver, written specifically to solve this problem by Aaron Avery at ASDG (later Elastic Reality, Inc.). An updated version called Video Toaster 4000 was later released, using the Amiga 4000's video slot. The 4000 was co-developed by actor Wil Wheaton, who worked on product testing and quality control. He later used his public profile to serve as a technology evangelist for the product. The Amiga Video Toaster 4000 source code was released in 2004 by NewTek & DiscreetFX. Video Toaster Flyer. For the second generation NewTek introduced the Video Toaster Flyer. The Flyer is a much more capable non-linear editing system. In addition to just processing live video signals, the Flyer makes use of hard drives to store video clips as well as audio and allow complex scripted playback. The Flyer is capable of simultaneous dual-channel playback, which allows the Toaster's video switcher to perform transitions and other effects on video clips without the need for rendering. The hardware component is again a card designed for the Amiga's Zorro II expansion slot, and was primarily designed by Charles Steinkuehler. The Flyer portion of the Video Toaster/Flyer combination is a complete computer of its own, having its own microprocessor and embedded software, which was written by Marty Flickinger. Its hardware includes three embedded SCSI controllers. Two of these SCSI buses are used to store video data, and the third to store audio. The hard drives are thus connected to the Flyer directly and use a proprietary filesystem layout, rather than being connected to the Amiga's buses and were available as regular devices using the included DOS driver. The Flyer uses a proprietary wavelet compression algorithm known as VTASC, which was well-regarded at the time for offering better visual quality than comparable motion-JPEG-based nonlinear editing systems. One of the card's primary uses is for playing back LightWave 3D animations created in the Toaster. Video Toaster Screamer. In 1993, NewTek announced the "Video Toaster Screamer", a parallel extension to the Toaster built by DeskStation Technology, with four motherboards, each with a MIPS R4400 CPU running at and of RAM. The Screamer accelerated the rendering of animations developed using the Toaster's bundled Lightwave 3D software, and is supposedly 40 times as powerful as a Toaster 4000. Only a handful of test units were produced before NewTek abandoned the project and refocused on the Flyer. This cleared the way for DeskStation Technology to release their own cut-down version, the Raptor. Later generations. Later generations of the product run on Windows NT PCs. In 2004, the source code for the Amiga version was publicly released and hosted on DiscreetFX's site Open Video Toaster. With the additions of packages such as DiscreetFX's Millennium and thousands of wipes and backgrounds added over the years, one can still find the Video Toaster system in use today in fully professional systems. NewTek renamed the VideoToaster to "VideoToaster[2]", and later, "VT[3]" for the PC version and is now at version 5.3. Since VT[4] version 4.6, SDI switching is supported through an add-on called SX-SDI. NewTek released a spin-off product, known as the TriCaster, a portable live-production, live-projection, live-streaming, and NLE system. The TriCaster packages the VT system as a turnkey solution in a custom-designed portable PC case with video, audio and remote computer inputs and outputs on the front and back of the case. As of April 2008, four versions are in production: the basic TriCaster 2.0, TriCaster PRO 2.0, TriCaster STUDIO 2.0 and the new TriCaster BROADCAST, the latter of which adds SDI and AES-EBU connectivity plus a preview output capability. The TriCasterPRO FX, a model that was situated in line between the original TriCaster PRO and TriCaster STUDIO was introduced in early 2008, and has now been discontinued. Its feature set has been added to the new TriCaster PRO 2.0. TriCaster STUDIO 2.0 and TriCaster BROADCAST use successively larger cases than the base model TriCaster 2.0. The units within the product line above the base-model TriCaster 2.0 enables use of LiveSet 3D Live Virtual Set technology developed by NewTek, that replaces tens of thousands of U.S. dollars worth of conventional 3D virtual set equipment alone, and is also found in NewTek's venerable VT[5] Integrated Production Suite, the modern-day successor to the original Video Toaster. In late 2009, NewTek released its high definition version of the TriCaster, called the TriCaster XD300, a three-input HD system. It is able to accept a variety formats (NTSC, 720p, or 1080i; and on multi-standard systems, PAL) that can be mixed to downstream keys. The XD300 also features five M/E style virtual inputs, permitting up to three video sources in one source, accessible like any other input on the switcher. At NAB Show 2010 NewTek announced its TCXD850, a rack-mountable eight-input switcher with 22 channels. It was released July 15, 2010. Decline. By 2009, the Video Toaster started to receive less attention from NewTek in the run-up to the transition to HD systems. In December 2010, the discontinuation of VT[5] was announced, marking the end of the Video Toaster as a stand-alone product. TriCaster systems based on the VT platform were still made up until August 2012, when the TriCaster STUDIO was replaced by the TriCaster 40. This officially marked the end of the Video Toaster.

picture altering

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=602835

The Polish Air Force ("Siły Powietrzne", literally "Air Forces") is the aerial warfare military branch of the Polish Armed Forces. Until July 2004 it was officially known as "Wojska Lotnicze i Obrony Powietrznej" (literally: "Flight-and-Air Defence Forces"). In 2014 it consisted of roughly 16,425 military personnel and about 475 aircraft, distributed among ten bases throughout Poland. The Polish Air Force can trace its origins to the months following the end of World War I in 1918. During the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in 1939, 70% of its aircraft were destroyed. Most pilots, after the Soviet invasion of Poland on September 17, escaped via Romania and Hungary to continue fighting throughout World War II in allied air forces, first in France, then in Britain, and later also the Soviet Union. History. Establishment. Military aviation in free Poland started even before the officially recognised date of regaining independence (11 November 1918). Poland was under German and Austro-Hungarian occupation until the armistice, but the Poles started to take control as the Central Powers collapsed. Initially, the Polish air force consisted of mostly German and Austrian aircraft, left by former occupants or captured from them, mostly during the Greater Poland Uprising. These planes were first used by the Polish Air Force in the Polish-Ukrainian War in late 1918, during combat operations centered around the city of Lwów (now Lviv). On 2 November 1918 pilot Stefan Bastyr performed the first combat flight of Polish aircraft from Lviv. When the Polish-Soviet War broke out in February 1920, the Polish Air Force used a variety of former German and Austro-Hungarian, as well as newly acquired western-made Allied aircraft. Most common at that time were light bomber and reconnaissance aircraft, among most numerous were French Breguet 14 bombers, German LVG C.V reconnaissance aircraft, British Bristol F2B scouts and Italian Ansaldo Balilla fighters. After the Polish-Soviet War ended in 1921, most of the worn out World War I aircraft were gradually withdrawn and from 1924 the air force started to be equipped with new French aircraft. In total in 1918-1924 there were 2160 aircraft in the Polish Air Force and naval aviation (not all in operable condition), in which there were 1384 reconnaissance aircraft and 410 fighters. From 1924 to 1930 the primary fighter of the Polish Air Force was the SPAD 61 and its main bombers were the French produced Potez 15 and the Potez 25, which was eventually manufactured in Poland under license from Aéroplanes Henry Potez. The first Polish-designed and mass-produced aircraft to serve in the country's air force was a high wing fighter, the PWS-10, first manufactured in 1930 by the Podlasie Aircraft Factory. Inter-war years. In 1933, Zygmunt Pulawski's first high wing, all-metal aircraft, the PZL P.7a, was designed and produced, with 150 entering service. The design was followed by 30 improved PZL P.11a aircraft and a final design, the PZL P.11c, was delivered in 1935 and was a respectable fighter for its time; 175 entered service and it remained the only Polish fighter until 1939, by which time foreign aircraft design had overtaken it. Its final version, the PZL P.24, was built for export only and was bought by four countries. A new fighter prototype, the PZL.50 Jastrząb (Hawk), similar to the Seversky P-35 in layout, was curtailed by the Nazi invasion and two twin-engine heavy fighters, the PZL.38 Wilk and the PZL.48 Lampart, remained prototypes. As far as bombers are concerned, the Potez 25 and Breguet 19 were replaced by an all-metal monoplane, the PZL.23 Karaś, with 250 built from 1936 onwards, but by 1939 the Karas was outdated. In 1938 the Polish factory PZL designed a modern twin-engine medium bomber, the PZL.37 Łoś (Elk). The Łoś had a bomb payload of 2580 kg and a top speed of 439 km/h. Unfortunately, only about 30 Łoś A bombers (single tailfin) and 70 Łoś B (twin tailfin) bombers had been delivered before the Nazi invasion. As an observation and close reconnaissance plane, Polish "escadres" used the slow and easily damaged Lublin R-XIII, and later the RWD-14 Czapla. Polish naval aviation used the Lublin R-XIII on floats. Just before the war, some Italian torpedo planes, the CANT Z.506, were ordered, but only one was delivered, and it was without armament. The principal aircraft used to train pilots were the Polish-built high-wing RWD-8 and the PWS-26 biplane. In 1939, Poland ordered 160 MS-406s and 10 Hawker Hurricane fighters from abroad, but they were not delivered before the outbreak of war. 1939. On 1 September 1939, at the beginning of the invasion of Poland, all the Polish combat aircraft had been dispersed to secondary airfields, contrary to a commonly-held belief, based on German propaganda, that they had all been destroyed by bombing at their airbases. The aircraft destroyed by German bombers on the airfields were mostly trainers. The fighters were grouped into 15 escadres; five of them constituted the Pursuit Brigade, deployed in the Warsaw area. Despite being obsolete, Polish PZL-11 fighters shot down over 170 German aircraft. The bombers, grouped in nine escadres of the Bomber Brigade, attacked armoured ground columns but suffered heavy losses. Seven reconnaissance- and 12 observation escadres, deployed to particular armies, were used primarily for reconnaissance. Part of the Polish Air Force was destroyed in the campaign; the surviving aircraft were either captured or withdrawn to Romania, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovenia or Sweden, whose air forces subsequently employed these aircraft for their own use (in the case of Romania until 1956). A great number of pilots and aircrew managed to escape to France and then to Britain, where they played a significant part in the defence of the United Kingdom against Nazi invasion, during the Battle of Britain. Prior to the conflict Poland also bought 234 planes abroad. First of them were on delivery when the conflict started. These were Hawker Hurricane (14 planes), Morane-Saulnier 406 (120 planes) and Fairey Battle (100 planes). The ship ss Lassel with 14 hawker hurricane's on board left Liverpool on 28 August 1939, deliveries from France were also on way when the conflict broke out. 1940 (France). After the fall of Poland, the Polish Air Force started to regroup in France. The only complete unit created before the German attack on France was the GC I/145 fighter squadron, flying Caudron C.714 light fighters. It was the only unit operating the C.714 at the time. The Polish pilots were also deployed to various French squadrons, flying on all types of French fighters, but mostly on the MS-406. After the surrender of France, many of these pilots managed to escape to Britain to continue the fight against the Luftwaffe. 1940–1947 (United Kingdom). Following the fall of France in 1940, Polish units were formed in the United Kingdom, as a part of the Royal Air Force and known as the Polish Air Force (PAF). Four Polish squadrons were formed: The two Polish fighter squadrons first saw action in the third phase of the Battle of Britain in August 1940, with much success; the pilots were battle-hardened and Polish flying skills had been well learned from the invasion of Poland. The pilots were regarded as fearless, sometimes bordering on reckless. Nevertheless, success rates were very high in comparison to UK and Empire pilots. 303 Squadron became the most efficient RAF fighter squadron at that time. Many Polish pilots also flew individually in other RAF squadrons. As World War II progressed, a further twelve Polish squadrons were created in the United Kingdom: The fighter squadrons initially flew Hurricanes, then switched to Spitfires, and eventually to North American Mustangs. 307 Squadron, like other night fighter squadrons (such as 410 Squadron Royal Canadian Air Force), flew Boulton-Paul Defiants, Bristol Beaufighters and finally de Havilland Mosquitoes. The bomber squadrons were initially equipped with Fairey Battles and Vickers Wellingtons. 300 Squadron was later assigned Avro Lancasters, 301 Squadron Handley Page Halifaxes and Consolidated Liberators and 305 Squadron, de Havilland Mosquitoes and North American Mitchells. 663 Squadron (air observation/artillery spotting) flew Auster AOP IIIs and Vs. After the war, all equipment was returned to the British, but only some of the pilots and crews actually returned to Poland, with many settling in the United Kingdom, some of whom returned to Poland in 1989 after the fall of communism. 1943–1945 (Soviet Union). Along with the Polish People's Army ("Ludowe Wojsko Polskie") in the USSR, the Polish People's Air Force "(Ludowe Lotnictwo Polskie)" was created, in defence of the Soviet Union against Nazi invasion. Three regiments were formed in In late 1943: During 1944–5, further regiments were created, coming together to form the 1st Mixed Air Corps, consisting of a bomber division, an assault division, a fighter division and a mixed division. After the war, these returned to Poland and gave birth to the air force of the People's Republic of Poland. 1949–1989. In 1949, the Li-2sb transport aircraft was adapted into a bomber and in 1950, Poland received Petlyakov Pe-2 and Tupolev Tu-2 bombers from the Soviet Union along with USB-1 and USB-2 training bombers. In 1950 also, the Yak-17 fighter came into service, as did the Ilyushin Il-12 transport and the Yak-18 trainer. From 1951 onwards, the Polish Air Force was equipped with Yak-23 jet fighters and MiG-15 jets, along with a training version, the MiG-15 UTI, and later, in 1961, the MiG-17. As well as Soviet-produced aircraft, from 1952 onwards Soviet MiG-15 and later MiG-17 fighters were produced under licence in Poland as the Lim-1, Lim-2 and later the Lim-5. A domestic ground attack variant of the Lim-5M was developed as the Lim-6bis in 1964. The only jet bomber used by the Polish Air Force during this period was the Ilyushin Il-28, from 1952 onwards. Poland used only a small number of MiG-19s from 1959, in favour of the MiG-21 from 1963 onwards, which became its main supersonic fighter. This aircraft was used in numerous variants from MiG-21F-13, through MiG-21PF and MF to MiG-21bis. Later, the Polish Air Force received 37 MiG-23s (1979) and 12 MiG-29s (1989). The main fighter-bomber and ground attack aircraft after 1949 was the Il-10 (a training version, the UIl-10, entering service in 1951). From 1965 onwards, Poland also used a substantial number of Su-7Bs for bombing and ground attack, replaced with 27 Sukhoi Su-20s in 1974 and 110 Sukhoi Su-22s in 1984. Propeller-driven training aircraft, the Junak-2 (in service since 1952), the TS-9 Junak-3 (in service since 1954) and the PZL TS-8 Bies (since 1958) were later replaced by a jet trainer, the domestically built TS-11 Iskra. Another Polish jet trainer, the PZL I-22 Iryda, was used for some time but, because of continuing problems, all machines were returned to PZL for modification and did not resume service. The Yak-12 was used as a multirole aircraft from 1951, the An-2 from 1955 and subsequently the Wilga-35 P. Transport aircraft used by the Polish Air Force during this period included: the Il-14 (first in service in 1955), the Il-18 (first in service in 1961), the An-12B (first in service in 1966), the An-26 (first in service in 1972), the Yak-40 (first in service in 1973) and the Tupolev Tu-154. A number of helicopters were used by the Polish Army: the SM-1 (a Mil Mi-1 manufactured under licence), which was a multirole helicopter, in operation since 1956; the Mil Mi-4, multirole, since 1958; the PLZ SM-2, multirole, since 1960; the Mil Mi-2 and Mil Mi-8 (later also Mil Mi-17), multirole, since 1968 and the Mil Mi-24, a combat helicopter, since 1976. Also the Mil Mi-14, an amphibious helicopter, and the Mil Mi-6, both used as transports. In 1954, the Polish Air Force was merged with the Air Defence Force, creating the Air and Country Air Defence Forces ("Wojska Lotnicze i Obrony Przeciwlotniczej Obszaru Kraju"  – WLiOPL OK), a military organisation composed of both flying and anti-aircraft units. In 1962, the WLiOPL OK were separated back again into their two original component bodies: the Air Force ("Wojska Lotnicze") and the Country Air Defence Force ("Wojska Obrony Powietrznej Kraju"). Present-day operations. After political upheaval and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and a consequent reduction in the state of military anxiety in the whole of Europe, the Polish Air Force saw reductions in size. On July 1, 1990, the Polish Air Force and the Air Defence Force were merged again ("Wojska Lotnicze i Obrony Powietrznej" – WLiOP or WLOP). The attack capability of this force consisted primarily of MiG-21s, MiG-23s, MiG-29s, Su-20s and Su-22s. The remaining Lim-6bis were withdrawn in the early 1990s, followed soon afterwards by the withdrawal of the remaining Su-20 aircraft. The small number of remaining MiG-23s were withdrawn by 1999. Throughout the 1990s, Poland had not purchased any new combat aircraft and only managed to acquire further MiG-29s from the Czech Republic in 1995 and from Germany in 2004. MiG-21s were finally withdrawn from service in 2003. In 2004, the only remaining combat aircraft flown by the WLiOP were the MiG-29 and the Su-22. As of 2010, the fleet of Su-22s is in need of modernization to retain any value as a combat aircraft and its future is unclear. In 2002, the F-16C/D Block 52+ from the American company Lockheed Martin was chosen as a new multirole fighter for the WLiOP, the first deliveries taking place in November 2006 and continued until 2008 under Peace Sky program. As of 2011 the Polish Air Force has three squadrons of F-16s: two stationed at the 31st Tactical Air Base near Poznań and the 10th Tactical Squadron at the 32nd Air Base near Łask. The acquisition of the US F-16 was not without fierce competition from European aerospace companies; the sale was hotly pursued by the French company Dassault, with their Mirage 2000 and by the Swedish company Saab, with the JAS 39 Gripen. The Polish Block 52+ F-16s are equipped with the latest Pratt and Whitney F-100-229 afterburning turbofan engines, and the avionics suite includes the APG-68(V)9 terrain mapping radar system and the ALQ-211(V)4 electronic warfare suite. All Polish F-16s can carry modern US precision ordnance, ranging from the JDAM/JSOW to the latest in export-certificate-authorized air-to-air weaponry (including the AIM-120C-5 and AIM-9X). In the aftermath of the presidential Tu-154 crash in 2010 and later Polish-led investigation, the 36th Special Aviation Regiment, responsible for transporting the President and the Polish Government, was disbanded, while the defense minister resigned. A new unit, the 1st Air Base, replaced the 36th regiment. Between June 2010 and December 2017 most official flights were served by two leased Embraer E-175 operated by the LOT Polish Airlines. On 14 November 2016 the Defense Ministry ordered two Gulfstream G550 VIP planes. On 31 March 2017 a deal with Boeing Company was signed to supply two Boeing Business Jet 2 and one Boeing 737-800 for the head of state and the government transport. On 27 February 2014 Poland signed a €280 million contract with Alenia Aermacchi for 8 M-346 Master advanced training jets. The first two Masters arrived in Poland accompanied by Team Iskry on November 14, 2016. On 11 December 2014 Polish officials signed a contract with the United States for the purchase of 70 AGM-158 Joint Air to Surface Stand off Missile, for US$250 million. Also contained in the contract are upgrades to the fleet of Polish F-16s to be completed by Lockheed Martin. On 25 January 2019, the Polish government signed a contract for the procurement of four Black Hawk helicopters, intended to be used by the Polish Special Forces. The helicopters would be manufactured by PZL Mielec in Poland and delivered to the Polish military by December. Aircraft. For retired aircraft types, see Retired aircraft of the Polish Air Force Current inventory. Note: Three C-17 Globemaster IIIs are available through the Heavy Airlift Wing based in Hungary. Ranks and insignia. Qualification badges. The current aviator badge of the Polish Air Force has been in use since the 1920s. The badge is called "gapa" and represents silver eagle in flight with gold laurel wreath in the bill. Navigator/Observer badge (below) represents the same eagle, but in gold with added lightning bolts. It is unlike any other in the other air forces in the world. The gapa was worn in the usual place on the upper left breast above the pocket, but with a chain. It proudly adorned the uniform of Polish Air Force officers in the RAF during World War II along with their RAF wings. In combat badges (for at least 7 flights in combat conditions) the laurel wreath is green.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1408149

Bob (sometimes known as BOB or Killer BOB) is a fictional character in the ABC television series "Twin Peaks". He is an interdimensional entity who feeds on pain and sorrow. An inhabiting spirit, he possesses human beings and then commits acts of rape and murder in order to feast upon his victims. Bob made his first appearance in the pilot episode, "Northwest Passage", where he makes a brief appearance in a vision Sarah Palmer has. The character eventually grew into the series' main antagonist in the second season. Frank Silva, a set dresser on the pilot, was given the role of Bob after a reflection of his face in a mirror was accidentally captured by the camera during filming. When series creator David Lynch saw Silva's face, he liked it so much he kept it in the show, and cast Silva as Bob. Although Silva died over 20 years before production on the 2017 revival began, he appears in the series through archival footage. In 2016, "Rolling Stone" ranked him No. 5 of their "40 Greatest TV Villains of All Time". Character arc. "Twin Peaks". Bob is an interdimensional entity from the Black Lodge, a realm which exists on an alternate plane of reality. While "possessing" humans, he commits horrible crimes to elicit pain, fear, and suffering from those around him. During his investigation of Laura Palmer's (Sheryl Lee) murder, FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) first learns of Bob's existence in a vision, in which he encounters another entity named Mike (Al Strobel). In this vision, Cooper learns that Bob was in life a serial killer who raped and murdered young women, with Mike as his accomplice. Mike eventually repented, removing his left arm in order to be rid of the tattoo that he shared with Bob. At the beginning of the second season, one of Bob's intended victims, Ronnette Pulaski (Phoebe Augustine), awakens from a coma induced by her torture at Bob's hands, at which time she identifies Bob as Laura's killer. Cooper and the Twin Peaks Sheriff department canvass the town with wanted posters of Bob. Leland Palmer (Ray Wise), Laura's father, identifies the man in the poster as "Robertson", and says that he lived near his grandfather and used to taunt Leland when he was a child. It is later revealed that Bob is, in fact, possessing Leland, and has been "possessing" him ever since Leland first met him as a child at his grandfather's house. Under Bob's influence, Leland sexually abused his own daughter for years, and finally murdered her. Leland is also under Bob's control when he murders Leland's niece Maddy Ferguson (Lee), who looks just like Laura. Upon learning the truth, Cooper lures Bob into a trap by tricking Leland into allowing himself to be questioned. Under interrogation, Bob takes control and taunts Cooper before forcing Leland to bash his head repeatedly into the wall, sustaining fatal injuries. In his dying breaths, Leland states when he was a child he saw Bob in a dream and invited him inside, before stating that he never knew when Bob was in control of his body. After Leland dies, Cooper engages in a philosophical debate with Sheriff Harry Truman (Michael Ontkean) and Albert Rosenfield (Miguel Ferrer) over how real Bob was, and whether or not Bob was in fact a physical incarnation of Leland's personal demons. Although the men cannot agree on a unifying idea, they do come to the conclusion that Bob is a manifestation of "the evil that men do". Cooper sees a vision of Bob taunting him shortly after Josie Packard (Joan Chen) has a sudden heart attack as he tries to arrest her. It is implied that Bob caused the heart attack by flooding her body and soul with terror, literally frightening her to death. In the final episode, Cooper ventures into the Black Lodge to apprehend his former partner, rogue FBI Agent Windom Earle (Kenneth Welsh), who is attempting to harness the power of the Lodge for himself. When Earle tries to strike a bargain with Cooper in which Cooper will sell his soul to Earle in exchange for Earle sparing Cooper's lover, Annie Blackburn (Heather Graham), Bob appears, causing time in the Lodge to reverse to the moment before Cooper agreed to sell his soul. Bob informs Cooper that the Black Lodge is his domain, and thus Earle has trespassed by coming into it and demanding Cooper's soul for himself. As a punishment, Bob kills Earle, taking Earle's soul for himself. Cooper attempts to flee, but Bob traps him in the Lodge, exiting inside of a doppelgänger of Cooper. The series ends with Bob maniacally laughing alongside the doppelgänger in a mirror. 2017 revival. The 2017 revival "" explores Bob's origins in the episode "Part 8". The episode reveals that an orb bearing his face was created by the experiment during the first atomic bomb test in 1945. The creation of Bob's orb is witnessed by The Fireman (Carel Struycken), who creates an orb bearing the face of Laura Palmer in response. In the present, Bob continues to inhabit Cooper's doppelgänger and appears as an orb inside of his body. If the doppelgänger suffers a fatal injury, a group of Woodsmen dig Bob out of his body, and Bob returns to the doppelgänger when he is revived. Cooper's doppelgänger works to keep himself and Bob from returning to the Black Lodge, which has been set into motion 25 years following their escape. The doppelgänger uses a tulpa of Dale Cooper that he created named Dougie Jones to be sent to the lodge in his place. During this process the doppelgänger ends up throwing up garmonbozia and passes out, and is later imprisoned when a gun and a dog's leg is found on his person. When in prison, the doppelgänger looks into the mirror and his face briefly morphs into Bob's, confirming to the pleased doppelgänger that Bob is still within him. He intimidates the warden into letting him go, and heads to Twin Peaks to wreak further havoc on the town. It is implied that Bob, as Cooper's doppelgänger, is the biological father of Audrey Horne's (Sherilyn Fenn) delinquent son, Richard (Eamon Farren). In "Episode 7", it is revealed that Cooper's doppelgänger visited Audrey in the hospital following the accident (portrayed in the original series finale) that left her in a coma; it is suggested that he raped her, leading to Richard's conception. Cooper's doppelgänger arrives at the Twin Peaks sheriff's office to kill everyone inside. However, the real Cooper, having finally been released from the Black Lodge, shows up minutes later, revealing the doppelgänger as a fraud. After the doppelgänger is fatally shot by Lucy Brennan (Kimmy Robertson), Bob is again removed from his body, but quickly finds himself confronted by prisoner Freddie Sykes (Jake Wardle), who was given a supernatural glove by the Fireman. The two fight and Freddie punches Bob with his gloved hand, sending him flying into the stratosphere and destroying him once and for all. Conceptual history. The impetus for the series "Twin Peaks" was the mystery of who killed Laura Palmer. During the filming of a scene in the pilot, "Northwest Passage", taking place in Laura's room, Frank Silva, a set dresser, accidentally trapped himself in the room by inadvertently moving a dresser in front of the door. When told of the incident, Lynch had an image of Silva stuck in the room and thought it could fit into the series. After filming him crouched at the foot of Laura's bed, looking through the bars of the footboard, as if he were "trapped" behind them, Lynch filmed the scene a second time, without Silva. After reviewing the footage, Lynch liked Silva's presence so much that he decided to make him part of the series. Later that day, a scene was being filmed in which Laura's mother experiences a terrifying vision; at the time, the script did not indicate what Mrs Palmer had seen. Lynch was pleased with how the scene turned out, but a crew member informed him that it would have to be re-shot, because a mirror in the scene had inadvertently picked up Silva's reflection. Lynch considered this a "happy accident", and decided that Silva's unnamed character would be revealed as Laura's true killer. At the 2013 Twin Peaks Retrospective at USC, Phoebe Augustine (Ronette Pulaski) recalled being afraid of Silva as she noticed him standing out amongst the crew while filming her scene on the railroad tracks in the pilot episode. When Augustine told David Lynch she was becoming afraid of Silva and asked who he was, Lynch, according to Augustine, said, "That's the bad guy, but don't tell anyone."

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=10560587

Evolutionary mismatch, also known as mismatch theory or evolutionary trap, is a concept in evolutionary biology that refers to evolved traits that were once advantageous but became maladaptive due to changes in the environment. This can take place in humans and animals and is often attributed to rapid environmental change. Mismatch theory represents the idea that traits that evolved in an organism in one environment can be disadvantageous in a different environment. This environmental change leading to evolutionary mismatch can be broken down into two major categories: temporal (change of the existing environment over time, e.g. a climate change) or spatial (placing organisms into a new environment, e.g. a population migrating). Since environmental change occurs naturally and constantly, there will certainly be examples of evolutionary mismatch over time. However, because large-scale natural environmental change – like a natural disaster – is often rare, it is less often observed. Another more prevalent kind of environmental change is anthropogenic (human-caused). In recent times, humans have had a large, rapid, and trackable impact on our environment, thus creating scenarios where it is easier to observe evolutionary mismatch. Because of the mechanism of evolution by natural selection, the environment ("nature") determines ("selects") which traits will persist in a population. Therefore, there will be a gradual weeding out of disadvantageous traits over several generations as the population becomes more adapted to its environment. Any significant change in a population's traits that cannot be attributed to other factors (such as genetic drift and mutation) will be responsive to a change in that population's environment; in other words, natural selection is inherently reactive. Shortly following an environmental change, traits that evolved in the previous environment, whether they were advantageous or neutral, are persistent for several generations in the new environment. Because evolution is gradual and environmental changes often occur very quickly on a geological scale, there is always a period of "catching-up" as the population evolves to become adapted to the environment. It is this temporary period of "disequilibrium" that is referred to as mismatch. Mismatched traits are ultimately addressed in one of several possible ways: the organism may evolve such that the maladaptive trait is no longer expressed, the organism may decline and/or become extinct as a result of the disadvantageous trait, or the environment may change such that the trait is no longer selected against. History. As evolutionary thought became more prevalent, scientists studied and attempted to explain the existence of disadvantageous traits, known as maladaptations, that are the basis of evolutionary mismatch. The theory of evolutionary mismatch began under the term evolutionary trap as early as the 1940s. In his 1942 book, evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr described evolutionary traps as the phenomenon that occurs when a genetically uniform population suited for a single set of environmental conditions is susceptible to extinction from sudden environment changes. Since then, key scientists such as Warren J. Gross and Edward O. Wilson have studied and identified numerous examples of evolutionary traps. The first occurrence of the term "evolutionary mismatch" may have been in a paper by Jack E. Riggs published in the "Journal of Clinical Epidemiology" in 1993. In the years to follow, the term evolutionary mismatch has become widely used to describe biological maladaptations in a wide range of disciplines. A coalition of modern scientists and community organizers assembled to found the Evolution Institute in 2008, and in 2011 published a more recent culmination of information on evolutionary mismatch theory in an article by Elisabeth Lloyd, David Sloan Wilson, and Elliott Sober. In 2018 a popular science book appeared by evolutionary psychologists on evolutionary mismatch and the implications for humans Many members of the scientific community continue to explore the effects of evolutionary mismatch in our quickly changing world. Mismatch in human evolution. The Neolithic Revolution: transitional context. The Neolithic Revolution brought about significant evolutionary changes in humans; namely the transition from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, in which humans foraged for food, to an agricultural lifestyle. This change occurred approximately 10,000–12,000 years ago. Humans began to domesticate both plants and animals, allowing for the maintenance of constant food resources. This transition quickly and dramatically changed the way that humans interact with the environment, with societies taking up practices of farming and animal husbandry. However, human bodies had evolved to be adapted to their previous foraging lifestyle. The slow pace of evolution in comparison with the very fast pace of human advancement allowed for the persistence of these adaptations in an environment where they are no longer necessary. In human societies that now function in a vastly different way from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, these outdated adaptations now lead to the presence of maladaptive, or mismatched, traits. Some modern human populations engage in hunter-gatherer practices. Human disease. Obesity and diabetes. Human bodies are predisposed to maintain homeostasis, especially when storing energy as fat. This trait serves as the main basis for the "thrifty gene hypothesis", the idea that "feast-or-famine conditions during human evolutionary development naturally selected for people whose bodies were efficient in their use of food calories". Hunter-gatherers, who used to live under environmental stress, benefit from this trait; there was an uncertainty of when the next meal would be, and they would spend most of their time performing high levels of physical activity. Therefore, those that consumed many calories would store the extra energy as fat, which they could draw upon in times of hunger. However, modern humans have evolved to a world of more sedentary lifestyles and convenience foods. People are sitting more throughout their days, whether it be in their cars during rush hour or in their cubicles during their full-time jobs. Less physical activity in general means fewer calories burned throughout the day. Human diets have changed considerably over the 10,000 years since the advent of agriculture, with more processed foods in their diets that lack nutritional value and lead them to consume more sodium, sugar, and fat. These high calorie, nutrient-deficient foods cause people to consume more calories than they burn. Fast food combined with decreased physical activity means that the "thrifty gene" that once benefit human predecessors now works against them, causing their bodies to store more fat and leading to higher levels of obesity in the population. Obesity is one consequence of mismatched genes. Known as "metabolic syndrome", this condition is also associated with other health concerns, including insulin resistance, where the body no longer responds to insulin secretion, so blood glucose levels are unable to be lowered, which can lead to type 2 diabetes. Osteoporosis. Another human disorder that can be explained by mismatch theory is the rise in osteoporosis in modern humans. In advanced societies, many people, especially women, are remarkably susceptible to osteoporosis during aging. Fossil evidence has suggested that this was not always the case, with bones from elderly hunter-gatherer women often showing no evidence of osteoporosis. Evolutionary biologists have posited that the increase in osteoporosis in modern Western populations is likely due to our considerably sedentary lifestyles. Women in hunter-gatherer societies were physically active both from a young age and well into their late-adult lives. This constant physical activity likely lead to peak bone mass being considerably higher in hunter-gatherer humans than in modern-day humans. While the pattern of bone mass degradation during aging is purportedly the same for both hunter-gatherers and modern humans, the higher peak bone mass associated with more physical activity may have led hunter-gatherers to be able to develop a propensity to avoid osteoporosis during aging. Hygiene hypothesis. The hygiene hypothesis, a concept initially theorized by immunologists and epidemiologists, has been proved to have a strong connection with evolutionary mismatch through recent year studies. Hygiene hypothesis states that the profound increase in allergies, autoimmune diseases, and some other chronic inflammatory diseases is related to the reduced exposure of the immune system to antigens. Such reduced exposure is more common in industrialized countries and especially urban areas, where the inflammatory chronic diseases are also more frequently seen. Recent analysis and studies have tied the hygiene hypothesis and evolutionary mismatch together. Some researchers suggest that the overly sterilized urban environment changes or depletes the microbiota composition and diversity. Such environmental conditions favor the development of the inflammatory chronic diseases because human bodies have been selected to adapt to a pathogen-rich environment in the history of evolution. For example, studies have shown that change in our symbiont community can lead to the disorder of immune homeostasis, which can be used to explain why antibiotic use in early childhood can result in higher asthma risk. Because the change or depletion of the microbiome is often associated with hygiene hypothesis, the hypothesis is sometimes also called "biome depletion theory". Human behavior. Behavioral examples of evolutionary mismatch theory include the abuse of dopaminergic pathways and the reward system. An action or behavior that stimulates the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter known for generating a sense of pleasure, will likely be repeated since the brain is programmed to continually seek such pleasure. In hunter-gatherer societies, this reward system was beneficial for survival and reproductive success. But now, when there are fewer challenges to survival and reproducing, certain activities in the present environment (gambling, drug use, eating) exploit this system, leading to addictive behaviors. Work stress. Examples of evolutionary mismatch also occur in the modern workplace. Unlike our hunter-gatherer ancestors who lived in small egalitarian societies the modern work place is large, complex, and hierarchical. Humans spend significant amounts of time interacting with strangers in conditions that are very different from those of our ancestral past. Hunter-gatherers do not separate work from their private lives, they have no bosses to be accountable to, or no deadlines to adhere to. Our stress system reacts to immediate threats and opportunities. The modern workplace exploits evolved psychological mechanisms that are aimed at immediate survival or longer-term reproduction. These basic instincts misfire in the modern workplace, causing conflicts at work, burnout, job alienation and poor management practices. Gambling. There are two aspects of gambling that make it an addictive activity: chance and risk. Chance gives gambling its novelty. Back when humans had to forage and hunt for food, novelty-seeking was advantageous for them, particularly for their diet. However, with the development of casinos, this trait of pursuing novelties has become disadvantageous. Risk assessment, the other behavioral trait applicable to gambling, was also beneficial to hunter-gatherers in the face of danger. However, the types of risks hunter-gatherers had to assess are significantly different and more life-threatening than the risks people now face. The attraction to gambling stems from the attraction to risk and reward related activity. Drug addiction. Herbivores have created selective pressure for plants to possess specific molecules that deter plant consumption, such as nicotine, morphine, and cocaine. Plant-based drugs, however, have reinforcing and rewarding effects on the human neurological system, suggesting a "paradox of drug reward" in humans. Human behavioral evolutionary mismatch explains the contradiction between plant evolution and human drug use. In the last 10,000 years, humans found the dopaminergic system, or reward system, particularly useful in optimizing Darwinian fitness. While drug use has been a common characteristic of past human populations, drug use involving potent substances and diverse intake methods is a relatively contemporary feature of society. Human ancestors lived in an environment that lacked drug use of this nature, so the reward system was primarily used in maximizing survival and reproductive success. In contrast, present-day humans live in a world where the current nature of drugs render the reward system maladaptive. This class of drugs falsely triggers a fitness benefit in the reward system, leaving people susceptible to drug addiction. The modern-day dopaminergic system presents vulnerabilities to the difference in accessibility and social perception of drugs. Eating. In the era of foraging for food, hunter-gatherers rarely knew where their next meal would come from. As a result, filling their stomachs up with lots of food was advantageous since food was scarce. Intense consumption of high-energy foods was selected for when the availability of food was low and it was more difficult to find. Now, food is readily available, and the neurological system that once helped people recognize the survival advantages of essential eating has now become disadvantageous as it promotes overeating. This has become especially dangerous after the rise of processed foods, as the popularity of foods that have unnaturally high levels of sugar and fat has significantly increased. Non-human examples. Evolutionary mismatch can occur any time an organism is exposed to an environment that does not resemble the typical environment the organism adapted in. Due to human influences, such as global warming and habitat destruction, the environment is changing very rapidly for many organisms, leading to numerous cases of evolutionary mismatch. Examples with human influence. Sea turtles and light pollution. Female sea turtles create nests to lay their eggs by digging a pit on the beach, typically between the high tide line and dune, using their rear flippers. Consequently, within the first seven days of hatching, hatchling sea turtles must make the journey from the nest back into the ocean. This trip occurs predominantly at night in order to avoid predators and overheating. In order to orient themselves towards the ocean, the hatchlings depend on their eyes to turn towards the brightest direction. This is because the open horizon of the ocean, illuminated by celestial light, tends to be much brighter in a natural undeveloped beach than the dunes and vegetation. Studies propose two mechanisms of the eye for this phenomenon. Referred to as the "raster system", the theory is that sea turtles' eyes contain numerous light sensors which take in the overall brightness information of a general area and make a "measurement" of where the light is most intense. If the light sensors detect the most intense light on a hatchling's left side, the sea turtle would turn left. A similar proposal called the complex phototropotaxis system theorizes that the eyes contain light intensity comparators that take in detailed information of the intensity of light from all directions. Sea turtles are able to "know" that they are facing the brightest direction when the light intensity is balanced between both eyes. This method of finding the ocean is successful in natural beaches, but in developed beaches, the intense artificial lights from buildings, light houses, and even abandoned fires overwhelm the sea turtles and cause them to head towards the artificial light instead of the ocean. Scientists call this misorientation. Sea turtles can also become disoriented and circle around in the same place. Numerous cases show that misoriented hatchling sea turtles either die from dehydration, get consumed by a predator, or even burn to death in an abandoned fire. The direct impact of light pollution on the number of sea turtles has been too difficult to measure. However, this problem is exacerbated because all species of sea turtles are endangered. Other animals, including migratory birds and insects, are also victims to light pollution because they also depend on light intensity at night to properly orient themselves. (See Threats to sea turtles for more information.) Dodo bird and hunting. The Dodo bird lived on a remote Island, Mauritius, in the absence of predators. Here, the Dodo evolved to lose its instinct for fear and the ability to fly. This allowed them to be easily hunted by Dutch sailors who arrived on the island in the late 16th century. The Dutch sailors also brought foreign animals to the island such as monkeys and pigs that ate the Dodo bird's eggs, which was detrimental to the population growth of the slow breeding bird. Their fearlessness made them easy targets and their inability to fly gave them no opportunity to evade danger. Thus, they were easily driven to extinction within a century of their discovery. The Dodo's inability to fly was once beneficial for the bird because it conserved energy. The Dodo conserved more energy relative to birds with the ability to fly, due to the Dodo's smaller pectoral muscles. Smaller muscle sizes are linked to lower rates of maintenance metabolism, which in turn conserves energy for the Dodo. Lacking an instinct for fear was another mechanism through which the Dodo conserved energy because it never had to expend any energy for a stress response. Both mechanisms of conservation of energy was once advantageous because it enabled the Dodo to execute activities with minimal energy expenditure. However, these proved disadvantageous when their island was invaded, rendering them defenseless to the new dangers that humans brought. Peppered moths during the English Industrial Revolution. Before the English Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and early 19th centuries the most common phenotypic color of the peppered moth was white with black speckles. However, that changed when the Industrial Revolution produced high levels of pollution. Due to the Industrial Revolution the trees blackened in urban regions, causing the original phenotype to stand out significantly more to predators. Natural selection then began favoring the rare dark peppered carbonaria moth in order for the species to camouflage and prevent attacks. The dark moth's population expanded rapidly and by the 1950s vast amounts of England saw carbonaria frequencies rise above 90%. The once favorable white speckled phenotype quickly became mismatched in the new environment. However, in the late 1900s, the English made efforts to reduce air pollution, causing the trees to turn back to their normal shade. The change in color lead the dark skin phenotype to revert from beneficial to disadvantageous. Once again, the moth was not able to adapt fast enough to the changing environment and thus the carbonaria phenotype became mismatched. Since the trees' return to their natural color caused the original phenotype to become advantageous again since it allowed the peppered moth to hide from predators. Giant jewel beetle and beer bottles. Evolutionary mismatch can also be seen among insects. One such example is in the case of the Giant Jewel Beetle ("Julodimorpha bakewelli)". The male jewel beetle has evolved to be attracted to certain features of the female jewel beetle that allow the male jewel beetle to identify a female as it flies across the desert. These features include size, color, and texture. However, these physical traits are seen manifested in beer bottles as well. As a result, male jewel beetles often consider beer bottles more attractive than female jewel beetles due to the beer bottle's large size and attractive coloring. Beer bottles are often discarded by humans in the Australian desert that the jewel beetle thrives in, creating an environment where male jewel beetles prefer to mate with beer bottles instead of female jewel beetles. This is a situation that is extremely disadvantageous as it reduces the reproductive output of the jewel beetle as fewer beetles are mating. This condition can be considered an evolutionary mismatch, as a habit that evolved to aid in reproduction has become disadvantageous due to the littering of beer bottles, an anthropogenic cause. Examples without human influence. Information cascades between birds. Normally, gaining information from watching other organisms allows the observer to make good decisions without spending effort. More specifically, birds often observe the behavior of other organisms to gain valuable information, such as the presence of predators, good breeding sites, and optimal feeding spots. Although this allows the observer to spend less effort gathering information, it can also lead to bad decisions if the information gained from observing is unreliable. In the case of the nutmeg mannikins, the observer can minimize the time spent looking for an optimal feeder and maximize its feeding time by watching where other nutmeg mannikins feed. However, this relies on the assumption that the observed mannikins also had reliable information that indicated the feeding spot was an ideal one. This behavior can become maladaptive when prioritizing information gained from watching others leads to information cascades, where birds follow the rest of the crowd even though prior experience may have suggested that the decision of the crowd is a poor one. For instance, if a nutmeg mannikin sees enough mannikins feeding at a feeder, nutmeg mannikins have been shown to choose that feeder even if their personal experience indicates that the feeder is a poor one. House finches and the introduction of the MG disease. Evolutionary mismatch occurs in house finches when they are exposed to infectious individuals. Male house finches tend to feed in close proximity to other finches that are sick or diseased, because sick individuals are less competitive than usual, in turn making the healthy male more likely to win an aggressive interaction if it happens. To make it less likely to lose a social confrontation, healthy finches are inclined to forage near individuals that are lethargic or listless due to disease. However, this disposition has created an evolutionary trap for the finches after the introduction of the MG disease in 1994. Since this disease is infectious, healthy finches will be in danger of contraction if they are in the vicinity of individuals that have previously developed the disease. The relatively short duration of the disease's introduction has caused an inability for the finches to adapt quickly enough to avoid nearing sick individuals, which ultimately results in the mismatch between their behavior and the changing environment. Exploitation of earthworm's reaction to vibrations. Worm charming is a practice used by people to attract earthworms out of the ground by driving in a wooden stake to vibrate the soil. This activity is commonly performed to collect fishing bait and as a competitive sport. Worms that sense the vibrations rise to the surface. Research shows that humans are actually taking advantage of a trait that worms adapted to avoid hungry burrowing moles which prey on the worms. This type of evolutionary trap, where an originally beneficial trait is exploited in order to catch prey, was coined the "rare enemy effect" by Richard Dawkins, an English evolutionary biologist. This trait of worms has been exploited not only by humans, but by other animals. Herring gulls and wood turtles have been observed to also stamp on the ground to drive the worms up to the surface and consume them.

contemporary status

13661-2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=22540036

An incremental decision tree algorithm is an online machine learning algorithm that outputs a decision tree. Many decision tree methods, such as C4.5, construct a tree using a complete dataset. Incremental decision tree methods allow an existing tree to be updated using only new individual data instances, without having to re-process past instances. This may be useful in situations where the entire dataset is not available when the tree is updated (i.e. the data was not stored), the original data set is too large to process or the characteristics of the data change over time. Methods. Here is a short list of incremental decision tree methods, organized by their (usually non-incremental) parent algorithms. CART family. CART (1984) is a nonincremental decision tree inducer for both classification and regression problems. developed in the mathematics and statistics communities. CART traces its roots to AID (1963) ID3/C4.5 family. ID3 (1986) and C4.5 (1993) were developed by Quinlan and have roots in Hunt's Concept Learning System (CLS, 1966) The ID3 family of tree inducers was developed in the engineering and computer science communities. note: ID6NB (2009) is not incremental. Other Incremental Learning Systems. There were several "incremental" concept learning systems that did not build decision trees, but which predated and influenced the development of the earliest incremental decision tree learners, notably ID4. Notable among these was Schlimmer and Granger's STAGGER (1986), which learned disjunctive concepts incrementally. STAGGER was developed to examine concepts that changed over time (concept drift). Prior to STAGGER, Michalski and Larson (1978) investigated an incremental variant of AQ (Michalski, 1973), a supervised system for learning concepts in disjunctive normal form (DNF). Experience with these earlier systems and others, to include incremental tree-structured unsupervised learning, contributed to a conceptual framework for evaluating incremental decision tree learners specifically, and incremental concept learning generally, along four dimensions that reflect the inherent tradeoffs between learning cost and quality: (1) cost of knowledge base update, (2) the number of observations that are required to converge on a knowledge base with given characteristics, (3) the total effort (as a function of the first two dimensions) that a system exerts, and the (4) quality (often consistency) of the final knowledge base. Some of the historical context in which incremental decision tree learners emerged is given in Fisher and Schlimmer (1988), and which also expands on the four factor framework that was used to evaluate and design incremental learning systems. VFDT Algorithm. Very Fast Decision Trees learner reduces training time for large incremental data sets by subsampling the incoming data stream. EFDT Algorithm. The Extremely Fast Decision Tree learner is statistically more powerful than VFDT, allowing it to learn more detailed trees from less data. It differs from VFDT in the method for deciding when to insert a new branch into the tree. VFDT waits until it is confident that the best available branch is better than any alternative. In contrast, EFDT splits as soon as it is confident that the best available branch is better than the current alternative. Initially, the current alternative is no branch. This allows EFDT to insert branches much more rapidly than VFDT. During incremental learning this means that EFDT can deploy useful trees much sooner than VFDT. However, the new branch selection method greatly increases the likelihood of selecting a suboptimal branch. In consequence, EFDT keeps monitoring the performance of all branches and will replace a branch as soon as it is confident there is a better alternative.

approaching surge of statistics

8003-1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=51251991

]Cave pictures, probably by Neolithic people, are found in Pandavanpara, located in the North east side of Neyyattinkara towards Karakonam route. This famous cave will come under Perumkadavila panchayath. The name of this portion of land, before Marthanda Varma became the ruler of Travancore, was 'Thenganad'. The megaliths recently unearthed at Vizhinjam shows a splendorous display of craftsmanship that was prevalent in the region from the Middle Eras. Studies are going on to ascertain the ancient history of this region. Some of the historic relics of NTA are: Times of Travancore Dynasty. Sree Krishna Swami Temple in the town-centre stands as a rare example of merger between legend and reality. According to the legend it was here the Travancore king Marthanda Varma once hid inside the hollow trunk of a Jackfruit tree to escape from his enemies during his war against the 'ettuveetil pillamar' (the eight nair chieftains). The King prayed to Lord Krishna for helping him as he was being surrounded by the enemies. At that time, a mysterious child asked the King to hide himself inside the hollow trunk of a large jack tree standing there. The jack tree popularly known as 'Ammachiplavu' (Grandmother Jack Tree) since then, could still be seen preserved in the Shri Krishna Swamy Temple located in the heart of the town. This temple was built by Marthanda Varma in the year 1755, as a thanksgiving to the Lord Krishna, who helped him to win the ordeal. Independence struggle. Neyyattinkara is the birthplace of renowned revolutionaries like Swadeshabhimani Ramakrishna Pillai, Athazhamangalam VeeraRaghavan who fought for Indian independence and against the dictatorial rule of Travancore Diwans. Neyyattinkara is the land of many uprisings against British rule in India. The brutal crackdown by British military resulted in death of many freedom fighters including Veeraraghavan. A monument reminding the new generations of these struggles could be seen in the heart of the town, in front of the Town Police Station. The Father of Nation of India, Mahatma Gandhi, had spent a day at Madhavi Mandiram (name of a house) in Neyyattinkara. Wards in Neyyattinkara Municipal Area. Neyyattinkara Municipal Area is divided into 44 wards. The respective ward numbers assigned by the Municipality are given in brackets. For official matters ward numbers are generally mentioned in Roman numerals. The wards are: (1). Aralummoodu, (2) Puthanambalam, (3) Moonnukallinmoodu, (4) Koottappana, (5) Pallivilakam, (6) Punnakkadu, (7) Kalathuvila, (8) Vadakodu, (9) Muttakkadu, (10) Elavanikkara, (11) Mampazhakkara, (12) Mullaravila, (13) Perumpazhuthoor, (14) Alampotta, (15) Plavila, (16) Thozhukkal, (17) Vazhuthoor (includes Christ Nagar, Mythry Nagar and Keerthi Nagar), (18) Kollavamvila, (19) Thavaravila, (20) kulathamal, (21) Chaikottukonam, (22) Maruthathoor, (23) Irumbil (includes Arakkunnu and Stuart Nagar), (24) Fort (includes Vadakkey-kotta & Police Quarters), (25) Vlangamuri, (26) Krishnapuram, (27) Rameswaram, (28) Narayanapuram, (29) Amaravila, (30) Pullamala, (31) Pirayummoodu, (32) Olathanni, (33) Chundavila, (34) Athazhamangalam, (35) Kavalakulam, (36) Panagattukari, (37) Nilamel, (38) Manaloor, (39) Ooruttukala, (40) Alummoodu, (41) Town, (42) Brahmamkodu, (43) Athiyannoor, (44) Vazhimukku These 44 wards are under the surveillance of Neyyattinkara Municipality (a local self-government or LSG). In each ward there is a Ward Councillor democratically elected for a period of 5 years. These Councillors represent the people in the ward concerned. In most of the wards there are Kudumbasree units of Kudumbashree Mission (Kerala) initiated for the development of womenfolk especially unemployed housewives. Community-building organizations in Municipal Area. In most of the wards in Neyyattinkara Municipal Area there are Residents' associations registered under "The Travancore-Cochin Literary, Scientific and Charitable Societies Registration Act, 1955" working for the welfare of the public. A few residents' associations in the Municipal Area were joined together and formed Federation of Residents' Associations, Neyyattinkara (FRAN) to move as a social unit so as to get all the welfare measures from the Local Self Government (viz. Municipality) and the State Government. Major Residents’ Associations in Municipal Area are: In April 2010, Vazhuthoor Ward set as a model in food security through the Swabhimanam Self-Sufficiency programme spearheaded by Adv. Vinod Sen (Indian National Congress party), the then ward Councillor of Vazhuthoor Ward. As an incentive in appreciation for the efforts put in by the local bodies in taking government's health care projects to the grassroots, Neyyattinkara Municipality got Arogyakeralam award 2012–13. Now Adv. L. S Sheela (Indian National Congress party), who is the Vice-chairperson and Finance and Standing Committee Chairperson of Neyyattinkara Municipality is the ward councilor of Christ Nagar, Mythry Nagar, Keerthi Nagar, New Street and Vazhuthoor residential areas that come under Vazhuthoor Ward. Christian Fellowship Christmas Parade, 2015. From the heart of NTA town, the L-shaped parade route travelled [on Christmas Day (2015-12-25) at 4 p.m] south of the town (Viswabharathy road) to west of the town (T B Junction) and gathered in the east of the town: Govt. Boys’ Higher Secondary School, NTA for United Christmas Celebrations, 2015 (Convention). The parade and convention were organized by The Christian Fellowship, NTA: a united Christian body comprising Latin Catholic Diocese of NTA, 65 CSI Churches in NTA town, Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church, Malankara Christian Church, Lutheran, and Evangelical Church of India. A number of CSI Churches including CSI Muttakkad, CSI Melariyodu, CSI Kurumbal, St. Paul's CSI( Pottayil, Irumbil), Lali Memorial CSI – Punnakkadu, CSI Irumbil, CSI Koovodu, CSI Thozhukkal, CSI Perumpazhuthoor, CSI Cathedral NTA, Sharon CSI Plavilamoola, CSI Malanchani, CSI Mayapuri, CSI NTA, CSI Central NTA, CSI Kalathuvila, Bethel CSI Chittacodu, and Lutheran churches such as St. Peter's Lutheran: Karavakkuzhi, and Bethel Lutheran Church: Vazhuthoor participated in the parade by marching bands, complete with a parade of floats, festivities and familiar Christmas characters. Santa Claus participated in the parade with his magnificently decorated sleigh with huge gift sack on top of a float. Most of the streets in the town were partially closed between 3 pm to 5 pm. The United Christmas Celebrations were inaugurated by Rt. Rev. Dr. Vincent Samual – bishop of Latin Catholic Diocese of NTA. Dr. Shashi Tharoor, the current MP and Rev. Dr. Mani Puthiyidam: Changanassery Athiroopatha Vikari General addressed the gathering. Rev. Pavithrasingh: president of Christian Fellowship presided over the function. The convention started at 5 pm and went on till 12 midnight. The convention was an organized effort of General Convener of Christian Fellowship: J Jose Franklin, Secretary: K Raveendran, Clergy Convener: Rev. T R Satyaraj and president: Rev. L T Pavithrasingh, and other members of the Fellowship: Dr. T Jegin Raj (Velliyavila Sidha Ayurvea Hospital), V Yesudas, Jayakumar, Joyi, Danam, Velukkutty, Sam Jayakumar, Jomi Francis, Susheelan and B B Sanal. The NTA Municipality Chairman S S Jayakumar, Vice-chairperson Adv. L S Sheela and leader of opposition Ansalan felicitated the function. The function was serenaded by local choirs of CSI Town Church, Christ Nagar, NTA. Students of St. Theresa's Convent Girls' Higher Secondary School, NTA, Dr. G R Public School, NTA, Rugmini College of Nursing, Vellarada and children of various church members conducted various Christmas programs in the convention. The convention was closed after a drama Vazhthapetta (beatified) Devasahayam Pillai conducted by Trivandrum Rangakala. During the 10 days’ festival time in NTA town, the roads in the town were illuminated in different colours and the buildings and trees along the Railway Overbridge » KSRTC Stand, TB Junction » Govt. Hospital Junction and Ooruttukala » Allummoodu stretch were lit up. The illuminations were sponsored by NTA Municipal Council and The Christian Fellowship, NTA. There were sparkling illuminations and Christmas characters overlooking the Neyyar River at Amaravila CSI Church compound, NTA CSI Church compound, Thozhukkal CSI Church compound, in and around NTA town and Thirupuram: the outskirts of NTA town. Onam Fest & Illuminations (Neyyar Mela), 2015. The Neyyattinkara Area Committee of Kerala State Vyapari Vyavasaya Samithi along with all the residents’ associations in NTA town and NTA Municipal Council (NMC) conducted Neyyar Mela/Fiesta (Neyyar Fest) from 21 August 2015 to 6 September 2015 as part of Onam– Kerala State's national festival, enriched with myriad art and cultural activities. As part of the third edition of 17 days' Onam celebrations in the town the colourful two kilometre Onam inaugural rally began in the morning of 21 August from S N Auditorium, NTA and culminated at NTA Municipal Stadium and it was inaugurated at 9 am by former district panchayat president Anavoor Nagappan and Trivandrum Corporation leader of opposition K Ansalan. The residents came dressed in ethnic wear and traditional pulikali attires/performers along with Talappoli, and people dressed up as Mahabali and Vamana. The students from St Teresa's Convent, Dr G R Public School, Vivekananda Public School and other schools in the town attended the rally. The cultural parade that threw light to the rich and envious tradition of Neyyattinkara was the biggest attraction of the fest. Seasonal illuminations around Onam have become a popular attraction across the town. During the 17 days’ festival time in NTA town, the roads in the town were illuminated in different colours and the buildings and trees along the Vazhuthoor » Railway Overbridge » Hospital Junction » Allummoodu » Swadesabhimani Municipal Park » KSRTC Stand » Vlangamuri; Govt. Hospital Junction » TB Junction » Moonnukallinmoodu » Ooruttukala and TB Junction » Allummoodu stretch were lit up. Special illumination displays were found around all government buildings. A variety of traditional and cultural programs were conducted by residents’ associations in NTA Municipal Ground and in and around the town. There were a number of entertainment events and contests, from story writing, poetry writing, Vanjipaatu, painting contests, flower and floral carpet arrangement, vegetable carving, chess competitions, work experience fair of school students, to boat racing. The fiesta also included a short film fest on environment conservation, a number of rides for the kids as well as a park. The fiesta had scores of stalls, which range from food courts, curio, home appliance and handicraft shops and many more. Exhibition-cum-sale of Kudumbashree products and ornamental fishes was also organised. There were medical exhibitions in the Neyyar Mela/Fiesta conducted by Karakkonam Medical College and other hospitals in Trivandrum district. The Gandhi Memorial Fund stall, where artisans make pots the traditional way, was another big draw. Beautiful clay pots and utensils were also put on sale there. There were ‘Adivasi Ooru’ (Land of Forest Dwellers), in the model of a small tribal village - recreated on the banks of a nearby canal, Valli unjal (Swing), tribal tree houses, ‘Aavi Kuli’ (Steam bath) and other herbal and medicinal techniques set up near the premises of NTA Municipal Stadium. Gandhi Teertha Vallamkali (Gandhi Boat Racing) was held at Valiyakulam pond at Chenkal panchayat, with teams from Kuttanad on 23 August and it was inaugurated by Kerala State Film Development Corporation chairman K Rajmohan Unnithan, presided by H Sugandhi - Vallamkali Aghosha committee chairperson, and welcomed by committee's general convenor N Premkumar. Vijayan Thomas - KTDC chairman, K Ansalan - Neyyar Mela/Fiesta chief coordinator, M R Simon - Parassala block panchayat president, Sudhakaran - KSRTC general manager and Rajaram Manomohanakumar - ward member were among those who attended the event. Kumarakom team led by M Shanavas and Chenkal team led by Sanil Kulathingal bagged the first and second place respectively. The ceremony came to a close with a Kalarippayattu performance by Poovachal Puthooram Kalari team. C S I Churches. There are 65 C S I (Church of South India) churches in Neyyattinkara town. Note: In C S I terminology, the word Area used hereunder is considered as a District. Hence, for instance, Neyyattinkara Area should be read as Neyyattinkara District. Thus, the 65 CSI churches in different areas (districts) of Neyyattinkara town are listed below: Neyyattinkara Area: (1) C S I Neyyattinkara Town, Christ Nagar (2) C S I Aralumoodu (3). C S I Chenkottukonam (4). C S I Chittacode (5). C S I Christhupuram (6). C S I Neyyattinkara (D.C) (7). C S I Neyyattinkara Metro (8). C S I Sharon Muttacaud Thozhukkal Area (9). C S I Chemmannuvila (10). C S I Kalathuvila (11). C S I Kunnuvila (12). C S I Malanchani (13). C S I Neyyatinkara Central (14). C S I Perumpazhuthoor (15). C S I Punnacadu (16). C S I Thozhukal (D.C) Amaravila Area: (17) C S I Amaravila (D.C), (18). C S I Asapuram, (19). C S I Chaikottukonam, (20). C S I Ismanipuram, (21). C S I Kudumbode, (22). C S I Kurumbal, (23). C S I Palappally, (24). C S I Pasukottukonam, (25). C S I Plancheri Irumbil Area: (26). C S I Irumbil (D.C) (27). C S I Nediyakala (28). C S I Pottayil (29). C S I Thavaravila (30). C S I Thenguvilakuzhi kariprakonam Area: (31). C S I Elavanikkara (32). C S I Kariprakonam (D.C) (33). C S I Koovode (34). C S I Mampazhakara (35). C S I Melariyode (36). C S I Muttacadu Perumkadavila Area: (37). C S I Acqudate (38). C S I Ancode (39). C S I Aruvikara (40). C S I Christhugiri (41). C S I Chulliyoor (42). C S I Manaluvila (43). C S I Mannarakonam (44). C S I Marayamuttam (45). C S I Melkonam (46). C S I Myladumpara (47). C S I Perumkadavila (D.C) (48). C S I Thottavaram Poovathoor Area: (49). C S I Ambayinthala (50). C S I Kaippallikonam (51). C S I Kunnathukal Town (52). C S I Manchavilakom (53). C S I Mannamcode (54). C S I Poovathoor (D.C) (55). C S I Thathiyoor Moolakonam Area: (56). C S I Araumaloor (57). C S I Cheenivila (58). C S I Govindamangalam (59). C S I Mannadikonam (60). C S I Moolakonam (D.C) (61). C S I Palkunnu (62). C S I Perumulloor (63). C S I Poovanvila (64). C S I Pullayil (65). C S I Punnavoor Out of the above 65 C S I churches in Neyyattinkara town, the oldest churches are C S I Amaravila and C S I Thozhukkal and the latest one is C S I Neyyattinkara Town situated down by the Neyyar riverside and in the midst of Christ Nagar Residential Area in Christ Nagar. C S I Amaravila or Amaravila C S I Church was established in 1810 and it was known in those days as Emily Chappel. Thozhukkal C S I Church or C S I Thozhukkal was founded by Rev. John Cox in 1845.

household machines

11007-1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8640545

Your Five Gallants is a Jacobean comedy by Thomas Middleton. It falls into the subgenre of city comedy. Allusions in the play point to a date of authorship of 1607. The play was entered into the Stationers' Register on 22 March 1608. The quarto published by bookseller Richard Bonian is undated, but probably followed the registration by a small gap and appeared later in 1608. The title page states that the drama was acted by the Children of the Chapel, and assigns the authorship to "T. Middleton." The five "gallants" of the play's title are frauds, poseurs, and con men—a pickpocket, pimp, pawnbroker, cheat, and whoremonger—who compete with the protagonist, Fitzgrave, for the affections of Katherine, a wealthy orphan. (The five conspire to woo Katherine together; the one who wins her will help out the others.) Fitzgrave manipulates them into exposing their own crimes and vices through a masque. Fitzgrave marries Katherine, while the "gallants" marry the five prostitutes who are their shadows in the play. Between the two groups of ne'er-do-wells, Middleton provides a vigorous satire on the manners and mores of London society of the day. Synopsis. A customer enters Frip's pawnshop and attempts to pawn the lower half of a gentlewoman's gown. Frip rejects the pawn because he is afraid the garment might be infected with the plague. Another customer ("Second Fellow") enters and—after a bit of shrewd haggling on Frip's part—pawns a gentlewoman's suit. Primero (the pimp) enters. Frip asks Primero to teach him the secret of a card trick called "the twitch". Primero says he will divulge the secret of the trick if Frip will agree to supply clothing for "The Novice", a "courtesan" (prostitute) who has recently entered his brothel. Frip gives Primero the gentlewoman's suit he has just acquired. The Novice enters. Frip tells her that she is going to have to learn how to cheat and steal if she is going to do well in the brothel. In an aside, Fitzgrave says that he does not trust the gallants. He says he will disguise himself as a "credulous scholar" so he can infiltrate their group and discover their true natures. Marmaduke (Mistress Newcut's servant) tells Bungler that his cousin (Mistress Newcut) has invited him to dinner and encourages him to bring any gentleman he pleases along with him (Mistress Newcut is of course hoping that Bungler will bring Tailby to dinner). Bungler invites Goldstone to the dinner. Goldstone—attracted by the prospect of stealing whatever he can from Mistress Newcut's home—accepts the invitation. Fitzgrave/'Bowswer' enters; he asks Goldstone where his cloak is. Goldstone says that he was attacked by four men, who took the cloak from him. Fitzgrave pretends to accept this excuse; Goldstone exits. Fitzgrave makes plans to expose the five gallants. Goldstone enters with his servant, Fulk; both of them are disguised. Goldstone tells Bungler that he is also Mistress Newcut's cousin, and that he has also been invited to her home for dinner that afternoon. They make plans to go to the dinner together. The gallants perform their masque for Katherine. Frip gives Katherine the chain of pearl, which she recognizes. Frip is forced to admit that the chain of pearl was pawned to him.

next guy

13075-1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=58743259

Election of the President of the Senate of the Czech Republic was held on 14 November 2018. It was held after 2018 Senate election. Civic Democratic Party nominated Jaroslav Kubera, Mayors and Independents nominated Jan Horník and Christian and Democratic Union – Czechoslovak People's Party nominated Václav Hampl. Incumbent President Milan Štěch doesn't seek reelection. It was the first time in the history of the Senate that more than 2 candidates run for the position. Senate factions usually came to an agreement about the new President in the past. Jaroslav Kubera and Václav Hampl advanced to the second round. Kubera then defeated Hampl with 46 votes to 24 and became the new Senate President. His victory was considered a surprise as it was expected that Mayors and Independents and Christian and Democratic Union – Czechoslovak People's Party will support other party's Candidate against Kubera in the second round. Kubera's victory was attributed to Kubera's Charisma and strategy of his Party. Background. Prior 2018 Senate election it was believed that Christian and Democratic Union – Czechoslovak People's Party will become largest senate party and its nominee will replace Milan Štěch as the President of the Senate. Václav Hampl was speculated as the likeliest candidate as he was offered the position by the party. It was viewed as an unwritten rule that a representative of the largest Senate faction holds the position of the President of the Senate. The Civic Democratic Party eventually won the election and was tied with Mayors and Independents in the position of largest Senate faction. Leader of the Civic Democratic Party stated that he considers Jaroslav Kubera as the most logical candidate for the Senate president. Kubera was endorsed by Miloš Zeman. Kubera himself stated that party's nomination would be an Honor for him but noted that it isn't something that he couldn't live without. He stated that he believes that all parties should keep the rule that President of the Senate comes from the largest faction. Mayors and Independents declined to support Kubera as he didn't view him as a counterbalance to the President Miloš Zeman. Christian Democrats also declined Kubera. Both parties didn't like Kubera's previous politically incorrect statements and his strongly right-wing stances. Mayors and Independents announced on 23 October 2018 that it would nominate Jiří Růžička as its candidate. The Civic Democratic Party announced it could withdraw Kubera's nomination if other parties agreed to their terms. Civic Democrats were negative towards Růžička's nomination. Christian and Democratic Union – Czechoslovak People's Party announced on 31 October 2018 it would nominate Václav Hampl. Christian Democrats also announced they are prepared to uphold Hampl by force. Mayors and Independents criticised Hampl's candidacy as Christian Democrats have only 15 Senators while Civic Democrats and Mayors and Independents both have 18 Senators. Mayors and Independents decided withdrawn Růžička's nomination and nominated Jan Horník instead. ANO 2011 announced on 2 November 2018 that its Senators will support Kubera's candidacy. Civic Democrats also negotiated with the Czech Social Democratic Party and Senator 21 about possible support for Kubera. Václav Hampl on the other hand was endorsed by leader of Senator 21 Václav Láska. Leader of Mayors and Independents admitted on 4 November 2018 that it is possible that his party won't find an agreement with Civic Democrats and the election could become a "shot up." Political scientist Lukáš Jelínek noted on 6 November 2018 that Kubera's chances to become the new Senate President were very low but grew due to negotiations of Civic Democrats with Social Democrats and ANO 2011. Chances of Jan Horník to become new Senate President are viewed by Jelínek as low. Civic Democrats announced on 6 November 2018 that they will stand after Kubera as its candidate. Horník attacked Kubera and stated that he would support Hampl against Kubera if they face each other in the second round. Kubera was at the time supported by his party and ANO 2011. Part of Czech Social Democratic Party faction also supported him. Hampl had support of most of Christian and Democratic Union – Czechoslovak People's Party faction and most of Senator 21 senators. Horník was supported by his party. Representatives of ODS, STAN and KDU-ČSL senate factions met on 7. November 2018 but didn't come to an agreement. A of 8 November 2018, Kubera had support of ODS and ANO 2011 faction with 24 votes. Hampl had support of KDU-ČSL and SEN 21 faction with 21 votes. Horník was supported by STAN faction with 18 votes. ČSSD faction was split between candidates. It was believed due to the faction endorsements that Kubera and Hampl will advance to the second round. No candidate was viewed as the clear front-runner. Kubera, Hampl and Horník met on a debate held by Česká televize on 10 November 2018. Kubera stated that his main advantage are his political experiences. He stated that he runs because position of the President of the Senate would allow him to fight Bureaucracy and growing freedom limitations more effectively. Hampl stated that he considers himself a candidate of compromise and stated that he could use his experiences as a Rector of the Charles University. Horník noted that he worked within Senate for a long time. The incumbent President Milan Štěch stated on 11 November 2018 that there could be a fourth candidate of compromise. He didn't say who would be such candidate but ruled out his own candidacy. Main Senate factions refused possibility of fourth candidate. Nominations were closed on 12 November 2018. Kubera, Horník and Hampl became official candidates. Endorsements. This section lists notable public Personas who publicly endorsed Kubera, Hampl or Horník excluding Members of parties that nominated each of Candidates. Voting. Voting is held on 14 November 2018. No candidate was elected in the first round. Kubera received 35 votes, Hampl received 22 votes and Horník received 18 votes in the first round. Kubera and Hampl advanced to the second round. Kubera received 46 votes while Hampl received 24 votes in the second round. Kubera was thus elected and became the new Senate President. Aftermath. Kubera thanked senators for their votes and stated that he will endeavor for Senate to be the true Upper Chamber of Czech parliament and not the poor brother of the Chamber of Deputies. He also thanked his predecessor Milan Štěch for dignified representation of Senate. Five vice-presidents were elected after the election of the president. Milan Štěch, Jiří Oberfalzer, Jiří Růžička and Jan Horník became new vice-presidents. Reactions. Václav Hampl stated that he wasn't pleased with Kubera's victory due to Kubera's views on European Union. He admitted that he considers the election his first big political defeat and noted that he didn't expect the result. Jan Horník on the other hand noted that he believes that Kubera could be a good Senate President. He noted that the result didn't surprise him. Leader of the Civic Democratic Party Petr Fiala congratulated Kubera for his victory. He stated that Kubera is an experienced politician and strong Persona who will be great President of the Senate. Senator Jiří Drahoš congratulated Kubera and stated that he is looking forward to their collaboration. TOP 09 MP Miroslav Kalousek congratulated Kubera but criticised Mayors and Independents for his support in second round. He stated that he doesn't understand why they preferred Kubera over Václav Hampl whom he considers a Persona of European Formate. Kalousek then criticised Kubera for his previous statements. Leader of Mayors and Independents Petr Gazdík defended party's decision and reminded that TOP 09 Senators are also part Mayors and Independents senate faction. The Civic Democratic Party defended Kubera and noted that Kalousek criticised Kubera for statement he made in a different context. Civic Democrats then thanked TOP 09 senators for their votes to Kubera. Kubera himself stated that he hopes to be the President of the Senate for three Terms until his Senate post expires in 2024. His Wish hasn't been fulfilled as he unexpectedly passed away on 20 January 2020. Miloš Vystrčil became his Successor on 19 February 2020.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=16534351

The impact of pesticides consists of the effects of pesticides on non-target species. Pesticides are chemical preparations used to kill fungal or animal pests. Over 98% of sprayed insecticides and 95% of herbicides reach a destination other than their target species, because they are sprayed or spread across entire agricultural fields. Runoff can carry pesticides into aquatic environments while wind can carry them to other fields, grazing areas, human settlements and undeveloped areas, potentially affecting other species. Other problems emerge from poor production, transport and storage practices. Over time, repeated application increases pest resistance, while its effects on other species can facilitate the pest's resurgence. Each pesticide or pesticide class comes with a specific set of environmental concerns. Such undesirable effects have led many pesticides to be banned, while regulations have limited and/or reduced the use of others. The global spread of pesticide use, including the use of older/obsolete pesticides that have been banned in some jurisdictions, has increased overall. Agriculture and the environment. The arrival of humans in an area, to live or to conduct agriculture, necessarily has environmental impacts. These range from simple crowding out of wild plants in favor of more desirable cultivars to larger scale impacts such as reducing biodiversity by reducing food availability of native species, which can propagate across food chains. The use of agricultural chemicals such as fertilizer and pesticides magnify those impacts. While advances in agrochemistry have reduced those impacts, for example by the replacement of long-lived chemicals with those that reliably degrade, even in the best case they remain substantial. These effects are magnified by the use of older chemistries and poor management practices. History. While concern for ecotoxicology began with acute poisoning events in the late 19th century; public concern over the undesirable environmental effects of chemicals arose in the early 1960s with the publication of Rachel Carson′s book, "Silent Spring". Shortly thereafter, DDT, originally used to combat malaria, and its metabolites were shown to cause population-level effects in raptorial birds. Initial studies in industrialized countries focused on acute mortality effects mostly involving birds or fish. After the end of World War II, the United States shifted its industries from the wartime production of chemicals to synthetic agriculturally used pesticide creation, utilizing pyrethrum, rotenone, nicotine, sabadilla, and quassin as precursors to the expansive usage of pesticides in place today. Synthetic pesticides proved cheap and effective in killing insects, but garnered criticism from NGOs concerned about their effect on human health. In the years directly following World War II rose the creation and use of Aldrin (now banned in most countries), "dichlorodiphenyl trichloroethane (DDT) in 1939, Dieldrin, βBenzene Hexachloride (BHC), 2,4- Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), Chlordane and Endrin". In 2016, the United States consumed 322 million pounds of pesticides banned in the EU, 26 million pounds of pesticides banned in Brazil and 40 million pounds of pesticides banned in China, with most of banned pesticides banned staying constant or increasing in the United States over the past 25 years according to studies. However, true data on pesticide usage remain scattered and/or not publicly available, especially worldwide (3). Some scholars argue the common practice of incident registration is inadequate for understanding the entirety of effects. Since 1990, research interest has shifted from documenting incidents and quantifying chemical exposure to studies aimed at linking laboratory, mesocosm and field experiments. The proportion of effect-related publications has increased. Animal studies mostly focus on fish, insects, birds, amphibians and arachnids. Since 1993, the United States and the European Union have updated pesticide risk assessments, ending the use of acutely toxic organophosphate and carbamate insecticides. Newer pesticides aim at efficiency in target and minimum side effects in nontarget organisms. The phylogenetic proximity of beneficial and pest species complicates the project. One of the major challenges is to link the results from cellular studies through many levels of increasing complexity to ecosystems. The concept (borrowed from nuclear physics) of a half-life has been utilized for pesticides in plants, and certain authors maintain that pesticide risk and impact assessment models rely on and are sensitive to information describing dissipation from plants. Half-life for pesticides is explained in two NPIC fact sheets. Known degradation pathways are through: photolysis, chemical dissociation, sorption, bioaccumulation and plant or animal metabolism. A USDA fact sheet published in 1994 lists the soil adsorption coefficient and soil half-life for then-commonly used pesticides. Today, over 3.5 billion kilograms of synthetic pesticides are used for the world's agriculture in an over $45 billion industry. Current lead agrichemical producers include Syngenta (ChemChina), Bayer Crop Science, BASF, Dow AgroSciences, FMC, ADAMA, Nufarm, Corteva, Sumitomo Chemical, UPL, and Huapont Life Sciences. Bayer CropScience and its acquisition of Monsanto led it to record profits in 2019 of over $10 billion in sales, which herbicide shares growing by 22%, followed closely by Syngenta. While dubbed economic and ecologically sound practices by suppliers, the effects of agricultural pesticides can include toxicity, bioaccumulation, persistence, and physiological responses in humans and wildlife, and several international NGOs have risen in response to the economic activities of these larger, transnational corporations, such as Pesticide Action Network. Air. Pesticides can contribute to air pollution. Pesticide drift occurs when pesticides suspended in the air as particles are carried by wind to other areas, potentially contaminating them. Pesticides that are applied to crops can volatilize and may be blown by winds into nearby areas, potentially posing a threat to wildlife. Weather conditions at the time of application as well as temperature and relative humidity change the spread of the pesticide in the air. As wind velocity increases so does the spray drift and exposure. Low relative humidity and high temperature result in more spray evaporating. The amount of inhalable pesticides in the outdoor environment is therefore often dependent on the season. Also, droplets of sprayed pesticides or particles from pesticides applied as dusts may travel on the wind to other areas, or pesticides may adhere to particles that blow in the wind, such as dust particles. Ground spraying produces less pesticide drift than aerial spraying does. Farmers can employ a buffer zone around their crop, consisting of empty land or non-crop plants such as evergreen trees to serve as windbreaks and absorb the pesticides, preventing drift into other areas. Such windbreaks are legally required in the Netherlands. Pesticides that are sprayed on to fields and used to fumigate soil can give off chemicals called volatile organic compounds, which can react with other chemicals and form a pollutant called tropospheric ozone. Pesticide use accounts for about 6 percent of total tropospheric ozone levels. Water. In the United States, pesticides were found to pollute every stream and over 90% of wells sampled in a study by the US Geological Survey. Pesticide residues have also been found in rain and groundwater. Studies by the UK government showed that pesticide concentrations exceeded those allowable for drinking water in some samples of river water and groundwater. Pesticide impacts on aquatic systems are often studied using a hydrology transport model to study movement and fate of chemicals in rivers and streams. As early as the 1970s quantitative analysis of pesticide runoff was conducted in order to predict amounts of pesticide that would reach surface waters. There are four major routes through which pesticides reach the water: it may drift outside of the intended area when it is sprayed, it may percolate, or leach through the soil, it may be carried to the water as runoff, or it may be spilled, for example accidentally or through neglect. They may also be carried to water by eroding soil. Factors that affect a pesticide's ability to contaminate water include its water solubility, the distance from an application site to a body of water, weather, soil type, presence of a growing crop, and the method used to apply the chemical. United States regulations. In the US, maximum limits of allowable concentrations for individual pesticides in drinking water are set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for public water systems. (There are no federal standards for private wells.) Ambient water quality standards for pesticide concentrations in water bodies are principally developed by state environmental agencies, with EPA oversight. These standards may be issued for individual water bodies, or may apply statewide. United Kingdom regulations. The United Kingdom sets Environmental Quality Standards (EQS), or maximum allowable concentrations of some pesticides in bodies of water above which toxicity may occur. European Union regulations. The European Union also regulates maximum concentrations of pesticides in water. Soil. The extensive use of pesticides in agricultural production can degrade and damage the community of microorganisms living in the soil, particularly when these chemicals are overused or misused as chemical compounds build up in the soil. The full impact of pesticides on soil microorganisms is still not entirely understood; many studies have found deleterious effects of pesticides on soil microorganisms and biochemical processes, while others have found that the residue of some pesticides can be degraded and assimilated by microorganisms. The effect of pesticides on soil microorganisms is impacted by the persistence, concentration, and toxicity of the applied pesticide, in addition to various environmental factors. This complex interaction of factors makes it difficult to draw definitive conclusions about the interaction of pesticides with the soil ecosystem. In general, long-term pesticide application can disturb the biochemical processes of nutrient cycling. Many of the chemicals used in pesticides are persistent soil contaminants, whose impact may endure for decades and adversely affect soil conservation. The use of pesticides decreases the general biodiversity in the soil. Not using the chemicals results in higher soil quality, with the additional effect that more organic matter in the soil allows for higher water retention. This helps increase yields for farms in drought years, when organic farms have had yields 20-40% higher than their conventional counterparts. A smaller content of organic matter in the soil increases the amount of pesticide that will leave the area of application, because organic matter binds to and helps break down pesticides. Degradation and sorption are both factors which influence the persistence of pesticides in soil. Depending on the chemical nature of the pesticide, such processes control directly the transportation from soil to water, and in turn to air and our food. Breaking down organic substances, degradation, involves interactions among microorganisms in the soil. Sorption affects bioaccumulation of pesticides which are dependent on organic matter in the soil. Weak organic acids have been shown to be weakly sorbed by soil, because of pH and mostly acidic structure. Sorbed chemicals have been shown to be less accessible to microorganisms. Aging mechanisms are poorly understood but as residence times in soil increase, pesticide residues become more resistant to degradation and extraction as they lose biological activity. Effect on plants. Nitrogen fixation, which is required for the growth of higher plants, is hindered by pesticides in soil. The insecticides DDT, methyl parathion, and especially pentachlorophenol have been shown to interfere with legume-rhizobium chemical signaling. Reduction of this symbiotic chemical signaling results in reduced nitrogen fixation and thus reduced crop yields. Root nodule formation in these plants saves the world economy $10 billion in synthetic nitrogen fertilizer every year. Pesticides can kill bees and are strongly implicated in pollinator decline, the loss of species that pollinate plants, including through the mechanism of Colony Collapse Disorder, in which worker bees from a beehive or western honey bee colony abruptly disappear. Application of pesticides to crops that are in bloom can kill honeybees, which act as pollinators. The USDA and USFWS estimate that US farmers lose at least $200 million a year from reduced crop pollination because pesticides applied to fields eliminate about a fifth of honeybee colonies in the US and harm an additional 15%. On the other side, pesticides have some direct harmful effect on plant including poor root hair development, shoot yellowing and reduced plant growth. Effect on animals. Many kinds of animals are harmed by pesticides, leading many countries to regulate pesticide usage through Biodiversity Action Plans. Animals including humans may be poisoned by pesticide residues that remain on food, for example when wild animals enter sprayed fields or nearby areas shortly after spraying. Pesticides can eliminate some animals' essential food sources, causing the animals to relocate, change their diet or starve. Residues can travel up the food chain; for example, birds can be harmed when they eat insects and worms that have consumed pesticides. Earthworms digest organic matter and increase nutrient content in the top layer of soil. They protect human health by ingesting decomposing litter and serving as bioindicators of soil activity. Pesticides have had harmful effects on growth and reproduction on earthworms. Some pesticides can bioaccumulate, or build up to toxic levels in the bodies of organisms that consume them over time, a phenomenon that impacts species high on the food chain especially hard. Birds. The US Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that 72 million birds are killed by pesticides in the United States each year. Bald eagles are common examples of nontarget organisms that are impacted by pesticide use. Rachel Carson's book "Silent Spring" dealt with damage to bird species due to pesticide bioaccumulation. There is evidence that birds are continuing to be harmed by pesticide use. In the farmland of the United Kingdom, populations of ten different bird species declined by 10 million breeding individuals between 1979 and 1999, allegedly from loss of plant and invertebrate species on which the birds feed. Throughout Europe, 116 species of birds were threatened as of 1999. Reductions in bird populations have been found to be associated with times and areas in which pesticides are used. DDE-induced egg shell thinning has especially affected European and North American bird populations. From 1990 to 2014 the number of common farmland birds has declined in the European Union as a whole and in France, Belgium and Sweden; in Germany, which relies more on organic farming and less on pesticides the decline has been slower; in Switzerland, which does not rely much on intensive agriculture, after a decline in the early 2000s the level has returned to the one of 1990. In another example, some types of fungicides used in peanut farming are only slightly toxic to birds and mammals, but may kill earthworms, which can in turn reduce populations of the birds and mammals that feed on them. Some pesticides come in granular form. Wildlife may eat the granules, mistaking them for grains of food. A few granules of a pesticide may be enough to kill a small bird. Herbicides may endanger bird populations by reducing their habitat. Aquatic life. Fish and other aquatic biota may be harmed by pesticide-contaminated water. Pesticide surface runoff into rivers and streams can be highly lethal to aquatic life, sometimes killing all the fish in a particular stream. Application of herbicides to bodies of water can cause fish kills when the dead plants decay and consume the water's oxygen, suffocating the fish. Herbicides such as copper sulfate that are applied to water to kill plants are toxic to fish and other water animals at concentrations similar to those used to kill the plants. Repeated exposure to sublethal doses of some pesticides can cause physiological and behavioral changes that reduce fish populations, such as abandonment of nests and broods, decreased immunity to disease and decreased predator avoidance. Application of herbicides to bodies of water can kill plants on which fish depend for their habitat. Pesticides can accumulate in bodies of water to levels that kill off zooplankton, the main source of food for young fish. Pesticides can also kill off insects on which some fish feed, causing the fish to travel farther in search of food and exposing them to greater risk from predators. The faster a given pesticide breaks down in the environment, the less threat it poses to aquatic life. Insecticides are typically more toxic to aquatic life than herbicides and fungicides. Amphibians. In the past several decades, amphibian populations have declined across the world, for unexplained reasons which are thought to be varied but of which pesticides may be a part. Pesticide mixtures appear to have a cumulative toxic effect on frogs. Tadpoles from ponds containing multiple pesticides take longer to metamorphose and are smaller when they do, decreasing their ability to catch prey and avoid predators. Exposing tadpoles to the organochloride endosulfan at levels likely to be found in habitats near fields sprayed with the chemical kills the tadpoles and causes behavioral and growth abnormalities. The herbicide atrazine can turn male frogs into hermaphrodites, decreasing their ability to reproduce. Both reproductive and nonreproductive effects in aquatic reptiles and amphibians have been reported. Crocodiles, many turtle species and some lizards lack sex-distinct chromosomes until after fertilization during organogenesis, depending on temperature. Embryonic exposure in turtles to various PCBs causes a sex reversal. Across the United States and Canada disorders such as decreased hatching success, feminization, skin lesions, and other developmental abnormalities have been reported. Humans. Pesticides can enter the body through inhalation of aerosols, dust and vapor that contain pesticides; through oral exposure by consuming food/water; and through skin exposure by direct contact. Pesticides secrete into soils and groundwater which can end up in drinking water, and pesticide spray can drift and pollute the air. The effects of pesticides on human health depend on the toxicity of the chemical and the length and magnitude of exposure. Farm workers and their families experience the greatest exposure to agricultural pesticides through direct contact. Every human contains pesticides in their fat cells. Children are more susceptible and sensitive to pesticides, because they are still developing and have a weaker immune system than adults. Children may be more exposed due to their closer proximity to the ground and tendency to put unfamiliar objects in their mouth. Hand to mouth contact depends on the child's age, much like lead exposure. Children under the age of six months are more apt to experience exposure from breast milk and inhalation of small particles. Pesticides tracked into the home from family members increase the risk of exposure. Toxic residue in food may contribute to a child's exposure. The chemicals can bioaccumulate in the body over time. Exposure effects can range from mild skin irritation to birth defects, tumors, genetic changes, blood and nerve disorders, endocrine disruption, coma or death. Developmental effects have been associated with pesticides. Recent increases in childhood cancers in throughout North America, such as leukemia, may be a result of somatic cell mutations. Insecticides targeted to disrupt insects can have harmful effects on mammalian nervous systems. Both chronic and acute alterations have been observed in exposes. DDT and its breakdown product DDE disturb estrogenic activity and possibly lead to breast cancer. Fetal DDT exposure reduces male penis size in animals and can produce undescended testicles. Pesticide can affect fetuses in early stages of development, in utero and even if a parent was exposed before conception. Reproductive disruption has the potential to occur by chemical reactivity and through structural changes. Persistent organic pollutants. Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are compounds that resist degradation and thus remain in the environment for years. Some pesticides, including aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, hexachlorobenzene, mirex and toxaphene, are considered POPs. Some POPs have the ability to volatilize and travel great distances through the atmosphere to become deposited in remote regions. Such chemicals may have the ability to bioaccumulate and biomagnify and can biomagnify (i.e. become more concentrated) up to 70,000 times their original concentrations. POPs can affect non-target organisms in the environment and increase risk to humans by disruption in the endocrine, reproductive, and respiratory systems. Pest resistance. Pests may evolve to become resistant to pesticides. Many pests will initially be very susceptible to pesticides, but following mutations in their genetic makeup become resistant and survive to reproduce. Resistance is commonly managed through pesticide rotation, which involves alternating among pesticide classes with different modes of action to delay the onset of or mitigate existing pest resistance. Pest rebound and secondary pest outbreaks. Non-target organisms can also be impacted by pesticides. In some cases, a pest insect that is controlled by a beneficial predator or parasite can flourish should an insecticide application kill both pest and beneficial populations. A study comparing biological pest control and pyrethroid insecticide for diamondback moths, a major cabbage family insect pest, showed that the pest population rebounded due to loss of insect predators, whereas the biocontrol did not show the same effect. Likewise, pesticides sprayed to control mosquitoes may temporarily depress mosquito populations, they may result in a larger population in the long run by damaging natural controls. This phenomenon, wherein the population of a pest species rebounds to equal or greater numbers than it had before pesticide use, is called pest resurgence and can be linked to elimination of its predators and other natural enemies. Loss of predator species can also lead to a related phenomenon called secondary pest outbreaks, an increase in problems from species that were not originally a problem due to loss of their predators or parasites. An estimated third of the 300 most damaging insects in the US were originally secondary pests and only became a major problem after the use of pesticides. In both pest resurgence and secondary outbreaks, their natural enemies were more susceptible to the pesticides than the pests themselves, in some cases causing the pest population to be higher than it was before the use of pesticide. Prevalence. Environmental modelling indicates that globally over 60% of global agricultural land (~24.5 million km²) is "at risk of pesticide pollution by more than one active ingredient", and that over 30% is at "high risk" of which a third are in high-biodiversity regions. Eliminating pesticides. Many alternatives are available to reduce the effects pesticides have on the environment. Alternatives include manual removal, applying heat, covering weeds with plastic, placing traps and lures, removing pest breeding sites, maintaining healthy soils that breed healthy, more resistant plants, cropping native species that are naturally more resistant to native pests and supporting biocontrol agents such as birds and other pest predators. In the United States, conventional pesticide use peaked in 1979, and by 2007, had been reduced by 25 percent from the 1979 peak level, while US agricultural output increased by 43 percent over the same period. Biological controls such as resistant plant varieties and the use of pheromones, have been successful and at times permanently resolve a pest problem. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) employs chemical use only when other alternatives are ineffective. IPM causes less harm to humans and the environment. The focus is broader than on a specific pest, considering a range of pest control alternatives. Biotechnology can also be an innovative way to control pests. Strains can be genetically modified (GM) to increase their resistance to pests. Activism. Pesticide Action Network. While dubbed economic and ecologically sound practices by suppliers, the effects of agricultural pesticides can include toxicity, bioaccumulation, persistence, and physiological responses in humans and wildlife, and several international NGOs have risen in response to the economic activities of these larger, transnational corporations, such as Pesticide Action Network. Historically, PAN's efforts have targeted the Dirty Dozen, resulting in treaties and global environmental law banning persistent organic pollutants (POPs) such as endosulfan, campaigns for Prior Informed Consent (PIC) for countries in the Global South for the right to know what hazardous and banned chemicals they are importing, resulting in the Rotterdam Convention on Prior Informed Consent which became law in 2004, and "shifting global aid away from pesticides" through community monitoring and serving as a watchdog for the World Bank policy failures, eventually co-authoring the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) and cementing agroecological knowledge and farming techniques are crucial to the future of agriculture.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=49051298

Saylyugemsky National Park () sits at the mountainous "X" where the borders of Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China meet in the Altai Mountains of central Asia. Because of its remoteness and position at the meeting points of mountains, steppes, desert and forest, it is a globally important natural reserve for biodiversity. The park was formally established in 2010–2012, with a particular purpose of protecting the vulnerable Altai argali mountain sheep and the endangered Snow leopard. The component Saylyugem Mountains are a ridge of the Altai, and stretch to the northeast to the Sayan Mountains. The climate is cold and semi-arid. Administratively, the park is located in the Kosh-Agachsky District of the Altai Republic. While ecotourism has a stated role, visits to the territory currently require special passes from park administration, and activities are limited to roads and trails. Topography. The topography of Saylyugemsky is mountainous; the highest peaks range up to (on the ridge Tabagiyin-Their-Ula), with glaciers on the highest ridges. Overall, the Altai are a high mountain plateau that is deeply dissected by river valleys; in places this takes the appearance of rolling hills or steppe. Spread over , the territory consists of three sections. The "Saylyugem" and "Ulandryk" section are located close to each other on the northern slope of the Saylyugem Ridge, with the former sector running along the border between Russia and Mongolia. The third section, the "Argut", is on the spur of the Katun and North-Chuya ridges. The Argut River runs through the territory. The snow line runs from 2,300 meters to 3,200 meters. While the Saylyugem and Ulandryk sectors have experienced human habitation for millennia - with the attendant grazing and hunting, the more inaccessible Argut sector has stayed relatively pristine. The Altai mountains are at the northern edge of the region tectonically affected by the collision of India into Asia; the area is seismically active, with a major earthquake recently as the 2003 Altai earthquake. The rock types in the mountains are typically granites and metamorphic schists. Climate and ecoregion. The climate of Saylyugemsky is Cold Semi-Arid (Köppen climate classification BSk), which is typical of continental interiors far from large bodies of water. Summers are mild and dry; winters are cold and dry. In Kosh-Agach, the closest town, the average annual temperature is -1.6 °C, with an average of . The ecoregion of Saylyugemsky is "Altai-Sayan", a WWF Global200 Ecoregion. This is one of the most unusual and biodiverse regions on earth, with a mosaic of mountains, steppe, forest, desert, and other habitats.). The freshwater ecoregion is species-poor: only two species of fish - Arctic grayling (Thymallus arcticus) and Alpine bullhead (Cottus poecilopus) - are found in the mountainous areas, and only four other species in the lakes and rivers in the lower tablelands. There are no endemic species. The park is in the "Chuya" freshwater ecoregion (WWF ID#604), one of the smaller freshwater ecoregions in the world. The rivers of the territory flow into the Ob River drainage basin and ultimately into the Arctic, but the aquatic ecosystem of the park appears to be mostly separate from that of the Ob itself. The rivers and streams of the area have high flow rates and rapids that keep out the migratory fish of lower regions. Because of the remoteness of the area, the freshwater ecosystem is still poorly understood. Plants. In the southern sections (Saylyugem and Ulandryk) have vegetation reflecting the type of dry western-Mongolian steppe and desert-steppe habitat found. So far, scientists have recorded 722 species of vascular plants belonging to 66 families and 232 genera; 20 plant species are classified as vulnerable in Russia. The Argut section is more alpine (larch, spruce, fir, birch, poplar, pine) and alpine-tundra in character. Animals. The snow leopard is a primary focus of the park's conservation efforts. An estimated 15-20 individuals live in the territory, with another 50-60 in the buffer areas. They live at the higher elevations in rocky settings, where their stocky bodies and thick fur make them well-adapted. Saylyugemsky is at the northern edge of their range. A primary prey of the leopard are the Altai-Sayan mountain goat (ibex), of which there are an estimated 3,200-3,700 in the park. In 2015, scientists found evidence of a rare Saylyugemsky bear, which had been thought to be extinct in the area for 30 years. Sylyugemsky is the central breeding area of the Siberian mountain goat, with groups of cross-border argali number 500-550 individuals. The usual ungulates are found - deer and elk - with the musk deer notable because illegal trapping for their musk is done with wire snares that sometimes accidentally entrap a snow leopard. The ridge is also a breeding area for the endangered Saker falcon, whose numbers have declined in recent years due to poaching. The southern sections of the park have recorded 146 species of birds, including the white-tailed eagle, steppe eagle, golden eagle, bearded vulture, black vulture, griffon vulture, peregrine falcon, lesser kestrel, and Altai snowcock. Tourism. As a preserve for vulnerable and endangered species and cultural sites, the park has strict restrictions on use and movement. Entry to the park requires a pass from park administrators, and visitors must stay on roads and trails.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12424026

The Festina affair was a series of doping scandals within the sport of professional cycling that occurred during and after the 1998 Tour de France. The affair began when a large haul of doping products was found in a support car belonging to the Festina cycling team just before the start of the race. A resulting investigation revealed systematic doping involving many teams in the Tour de France. Hotels where teams were staying were raided and searched by police, confessions were made by several retired and current riders, and team personnel were arrested or detained. Several teams withdrew completely from the race. By December 2000, all nine Festina riders had confessed to using erythropoietin (EPO) and other substances during the 1998 Tour de France, and suspended sentences ranging from 5–12 months were handed out to Festina soigneur Willy Voet, Festina manager Bruno Roussel, La Française des Jeux soigneur Jef d'Hont, former Festina soigneur Jean Dalibot, and Festina communication officer Joel Chabiron. The two accused pharmacists, Éric Paranier and Christine Paranier, along with Team ONCE physician Nicolás Terrados, were only given fines, while the case against Festina doctor Eric Rijckaert was dropped because of his deteriorating health. Events. Doping in the Festina team. On July 8, 1998, Festina soigneur Willy Voet was stopped by customs officers at the Belgian-French border close to Neuville-en-Ferrain, near Lille, France. Officers discovered several hundred grams and capsules of anabolic steroids, erythropoietin (EPO), syringes, and other doping products. Voet was taken into police custody. Festina offices were searched in Lyon and seized other suspect products, including perfluorocarbon. Two days after the arrest, Bruno Roussel, directeur sportif of Festina, denied any involvement with the uncovered drugs. However, the following day, French police announced that on top of the contraband items found in Voet's car, a document was discovered at Festina's headquarters which detailed systematic drug programmes for Festina's riders. As the Tour de France began in Dublin, it was announced that the Festina riders Richard Virenque, Alex Zülle and Laurent Dufaux would face questioning when they returned to France. On July 15, Roussel and Festina team doctor Eric Rijckaert were arrested in Cholet. The Festina hotel was searched by eight gendarmes. Roussel lost his licence as a manager of a cycling team from the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), but Virenque, Dufaux and Brochard called a press conference and stated that the Festina team would not withdraw from the race. However, Tour de France race directeur Jean-Marie Leblanc expelled Festina from the Tour after Roussel confessed to systematic doping on the team. The following day, Virenque left the Tour in tears. Nine riders and three officials from Festina were taken into police custody on July 23; of the entire team, only Christophe Bassons was not arrested nor implicated in doping. Eric van de Sijpe, a Belgian judge, ordered a search of Rijckaert's office, whereby the police obtained computer files proving the riders were using EPO. Virenque, Dufaux, Pascal Hervé, Didier Rous, Alex Zülle, and Armin Meier were questioned in Lyon and held in police custody. All nine of the implicated riders were escorted to a hospital and made to undergo extensive tests and give blood, hair and urine samples. Upon release the following day, five Festina riders (Zülle, Dufaux, Moreau, Brochard and Meier) admitted to doping while Virenque and Hervé maintained their innocence. Zülle claimed that he needed to engage in doping to satisfy Festina's corporate sponsors, while Dufaux stated that he confessed due to overwhelming evidence collected by police. In custody, Voet and Roussel explained how doping was organised on the Festina team, and claimed that the other cycling teams are involved in smuggling banned substances. On July 27, Festina rider Neil Stephens admitted taking performance-enhancing drugs but claimed that he thought the EPO injections were legal supplements. Doping in TVM. On July 19, 1998, the day after Festina left the Tour, the French daily "Aujourd’hui" reported that police had found 104 ampules of EPO in a vehicle belonging to the TVM team during a routine customs check close to Reims in northeast France. On the same day as the Festina arrests, French police raided TVM's hotel in Pamiers, resulting in the arrest and detainment of TVM manager Cees Priem and TVM doctor Andrei Michailov. Four other TVM officials, including directeur sportif Hendrik Redant, were interrogated and released. Police found drug evidence in a suitcase and a rubbish bin in TVM's hotel rooms in Toulouse and Metz. An investigation into TVM was launched on July 24. On July 28, the TVM team was met by police in Albertville. Six TVM riders, including Jeroen Blijlevens, Bart Voskamp, Servais Knaven and Steven de Jongh, were taken in the night to a hospital where they gave blood, hair, and urine samples; TVM soigneur Jan Moors was arrested. Police also took three cases, a sports bag and a dustbin from the TVM team. Afterwards, the rest of the team were taken into custody and escorted to the hospital for extensive drug tests. Impact on the Tour. Other cycling teams on the Tour expressed support for the embattled riders, and objected to their treatment as criminals. Banesto and Team ONCE expressed support for a statement by International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch that performance-enhancing drugs should be legalized. On July 29, the Tour peloton conducted an industrial action by cycling slowly. Team ONCE, led by French champion Laurent Jalabert, pulled out first while the Banesto and Riso Scotti teams left at the feeding zone. The peloton stopped a second time and threatened a mass withdrawal, leading the stage to be cancelled. That afternoon, raids were conducted on Team ONCE, Team Polti, La Française des Jeux, Lotto and Casino. Team managers Marc Madiot (La Française des Jeux) and Vincent Lavenu (Casino) and rider Rodolfo Massi (Casino) were arrested. Kelme and Vitalicio Seguros pulled out of the race the following day. Blijlevens pulled out near the border with Switzerland. Massi, leader of the Mountains classification, was not able to start the stage as he was still being held in police custody. The Casino team truck was seized by police, while the Festina riders reportedly implicated La Française des Jeux, Casino and Big Mat in the team's doping scheme. The TVM team who did not start the 19th stage and returned to the Netherlands on July 31. Massi questioned by an investigating magistrate as suspicions mounted that he was involved in Festina's doping network. At this stage there are fewer than one hundred riders in the race compared to the 189 riders that started the race. On August 1, Massi was charged with inciting and facilitating the use of doping. In Reims, TVM riders submitted to several hours of questioning, after which team masseur Johannes Moors was jailed for suspicion of possessing drugs and breaches of French customs laws. Police soon found banned substances in the hotel of Team ONCE, which Terrados claimed were used by support staff. August 4, 1998: Jean-Marie Leblanc acknowledges that the increasing speed of the peloton in the Tour was due to the increasing use of doping in the peloton. August 5, 1998: The media contains many reports of drug finds along the route of the Tour – by farmers or by police in the hotels used by teams – for example a hotel in Voreppe used by GAN, Casino, Saeco and Kelme. August 10, 1998: Cantina Tollo and La Française des Jeux vehicles are searched by French customs officials. Post-tour investigation. September 13, 1998: Two pharmacists Christine and Eric Paranier are questioned in respect to supplying illegal doping products to Voet. September 18, 1998: Française des Jeux soigneur Jef d'Hont is taken into police custody and imprisoned for 11 days. September 23, 1998: Voet accuses Virenque of doping in the French newspaper Le Parisien. Voet said to the newspaper that only three Festina riders were drug free. These were Christophe Bassons, Patrice Halgand and Laurent Lefevre. October 15, 1998: There is a confrontation between Virenque, Voet and Rijckaert where Virenque calls himself an innocent victim. November 28, 1998: The results of the analysis of the samples taken from the nine Festina riders are known and are subsequently released and revealed evidence of Human Growth Hormone, amphetamines, steroids, corticoids and Erythropoietin (EPO). In eight of the nine riders test positive for synthetic EPO. The results of the ninth rider (Christophe Moreau) were indeterminate but Moreau had already admitted use of EPO. Traces of amphetamines were found in the samples of Moreau, Pascal Hervé, Laurent Brochard and Didier Rous. Four riders had hematocrit levels below the legal limit of 50%, establish in February 1997. These included Virenque, Armin Meier, Moreau who had a level of 49.3 and Laurent Dufaux who had a level of 47.2%. Five riders were above the limit. Brochard had 50.3%, Neil Stephens 50.3%, Hervé 52.6%, Rous 51% and Alex Zülle 52.3%. December 15, 1998: Laurent Brochard, Christophe Moreau and Didier Rous are suspended by the French Cycling Federation for six months and cannot ride until April 30, 1999. December 17, 1998: Team doctor of Team ONCE Nicolas Terrados is charged in relation to the import of banned substances. Investigation in 1999 and aftermath. January 26, 1999: Joel Chabiron, Festina communications director, is charged. March 23, 1999: Jean Marie Dalibot, the soigneur of Festina, is charged. March 26, 1999: Virenque is charged with inciting the use and administration of doping products to others. April 1, 1999: Jean-Marie Leblanc is taken into police custody and questioned. April 4, 1999: French Federation Cycling vice president Roger Legacy and President Baal are charged with violation of the anti-doping law of 1989. (These charges would be subsequently dropped). June, 1999: In an interview with L'Équipe, Roussel alleged that when he told Virenque of Voet being arrested, Virenque replied "mes produits, comment Je vais faire maintenant?" which could be translated as "my products/stuff – what am I going to do now?" June 17, 1999: The organisers of the Tour de France announce the teams of the 1999 Tour de France where they take the unprecedented step of banning teams, team officials and individual riders. In the aftermath of the Festina affair, Virenque was banned together with his former teammate Hervé. Manolo Saiz, manager of ONCE-Deutsche Bank, Dr Nicolas Terrados team doctor of Team ONCE and the entire TVM-Farm Frites were also banned. This was in relation to the actions and behaviour of these teams and riders during the 1998 Tour. Festina trial. October 23, 2000: Start of the Festina trial with ten people charged, including: Witnesses included: October 23, 2000: Erwann Menthéour's book, "Secret Defonce: Ma vérité sur le dopage" (February 1999) describes how he used EPO while riding for Française des Jeux in 1997, and stated that the soigneur of the Française des Jeux team, Jef d'Hont, was the one providing him with EPO and treating him with a glucose-infusion one hour ahead of a UCI hematocrit test in the 1997 edition of Paris-Nice, in a vain attempt to lower his hematocrit value below the 50%-limit. He also stated that his team manager Marc Madiot had been fully aware of his EPO use in 1997. October 23, 2000: On the first day of the trial, Voet stated that he never let the hematocrit level of the riders exceed 54% whereas other teams were letting it go as high as 64%. This was under the order of team doctor Eric Rijckaert. October 24, 2000: Virenque admitted to doping. October 25, 2000: Pascal Hervé, Virenque's friend and the only other Festina rider to deny doping, admitted to doping. October 27, 2000: Former rider Thomas Davy testified at the trial that the teams Castorama, Banesto, Team Telekom and La Française des Jeux had been running organized systematic doping programs, similar to the one revealed at the Festina Team. He knew that from riding at Castorama (1992–94), Banesto (1995–96) and Française des Jeux (1997). His use of EPO started in 1995, and continued until the end of his career, after the 1997 season. When asked if Miguel Indurain at Banesto had also used EPO, he said "I don't know. I didn't go into every room, but I think he did". He stated that Jef d'Hont as the person supplying him with EPO while he was riding for Française des Jeux in 1997. November 1, 2000: On the stand UCI President Hein Verbruggen admitted that organised doping may exist. The following day several doctors of Spanish cycling teams refuted this statement. Jesús Hoyos (Banesto), Kepa Celaya (ONCE) and Eufemiano Fuentes (Kelme doctor) spoke to the Spanish daily paper "As" to refute this statement. Fuentes would later emerge as the key figure in the "Operación Puerto" doping scandal. December 22, 2000: Virenque was cleared from the criminal charge of "inciting the administration of doping and masking products to others and complicity in the importation of drugs". Voet was given a 10-month suspended sentence and a 30,000 franc fine. Bruno Roussel was given a suspended sentence of one year and a fine of 50,000 francs. Christine Paranier received a 30,000 francs fine (4,573 euros). Her husband Éric received a fine of 10,000 francs (around 1,500 euros). Jef d'Hont received a nine-month suspended sentence and a fine of 20,000 francs (around 3,000 euros). Jean Dalibot and Joel Chabiron received a five-month suspended sentence. Dr. Terrados was given a 30,000 francs fine. The case against Eric Rijckaert was dropped due to his deteriorating health; he died of cancer a month later. December 30, 2000: Swiss cycling federation gave a nine-month ban to Virenque and a 4,000 Swiss franc fine. Books. Many books have been written about the Festina affair. TVM affair. In the French judicial system, the TVM affair treated as an independent court case, though it is often referred to as part of the Festina affair since French police executed the TVM raid, interrogated six TVM riders, held several TVM key staff in custody, and performed additional advanced doping tests during the Festina investigation. After the public prosecutor in Reims had prepared the case, the court arbitration was conducted during 28–31 May 2001, with Cees Priem (TVM manager), Andrei Mikhailov (TVM doctor) and Jan Moors (TVM soigneur) being charged for import, transport and possession of doping/drugs on French soil. Main events: <br>TVM trial:

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A baby bottle, or nursing bottle, or feeding bottle, is a bottle with a teat (also called a nipple in the US) to drink directly from. It is typically used by infants and young children, or if someone cannot (without difficulty) drink from a cup, for feeding oneself or being fed. It can also be used to feed non-human mammals. In particular it is used to feed infant formula, expressed breast milk or pediatric electrolyte solution. Dimensions and design. A large-sized bottle typically holds 280 ml; the small size 150 ml. It is composed of a bottle itself, a teat, a ring to seal the teat to the bottle, a cap to cover the teat and optionally a disposable liner. The height-to-width ratio of bottles is high (relative to adult cups) because it is needed to ensure the contents flood the teat when used at normal angles; otherwise the baby will drink air. However, if the bottle is too tall, it easily tips. There are asymmetric bottles that ensure the contents flood the teat if the bottle is held at a certain direction. A typical baby bottle typically has four components. A teat, or nipple, is the flexible part of the bottle that the baby will suck from, and contains a hole through which the milk will flow. The collar goes over the nipple and typically screws onto the neck of the bottle, forming a seal. Most, but not all baby bottles will also have a cap or travel cover that goes over the teat to keep it clean and to prevent small spills. Material. In 2020 researchers reported that infant feeding bottles made out of polypropylene were found to cause microplastics exposure to infants ranging from 14,600 to 4,550,000 particles per capita per day in 48 regions with contemporary preparation procedures. Microplastics release is higher with warmer liquids and similar with other polypropylene products such as lunchboxes. Teats (or nipples). The teat itself is generally designed to be slimmer than the mother's nipple. Specialized teats are marketed that report attempting to mimic the shape of the breast to help babies to switch back and forth between bottle feeding and breastfeeding for cases where "nipple confusion" occurs. Teats come in a selection of flow rates, marketed to be based on the age of the infant. Different flow rate teats either have more holes or larger holes. Variable flow rate teats are available for older infants. The hole is asymmetric so that by turning the bottle/teat, different flows can occur. Specialized teats are available for infants with cleft palate. Vented bottles. "Vented" bottles allow air to enter the bottle while the baby is drinking without the need to break the baby's suction during feeding. Alternatively a bottle liner can be used to enclose the formula instead of directly in the bottle. The liner collapses as the formula is drained. Vented bottles work by allowing air to enter while preventing the liquid inside from escaping. It works by an "anti-vacuum skirt" in the base of the teat, where it forms a seal with the bottle. The skirt acts as a one way valve, allowing air to enter the bottle but not liquids to leave. If the sealing ring is tightened too much, the skirt is compressed too tightly to allow it to open and the bottle will not vent. If the sealing ring is too loose, liquid leaks from the bottle. There are multiple patents for technologies in this area. Initial designs called for a complex spring and valve system that was impossible to clean and sterilize. Current research is in specialized materials with microscopic pores that allow the entry of air without the escape of liquids. This avoids the caregiver having to get the sealing ring tension just right. It remains to be seen whether these materials can withstand the rigours of daily cleaning and sterilization. Another competitor, Dr. Brown's, offers a system whereby the vented air is conducted through a tube to the bottom of the bottle where the airspace is when the bottle is in use. This avoids the vented air from bubbling through the liquid and unnecessarily aerating the liquid. The aeration may cause nutrients in "human milk and infant formula (to) decrease in concentration . . . to a level that may be clinically significant". Variations and accessories. Bottles may be designed to attach directly to a breast pump for a complete "feeding system" that maximizes the reuse of the components. Such systems include a variety of drinking spouts for when the child is older. This converts the bottle into a sippy cup, a cup with lid and spout for toddlers, which is intermediate between a baby bottle and an open top cup. Bottles that are part of a feeding system may include handles that can be attached. The ring and teat may be replaced by a storage lid. Accessories for bottles include cleaning brushes, or bottle brush, and drying racks. Brushes may be specially designed for a specific manufacturer's bottles and teats. Bottle warmers warm previously made and refrigerated formula. Coolers designed to fit a specific manufacturer's bottles are available to keep refrigerated formula cold. Special formula powder containers are available to store pre-measured amounts of formula so that caregivers can pre-fill bottles with sterile water and mix in the powder easily. The containers are typically designed to stack together so that multiple pre-measured amounts of formula powder may be transported as a unit. Institutions can purchase ready-to-feed formula in containers that can be used as baby bottles. The lid screws off and is replaced by a disposable teat when the formula is ready to be used. This avoids storing the formula with the teat and possibly clogging the teat holes when formula is splashed within the bottle and dries. Some bottles have been specifically designed to reduce colic in babies but there is little evidence that these actually do any good. The bottles are designed to minimize the intake of air during feeding. Use. Cleaning and sterilization. In the UK, the current advice given by NHS Choices remains to sterilize baby bottles, which is deemed as especially important for newborn and high-risk infants (i.e., those susceptible to infection). Sterilization is also recommended in Australia, such as by Milton sterilizing fluid. A current recommendation in the US is that bottle sterilization can be replaced by cleaning with hot soapy water. By age. Nipples (teats) are typically subdivided by flow rate, with the slowest flow rate recommended for premature infants and infants with feeding difficulties. However, flow rates are not standardised and vary considerably between brands. The use of bottles is discouraged beyond two years of age by most health organisations as prolonged use can cause tooth decay. The NHS recommends a sippy cup or beaker be introduced by 6 months and the use of bottles discontinued by 1 year. The AAP recommends that the cup be introduced by one year of age and that the use of the bottle by discontinued by 18 months. Regulation. While infant formula is highly regulated in many countries, baby bottles are not. Only the materials of the teat and bottle itself are specifically regulated in some countries (e.g. British Standards BS 7368:1990 "Specification for babies' elastomeric feeding bottle teats"). In the USA, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also regulates teats and the bottle materials. In 1985 it tightened allowable levels of nitrosamines released from bottle teats. A 1999 "Consumer Reports" study suggested that some polycarbonate bottles release unsafe amounts of Bisphenol A; however industry critics contented the study demanded unreasonable conditions to which the bottles were subject. Findings since, however, have renewed the initial concerns (see Bisphenol A - Possible Health Risks). In 2011 use of bisphenol A in baby bottles was forbidden in all EU countries. From 2012, other countries started following the American Food and Drug Administration's initiative to regulate baby bottles. For instance, Argentina, Brazil and Ecuador now prohibit bisphenol A in baby bottles. Korea extended the regulation to a list of five chemicals, now banned from all children's products including baby bottles. History. Bottles with hard spouts date to early in recorded time, as evidence by archeological finds (see image). The first consisted of urns made of various materials, with an opening at one end for filling the bottle, and a second at the other to be put into the baby's mouth. Animal horn was another common early material (dating to the 13th century, ibid. ), examples of which survive as images in woodcuts. Soft nipples of various materials were introduced early in the history of feeding (e.g., leather, or dried cow's teat filled with cloth); many were very difficult to clean. Although Elijah Pratt of New York patented the first rubber nipple in 1845, it took until the 20th century before materials and technology improved sufficiently to allow manufacture of a soft nipple that was practical for use: the invention of vulcanized rubber (1840s) provided a material that was soft and could eventually be manufactured in volume (early 1900s), and could withstand the heat of sterilization. (As these sources note, "early black Indian rubber... had a very strong pungent smell", and did not survive repeated exposures to hot water.) The first glass nursing bottle was patented by American C.M. Windship in 1841, but required that it "be superimposed on the mother's breast so that the nursing infant would be deceived into thinking that the milk was coming directly from the mother". As the group "American Collectors of Infant Feeders" notes, by "the late 1800s a large variety of glass nursing bottles were produced in the United States", and the U.S. Patent Office had issued more than 200 patents for various designs of nursing bottles by the 1940s—designed to lie flat or stand up straight, with openings on their sides or ends, with detachable or permanently attached nipples, etc. The American and British markets eventually saw the introduction of heat-resistant upright Pyrex bottles, narrow-necked versions in the 1950s and wide-neck versions a decade later, with plastic bottles appearing widely, a further decade on. Innovations such as the introduction of a working check valve in the nipple (to provide unidirectional flow of the liquid food) appeared as early as 1948 in a patent to J.W. Less, and was picked up by others including Owens-Illinois Glass, eventually making its way into Gerber and all modern pressure-balancing bottle designs, as well as adult drinking cups and various other products requiring fluid flow under vacuum. The modern business of producing bottles in the developed world is substantial: in 1999 it was reported that the UK "feeding and sterilising equipment sector ... stands at £49m… [where] [s]ales of feeding bottles account for 39%" or £19.1m of that market. Controversy. The 2014 summary policy statement of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) makes no specific mention of bottle feeding, but makes clear that "[b]reastfeeding and human milk are the normative standards for infant feeding and nutrition", and refers to decisions regarding the supply of infant nutrition as "a public health issue and not only a lifestyle choice… [g]iven the documented short- and long-term medical and neurodevelopmental advantages of breastfeeding". The AAP policy recommends breastfeeding exclusively for six months, continuing it with introduction of complementary foods, with an overall duration of "1 year or longer as mutually desired by mother and infant". The body of the policy statement notes and cites literature indicating that, in addition to the importance of mother's milk, the manner of the food delivery has implications: that "breastfed infants self-regulate intake volume", whereas bottle-fed infants receiving expressed breast milk or formula have "increased bottle emptying, poorer self-regulation, and excessive weight gain in late infancy", and that such early practice of self-regulation correlate with adult patterns of weight gain (ibid.). The AAP policy notes that "[m]edical contraindications to breastfeeding are rare". The transmission of some viral diseases through breastfeeding is reportedly preventable, e.g., by expressing breast milk and subjecting it to Holder pasteurization. In response to public pressure felt from policies de-emphasizing bottle- and formula-feeding, efforts have arisen to support mothers experiencing physiologic or other difficulties in breastfeeding, and sites include individual views that attempt to weaken the scientific case of the AAP policy; a book of the personal experiences and views of one mother committed to bottle/formula feeding, "Bottled Up", by Suzanne Barston, has appeared.

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Grafton is an MBTA Commuter Rail station in the North Grafton village of Grafton, Massachusetts, served by the Framingham/Worcester Line. The station is fully accessible, with mini-high platforms serving both of the line's two tracks. A former station at North Grafton was open from the 1800s until 1960. The modern station, located near Tufts University's Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine east of the former station, opened in 2000. History. Former station. The Boston and Worcester Railroad, which later became part of the Boston and Albany Railroad (B&A) opened to Worcester on July 4, 1835. Grafton station was established near New England Village (later called North Grafton) along the road to Shrewsbury. The Grafton Centre Railroad, a narrow-gauge feeder line, opened on August 20, 1874. Grafton station was renamed North Grafton to differentiate it from the Grafton Centre terminus. The branch line was converted to standard gauge in 1887, renamed the Grafton and Upton Railroad (G&U) in 1888, and extended to Milford in 1890. The G&U was electrified in 1902; passenger service was provided by streetcars operated by the Milford and Uxbridge Street Railway. North Grafton was a transfer point between B&A trains, G&U streetcars, and Worcester Consolidated Street Railway streetcars on the Worcester–Westborough line and Grafton Centre branch. Under great financial strain, the Worcester Consolidated cut its unprofitable suburban lines between 1925 and 1931. Westborough service ended in 1927; Grafton service lasted until 1931. Streetcar service on the G&U ended on August 31, 1928, though freight service continued. The G&U has continued to use a yard at North Grafton, where the freight house (built between 1930 and 1957) remains in use by the railroad. Grafton station continued to be served by B&A commuter trains. The station was closed on April 24, 1960 when the B&A dropped almost all stops west of Framingham as part of service cuts. In August 1973, the 1964-formed Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) began subsidizing service (operated by Penn Central since 1968) between Boston and Framingham. On October 27, 1975, the one remaining Worcester round trip was cut back to Framingham. Modern station. In 1994, service to Worcester was restored as mitigation for delays with reopening the Old Colony Lines. Service initially ran nonstop from Framingham to Worcester, but intermediate park and ride stops were added later as mitigation for delays in reopening the Greenbush Line. Grafton station opened on February 23, 2000 - the first of the four infill stations to open on the Framingham/Worcester Line. The modern station is east of the former North Grafton station site; it is located off Massachusetts Route 30 adjacent to the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine and other redevelopment of the former Grafton State Hospital. The station is intended to support transit-oriented development of additional sections of the former hospital site. The station has two low-level side platforms serving the two tracks of the Worcester Line, with mini-high platforms at the west ends to make the station accessible. The parking lot is on the north side of the station; a ramp leads from the lot directly to the outbound mini-high platform. A footbridge connects the lot to the inbound platform, with a ramp from the bridge to the mini-high section.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=187509

Pomona College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was established in 1887 by a group of Congregationalists who wanted to recreate a "college of the New England type" in Southern California, and in 1925 it became the founding member of the Claremont Colleges consortium. Pomona is a four-year undergraduate institution and enrolled approximately students as of the semester. It offers 48 majors in liberal arts disciplines and roughly 650 courses, though students have access to more than 2000 additional courses at the other Claremont Colleges. The college's campus is in a residential community east of downtown Los Angeles near the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. Pomona has the lowest acceptance rate of any U.S. liberal arts college, and is generally considered to be the most prestigious liberal arts college in the West and one of the most prestigious liberal arts colleges in the country. It has an endowment of $ , giving it the seventh-highest endowment per student of any college or university in the U.S. The college's student body is noted for its racial, geographic, and socioeconomic diversity. Its athletics teams are fielded jointly with Pitzer College and compete as the Sagehens in the SCIAC, a Division III conference. Prominent alumni of Pomona include Oscar, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony award winners; U.S. Senators, ambassadors, and other federal officials; Pulitzer Prize recipients; billionaire executives; a Nobel Prize laureate; National Academies members; and Olympic athletes. The college is a top producer of Fulbright scholars and recipients of other fellowships. History. Founding era. Pomona College was established as a coeducational and nonsectarian Christian institution on October 14, 1887, amidst a real estate boom precipitated by the arrival of a transcontinental railroad to Southern California. Its founders, a regional group of Congregationalists, sought to create "a college of the New England type". Classes first began at Ayer Cottage, a rental house in Pomona, California, on September 12, 1888, with a permanent campus planned at Piedmont Mesa four miles north of the city. That year, as the real estate bubble burst, making the Piedmont campus untenable, the college was offered the site of an unfinished hotel (today's Sumner Hall) in nearby Claremont; it moved there but kept the Pomona name (the city was itself named after the goddess of fruitful abundance in Roman mythology). Trustee Charles B. Sumner led the college during its first years, helping hire its first official president, Cyrus G. Baldwin, in 1890. The first graduating class, in 1894, had 11 members. Pomona suffered through a severe financial crisis during its early years but managed to survive, raising enough money to add several buildings to its campus. Although the first Asian and black students enrolled in 1897 and 1900, respectively, the college remained almost all-white throughout its early years. In 1905, during president George A. Gates' tenure, the college acquired a 64-acre parcel of land to its east known as the Wash. In 1911, as high schools became more common in the region, the college eliminated its preparatory department, which had taught pre-college level courses. The following year, it committed to a liberal arts model, soon after turning its previously separate schools of art and music into departments within the college. Daily attendance at chapel was mandated until 1921, and student culture emphasized athletics and class rivalries. During World War I, the college oriented itself towards the war effort. Interwar years. In the early 1920s, the college’s growth led its fourth president, James A. Blaisdell, to call for "a group of institutions divided into small colleges—somewhat of an Oxford type—around a library and other utilities which they would use in common." This would allow Pomona to retain its small, liberal arts-focused teaching while gaining the resources of a larger university. On October 14, 1925, Pomona’s 38th anniversary, the Claremont Colleges were incorporated. This decade also saw the start of construction of the Clark dormitories north of 6th St., a reflection of president Charles Edmunds' prioritization of the college's residential life. Edmunds, who had previously served as president of Lingnan University in Guangzhou, China, also inspired a growing interest in Asian culture at the college. Pomona's enrollment and budget declined during the Great Depression, and it once again oriented itself towards wartime activities during World War II. Postwar transformations. Pomona's longest-serving president, E. Wilson Lyon, guided the college through a transformational period from 1941 to 1969. Following the war, Pomona's enrollment rose above 1000, leading to the construction of several new residence halls and science facilities. Its endowment also grew steadily, due in part to the introduction in 1942 of a deferred giving fundraising scheme pioneered by Allen Hawley called the Pomona Plan, where participants receive a lifetime annuity in exchange for donating to the college upon their death. The plan's model has since been adopted by many other colleges. Lyon made a number of progressive decisions relating to civil rights, including supporting Japanese-American students during internment and establishing an exchange program with historically black Fisk University in Tennessee in 1952. He also ended the gender segregation of Pomona's residential life, first with the opening of Frary Dining Hall (then part of the men's campus) to women beginning in 1957 and later with the introduction of co-educational housing in 1968. However, he wavered when it came to some of the more radical student protests against the Vietnam War, and permitted Air Force recruiters to come to campus in 1967. Pomona's previously conservative student body quickly liberalized during this era, and its ethnic diversity also began to increase. In 1969, a bomb exploded at Carnegie Hall, permanently injuring a secretary; no culprit was ever identified. During the tenure of president David Alexander from 1969 to 1991, Pomona gained increased prominence on the national stage. The endowment also increased ten-fold, enabling the construction and renovation of a number of buildings. Several identity-based groups, such as the Pomona College Women's Union (founded 1984), established themselves. In the mid-1980s, out-of-state students began to outnumber in-state students. In 1991, the college converted the dormitory basements used by fraternities into lounges, hastening a lowering of the profile of Greek life on campus. 21st century. In the 2000s under president David W. Oxtoby, Pomona began placing more emphasis on reducing its environmental impact, committing in 2003 to obtaining LEED certifications for new buildings and launching various sustainability initiatives. The college also entered partnerships with several college access groups (including the Posse Foundation in 2004 and QuestBridge in 2005) and committed to meeting the full demonstrated financial need of students through grants rather than loans in 2008. These efforts, combined with Pomona's longstanding need-blind admission policy, resulted in increased enrollment of low-income and minority students. In 2008, Pomona stopped singing its alma mater at convocation and commencement after it was discovered that the song may have been originally written to be sung as the ensemble finale to a student-produced blackface minstrel show performed on campus in 1909 or 1910. Many alumni protested the move. In 2011, the college drew national media attention when it requested proof of legal residency from employees in the midst of a unionization drive by dining hall workers. 17 workers who were unable to provide documentation were fired; the dining hall staff voted to unionize in 2013. A controversial 2013 rebranding initiative sought to emphasize students' passion and drive. In July 2017, G. Gabrielle Starr became Pomona's tenth president; she is the first woman and first African American to hold the office. Campus. Pomona's campus is in Claremont, California, an affluent residential community east of downtown Los Angeles. It is directly northwest of the Claremont Village (the city's downtown commercial district) and directly south of the other contiguous Claremont Colleges. The area has a Mediterranean climate and consists of a gentle slope from the alluvial fan of San Antonio Creek in the San Gabriel Mountains to the north. In its early years, Pomona quickly expanded from its initial home in Sumner Hall, constructing several new buildings to accommodate its growing enrollment and ambitions. After 1908, development of the campus was guided by master plans from architect Myron Hunt, who envisioned a central quadrangle flanked by buildings connected via visual axes. In 1923, landscape architect Ralph Cornell expanded on Hunt's plans, envisioning a "college in a garden" defined by native Southern California vegetation. President James Blaisdell's decision to purchase undeveloped land around Pomona while it was still available later gave the college room to grow and found the consortium. Many of the earlier buildings were constructed in the Spanish Renaissance Revival and Mission Revival styles, and are of only one or two stories in height. Later buildings took inspiration from these styles, encompassing usually three or fewer stories bounded by stucco walls and facilitating both indoor and outdoor use. , the campus consists of 88 facilities, including 70 addressed buildings. It is bounded by First Street on the south, Mills and Amherst Avenues on the east, Eighth Street on the north, and Harvard Avenue on the west. It is informally divided into North Campus and South Campus by Sixth Street, with most academic buildings in the western half and a naturalistic area known as the Wash in the east. Pomona has undertaken various initiatives to make its campus more sustainable, including requiring that all new construction be built to LEED Gold standards, replacing turf with drought-tolerant landscaping, and committing to achieving carbon neutrality without purchasing carbon credits by 2030. The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education gave the college a gold rating in its 2018 Sustainable Campus Index. South Campus. South Campus consists of mostly first-year and second-year housing and academic buildings for the social sciences, arts, and humanities. South of Bonita Avenue is a row of residence halls, including Wig Hall (built 1959), Harwood Court (built 1921), Lyon Court (built 1990), Mudd-Blaisdell Halls (built 1947 and 1936, respectively), and Gibson Hall (built 1949). Sumner Hall, the home of admissions and several other administrative departments, is located to the north of the dormitories, and Frank Dining Hall is located to the east. Oldenborg Center, a foreign language housing option that includes a foreign language dining hall, is across from Sumner. South Campus includes several arts buildings and performance venues. Bridges Auditorium ("Big Bridges", built 1931) is used for concerts and speakers and has a capacity of 2,500. Bridges Hall of Music ("Little Bridges", built 1915) is a concert hall with seating for 600. It is adjacent to Thatcher Music Building (built 1970). On the western edge of campus is the Benton Museum of Art (built 2020), which has a collection of approximately 15,000 works, including Italian Renaissance panel paintings, indigenous American art and artifacts, and American and European prints, drawings, and photographs. The Seaver Theatre Complex (built 1990) includes a 335-seat thrust stage theater and 125-seat black box theater, among other facilities. The Studio Art Hall (built 2015) garnered national recognition for its steel-frame design. Pendleton Dance Center (built 1970 as a women's gym) is south of the residence halls. Pomona's main social science and humanities buildings are located west of College Avenue. They include the Carnegie Building (built 1908 as a library), Hahn Hall (built 1990), and the three buildings of the Stanley Academic Quadrangle: Pearsons Hall (built 1898), Crookshank Hall (built 1922), and Mason Hall (built 1923). Marston Quadrangle, a lawn framed by California sycamore and coastal redwood trees, serves as a central artery for the campus, anchored by Carnegie on the west and Bridges Auditorium on the east. To its north is Alexander Hall (built 1991), which houses administrative offices, and the Smith Campus Center (built 1999), home to many student services, as well as a recreation room, the Coop Store, and two restaurants. East of the Smith Campus Center is the Rains Center (built 1989 and renovated 2021), Pomona's primary indoor athletics and recreation facility, and Smiley Hall dormitory (built 1908). <section begin="gates"/> At the intersection of Sixth Street and College Avenue are the college gates, built in 1914, which mark the historical northern terminus of the campus. They bear two quotes from <includeonly>Pomona's fourth president, James A. Blaisdell</includeonly>. On the north is "let only the eager, thoughtful and reverent enter here", and on the south is "They only are loyal to this college who departing bear their added riches in trust for mankind". Per campus tradition, enrolling students walk south through the gates during orientation and seniors walk north through the gates shortly before graduation.<section end="gates"/> The less-developed eastern portion of campus is known as the Wash (formally Blanchard Park), and contains a large grove of coast live oak trees, as well as many athletic facilities. It is also home to the Sontag Greek Theatre (built 1914), an outdoor amphitheater; the Brackett Observatory (built 1908); and the Pomona College Organic Farm, an experiment in sustainable agriculture. North Campus. North Campus consists primarily of residential buildings for third- and fourth-year students and academic buildings for the natural sciences. The academic buildings are located to the west of North College Way. They include Lincoln and Edmunds Halls (built 2007), Andrew Science Hall and Estella Laboratory (built 2015), the Seeley G. Mudd Building (built 1983), Seaver North (built 1964), Seaver South (built 1958), and the Seaver Biology Building (built 2005). The courtyard between Lincoln and Edmunds contains "Dividing the Light", a skyspace by well-known artist and alumnus James Turrell. The residence halls include the Clark Halls (I, III, and V; built 1930), Walker Hall (built 1953), Norton Hall (built 1956), Lawry Court (built 1980), and Dialynas and Sontag Halls (built 2011). The North Campus dining hall, Frary Dining Hall (built 1930), features a vaulted ceiling and is the location of the murals "Prometheus" by José Clemente Orozco and "Genesis" by Rico Lebrun. Other facilities. The college also owns the Trail Ends Ranch (a wilderness area in the Webb Canyon north of campus), the Mildred Pitt Ranch in southeastern Monterey County, and the Halona Lodge retreat center (built 1931) in Idyllwild, California. The astronomy department built and operates a telescope at the Table Mountain Observatory. Along the north side of campus are several joint buildings maintained by The Claremont Colleges Services. These include the Tranquada Student Center, home to student health and psychological services, Campus Safety, and the Huntley Bookstore. The consortium also owns the Robert J. Bernard Field Station north of Foothill Boulevard. Organization and administration. Governance. Pomona is governed as a nonprofit organization by a board of trustees responsible for overseeing the long-term interests of the college. The board consists of up to 42 members, most of whom are elected to four-year terms with a term limit of 12 years. It is responsible for hiring the college's president (currently ), approving budgets, setting overarching policies, and various other tasks. The president, in turn, oversees the college's general operation, assisted by a faculty cabinet. Other officer and leadership roles defined in the college's bylaws are vice president for academic affairs and dean of the college, vice president for student affairs and dean of students, vice president for advancement, vice president and treasurer, vice president and dean of admissions and financial aid, registrar, and secretary to the board. Pomona operates under a shared governance model, in which faculty and students have a degree of control over decisions. Academic affiliations. Pomona is the founding member of the Claremont Colleges (7Cs), a consortium of five undergraduate liberal arts colleges (5Cs) and two graduate schools, all located in Claremont. Although each member has individual autonomy and a distinct identity, there is substantial collaboration through The Claremont Colleges Services (TCCS), a coordinating entity that manages the central library, campus safety services, health services, and various other resources. Overall, the 7Cs have been praised by higher education experts for their close cooperation, although Pomona's greater wealth than some of the other members has led to occasional tensions. Pomona is also a member of several other consortia, including the Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges, the Oberlin Group, and the Annapolis Group. The college is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges' Senior College and University Commission, and is scheduled to undergo reevaluation in May 2021. Finances. , Pomona has an endowment of $, giving it the seventh-highest endowment per student of any college or university in the U.S. The college's total assets (which includes the value of its campus) are $. Its annual operating budget for the – academic year $, of which roughly half funded by endowment earnings. In 2020, Fitch Ratings gave the college a AAA bond credit rating, its highest rating, reflecting an "extremely strong financial profile". Academics and programs. Pomona offers instruction in the liberal arts disciplines and awards the bachelor of arts degree. The college operates on a semester system, with a normal course load of four full-credit classes per semester. 32 credits and a C average GPA are needed to graduate, along with the requirements of a major, the first-year critical inquiry seminar, at least one course in each of six "breadth of study" areas, proficiency in a foreign language, two physical education courses, a writing intensive course, a speaking intensive course, and an "analyzing difference" course (typically examining a type of structural inequality). Pomona offers 48 majors, most of which also have a corresponding minor. For the 2020 graduation cohort, 22 percent of students majored in the arts and humanities, 37 percent in the natural sciences, 21 percent in the social sciences, and 19% in interdisciplinary fields. 15% of students completed a double major, 29% completed a minor, and 3% completed multiple minors. The college does not permit majoring in pre-professional disciplines such as medicine or law but offers academic advising for those areas and 3-2 engineering programs with CalTech, Dartmouth, and Washington University. Pomona students may cross-enroll in up to 40 percent of their classes at the other Claremont Colleges. The academic calendars and registration procedures across the colleges are synchronized and consolidated, and there are no additional fees for taking courses at another college. In total, Pomona students have access to more than 2,700 courses each year, including graduate level courses at Claremont Graduate University and Keck Graduate Institute. In addition, students from any department can create independent study courses evaluated through the guidance of individual faculty mentors, with a limit of one course per semester in the first and second year, and two per semester in the third year and after. All classes at Pomona are taught by professors. The average class size is 15, and there is a 7:1 ratio of students to full-time equivalent professors. For the fall 2020 semester, 96% of traditional courses had under 30 students, and only one had 50 or more students. 85 percent of faculty live within of campus, and each faculty member has two meal swipes each week, which they often use to interact with students. Approximately half of Pomona students study abroad. , the college offers 63 pre-approved programs in 36 countries. Pomona also offers study-away programs for Washington, D.C., Silicon Valley, and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts, and semester exchanges at Colby, Spelman, and Swarthmore colleges. Pomona is home to the Pacific Basin Institute, a research institute that studies issues affecting the Pacific Rim. The Sontag Center for Collaborative Creativity, colloquially termed "the Hive", was established in 2015. Professional development. The majority of faculty work with one or more students on research projects in a variety of academic disciplines. 58% of students do research with faculty, and the College sponsors a subsidized Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) for its students every year. Students may choose to either work side-by-side with professors, or pursue their own independent projects. For the summers of 2012 and 2013, more than 460 students were involved with summer research. Many students also work with professors or do independent research during the school year. In addition, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) summer research program sponsors a consortium college summer research program, enabling Pomona students to participate in research opportunities at the other Claremont Colleges. Pomona was named by "The Wall Street Journal" as one of ten institutions where "Great Research Meets Great Teaching". The Pomona College Career Development Office provides pre-professional opportunities. The Pomona College Internship Program (PCIP) connected 134 students in the 2014–2015 year to paid internships undertaken during the school year at 102 different organizations in Southern California. Students receive a wage as well as transportation funding. The Summer Experience Funding (SEF) program provides funding for students with unpaid or low paying summer internships, including international internships. For the 2015–2016 year, 103 students received these awards in 90 sites, including 21 international internships; destinations included the United States Department of the Treasury, United Nations, Sony Entertainment Television, Ernst & Young, American Enterprise Institute, the International Criminal Court, and the Smithsonian, as well as academic experiences at research universities including UCLA, Caltech, UC Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, and Stanford. The Shadow a Sagehen program enables current students to shadow alumni during winter break, the Sagehens in Residence program brings alumni to speak to students on campus, and the SagePost47 program links students to young alumni on a virtual platform for mock-interviews and networking. In addition, Pomona participates in Winter Career Recruiting, which provides travel funds for students applying for full-time positions and summer internships offered by companies based in Boston, New York City, Washington DC, and Los Angeles. By graduation, 89% of Pomona students have completed at least one internship experience; 70% have completed two or more. Pomona collaborates with the other Claremont Colleges and consortia such as Selective Liberal Arts College Consortium (SLAC), Career and Intership Connections (CIC), and Liberal Arts Career Network (LACN). Most career based events are five college in nature, enabling students to attend a larger diversity of events than would be available at a single liberal arts college. The online HandShake program contains over 9,100 job postings, and the LACN database contains over 13,000 postings. 175 employers hosted on-site informational events at the Claremont Colleges, 265 unique organizations were represented in 9 career fairs, and 150 employers participated in interview and on-campus recruiting specifically for Claremont College students. Outcomes. Within 10 years, 83% of Pomona graduates attend graduate and/or professional school. Among Pomona applicants applying to medical school in the 2018 cycle, 85% were accepted, more than twice the national average of 32%. A 2016 study by College Transitions listed Pomona as among the 20 best colleges and universities for sending students to the top-ranked medical, business, and law schools per capita, as analyzed by LinkedIn profiles of alumni. Pomona ranks 12th among all colleges and universities for graduates receiving doctoral degrees on a size adjusted basis from 2006–2015, as well as 12th among those receiving STEM doctoral degrees alone. Payscale ranked Pomona College 45th among colleges and universities (and 13th among liberal arts colleges) for its 2017–2018 Salary Report, with graduates earning an average early career salary of $60,600 and an average mid-career salary of $130,100. In a study on student debt produced by the Project on Student Debt for the Class of 2011, Pomona College was among the top 20 colleges and universities in the least amount of debt taken on by graduates. Pomona has been recognized as a major contributor among small colleges sending alumni to the Teach for America program, and it ranks among the top 50 U.S. colleges and universities for producing career diplomats. In a 2015 bulletin published by the Churchill Scholarship foundation, Pomona ranked as the liberal arts college with the highest number of students awarded the scholarship from 2005–2015, and fifth among all colleges and universities alone, tied with the California Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon University. It also ranked as the liberal arts college with the largest number of students and alumni receiving National Science Foundation graduate research fellowships in 2017, with a total of 14 recipients. Since 1904, 12 Pomona alumni have received Rhodes Scholarships, the third most of any California college or university after Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley (Rhodes Scholarships are distributed equally among each state). 13 Pomona alumni have received Marshall scholarships since 1954, the third highest among liberal arts colleges and within the top 40 colleges and universities overall. From 2012–2017, six students and alumni received Gates Cambridge Scholarships. From 2008–2017, Pomona produced the most Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship recipients of any primarily undergraduate institution, with a total of 20 students. The college ranked second among all liberal arts colleges for students winning Fulbright Scholarships in the 2016–2017 cycle, tied with consortium member Pitzer College. Out of the quarter of the Class of 2017 who applied for fellowships in their senior year, 28 students received a total of 31 awards, including 13 Fulbright awards, 2 Downing Scholars in Downing College, Cambridge, 1 Watson Fellowship, 1 Princeton in Asia Fellowship, and 2 NYU Shanghai Teaching Writing and Speaking Fellowships. 15 Pomona alumni have received Truman Scholarships. Rankings and reputation. Pomona is generally considered to be the most prestigious liberal arts college in the Western United States and one of the most prestigious liberal arts colleges in the country.<section begin=reputation reference/><section end=reputation reference/> However, among the broader public, it has less name recognition than many larger schools. The 2021 "U.S. News & World Report" Best Colleges Ranking places Pomona fourth in the national liberal arts colleges category out of 223 colleges. Pomona has been ranked in the top 10 liberal arts colleges every year by "U.S. News" since it began ranking them in 1984, and is one of only five schools with such a history, alongside Amherst, Swarthmore, Wellesley, and Williams. Pomona has generally rated similarly in other college rankings. In 2015, the Forbes ranking placed it first among all colleges and universities in the U.S., drawing media attention. Pomona is the third most desirable college or university in the U.S., according to a 2020 analysis of admitted students' revealed preferences among their college choices conducted by the digital credential service Parchment. Admissions and financial aid. Admissions. Pomona offers three routes for students to apply: the Common Application, the QuestBridge application, and the Coalition Application. Applicants who want an earlier, binding decision to the college can apply either early decision I or II; others apply through regular decision. Additionally, the college enrolls two 10-student Posse Foundation cohorts, from Chicago and Miami, in each class. Pomona considers various factors in its admissions process, placing greatest importance on course rigor, class rank, GPA, test scores, application essay, recommendations, extracurricular activities, talent, and character. Interviews, first generation status, geographic residence, race and ethnicity, volunteer work, and work experience are considered. Alumni relationships, religious affiliation, and level of interest are not considered. The college is part of many coalitions and initiatives targeted at recruiting underrepresented demographics. Pomona has the lowest acceptance rate of any national liberal arts college in the U.S. For the entering class, Pomona admitted of applicants. 47.8% of admitted applicants chose to enroll. The number of transfer applicants admitted has varied by year; in 2020, Pomona admitted 39 of 396 applicants (9.8%). Costs and financial aid. For the – academic year, Pomona charged a tuition fee of . 55 percent of students received a financial aid package, with an average award of $56,395. 49 percent of international students received financial aid, with an average award of $66,125. Pomona practices need-blind admission for students who are U.S. citizens, permanent residents, DACA status, undocumented, or graduated of a high school within the U.S., and need-aware admission for international students. It meets 100 percent of demonstrated need for all admitted students, including international students, through grants rather than loans. The college does not offer merit awards or athletic scholarships. People. Student body. , Pomona's student body consists of degree-seeking undergraduate students and a token number of non-degree seeking students. Compared to its closest liberal arts peers, Pomona is generally characterized as laid-back, academically-oriented, mildly quirky, and politically liberal. The student body is roughly evenly split between men and women. 56.0% of students are domestic students of color, and an additional 10.5% are international students, making Pomona one of the most racially and ethnically diverse colleges in the U.S. The geographic origins of the student body are also diverse, with all 50 U.S. states (as well as D.C., Puerto Rico, and Guam) and 59 foreign countries represented. 27% of students are from California, and there are sizable concentrations from the other western states. , the median family income of students was $166,500, with 52% of students coming from the top 10% highest-earning families and 22% from the bottom 60%. The college has enrolled higher numbers of low-income students in recent years, and was ranked second among all private institutions in "The New York Times" 2017 College Access Index, a measure of economic diversity. For the 2020 entering class, the middle 50% of enrolled first-years scored 690–750 on the SAT evidence-based reading and writing section, 700–790 on the SAT math section, and 32–35 on the ACT. 29% were valedictorians of their high school class, 90% ranked in the top tenth, and 98% ranked in the top quarter (among students with an official class rank). For the 2019 entering class, 97% of students returned for their second year, giving Pomona one of the highest retention rates of any college or university in the U.S. For the 2014 entering class, 89% of students graduated within four years (the highest of any U.S. liberal arts college) and 94% graduated within six years. Alumni and faculty. Pomona has approximately 25,000 living alumni. Of those who are working, 23.5% are in education, 23.8% are in business and finance, 10.4% are in law and government, 9.9% are in health and medicine, 4.3% are in science and technology, 5.1% are in arts and media, and 23% are in other fields. Notable Pomona alumni include anthropologist David P. Barrows (1894); pioneer of Chinese social science Chen Hansheng (1920); U.S. Circuit judges James Marshall Carter (1924), Stephen Reinhardt (1951), and Richard Taranto (1977); actors Joel McCrea (1928) and Richard Chamberlain (1956); avant-garde composer John Cage (attended 1928–1930); U.S. Senators Alan Cranston (; transferred ) and Brian Schatz (; 1994); Flying Tigers member and Medal of Honor recipient James H. Howard (1937); fourteen-time Grammy-winning conductor Robert Shaw (1938); "Gumby" creator Art Clokey (1943); senior Disney executive Roy E. Disney (1951); several Academy Award-winning screenwriters, including Robert Towne (1956) and Jim Taylor (1984); writer, actor, and musician Kris Kristofferson (1958); Light and Space artist James Turrell (1965); Civil Rights activist and NAACP chairperson Myrlie Evers-Williams (1968); "New York Times" executive editor Bill Keller (1970); self-help author Marianne Williamson (attended 1970–1972); Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper columnist Mary Schmich (1975); and Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Jennifer Doudna (1985). As of the semester, Pomona employs faculty members, approximately three quarters of whom are full-time. Among full-time faculty, 35.4% are members of minority groups, 46.1% are women, and 97.5% have a doctorate or other terminal degree in their field. Notable faculty of the past and present include kabuki expert Leonard Pronko (taught 1957–2014), former U.S. ambassadors Michael Armacost (1960s) and Cameron Munter (2013–2015), jazz musician Bobby Bradford (1974–present), NBA basketball coach Gregg Popovich (1979–1988), novelists David Foster Wallace (2002–2008) and Jonathan Lethem (2011–present), and poet Claudia Rankine (2006–2015). Student life. Residential life. Pomona is a residential campus, and virtually all students live on campus for all four years in one of the college's 16 residence halls. All first-year students live on South Campus, and most third- and fourth-year students live on North Campus. All incoming students are placed into a sponsor group, with 10–20 peers and two or three upperclass "sponsors" tasked with easing the transition to college life but not enforcing rules (a duty given to resident advisors). Sponsor groups often share activities such as fountaining, a tradition in which students are thrown into a campus fountain on their birthday. The program dates back to 1927 for women, and was expanded in 1950 to include men. Pomona's alcohol policies are aimed at encouraging responsible consumption, and include a strict ban of hard liquor on South Campus. Substance-free housing is also offered. Overall, drinking culture is present but does not dominate over other elements, nor does athletic culture. Pomona's social life is intertwined with that of the other 5Cs, with many activities and events shared between the colleges. Pomona's dining services are run in-house. All on-campus students are required to have a meal plan, which includes between 12 and 16 meals per week usable at any of the Claremont Colleges' seven buffet-style dining halls. The menus emphasize sustainable and healthy options, and the food quality is generally praised. Every night Sunday through Wednesday, Frary Dining Hall opens for a free late-night study-break known as Snack. Meal plans also include "Flex Dollars" usable at the various campus eateries, including the Coop Fountain, Coop Store, and sit-down Sagehen Café in the Smith Campus Center. Campus organizations. Some extracurricular organizations at Pomona are specific to the college, whereas others are open to students at all of the Claremont Colleges. In total, there are nearly 300 clubs and organizations across the 5Cs. The Associated Students of Pomona College (ASPC) serves as Pomona's official student government. Composed of elected representatives and appointed committee members, ASPC distributes funding for clubs and organizations, represents Pomona's student body in discussions with the administration, runs student programming (such as the Yule Ball dance and Ski-Beach Day) through the Pomona Events Committee (PEC), and provides various student services such as an airport rideshare program. Pomona's yearbook, "Metate", was founded in 1894 and discontinued in 2012. The Pomona Student Union (PSU) facilitates the discussion of political and social issues on campus by hosting discussions, panels, and debates with prominent speakers holding diverse viewpoints. Other debate organizations include a mock trial team, model UN team, and debate union. Pomona's secret society, Mufti, is known for gluing small sheets of paper around campus with cryptic puns offering social commentary on campus happenings. Pomona's music department manages several ensembles, including the Pomona College Orchestra, Band, Choir, Glee Club, Jazz Ensemble, and Balinese Gamelan Ensemble. All students can receive private music lessons at no cost. The Draper Center for Community Partnerships, established in 2009, coordinates Pomona's various community engagement programs. These include mentoring for local youth communities, ESL tutoring for Pomona staff, and the Alternabreak volunteering trips over spring break. It also operates the Pomona Academy for Youth Success (PAYS), a three-year pre-college summer program for local low-income and first-generation students of color. Pomona has two remaining local Greek organizations, Sigma Tau and Kappa Delta, both of which are co-educational. Neither have special housing, and they are not considered to have a major impact on the social scene on campus akin to that of Greek organizations at many other U.S. colleges. Pomona has numerous clubs or support offices which provide resources and mentoring programs for students with particular identities. These include the Women's Union (WU), Office of Black Student Affairs (OBSA), Asian American Resource Center (AARC), Chicano Latino Student Affairs (CLSA), Improving Dreams Equality Access and Success (IDEAS, which supports undocumented and DACA students), International Student Mentor Program (ISMP), Multi-Ethnic and Multi-Racial Group Exchange (MERGE), Indigenous Peer Mentoring Program (IPMP), South Asian Mentorship Program (SAMP), Students of Color Alliance (SOCA), and Queer Resource Center (QRC). The college's first-generation and low-income community, FLI Scholars, has more than 200 members. The Pomona Advocates support survivors of sexual violence and work to promote consent culture. Traditions. Other traditions. As part of Pomona's 10-day orientation, incoming students spend four days off campus completing an "Orientation Adventure" or "OA" trip. Begun in 1995, the OA program is one of the oldest outdoor orientation programs in the nation. Every spring, the college hosts "Ski-Beach Day", in which students visit a ski resort in the morning and then head to the beach after lunch. The tradition dates back to an annual mountain picnic established in 1891. Since the 1970s, Pomona has used a cinder block flood barrier along the northern edge of its campus, Walker Wall, as a free speech wall. Over the years, provocative postings on the wall have spawned a number of controversies. Transportation. Pomona's campus is located immediately north of the Claremont Station, where the Metrolink San Bernardino Line train provides regular service to Los Angeles Union Station (the city's main transit hub) and the Foothill Transit bus system connects to cities in the San Gabriel Valley and Pomona Valley. Pomona's Green Bikes program maintains a fleet of more than 300 bicycles that are rented to students for a semester free of charge. The college also has several Zipcar vehicles on campus that may be rented, and owns vehicles which can be checked out for club and extracurricular purposes. PEC and Smith Campus Center off-campus events are usually served with the college's 34-passenger bus, the Sagecoach. Athletics. <includeonly>Pitzer's</includeonly> varsity athletic teams compete in conjunction with <includeonly>Pomona College</includeonly> (another consortium member) as the Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens. The 11 women's and 10 men's teams participate in NCAA Division III in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC). Pomona-Pitzer's mascot is Cecil the Sagehen, a greater sage-grouse, and its colors are blue and orange. Its main rival is the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Stags and Athenas (CMS), the other sports combination of the Claremont Colleges. Club and intramural sports are also offered in various areas, such as dodgeball, flag football, and surfing. The physical education department offers a variety of activity classes each semester, such as karate, playground games, geocaching, and social dance. Athletic facilities at Pomona include five basketball courts, four racquetball courts, two squash courts, a weight room, an exercise room, two pools, two tennis court complexes, a football field, a track, a softball field, a baseball field, and four fields for soccer, lacrosse, ultimate frisbee, and field hockey. Athletics history. Pomona's first intercollegiate sports teams were formed in 1895. They competed under a variety of names in the school's early years; the name "Sagehen" first appeared in 1913 and became the sole moniker in 1917. Pomona was one of the three founding members of the SCIAC in 1914, and its football team played in the inaugural game at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1923. In 1946, Pomona joined with Claremont Men's College (which would later be renamed Claremont McKenna College) to compete as Pomona-Claremont. The teams separated in 1956, and Pomona's athletics program operated independently until it joined with Pitzer College in 1970.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28308266

The United States Army's Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) Programs are executed within the Installation Management Command G9, Family and MWR Directorate, following the deactivation of the Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation Command on 3 June 2011 in a ceremony at Fort Sam Houston. According to the organization's official mission statement, IMCOM G9 delivers "quality Family and Morale, Welfare, and Recreation programs and services supporting the readiness and resilience of the All-Volunteer Army." According to U.S. Army Regulation 215-1, Army MWR is a quality-of-life program that directly supports readiness by providing a variety of community, soldier, and family support programs, activities and services. Included in MWR are social, fitness, recreational, educational, and other programs and activities that enhance community life, foster soldier and unit readiness, promote mental and physical fitness, and generally provide a working and living environment that attracts and retains quality for U.S. Army soldiers, family members, retirees and its civilian workforce. The range of MWR programs offered at Army garrisons is based on the needs of authorized patrons who work and reside there. Programs are managed by garrison commanders within the framework of authorized and available appropriated and non-appropriated funds. Non-appropriated funds are those funds that are locally generated by MWR programs or provided by Installation Management Command (IMCOM) region directors and/or the Family and MWR Programs. AAFES dividends are also a source of non-appropriated funding. Each MWR program is classified by category. Categories are determined by their effect on the military mission and their ability to generate revenue. Objectives. Family and MWR supports combat readiness and effectiveness; supports recruitment and retention of quality personnel; provides leisure time activities, which support a quality of life commensurate with generally accepted American values; promotes and maintains the mental and physical wellbeing of authorized personnel; fosters community pride, soldier morale, and family wellness and promotes unit esprit de corps, eases the impact of unique aspects of military life, such as frequent relocations and deployment. History. Although the United States Army was founded in 1775, Morale, welfare, and recreation programs did not exist for the Army until the start of the twentieth century. Before that time, troop support came informally in the form of tradesmen and trading posts. The goods they were able to provide included meals, clothing, and laundering. The formalization of MWR services began with limited Congressional oversight established in 1876 over "Post Traders" and then the establishment of Army "PX" or The Post Exchange, by Headquarters, Department of the Army (HQDA) in 1895, with War Department General Order No. 46, 1895. Profits from the Post Exchange were used to support recreational activities for the troops. In 1903, the United States Congress passed the 1903 Army Appropriations Act, which provided funds to build, operate and maintain PXs, libraries, schools, recreation centers, and gyms for the troops. The Army Morale Division was established in 1918, followed by the Army Motion Picture Service in 1920 and the Library Service in 1923. In 1941, the Army Morale Division and these other organizations collectively became "Special Services." By 1943, Special Services had grown to include all of Army Recreation Services, the Army Exchange (the precursor to the Army and Air Force Exchange [AAFES]), and the Army Soldier Show. Special Services soon established the first Armed Forces Recreation Center (AFRC) in Bavaria (FMWR currently manages five AFRCs) and, by 1950, Special Services was placed under the Army Adjutant General's Office during an Army reorganization. Services for families, rather than just troops, began to emerge in the mid to late 1960s. In 1965, Army Community Services was created, followed in 1968 by a Youth Activities Program and, in 1971, an Outdoor Recreation Program. Emphasis on the family continued in 1981 with the first Family Advocacy Program and the first Army Family Symposium. With the publication in 1983 of Army Chief of Staff General John A. Wickham Jr's White Paper, the Army Family, the integral support role of Soldiers' families was acknowledged. The development of Gen. Wickham's White Paper led to initiatives such as the Army Family Action Plan (AFAP), Family Readiness Groups and Army Family Team Building. On 23 November 1984, the U.S. Army Community and Family Support Center (CFSC) was formed under General Order Number 40, as a Field Operating Agency. In 1993, oversight of CSFC changed from the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel (DCSPER), to the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Installation Management (ACSIM) and the organization itself changed from a Field Operating Agency to a Direct Reporting Unit on 24 October 2006 when Installation Management Command (IMCOM) was activated and the Installation Management Agency (IMA) was deactivated. With the activation of IMCOM, CFSC became the Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation Command (FMWRC) on 24 October 2006. Since 1996, ArmyMWR.com has been the website serving Soldiers and their Families at Garrisons and Installations in the United States and throughout the world. The Family and MWR Command revised and published a new brand logo in 2010. On 26 May 2011, the command retired its flag in Alexandria, Va., to prepare for a move to San Antonio, Texas, in accordance with Base-Realignment and Closure law. The Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation Command was deactivated on 3 June 2011 in a ceremony at Fort Sam Houston. The deactivation ceremony formally changed FMWRC into the Installation Management Command G9 Division, commonly known as Family and MWR Programs. The first Director, G9 for MWR Programs was James C. Abney, SES. The SES (Senior Executive Service) is a pay grade for civilians in the Federal Government, somewhat equivalent to the rank of General. Prior to this appointment, Mr. Abney was Deputy to the Commanding General of the Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation Command (FMWRC) (now deactivated), and a Highly Qualified Expert (HQE) with duties as the Special Assistant to the FMWRC Commanding General. A new campus for the Installation Management Command was dedicated at Fort Sam Houston on 19 Aug. 2011. Besides adding additional office space for MWR employees, the campus also features a new building for the Maj. Gen. Robert M. Joyce Family and MWR School of the Installation Management Academy, formerly the Maj. Gen. Robert M. Joyce Family and MWR Academy. The historic Fort Sam Houston Theatre is also being adapted for use by the organization. When complete, interior modifications will include a modified stage, additional storage space and more room for lighting and recording equipment. The current director of Family and MWR Programs is Mr. Paul Burk. Executive summary. The Non-Appropriated Fund Instrumentality Program (NAFI), is operated by the Army for Department of Defense agencies and MWR programs are established, maintained, and disestablished under sole authority of Army Regulation AR215-1. FMWR's major business partner, the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, provides a dividend to Army FMWR based on two distinct agreements. In the first, the Army shares 50 percent of AAFES net income after depreciation with the Air Force based on the number of active duty Soldiers and Airmen in each service—currently the Army receives 30 percent and the Air Force 20 percent of AAFES generated dividend revenue. Through the Army Simplified Dividend, garrisons receive 100 percent of profits from "Class VI" or personal demand supply items (such as health and hygiene products, soaps and toothpaste, writing material, snack food, beverages, cigarettes, batteries, and alcohol), 80 percent of pay telephone revenue, and 0.4 percent of all local AAFES sales. The latter component is deducted from the Army share of total AAFES profits with the remainder going to the Army Morale, Welfare, and Recreation Fund. Revenues received from Army Lodging room charges are used solely to sustain and recapitalize the Lodging program and its facilities. Monies derived from user fees and sales, AAFES, and recreation and amusement machine operations are invested and earn interest to benefit Army FMWR operations. When combined, NAF represents 42 percent of all funding, allowing Army FMWR programs to continue to serve more than 3.9 million patrons. Most of this money goes to Army installations and is used to run FMWR operations, programs, and services. What is left is focused on Army-wide capital improvements and minor construction and capital purchases. Total Army Strong/Army Family Covenant. Unveiled on 8 October 2007, the Army Family Covenant institutionalized the U.S. Army's publicly announced pledge to support its soldiers and their families—Active, Guard and Reserve—with resourced programs to deliver a quality of life "commensurate with their service and sacrifice to the nation". According to U.S. Army officials, the Army Family Covenant commits the U.S. Army to enhance soldier and family readiness by: Since implementing the Army Family Covenant, U.S. Army senior leaders say they've made significant progress in fulfilling its promises. But, they also acknowledge more work is needed to build an environment where Army families can prosper and realize their full potential within the constraints of persistent conflict. In 2015, the Army renamed the covenant program to "Total Army Strong." Rather than having a prescribed list of what programs stay and go, Total Army Strong will give installation commanders the authority to determine what Soldier and family quality-of-life programs work best in their particular geographic communities, because needs differ from Georgia to Washington state, to Korea. Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation programs. Armed Forces Recreation Centers. Armed Forces Recreation Centers (AFRC) full-service resort hotels are Joint Service Facilities developed to provide vacation recreation opportunities to service members, their families, and other authorized patrons (including official travelers) of the Total Defense Force. The AFRCs are centrally-managed, U.S. Army FMWR-operated facilities. Four AFRCs operate worldwide, overseen by the Army's Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation Programs in San Antonio, Texas. The four resorts include Dragon Hill Lodge in Seoul, Korea; Edelweiss Lodge and Resort in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany; the Hale Koa Hotel in Hawaii; and Shades of Green located in Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Dragon Hill Lodge. Resting in the heart of Seoul, Korea, the Dragon Hill Lodge offers 394 guest rooms, health club with indoor pool, and four restaurants to serve military personnel, Department of Defense Civilian employees, and their family members. Edelweiss Lodge and Resort. Home to the Edelweiss Lodge and Resort. Hale Koa Hotel. On 25 October 1975 a traditional Hawaiian blessing complete with royal procession opened the Hale Koa Hotel. Today, Fort DeRussy Armed Forces Recreation Center is the home of the Hale Koa Hotel, or House of the Warrior, an 817-room resort hotel. In 1991, a major expansion project began at the Hale Koa, including the development of of Fort DeRussy, a new swimming pool complex, two snack bars, a beverage bar and luau garden. In addition, Kalia Road, fronting the Hale Koa Hotel, was also realigned and improved. By 1995, the new Maile Tower took its place beside the existing Ilima Tower increasing the number of guestrooms from 419 to 817. Also, debuting was a 1,287 stall parking garage, fitness center, adults only pool, and a new restaurant, Bibas. The Hale Koa operates without taxpayer dollars supporting upkeep or operation. It's estimated that over one million military personnel and dependents visit Hale Koa's facilities each year. Shades of Green. Shades of Green opened 1 February 1994. Shades of Green is located on Walt Disney World Resort. Arts and crafts. The arts and crafts program offers educational, self-development activities. FMWR hosts an annual U.S. Army Arts and Crafts and All-Army Photography Contests. Automotive skills. The FMWR automotive skills program offers facilities, equipment, technical instruction, skilled assistance, and problem-solving services. Better Opportunities for Single Soldiers. The BOSS program addresses single Soldier quality of life (QOL) issues and initiatives. BOSS provides a vehicle through which single soldier QOL concerns are identified and recommendations for improvement are made. This vehicle is a means to assess the interests and needs of the single Soldier. The BOSS program provides an opportunity for single Soldiers to participate in, and contribute to, their respective communities. Bowling. FMWR Bowling center activities include bowling leagues, open bowling, tournaments, instructional programs, exhibitions, youth services-sponsored events, locker rentals, and child care services for bowling center patrons. Child, Youth, and School Services (CYSS). CYSS consists of four services: Child Development Services (CDS); School Age Services (SAS), Youth Services (YS), and School Liaison Officers (SLOs). Each service has associated programs. For CDS, these programs are CDCs and FCC homes. For SAS, these programs are School-Age Centers and Camps. For YS, these programs are: Youth Centers/Teen Centers and CYSS Sports and Fitness (S&F). For SLOs, these programs are Youth Education Support and Outreach. Community Recreation Centers. Community Recreation Center (CRC) programs and services support the overall FMWR mission and according to the U.S. Army are directly related to unit readiness by delivering individual and group activities during peacetime, mobilization, contingency, and wartime operations. Entertainment (performing arts). The FMWR entertainment program provides diverse musical, unit entertainment activities, special events, and theater entertainment. The U.S. Army's entertainment program also includes local performing arts centers and the U.S. Army Soldier Show. Golf. The Army golf program offers recreational golf, open play, tournaments, and services such as golf instruction, golf resale, food and beverage services, catering, and other golf-related activities for eligible patrons. Gyms & physical fitness centers. According to the U.S. Army, physical fitness programs develop the cardiovascular fitness, strength conditioning, flexibility, and recreation of Army personnel. For most U.S. Army garrisons, physical fitness facilities are the hub of the installation-level sports and fitness programs. Authorized patrons are generally afforded access to Army gyms and physical fitness centers at no cost to the patron. Leisure Travel Services. FMWR Leisure Travel Services (LTS) provide information and access for personal travel and travel related services at representative industry or discount prices. LTS often provide Army personnel access to commercial travel and tourism discounts. Library & information services. According to the U.S. Army, on-post libraries are a central information resource for the military community providing the tools and services to impact mission readiness, support lifelong learning, enable literacy, and enhance the military community's well-being. Services found at garrison libraries include borrower services, inter-library loan access, reference/research support, educational support, and technical services. Army libraries also offer information technology resources, and internet access. Army libraries are subject to standards of regional educational accrediting associations, the American Council on Education, and the Military Installation Voluntary Educational Review, which review and accredit colleges and universities offering classes on Army installations. A listing for all the Army MWR libraries can be found at the FMWR website. Movies. The FMWR movie program provides free-admission motion picture entertainment to isolated or deployed military personnel and civilians. Food, beverage, and entertainment on military installations. By U.S. Army regulation, MWR food, beverage, and entertainment (FB&E) programs encompass all MWR food operations such as military clubs (membership and nonmembership), FB&E operations, and snack bar operations in MWR facilities such as bowling, golf, and recreation centers. MWR FB&E programs are a part of a commander's overall food service programs and assist the commander, along with AAFES and subsistence/troop feeding, in meeting the food service needs an Army installation's assigned or visiting personnel. Outdoor recreation. The FMWR outdoor recreation program provides structured and recreation activities and instruction. By regulation, it offers diverse, healthful, vigorous, and comprehensive outdoor recreation programs, while conserving and protecting wildlife, forests, wetlands, and other natural resources. Sports and fitness. U.S. Army installation and unit-level intramural programs are designed for broad-based participation in a full range of individual and team intramural programs consistent with patron interest, availability of suitable facilities, unit missions, and climate. The U.S. Army encourages commanders to use these programs provide opportunities to enhance individual morale and unit esprit de corps, promote teamwork and cooperation, engage in competitive recreation, and to encourage individuals to attain and sustain high levels of physical fitness and physical readiness. FMWR emphasizes group participation in unit and intramural sports with wide appeal, such as softball, volleyball, flag football, basketball, running, skeet, and soccer. Sports and fitness programming also includes instruction, practice, and competition at all skill levels. Generally, playing rules published by U.S. national sports governing bodies are used for all competitions conducted within the Army. Swimming. U.S. Army swimming programs a designed promote fitness and recreation and include instruction, lifeguard training, fitness programs, competitive swimming, water safety, military survival training and recreation. Special programs and services. Survivor Outreach Services. Survivor Outreach Services (SOS) provides specialized resources to assist families of deceased soldiers. The program aims to provide access to support, information and services at a location near the survivor, for as long as needed. The program exists as a joint effort between FMWR, the Installation Management Command (IMCOM), the Casualty and Mortuary Affairs Operation Center (CMAOC), the Army National Guard and Army Reserve. Exceptional Family Member Program. The Exceptional Family Member Program (EFMP) works with other military and civilian agencies to provide comprehensive and coordinated community support, housing, educational, medical, and personnel services worldwide to military families with special needs. As a specific example, EFMP provides temporary rest periods for family members who serve as caregivers to persons with disabilities. Depending on unique circumstances, the care can be provided at either the home of the care user or the home of care provider. It can also be provided in other settings such as camps and enrichment programs. Within the Army, EFMP is governed by Army Regulation 608–75. Army Entertainment Detachment. Soldier Show. The U.S. Army Soldier Show is a musical ensemble of soldiers which tours military installations annually. Its current form originated in 1983 from several existing shows, but Sgt. Israel Beilin directed the first version of the Army Soldier Show, "Yip Yip Yaphank" in 1918. Beilin is better known as Irving Berlin. He also coined the ensemble's motto: "Entertainment for the Soldier, by the Soldier." Following the selection of the cast and crew, soldiers work with the Army Entertainment Detachment of FMWR as a deployable military unit. Training at Fort Belvoir lasts six weeks, after which time, the group tours for up to seven months. Performances can include up to 40 songs in a variety of genres during each 90-minute performance. The Soldier Show is not funded with any taxpayer funds, but with non-appropriated funds generated by business programs of FMWR. The theme for the 2011 season is "Carnival – A Traveling Thank You." Operation Rising Star. Operation Rising Star is an annual singing competition for military service members and their spouses in the style of "American Idol". Auditions are conducted annually at military garrisons around the world and the semifinalists travel to Fort Belvoir in Virginia to compete in the final phases of the competition. Following the competition, winners record a three-song demo CD at DMI Music's Firehouse Recording Studios in Pasadena, California. Army Concert Tour. The Army Concert Tour is a summer concert series that brings popular music acts to Army installations. Performers for the 2010 season include Toby Keith, Ludacris, Sammy Hagar, Creed and Miranda Lambert, in addition to others. Warrior Adventure Quest. Warrior Adventure Quest provides recreational opportunities for soldiers during the transition period immediately following deployment. Past activities have included white-water rafting, paintball and mountain biking. Army officials hope that by utilizing the program, there will be a reduction in high-risk off-duty activities. WAQ is managed by the Outdoor Recreation Program of Family and MWR. According to Army officials, the average cost per person to participate in WAQ is $86. World Class Athlete Program. The U.S. Army World Class Athlete Program (WCAP) provides soldier-athletes the opportunity to compete toward qualifying for the United States Olympic team. Qualified soldiers must be nationally ranked in their chosen sport and be certified by the United States Olympic Committee at a world class level. Athletes join the program at least three years before the Olympic Trials. To be eligible for the U.S. Army World Class Athlete Program, soldiers must currently be a member of the Active Army, Army Reserve, or Army National Guard. Soldiers must also be eligible to represent the US in international competitions and demonstrate the potential to qualify for the U.S. Olympic Team or U.S. Paralympic Team. MG Robert M. Joyce FMWR School. The Installation Management Academy is a full-fledged brick and mortar institution of professional learning and career development, featuring the Maj. Gen. Robert M. Joyce Family and MWR School. The school includes numerous subject matter experts in various areas of U.S. Army Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation Activities. Nearly 100 courses are offered through online or classroom formats. Recently, 39 courses have received college credit recommendations from the American Council on Education (ACE) and graduates are increasingly transferring them to colleges and universities to receive college credits. Since its inception, employees have completed over 28,400 courses in various Family and MWR program areas. In May 2010 the Family and MWR Academy was renamed the MG Robert M. Joyce Family and MWR Academy in honor of the first Commander of the Community and Family Support Center. MG Joyce was instrumental in the founding of the Academy and the inspired vision of a professional and developed workforce. Following the transition from a headquarters in Alexandria, Va., to San Antonio, Texas, The Academy became the Maj. Gen. Robert M. Joyce Family and MWR School within the Installation Management Academy. On 7 April 1986 the Commanding General of Community and Family Support Center (CFSC) tasked Colonel Perkins, as Chief of Field Operations, to review training within MWR and its programs throughout the Army. The focus of the review was to identify the system's currently available training, specify its shortfalls, determine the optimum training program, and project the estimated resources necessary to fund an improved program. The ultimate qualifier to apply to the review was "What is best for the Army." Upon completion of Colonel Perkins' task, a Master Training Concept was developed and approved, and the MWR Academy was launched. A graphical representation of the Master Training Concept was defined in terms of a pyramid. The Master Training Concept was designed to integrate all levels of training and all programs for training, and ensure availability of training to the workforce. The Master Training Concept is still applicable today. This plan, in conjunction with the Army Civilian Training, Education and Development System (ACTEDS) Plan for Career Field 51 (MWR) forms the basis of the Family and MWR Academy's curriculum. Together, these guidelines provide a structured, progressive, and sequential approach to Family and MWR employee development and training for entry-level through executive-management positions. The Family and MWR School is also an Authorized Provider (AP) of Continuing Education Units (CEUs) from the American National Standards Institute (ANSI)/ International Association for Continuing Education and Training (IACET). All Family and MWR-sponsored courses are reviewed for their compliance with ANSI/IACET standards and receive CEUs. Since the Academy's inception, over 28,400 family and MWR employees have been trained in various Family and MWR program areas and at various levels. Funding categories. Category A: Mission-sustaining programs. Considered essential to sustaining readiness, these programs generally enhance and promote the physical and mental well-being of soldiers. Programs in this category have little or no capacity for generating Non-appropriated Fund (NAF) income and are supported almost entirely with funds appropriated by the U.S. Congress (APF). Category B: Community support programs. These programs are closely related, in terms of supporting the military mission, to those grouped in category A. They satisfy the basic physiological and psychological needs of Soldiers and their Families and provide, to the extent possible, the community support systems that make military garrisons temporary hometowns for a mobile military population. These support programs will receive substantial amounts of APF support, but differ from those programs in category A, in part because of their ability to generate NAF revenues. That ability to generate revenues is limited, however, and in no case may they be sustained without substantial APF support. Category C: Revenue-generating programs. These programs have less impact on readiness. They offer desirable social and recreational opportunities. Programs in this category have the capability of generating enough income to cover most of their operating expenses, but they lack the ability to sustain themselves based purely on their business activity; consequently, they receive limited APF support. Chapter 5 addresses funding for category C MWR programs located at remote and isolated sites, funding for base closures, and funding as a result of special security conditions. Nonappropriated Fund Instrumentalities (NAFI). Every NAFI is legally constituted as an "instrumentality of the United States." The term "NAFI" includes entities at the garrison level, also referred to as garrison MWR operating entities or simply entities (previously the installation MWR fund). Funds in NAFI/entity accounts are Government funds, and NAF property, including buildings, is Government property. However, NAFs are separate from APFs of the U.S. Treasury. They are not commingled with APFs and are managed separately, even when supporting a common program. Each NAFI/entity operates under the authority of the U.S. Government in accordance with applicable Federal laws and departmental regulations. Because NAFIs/entities operate under the authority of the Federal Government, they are entitled to the same sovereign privileges and immunities as the Federal Government accorded by Federal law. Applicable DOD directives and implementing Army regulations are binding on NAFIs. NAFI/entity programs and facilities are operated, maintained, and funded as part of the U.S. Army's personnel and readiness program.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1796138

GhostRider is a wooden roller coaster at Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, California. It is located in the Ghost Town section of the park, south of the main entrance. It is the tallest and longest wooden coaster on the West Coast of the United States. History. The ride was formerly manufactured by the defunct Custom Coasters International. Construction on the attraction proceeded so quickly that the coaster was completed and opened nearly six months ahead of schedule. In August 1999, an unsecured piece of wood from the track was lifted by a passing train and thrown into another car that was passing below. Five people sustained minor injuries and the attraction was temporarily closed for inspection and retrofitting of the track. On August 20, 2015, it was announced that GhostRider would be refurbished and restored for Ghost Town's 75th anniversary. The refurbishment, conducted by Great Coasters International, began on September 8, 2015, and was completed in June 2016. The refurbishment saw the replacement and re-profiling of most of the track, the removal of the mid-course brake run and the replacement of the PTC trains with GCI's Millennium Flyer trains. Ride experience. Queue. Riders approach the ride near the entrance to Ghost Town. The queue begins in a mining tunnel and leads into the mine-themed queue house. After a wait in both levels of the queue, riders board one of the three GCI Millennium Flyer trains of the ride. The trains themselves are colored gold, silver, and copper similar to the precious mining metals. The tunnel entrance was once part of the Pan for Gold attraction. As of May 2016, Pan for Gold has returned to its former location and the queue for GhostRider now snakes around it. Layout. There is a small initial descent into a ravine, which is followed by a gradual sweep to the right. Trains then pass through the transfer track and climb the lift hill. At the top, riders descend a drop, turning left and rising up over an airtime hill before making a sweeping left-hand turnaround. After the turnaround, riders descend another drop, and rise up a gradual right-hand climb, before descending into the structure of the lift hill, and rising up into the ride's midway turnaround. The turnaround starts the second half of the ride. Diving off a straight section that contains the midcourse brakes, riders descend a steep drop, making a left-hand turn, rising over an airtime hill, before making a right-hand turnaround underneath the turnaround in the first half. After rising over another airtime hill, the trains enter a 450-degree downward helix to the right, before rising over a final hill and hitting the final brake run. The ride follows an L-shaped double out and back pattern. Most of the attraction resides on the parking lot near the marketplace. The ride crosses over Grand Avenue four times, road connecting southbound Beach Boulevard to the parking lots. The first two in the first half and last two in the second half. The initial drop was covered with a “scream shed” shortly after opening with a metal overhang after nearby residents complained of excessive noise. At night, orange rope lights light up the handrails of the ride. Trains. Over the sixteen years of GhostRider's operation, the trains have gone through several different design updates. The PTC trains were originally delivered, Copper was a dark brown, Silver was a flat gray, and Gold was a light brown. All trains sported the standard "Knott's" logo on the front of the train. Later on, ride logos were added and a metallic sheen added onto Gold and Copper trains. Lastly, the third update added airbrush effects on the sides of the individual cars along with a customized "Knott's GhostRider" logo on the front. Also Copper was repainted to a more metallic orange/copper. Although the ride has three trains, only two are in use at any time. The third train is usually being maintained and will be switched out with one of the other trains during the duration of the year. Each train is gets a maintenance overhaul during the year. After the 2016 refurbishment, the trains were replaced with Great Coasters International's Millennium Flyer trains. As of November 2019, only the Gold and Silver trains are operating, while Copper is under maintenance.

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3507-1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=16731377

"Humanae vitae" and Poland refers to the birth control controversy between the Communist Polish government and the Roman Catholic Church. "Humanae vitae" was essential for the Church in Poland to continue its struggle with the government. Background. The Catholic Church in Poland suffered much during German occupation but its persecution continued and even intensified under the Stalinist regimes until 1956. With the change of leadership to Władysław Gomułka, relations improved, but continued to be difficult. Attempts to threaten the Church and paint it as anti-modern and reactionary became more subtle. One element was a governmental campaign for abortion and birth control. This took place against the background of the largest birth rate in Europe. The population grew annually by 500,000 persons. About 57,000 abortions were reported in the first quarter of 1960. The Polish hierarchy responded forcefully, by placing Poland in the millennium year of its Christianisation under the theme ""Respect for life"." Cardinal Wyszyński. In the following years, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński campaigned hard against birth control and abortion, claiming that they are immoral and unnecessary since Poland was large enough to feed not only the existing thirty, but eighty million Poles. Gomułka replied publicly, asking the Church for miraculous means to solve the nation's food and economic problems especially in housing and employment. Gomułka and his government succeeded in large Polish cities like Warsaw, where according to statistics, birth control was very much in fashion. Cardinal Wyszyński was therefore concerned about the "growing fear of professing faith in the Polish countryside and the need to fight for its Catholic social and cultural identity and autonomy" He needed Vatican support and handed Pope Paul VI a letter of thanks for "Humanae vitae", signed by Polish physicians including 100 university professors. A second letter to the Pope was signed by 100 large families some of which had more than a dozen children. For the Church in Poland, birth control, as part of the ongoing struggle with the regime, was not only a matter of theology, it was also a matter of continued Church influence and survival. A change of birth control policy by the Vatican in "Humanae vitae" could have implied a major loss of face, and a weakening of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church within Poland.

one-thousandth anniversary

4084-2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=10107368

The three abductions of maidens from the Vreta convent was a series of events that took place in Sweden in the 13th century. They became legendary and inspired many poems. Background. The abduction of maidens for wives seems to have been an ancient Germanic tradition. Women's marriages were clan matters to be decided by the woman's nearest male relative, often together with tribal elders. A marriage was an alliance contract and also had many economical repercussions. A man was not allowed to marry a woman from an enemy clan unless it was to seal a treaty between the clans. On the other hand, a man might want to marry an heiress from a rival clan in order to impose his own power upon that clan. Abduction of 1210. Around 1210, Helena Sverkersdotter, the only daughter of the deposed King Sverker II, was studying at the Vreta convent when her father fell in battle. The young Sune Folkason, son of an earl who had been among Sverker's opponents in that battle and had also fallen, wished to marry her, but her relatives would not hear his proposal. Folkason abducted Helena and, according to folklore, took her to the castle of Ymseborg. They married and had two daughters. The older was Catherine of Ymseborg, who married King Eric XI in 1244. Abduction of 1244. Around 1244, Benedikte Sunadotter, the younger daughter of Sune Folkason and Helena Sverkersdotter, was being educated at the Vreta convent. Laurens Pedersson, Justiciar of Östergötland, abducted her. One theory is that Pedersson may have been a grandson of a king of the St. Eric dynasty and wished to unite that dynasty with Benedikte's Sverker dynasty. He may also have had designs on the throne. In any case, Benedikte was released and soon married high noble Svantepolk Knutsson, Lord of Viby, with whom she had several daughters and a son, Knut, who died childless. Abduction of 1288. In 1288, Ingrid Svantepolksdotter, one of the daughters of Benedikte and Svantepolk, was being educated at the Vreta convent. Her father had intended her to marry a Danish nobleman, the future High Justiciar David Thorsteinsen. Folke Algotsson, a knight from Gothenland (and, according to myth, a descendant of Algaut), abducted her with the help of some of his brothers and fled with her to Norway. King Magnus III, reportedly livid about the wilful breach of women's safety in convents, had one of the brothers executed. Ingrid eventually returned from Norway and became abbess of Vreta. Her son, Knut Folkason, became Overlord of Blekinge and Lister.

ladies' well-being

13161-1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=433584

The McGurk effect is a perceptual phenomenon that demonstrates an interaction between hearing and vision in speech perception. The illusion occurs when the auditory component of one sound is paired with the visual component of another sound, leading to the perception of a third sound. The visual information a person gets from seeing a person speak changes the way they hear the sound. If a person is getting poor quality auditory information but good quality visual information, they may be more likely to experience the McGurk effect. Integration abilities for audio and visual information may also influence whether a person will experience the effect. People who are better at sensory integration have been shown to be more susceptible to the effect. Many people are affected differently by the McGurk effect based on many factors, including brain damage and other disorders. Background. It was first described in 1976 in a paper by Harry McGurk and John MacDonald, titled "Hearing Lips and Seeing Voices" in "Nature" (23 December 1976). This effect was discovered by accident when McGurk and his research assistant, MacDonald, asked a technician to dub a video with a different phoneme from the one spoken while conducting a study on how infants perceive language at different developmental stages. When the video was played back, both researchers heard a third phoneme rather than the one spoken or mouthed in the video. This effect may be experienced when a video of one phoneme's production is dubbed with a sound-recording of a different phoneme being spoken. Often, the perceived phoneme is a third, intermediate phoneme. As an example, the syllables /ba-ba/ are spoken over the lip movements of /ga-ga/, and the perception is of /da-da/. McGurk and MacDonald originally believed that this resulted from the common phonetic and visual properties of /b/ and /g/. Two types of illusion in response to incongruent audiovisual stimuli have been observed: fusions ('ba' auditory and 'ga' visual produce 'da') and combinations ('ga' auditory and 'ba' visual produce 'bga'). This is the brain's effort to provide the consciousness with its best guess about the incoming information. The information coming from the eyes and ears is contradictory, and in this instance, the eyes (visual information) have had a greater effect on the brain and thus the fusion and combination responses have been created. Vision is the primary sense for humans, but speech perception is multimodal, which means that it involves information from more than one sensory modality, in particular, audition and vision. The McGurk effect arises during phonetic processing because the integration of audio and visual information happens early in speech perception. The McGurk effect is very robust; that is, knowledge about it seems to have little effect on one's perception of it. This is different from certain optical illusions, which break down once one 'sees through' them. Some people, including those that have been researching the phenomenon for more than twenty years, experience the effect even when they are aware that it is taking place. With the exception of people who can identify most of what is being said from speech-reading alone, most people are quite limited in their ability to identify speech from visual-only signals. A more extensive phenomenon is the ability of visual speech to increase the intelligibility of heard speech in a noisy environment. Visible speech can also alter the perception of perfectly audible speech sounds when the visual speech stimuli are mismatched with the auditory speech. Normally, speech perception is thought to be an auditory process; however, our use of information is immediate, automatic, and, to a large degree, unconscious and therefore, despite what is widely accepted as true, speech is not only something we hear. Speech is perceived by all of the senses working together (seeing, touching, and listening to a face move). The brain is often unaware of the separate sensory contributions of what it perceives. Therefore, when it comes to recognizing speech the brain cannot differentiate whether it is seeing or hearing the incoming information. It has also been examined in relation to witness testimony. Wareham and Wright's 2005 study showed that inconsistent visual information can change the perception of spoken utterances, suggesting that the McGurk effect may have many influences in everyday perception. Not limited to syllables, the effect can occur in whole words and have an effect on daily interactions that people are unaware of. Research into this area can provide information on not only theoretical questions, but also it can provide therapeutic and diagnostic relevance for those with disorders relating to audio and visual integration of speech cues. Internal factors. Damage. Both hemispheres of the brain make a contribution to the McGurk effect. They work together to integrate speech information that is received through the auditory and visual senses. A McGurk response is more likely to occur in right-handed individuals for whom the face has privileged access to the right hemisphere and words to the left hemisphere. In people that have had callosotomies done, the McGurk effect is still present but significantly slower. In people with lesions to the left hemisphere of the brain, visual features often play a critical role in speech and language therapy. People with lesions in the left hemisphere of the brain show a greater McGurk effect than normal controls. Visual information strongly influences speech perception in these people. There is a lack of susceptibility to the McGurk illusion if left hemisphere damage resulted in a deficit to visual segmental speech perception. In people with right hemisphere damage, impairment on both visual-only and audio-visual integration tasks is exhibited, although they are still able to integrate the information to produce a McGurk effect. Integration only appears if visual stimuli is used to improve performance when the auditory signal is impoverished but audible. Therefore, there is a McGurk effect exhibited in people with damage to the right hemisphere of the brain but the effect is not as strong as a normal group. Disorders. Dyslexia. Dyslexic individuals exhibit a smaller McGurk effect than normal readers of the same chronological age, but they showed the same effect as reading-level age-matched readers. Dyslexics particularly differed for combination responses, not fusion responses. The smaller McGurk effect may be due to the difficulties dyslexics have in perceiving and producing consonant clusters. Specific language impairment. Children with specific language impairment show a significantly lower McGurk effect than the average child. They use less visual information in speech perception, or have a reduced attention to articulatory gestures, but have no trouble perceiving auditory-only cues. Autism spectrum disorders. Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) showed a significantly reduced McGurk effect than children without. However, if the stimulus was nonhuman (for example bouncing a tennis ball to the sound of a bouncing beach ball) then they scored similarly to children without ASD. Younger children with ASD show a very reduced McGurk effect; however, this diminishes with age. As the individuals grow up, the effect they show becomes closer to those that did not have ASD. It has been suggested that the weakened McGurk effect seen in people with ASD is due to deficits in identifying both the auditory and visual components of speech rather than in the integration of said components (although distinguishing speech components as speech components may be isomorphic to integrating them). Language-learning disabilities. Adults with language-learning disabilities exhibit a much smaller McGurk effect than other adults. These people are not as influenced by visual input as most people. Therefore, people with poor language skills will produce a smaller McGurk effect. A reason for the smaller effect in this population is that there may be uncoupled activity between anterior and posterior regions of the brain, or left and right hemispheres. Cerebellar or basal ganglia etiology is also possible. Alzheimer’s disease. In patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), there is a smaller McGurk effect exhibited than in those without. Often a reduced size of the corpus callosum produces a hemisphere disconnection process. Less influence on visual stimulus is seen in patients with AD, which is a reason for the lowered McGurk effect. Schizophrenia. The McGurk effect is not as pronounced in schizophrenic individuals as in non-schizophrenic individuals. However, it is not significantly different in adults. Schizophrenia slows down the development of audiovisual integration and does not allow it to reach its developmental peak. However, no degradation is observed. Schizophrenics are more likely to rely on auditory cues than visual cues in speech perception. Aphasia. People with aphasia show impaired perception of speech in all conditions (visual-only, auditory-only, and audio-visual), and therefore exhibited a small McGurk effect. The greatest difficulty for aphasics is in the visual-only condition showing that they use more auditory stimuli in speech perception. Bipolar Disorder. Limited evidence available to this day shows no apparent difference between individuals with bipolar disorder and those without with respect to the McGurk effect. However, preliminary data suggests that people with bipolar disorder are much poorer at lipreading than healthy individuals. This may suggest that the neural pathways formed and activated in the integration of auditory and visual speech information in individuals with bipolar disorder are different compared to those in people without any mental disorder. External factors. Cross-dubbing. Discrepancy in vowel category significantly reduced the magnitude of the McGurk effect for fusion responses. Auditory /a/ tokens dubbed onto visual /i/ articulations were more compatible than the reverse. This could be because /a/ has a wide range of articulatory configurations whereas /i/ is more limited, which makes it much easier for subjects to detect discrepancies in the stimuli. /i/ vowel contexts produce the strongest effect, while /a/ produces a moderate effect, and /u/ has almost no effect. Mouth visibility. The McGurk effect is stronger when the right side of the speaker's mouth (on the viewer's left) is visible. People tend to get more visual information from the right side of a speaker's mouth than the left or even the whole mouth. This relates to the hemispheric attention factors discussed in the brain hemispheres section above. Visual distractors. The McGurk effect is weaker when there is a visual distractor present that the listener is attending to. Visual attention modulates audiovisual speech perception. Another form of distraction is movement of the speaker. A stronger McGurk effect is elicited if the speaker's face/head is motionless, rather than moving. Syllable structure. A strong McGurk effect can be seen for click-vowel syllables compared to weak effects for isolated clicks. This shows that the McGurk effect can happen in a non-speech environment. Phonological significance is not a necessary condition for a McGurk effect to occur; however, it does increase the strength of the effect. Gender. Females show a stronger McGurk effect than males. Women show significantly greater visual influence on auditory speech than men did for brief visual stimuli, but no difference is apparent for full stimuli. Another aspect regarding gender is the issue of male faces and voices as stimuli in comparison to female faces and voices as stimuli. Although, there is no difference in the strength of the McGurk effect for either situation. If a male face is dubbed with a female voice, or vice versa, there is still no difference in strength of the McGurk effect. Knowing that the voice you hear is different from the face you see – even if different genders – doesn't eliminate the McGurk effect. Familiarity. Subjects who are familiar with the faces of the speakers are less susceptible to the McGurk effect than those who are unfamiliar with the faces of the speakers. On the other hand, there was no difference regarding voice familiarity. Expectation. Semantic congruency had a significant impact on the McGurk illusion. The effect is experienced more often and rated as clearer in the semantically congruent condition relative to the incongruent condition. When a person was expecting a certain visual or auditory appearance based on the semantic information leading up to it, the McGurk effect was greatly increased. Self influence. The McGurk effect can be observed when the listener is also the speaker or articulator. While looking at oneself in the mirror and articulating visual stimuli while listening to another auditory stimulus, a strong McGurk effect can be observed. In the other condition, where the listener speaks auditory stimuli softly while watching another person articulate the conflicting visual gestures, a McGurk effect can still be seen, although it is weaker. Temporal synchrony. Temporal synchrony is not necessary for the McGurk effect to be present. Subjects are still strongly influenced by auditory stimuli even when it lagged the visual stimuli by 180 milliseconds (point at which McGurk effect begins to weaken). There was less tolerance for the lack of synchrony if the auditory stimuli preceded the visual stimuli. In order to produce a significant weakening of the McGurk effect, the auditory stimuli had to precede the visual stimuli by 60 milliseconds, or lag by 240 milliseconds. Physical task diversion. The McGurk effect was greatly reduced when attention was diverted to a tactile task (touching something). Touch is a sensory perception like vision and audition, therefore increasing attention to touch, decreases the attention to auditory and visual senses. Gaze. The eyes do not need to fixate in order to integrate audio and visual information in speech perception. There was no difference in the McGurk effect when the listener was focusing anywhere on the speaker's face. The effect does not appear if the listener focuses beyond the speaker's face. In order for the McGurk effect to become insignificant, the listener's gaze must deviate from the speaker's mouth by at least 60 degrees. Other languages. Whatever the language, all listeners rely on visual information to a degree in speech perception. But the McGurk effect's intensity differs across languages. Dutch, English, Spanish, German, Italian and Turkish language listeners experience a robust McGurk effect; Japanese and Chinese listeners, weaker. Most research on the McGurk effect between languages has been between English and Japanese. A smaller McGurk effect occurs in Japanese listeners than English listeners. The cultural practice of face avoidance in Japanese people may diminish the McGurk effect, as well as tone and syllabic structures of the language. This could also be why Chinese listeners are less susceptible to visual cues, and similar to Japanese, produce a smaller effect than English listeners. Studies also show that Japanese listeners do not show a developmental increase in visual influence after six, as English children do. Japanese listeners identify incompatibility between visual and auditory stimuli better than English listeners. This greater ability could relate to Japanese's lacking consonant clusters. Regardless, listeners of all languages resort to visual stimuli when speech is unintelligible; the McGurk effect then applies to them equally. The McGurk effect works with listeners of every tested language. Hearing impairment. Experiments have been conducted involving hard of hearing individuals as well as individuals that have had cochlear implants. These individuals tend to weigh visual information from speech more heavily than auditory information. In comparison to normal hearing individuals, this is not different unless there is more than one syllable, such as a word. Regarding the McGurk experiment, responses from cochlear implanted users produced the same responses as normal hearing individuals when an auditory bilabial stimulus is dubbed onto a visual velar stimulus. However, when an auditory dental stimulus is dubbed onto a visual bilabial stimulus, the responses are quite different. The McGurk effect is still present in individuals with impaired hearing or using cochlear implants, although it is quite different in some aspects. Infants. By measuring an infant's attention to certain audiovisual stimuli, a response that is consistent with the McGurk effect can be recorded. From just minutes to a couple of days old, infants can imitate adult facial movements, and within weeks of birth, infants can recognize lip movements and speech sounds. At this point, the integration of audio and visual information can happen, but not at a proficient level. The first evidence of the McGurk effect can be seen at four months of age; however, more evidence is found for 5-month-olds. Through the process of habituating an infant to a certain stimulus and then changing the stimulus (or part of it, such as ba-voiced/va-visual to da-voiced/va-visual), a response that simulates the McGurk effect becomes apparent. The strength of the McGurk effect displays a developmental pattern that increases throughout childhood and extends into adulthood.

less awareness

11111-2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=297032

Monetary policy is the policy adopted by the monetary authority of a nation to control either the interest rate payable for very short-term borrowing (borrowing by banks from each other to meet their short-term needs) or the money supply, often as an attempt to reduce inflation or the interest rate, to ensure price stability and general trust of the value and stability of the nation's currency. Monetary policy is a modification of the supply of money, i.e. "printing" more money, or decreasing the money supply by changing interest rates or removing excess reserves. This is in contrast to fiscal policy, which relies on taxation, government spending, and government borrowing as methods for a government to manage business cycle phenomena such as recessions. Further purposes of a monetary policy are usually to contribute to the stability of gross domestic product, to achieve and maintain low unemployment, and to maintain predictable exchange rates with other currencies. Monetary economics can provide insight into crafting optimal monetary policy. In developed countries, monetary policy is generally formed separately from fiscal policy. Monetary policy is referred to as being either expansionary or contractionary. Expansionary policy occurs when a monetary authority uses its procedures to stimulate the economy. An expansionary policy maintains short-term interest rates at a lower than usual rate or increases the total supply of money in the economy more rapidly than usual. It is traditionally used to try to reduce unemployment during a recession by decreasing interest rates in the hope that less expensive credit will entice businesses into borrowing more money and thereby expanding. This would increase aggregate demand (the overall demand for all goods and services in an economy), which would increase short-term growth as measured by increase of gross domestic product (GDP). Expansionary monetary policy, by increasing the amount of currency in circulation, usually diminishes the value of the currency relative to other currencies (the exchange rate), in which case foreign purchasers will be able to purchase more with their currency in the country with the devalued currency. Contractionary policy maintains short-term interest rates greater than usual, slows the rate of growth of the money supply, or even decreases it to slow short-term economic growth and lessen inflation. Contractionary policy can result in increased unemployment and depressed borrowing and spending by consumers and businesses, which can eventually result in an economic recession if implemented too vigorously. History. Monetary policy is associated with interest rates and availability of credit. Instruments of monetary policy have included short-term interest rates and bank reserves through the monetary base. For many centuries there were only two forms of monetary policy: altering coinage or the printing of paper money. Interest rates, while now thought of as part of monetary authority, were not generally coordinated with the other forms of monetary policy during this time. Monetary policy was considered as an executive decision, and was generally implemented by the authority with seigniorage (the power to coin). With the advent of larger trading networks came the ability to define the currency value in terms of gold or silver, and the price of the local currency in terms of foreign currencies. This official price could be enforced by law, even if it varied from the market price. Paper money originated from promissory notes termed "jiaozi" in 7th century China. Jiaozi did not replace metallic currency, and were used alongside the copper coins. The succeeding Yuan Dynasty was the first government to use paper currency as the predominant circulating medium. In the later course of the dynasty, facing massive shortages of specie to fund war and maintain their rule, they began printing paper money without restrictions, resulting in hyperinflation. With the creation of the Bank of England in 1694, which was granted the authority to print notes backed by gold, the idea of monetary policy as independent of executive action began to be established. The purpose of monetary policy was to maintain the value of the coinage, print notes which would trade at par to specie, and prevent coins from leaving circulation. The establishment of national banks by industrializing nations was associated then with the desire to maintain the currency's relationship to the gold standard, and to trade in a narrow currency band with other gold-backed currencies. To accomplish this end, national banks as part of the gold standard began setting the interest rates that they charged both their own borrowers and other banks which required money for liquidity. The maintenance of a gold standard required almost monthly adjustments of interest rates. The gold standard is a system by which the price of the national currency is fixed vis-a-vis the value of gold, and is kept constant by the government's promise to buy or sell gold at a fixed price in terms of the base currency. The gold standard might be regarded as a special case of "fixed exchange rate" policy, or as a special type of commodity price level targeting. Nowadays this type of monetary policy is no longer used by any country. During the period 1870–1920, the industrialized nations established central banking systems, with one of the last being the Federal Reserve in 1913. By this time the role of the central bank as the "lender of last resort" was established. It was also increasingly understood that interest rates had an effect on the entire economy, in no small part because of appreciation for the marginal revolution in economics, which demonstrated that people would change their decisions based on changes in their economic trade-offs. Monetarist economists long contended that the money-supply growth could affect the macroeconomy. These included Milton Friedman who early in his career advocated that government budget deficits during recessions be financed in equal amount by money creation to help to stimulate aggregate demand for production. Later he advocated simply increasing the monetary supply at a low, constant rate, as the best way of maintaining low inflation and stable production growth. However, when U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker tried this policy, starting in October 1979, it was found to be impractical, because of the unstable relationship between monetary aggregates and other macroeconomic variables. Even Milton Friedman later acknowledged that direct money supplying was less successful than he had hoped. Therefore, monetary decisions presently take into account a wider range of factors, such as: Monetary policy instruments. The main monetary policy instruments available to central banks are open market operation, bank reserve requirement, interest rate policy, re-lending and re-discount (including using the term repurchase market), and credit policy (often coordinated with trade policy). While capital adequacy is important, it is defined and regulated by the Bank for International Settlements, and central banks in practice generally do not apply stricter rules. Conventional instrument. The central bank influences interest rates by expanding or contracting the monetary base, which consists of currency in circulation and banks' reserves on deposit at the central bank. Central banks have three main methods of monetary policy: open market operations, the discount rate and the reserve requirements. Key Interest rates & refinancing operations. By far the most visible and obvious power of many modern central banks is to influence market interest rates; contrary to popular belief, they rarely "set" rates to a fixed number. Although the mechanism differs from country to country, most use a similar mechanism based on a central bank's ability to create as much fiat money as required. The mechanism to move the market towards a 'target rate' (whichever specific rate is used) is generally to lend money or borrow money in theoretically unlimited quantities until the targeted market rate is sufficiently close to the target. Central banks may do so by lending money to and borrowing money from (taking deposits from) a limited number of qualified banks, or by purchasing and selling bonds. As an example of how this functions, the Bank of Canada sets a target overnight rate, and a band of plus or minus 0.25%. Qualified banks borrow from each other within this band, but never above or below, because the central bank will always lend to them at the top of the band, and take deposits at the bottom of the band; in principle, the capacity to borrow and lend at the extremes of the band are unlimited. Other central banks use similar mechanisms. The target rates are generally short-term rates. The actual rate that borrowers and lenders receive on the market will depend on (perceived) credit risk, maturity and other factors. For example, a central bank might set a target rate for overnight lending of 4.5%, but rates for (equivalent risk) five-year bonds might be 5%, 4.75%, or, in cases of inverted yield curves, even below the short-term rate. Many central banks have one primary "headline" rate that is quoted as the "central bank rate". In practice, they will have other tools and rates that are used, but only one that is rigorously targeted and enforced. "The rate at which the central bank lends money can indeed be chosen at will by the central bank; this is the rate that makes the financial headlines." Henry C.K. Liu explains further that "the U.S. central-bank lending rate is known as the Fed funds rate. The Fed sets a target for the Fed funds rate, which its Open Market Committee tries to match by lending or borrowing in the money market ... a fiat money system set by command of the central bank. The Fed is the head of the central-bank because the U.S. dollar is the key reserve currency for international trade. The global money market is a USA dollar market. All other currencies markets revolve around the U.S. dollar market." Accordingly, the U.S. situation is not typical of central banks in general. Typically a central bank controls certain types of short-term interest rates. These influence the stock- and bond markets as well as mortgage and other interest rates. The European Central Bank, for example, announces its interest rate at the meeting of its Governing Council; in the case of the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Both the Federal Reserve and the ECB are composed of one or more central bodies that are responsible for the main decisions about interest rates and the size and type of open market operations, and several branches to execute its policies. In the case of the Federal Reserve, they are the local Federal Reserve Banks; for the ECB they are the national central banks. A typical central bank has several interest rates or monetary policy tools it can set to influence markets. These rates directly affect the rates in the money market, the market for short-term loans. Some central banks (e.g. in Denmark, Sweden and the Eurozone) are currently applying negative interest rates. Open market operations. Through open market operations, a central bank influences the money supply in an economy. Each time it buys securities (such as a government bond or treasury bill), it in effect creates money. The central bank exchanges money for the security, increasing the money supply while lowering the supply of the specific security. Conversely, selling of securities by the central bank reduces the money supply. Open market operations usually take the form of: These interventions can also influence the foreign exchange market and thus the exchange rate. For example, the People's Bank of China and the Bank of Japan have on occasion bought several hundred billions of U.S. Treasuries, presumably in order to stop the decline of the U.S. dollar versus the renminbi and the yen. Reserve requirements. Historically, bank reserves have formed only a small fraction of deposits, a system called fractional-reserve banking. Banks would hold only a small percentage of their assets in the form of cash reserves as insurance against bank runs. Over time this process has been regulated and insured by central banks. Such legal reserve requirements were introduced in the 19th century as an attempt to reduce the risk of banks overextending themselves and suffering from bank runs, as this could lead to knock-on effects on other overextended banks. "See also money multiplier." As the early 20th century gold standard was undermined by inflation and the late 20th-century fiat dollar hegemony evolved, and as banks proliferated and engaged in more complex transactions and were able to profit from dealings globally on a moment's notice, these practices became mandatory, if only to ensure that there was some limit on the ballooning of money supply. A number of central banks have since abolished their reserve requirements over the last few decades, beginning with the Reserve Bank of New Zealand in 1985 and continuing with the Federal Reserve in 2020. For the respective banking systems, bank capital requirements provide a check on the growth of the money supply. The People's Bank of China retains (and uses) more powers over reserves because the yuan that it manages is a non-convertible currency. Loan activity by banks plays a fundamental role in determining the money supply. The central-bank money after aggregate settlement – "final money" – can take only one of two forms: The currency component of the money supply is far smaller than the deposit component. Currency, bank reserves and institutional loan agreements together make up the monetary base, called M1, M2 and M3. The Federal Reserve Bank stopped publishing M3 and counting it as part of the money supply in 2006. Credit guidance. Central banks can directly or indirectly influence the allocation of bank lending in certain sectors of the economy by applying quotas, limits or differentiated interest rates. This allows the central bank to control both the quantity of lending and its allocation towards certain strategic sectors of the economy, for example to support the national industrial policy, or to environmental investment such as housing renovation. The Bank of Japan used to apply such policy ("window guidance") between 1962 and 1991. The Banque de France also widely used credit guidance during the post-war period of 1948 until 1973 . The European Central Bank's ongoing TLTROs operations can also be described as form of credit guidance insofar as the level of interest rate ultimately paid by banks is differentiated according to the volume of lending made by commercial banks at the end of he maintenance period. If commercial banks achieve a certain lending performance threshold, they get a discount interest rate, that is lower than the standard key interest rate. For this reason, some economists have described the TLTROs as a "dual interest rates" policy. China is also applying a form of dual rate policy. Exchange requirements. To influence the money supply, some central banks may require that some or all foreign exchange receipts (generally from exports) be exchanged for the local currency. The rate that is used to purchase local currency may be market-based or arbitrarily set by the bank. This tool is generally used in countries with non-convertible currencies or partially convertible currencies. The recipient of the local currency may be allowed to freely dispose of the funds, required to hold the funds with the central bank for some period of time, or allowed to use the funds subject to certain restrictions. In other cases, the ability to hold or use the foreign exchange may be otherwise limited. In this method, money supply is increased by the central bank when it purchases the foreign currency by issuing (selling) the local currency. The central bank may subsequently reduce the money supply by various means, including selling bonds or foreign exchange interventions. Collateral policy. In some countries, central banks may have other tools that work indirectly to limit lending practices and otherwise restrict or regulate capital markets. For example, a central bank may regulate margin lending, whereby individuals or companies may borrow against pledged securities. The margin requirement establishes a minimum ratio of the value of the securities to the amount borrowed. Central banks often have requirements for the quality of assets that may be held by financial institutions; these requirements may act as a limit on the amount of risk and leverage created by the financial system. These requirements may be direct, such as requiring certain assets to bear certain minimum credit ratings, or indirect, by the central bank lending to counterparties only when security of a certain quality is pledged as collateral. Forward guidance. Forward guidance is a communication practice whereby the central bank announces its forecasts and future intentions to increase market expectations of future levels of interest rates. Unconventional monetary policy at the zero bound. Other forms of monetary policy, particularly used when interest rates are at or near 0% and there are concerns about deflation or deflation is occurring, are referred to as unconventional monetary policy. These include credit easing, quantitative easing, forward guidance, and signalling. In credit easing, a central bank purchases private sector assets to improve liquidity and improve access to credit. Signaling can be used to lower market expectations for lower interest rates in the future. For example, during the credit crisis of 2008, the US Federal Reserve indicated rates would be low for an "extended period", and the Bank of Canada made a "conditional commitment" to keep rates at the lower bound of 25 basis points (0.25%) until the end of the second quarter of 2010. Helicopter money. Further heterodox monetary policy proposals include the idea of helicopter money whereby central banks would create money without assets as counterpart in their balance sheet. The money created could be distributed directly to the population as a citizen's dividend. Virtues of such money shock include the decrease of household risk aversion and the increase in demand, boosting both inflation and the output gap. This option has been increasingly discussed since March 2016 after the ECB's president Mario Draghi said he found the concept "very interesting" and was revived once again by prominent former central bankers Stanley Fischer and Philipp Hildebrand in a paper published by BlackRock. Some have envisaged the use of what Milton Friedman once called "helicopter money" whereby the central bank would make direct transfers to citizens in order to lift inflation up to the central bank's intended target. Such policy option could be particularly effective at the zero lower bound. Nominal anchors. A nominal anchor for monetary policy is a single variable or device which the central bank uses to pin down expectations of private agents about the nominal price level or its path or about what the central bank might do with respect to achieving that path. Monetary regimes combine long-run nominal anchoring with flexibility in the short run. Nominal variables used as anchors primarily include exchange rate targets, money supply targets, and inflation targets with interest rate policy. Types. In practice, to implement any type of monetary policy the main tool used is modifying the amount of base money in circulation. The monetary authority does this by buying or selling financial assets (usually government obligations). These open market operations change either the amount of money or its liquidity (if less liquid forms of money are bought or sold). The multiplier effect of fractional reserve banking amplifies the effects of these actions on the money supply, which includes bank deposits as well as base money. Constant market transactions by the monetary authority modify the supply of currency and this impacts other market variables such as short-term interest rates and the exchange rate. The distinction between the various types of monetary policy lies primarily with the set of instruments and target variables that are used by the monetary authority to achieve their goals. The different types of policy are also called monetary regimes, in parallel to exchange-rate regimes. A fixed exchange rate is also an exchange-rate regime; The gold standard results in a relatively fixed regime towards the currency of other countries on the gold standard and a floating regime towards those that are not. Targeting inflation, the price level or other monetary aggregates implies floating the exchange rate unless the management of the relevant foreign currencies is tracking exactly the same variables (such as a harmonized consumer price index). Inflation targeting. Under this policy approach, the target is to keep inflation, under a particular definition such as the Consumer Price Index, within a desired range. The inflation target is achieved through periodic adjustments to the central bank interest rate target. The interest rate used is generally the overnight rate at which banks lend to each other overnight for cash flow purposes. Depending on the country this particular interest rate might be called the cash rate or something similar. As the Fisher effect model explains, the equation linking inflation with interest rates is the following: where π is the inflation rate, "i" is the home nominal interest rate set by the central bank, and "r" is the real interest rate. Using "i" as an anchor, central banks can influence π. Central banks can choose to maintain a fixed interest rate at all times, or just temporarily. The duration of this policy varies, because of the simplicity associated with changing the nominal interest rate. The interest rate target is maintained for a specific duration using open market operations. Typically the duration that the interest rate target is kept constant will vary between months and years. This interest rate target is usually reviewed on a monthly or quarterly basis by a policy committee. Changes to the interest rate target are made in response to various market indicators in an attempt to forecast economic trends and in so doing keep the market on track towards achieving the defined inflation target. For example, one simple method of inflation targeting called the Taylor rule adjusts the interest rate in response to changes in the inflation rate and the output gap. The rule was proposed by John B. Taylor of Stanford University. The inflation targeting approach to monetary policy approach was pioneered in New Zealand. It has been used in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, New Zealand, Norway, Iceland, India, Philippines, Poland, Sweden, South Africa, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. Price level targeting. Price level targeting is a monetary policy that is similar to inflation targeting except that CPI growth in one year over or under the long term price level target is offset in subsequent years such that a targeted price-level trend is reached over time, e.g. five years, giving more certainty about future price increases to consumers. Under inflation targeting what happened in the immediate past years is not taken into account or adjusted for in the current and future years. Uncertainty in price levels can create uncertainty around price and wage setting activity for firms and workers, and undermines any information that can be gained from relative prices, as it is more difficult for firms to determine if a change in the price of a good or service is because of inflation or other factors, such as an increase in the efficiency of factors of production, if inflation is high and volatile. An increase in inflation also leads to a decrease in the demand for money, as it reduces the incentive to hold money and increases transaction costs and shoe leather costs. Monetary aggregates/money supply targeting. In the 1980s, several countries used an approach based on a constant growth in the money supply. This approach was refined to include different classes of money and credit (M0, M1 etc.). In the US this approach to monetary policy was discontinued with the selection of Alan Greenspan as Fed Chairman. This approach is also sometimes called monetarism. Central banks might choose to set a money supply growth target as a nominal anchor to keep prices stable in the long term. The quantity theory is a long run model, which links price levels to money supply and demand. Using this equation, we can rearrange to see the following: where π is the inflation rate, μ is the money supply growth rate and g is the real output growth rate. This equation suggests that controlling the money supply's growth rate can ultimately lead to price stability in the long run. To use this nominal anchor, a central bank would need to set μ equal to a constant and commit to maintaining this target. However, targeting the money supply growth rate is considered a weak policy, because it is not stably related to the real output growth, As a result, a higher output growth rate will result in a too low level of inflation. A low output growth rate will result in inflation that would be higher than the desired level. While monetary policy typically focuses on a price signal of one form or another, this approach is focused on monetary quantities. As these quantities could have a role in the economy and business cycles depending on the households' risk aversion level, money is sometimes explicitly added in the central bank's reaction function. After the 1980s, however, central banks have shifted away from policies that focus on money supply targeting, because of the uncertainty that real output growth introduces. Some central banks, like the ECB, have chosen to combine a money supply anchor with other targets. Nominal income/NGDP targeting. Related to money targeting, nominal income targeting (also called Nominal GDP or NGDP targeting), originally proposed by James Meade (1978) and James Tobin (1980), was advocated by Scott Sumner and reinforced by the market monetarist school of thought. Central banks do not implement this monetary policy explicitly. However, numerous studies shown that such a monetary policy targeting better matches central bank losses and welfare optimizing monetary policy compared to more standard monetary policy targeting. Fixed exchange rate targeting. This policy is based on maintaining a fixed exchange rate with a foreign currency. There are varying degrees of fixed exchange rates, which can be ranked in relation to how rigid the fixed exchange rate is with the anchor nation. Under a system of fiat fixed rates, the local government or monetary authority declares a fixed exchange rate but does not actively buy or sell currency to maintain the rate. Instead, the rate is enforced by non-convertibility measures (e.g. capital controls, import/export licenses, etc.). In this case there is a black market exchange rate where the currency trades at its market/unofficial rate. Under a system of fixed-convertibility, currency is bought and sold by the central bank or monetary authority on a daily basis to achieve the target exchange rate. This target rate may be a fixed level or a fixed band within which the exchange rate may fluctuate until the monetary authority intervenes to buy or sell as necessary to maintain the exchange rate within the band. (In this case, the fixed exchange rate with a fixed level can be seen as a special case of the fixed exchange rate with bands where the bands are set to zero.) Under a system of fixed exchange rates maintained by a currency board every unit of local currency must be backed by a unit of foreign currency (correcting for the exchange rate). This ensures that the local monetary base does not inflate without being backed by hard currency and eliminates any worries about a run on the local currency by those wishing to convert the local currency to the hard (anchor) currency. Under dollarization, foreign currency (usually the US dollar, hence the term "dollarization") is used freely as the medium of exchange either exclusively or in parallel with local currency. This outcome can come about because the local population has lost all faith in the local currency, or it may also be a policy of the government (usually to rein in inflation and import credible monetary policy). Theoretically, using relative purchasing power parity (PPP), the rate of depreciation of the home country's currency must equal the inflation differential: which implies that The anchor variable is the rate of depreciation. Therefore, the rate of inflation at home must equal the rate of inflation in the foreign country plus the rate of depreciation of the exchange rate of the home country currency, relative to the other. With a strict fixed exchange rate or a peg, the rate of depreciation of the exchange rate is set equal to zero. In the case of a crawling peg, the rate of depreciation is set equal to a constant. With a limited flexible band, the rate of depreciation is allowed to fluctuate within a given range. By fixing the rate of depreciation, PPP theory concludes that the home country's inflation rate must depend on the foreign country's. Countries may decide to use a fixed exchange rate monetary regime in order to take advantage of price stability and control inflation. In practice, more than half of nations’ monetary regimes use fixed exchange rate anchoring. These policies often abdicate monetary policy to the foreign monetary authority or government as monetary policy in the pegging nation must align with monetary policy in the anchor nation to maintain the exchange rate. The degree to which local monetary policy becomes dependent on the anchor nation depends on factors such as capital mobility, openness, credit channels and other economic factors. In practice. Nominal anchors are possible with various exchange rate regimes. Following the collapse of Bretton Woods, nominal anchoring has grown in importance for monetary policy makers and inflation reduction. Particularly, governments sought to use anchoring in order to curtail rapid and high inflation during the 1970s and 1980s. By the 1990s, countries began to explicitly set credible nominal anchors. In addition, many countries chose a mix of more than one target, as well as implicit targets. As a result, after the 1970s global inflation rates, on average, decreased gradually and central banks gained credibility and increasing independence. The Global Financial Crisis of 2008 sparked controversy over the use and flexibility of inflation nominal anchoring. Many economists argued that inflation targets were set too low by many monetary regimes. During the crisis, many inflation-anchoring countries reached the lower bound of zero rates, resulting in inflation rates decreasing to almost zero or even deflation. Implications. The anchors discussed in this article suggest that keeping inflation at the desired level is feasible by setting a target interest rate, money supply growth rate, price level, or rate of depreciation. However, these anchors are only valid if a central bank commits to maintaining them. This, in turn, requires that the central bank abandon their monetary policy autonomy in the long run. Should a central bank use one of these anchors to maintain a target inflation rate, they would have to forfeit using other policies. Using these anchors may prove more complicated for certain exchange rate regimes. Freely floating or managed floating regimes have more options to affect their inflation, because they enjoy more flexibility than a pegged currency or a country without a currency. The latter regimes would have to implement an exchange rate target to influence their inflation, as none of the other instruments are available to them. Credibility. The short-term effects of monetary policy can be influenced by the degree to which announcements of new policy are deemed credible. In particular, when an anti-inflation policy is announced by a central bank, in the absence of credibility in the eyes of the public inflationary expectations will not drop, and the short-run effect of the announcement and a subsequent sustained anti-inflation policy is likely to be a combination of somewhat lower inflation and higher unemployment (see Phillips curve#NAIRU and rational expectations). But if the policy announcement is deemed credible, inflationary expectations will drop commensurately with the announced policy intent, and inflation is likely to come down more quickly and without so much of a cost in terms of unemployment. Thus there can be an advantage to having the central bank be independent of the political authority, to shield it from the prospect of political pressure to reverse the direction of the policy. But even with a seemingly independent central bank, a central bank whose hands are not tied to the anti-inflation policy might be deemed as not fully credible; in this case there is an advantage to be had by the central bank being in some way bound to follow through on its policy pronouncements, lending it credibility. There is very strong consensus among economists that an independent central bank can run a more credible monetary policy, making market expectations more responsive to signals from the central bank. Contexts. In international economics. Optimal monetary policy in international economics is concerned with the question of how monetary policy should be conducted in interdependent open economies. The classical view holds that international macroeconomic interdependence is only relevant if it affects domestic output gaps and inflation, and monetary policy prescriptions can abstract from openness without harm. This view rests on two implicit assumptions: a high responsiveness of import prices to the exchange rate, i.e. producer currency pricing (PCP), and frictionless international financial markets supporting the efficiency of flexible price allocation. The violation or distortion of these assumptions found in empirical research is the subject of a substantial part of the international optimal monetary policy literature. The policy trade-offs specific to this international perspective are threefold: First, research suggests only a weak reflection of exchange rate movements in import prices, lending credibility to the opposed theory of local currency pricing (LCP). The consequence is a departure from the classical view in the form of a trade-off between output gaps and misalignments in international relative prices, shifting monetary policy to CPI inflation control and real exchange rate stabilization. Second, another specificity of international optimal monetary policy is the issue of strategic interactions and competitive devaluations, which is due to cross-border spillovers in quantities and prices. Therein, the national authorities of different countries face incentives to manipulate the terms of trade to increase national welfare in the absence of international policy coordination. Even though the gains of international policy coordination might be small, such gains may become very relevant if balanced against incentives for international noncooperation. Third, open economies face policy trade-offs if asset market distortions prevent global efficient allocation. Even though the real exchange rate absorbs shocks in current and expected fundamentals, its adjustment does not necessarily result in a desirable allocation and may even exacerbate the misallocation of consumption and employment at both the domestic and global level. This is because, relative to the case of complete markets, both the Phillips curve and the loss function include a welfare-relevant measure of cross-country imbalances. Consequently, this results in domestic goals, e.g. output gaps or inflation, being traded-off against the stabilization of external variables such as the terms of trade or the demand gap. Hence, the optimal monetary policy in this case consists of redressing demand imbalances and/or correcting international relative prices at the cost of some inflation. Corsetti, Dedola and Leduc (2011) summarize the status quo of research on international monetary policy prescriptions: "Optimal monetary policy thus should target a combination of inward-looking variables such as output gap and inflation, with currency misalignment and cross-country demand misallocation, by leaning against the wind of misaligned exchange rates and international imbalances." This is main factor in country money status. In developing countries. Developing countries may have problems establishing an effective operating monetary policy. The primary difficulty is that few developing countries have deep markets in government debt. The matter is further complicated by the difficulties in forecasting money demand and fiscal pressure to levy the inflation tax by expanding the base rapidly. In general, the central banks in many developing countries have poor records in managing monetary policy. This is often because the monetary authorities in developing countries are mostly not independent of the government, so good monetary policy takes a backseat to the political desires of the government or is used to pursue other non-monetary goals. For this and other reasons, developing countries that want to establish credible monetary policy may institute a currency board or adopt dollarization. This can avoid interference from the government and may lead to the adoption of monetary policy as carried out in the anchor nation. Recent attempts at liberalizing and reform of financial markets (particularly the recapitalization of banks and other financial institutions in Nigeria and elsewhere) are gradually providing the latitude required to implement monetary policy frameworks by the relevant central banks. Trends. Transparency. Beginning with New Zealand in 1990, central banks began adopting formal, public inflation targets with the goal of making the outcomes, if not the process, of monetary policy more transparent. In other words, a central bank may have an inflation target of 2% for a given year, and if inflation turns out to be 5%, then the central bank will typically have to submit an explanation. The Bank of England exemplifies both these trends. It became independent of government through the Bank of England Act 1998 and adopted an inflation target of 2.5% RPI, revised to 2% of CPI in 2003. The success of inflation targeting in the United Kingdom has been attributed to the Bank of England's focus on transparency. The Bank of England has been a leader in producing innovative ways of communicating information to the public, especially through its Inflation Report, which have been emulated by many other central banks. The European Central Bank adopted, in 1998, a definition of price stability within the Eurozone as inflation of under 2% HICP. In 2003, this was revised to inflation below, but close to, 2% over the medium term. Since then, the target of 2% has become common for other major central banks, including the Federal Reserve (since January 2012) and Bank of Japan (since January 2013). Effect on business cycles. There continues to be some debate about whether monetary policy can (or should) smooth business cycles. A central conjecture of Keynesian economics is that the central bank can stimulate aggregate demand in the short run, because a significant number of prices in the economy are fixed in the short run and firms will produce as many goods and services as are demanded (in the long run, however, money is neutral, as in the neoclassical model). However, some economists from the new classical school contend that central banks cannot affect business cycles. Behavioral monetary policy. Conventional macroeconomic models assume that all agents in an economy are fully rational. A rational agent has clear preferences, models uncertainty via expected values of variables or functions of variables, and always chooses to perform the action with the optimal expected outcome for itself among all feasible actions – they maximize their utility. Monetary policy analysis and decisions hence traditionally rely on this New Classical approach. However, as studied by the field of behavioral economics that takes into account the concept of bounded rationality, people often deviate from the way that these neoclassical theories assume. Humans are generally not able to react fully rational to the world around them – they do not make decisions in the rational way commonly envisioned in standard macroeconomic models. People have time limitations, cognitive biases, care about issues like fairness and equity and follow rules of thumb (heuristics). This has implications for the conduct of monetary policy. Monetary policy is the final outcome of a complex interaction between monetary institutions, central banker preferences and policy rules, and hence human decision-making plays an important role. It is more and more recognized that the standard rational approach does not provide an optimal foundation for monetary policy actions. These models fail to address important human anomalies and behavioral drivers that explain monetary policy decisions. An example of a behavioral bias that characterizes the behavior of central bankers is loss aversion: for every monetary policy choice, losses loom larger than gains, and both are evaluated with respect to the status quo. One result of loss aversion is that when gains and losses are symmetric or nearly so, risk aversion may set in. Loss aversion can be found in multiple contexts in monetary policy. The "hard fought" battle against the Great Inflation, for instance, might cause a bias against policies that risk greater inflation. Another common finding in behavioral studies is that individuals regularly offer estimates of their own ability, competence, or judgments that far exceed an objective assessment: they are overconfident. Central bank policymakers may fall victim to overconfidence in managing the macroeconomy in terms of timing, magnitude, and even the qualitative impact of interventions. Overconfidence can result in actions of the central bank that are either "too little" or "too much". When policymakers believe their actions will have larger effects than objective analysis would indicate, this results in too little intervention. Overconfidence can, for instance, cause problems when relying on interest rates to gauge the stance of monetary policy: low rates might mean that policy is easy, but they could also signal a weak economy. These are examples of how behavioral phenomena may have a substantial influence on monetary policy. Monetary policy analyses should thus account for the fact that policymakers (or central bankers) are individuals and prone to biases and temptations that can sensibly influence their ultimate choices in the setting of macroeconomic and/or interest rate targets. See also. US specific:

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=619430

Loten's sunbird ("Cinnyris lotenius"), also known as the long-billed sunbird or maroon-breasted sunbird, is a sunbird endemic to peninsular India and Sri Lanka. Named after Joan Gideon Loten, who was the Dutch governor of colonial Ceylon, it is very similar to the purple sunbird that is found in the same areas and also tends to hover at flowers for nectar, but can be distinguished by the longer bill, the maroon band on the breast and brownish wings. Like other sunbirds, it is also insectivorous and builds characteristic hanging nests. Description. Loten's sunbirds are small, only 12–13 cm long. The long bill separates this from the syntopic purple sunbird. The wings are browner and the maroon breast band is visible on the male under good lighting conditions. The males have of yellow mixed with crimson that are used in displays. The adult male is mainly glossy purple with a grey-brown belly. The female has yellow-grey upperparts and yellowish underparts, but lacks the purple's faint supercilium. The call is distinctive buzzy "zwick zwick" and they are also very active often bobbing their head while foraging. They long down-curved bills and brush-tipped tubular tongues, are adaptations to their nectar feeding. The bill lengths vary across populations with the longest bills are found on the east of Peninsular India and in Sri Lanka. The song of the male is a long repeated "wue-wue-wue..." with the last notes accelerated. The song has been likened to the call of the cinereous tit. The males may sing from the tops of bare trees or telegraph wires. The male in winter has an eclipse plumage with a yellowish underside resembling that of the female but having a broad central streak of dark metallic violet from the chin to the belly. The existence of an eclipse plumage in the adult male has been questioned by Rasmussen & Anderton (2005) due to the lack of specimens in evidence. Jerdon noted however that: Taxonomy. The name of the bird commemorates Joan Gideon Loten, the Dutch governor to Sri Lanka (Ceylon) who commissioned the artist Pieter Cornelis de Bevere to illustrate the natural history of the region from living and collected specimens. The plates by de Bevere included illustrations of many bird species and when Loten went back to England, he loaned these to various naturalists including George Edwards (1694–1773) who used them his "Gleanings of Natural History". Carl Linnaeus described this species under the genus "Certhia" based on material obtained from Loten. Gmelin confused this with African species and many publications of that time include inaccurate information: Distribution and habitat. Found only in peninsular India and Sri Lanka. The main region is along the Western Ghats and into the southern peninsula. There are scattered records from central India and into the northern Eastern Ghats north until Orissa. Race "hindustanicus", southern Peninsular populations of which have a slightly shorter bill, is found in India while the nominate race is found in Sri Lanka. They are locally common in both forests, cultivation. They are also common in urban gardens and in some areas such as the city of Madras, they are commoner than other sunbirds. Behaviour and ecology. The species is resident and no seasonal movements are known. While foraging for nectar they hover at flowers a lot unlike the purple sunbirds that prefers to perch beside flowers. Like other sunbirds, they also feed on small insects and spiders. It drinks from many garden plants as readily as wilder shrubs. The breeding season is November to March in India, February to May in Sri Lanka. The nest is built by the female which may however be accompanied by the male. Two eggs are laid in a suspended nest in a tree. The eggs are incubated only by the female for about 15 days. The nest is a bag of webs, bark and caterpillar frass. The nest is built by the female and young are fed by both parents. Nests may sometimes be reused for a second brood. It often builds its nest within the nests of "social spiders" (Eresidae). Salim Ali notes that the species is exceptional among Indian sunbirds in not having cobwebs on the exterior. It usually lays 2 eggs, but very. rarely three, which are of a long ovoid shape. These eggs grayish-white, with streak-like spots of greyish brown, occasionally with green and purple tints. Sometimes more marks are found on the thick end.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=31532527

"Note: This page refers to the device used to measure the speed of sound in water for use in hydrography" A sound velocity probe is a device that is used for measuring the speed of sound, specifically in the water column, for oceanographic and hydrographic research purposes. History. Early depth sounding was achieved using lead line sounding (or sounding line), where a lead weight attached to a length of rope marked with depth values. As this method was mechanical in nature, the only correction that was applied to the sounding was the reduction of the sounding for tidal height. In the mid 20th century, sonar systems were developed to allow the measurement of underwater distances using the two way travel time of an acoustic pulse. This allowed the surveyor to take many more soundings in a given period of time and was less labor intensive than using a lead line. Use. For many applications of sonar the speed of sound can be assumed to be an average speed of 1500 meters per second. However, the speed of sound in seawater can vary from 1440 to 1570 meters per second. As the relationship of speed, time and distance are dependent, in order to accurately measure the distance one must also know the time of transmit to receive and the speed of sound in water accurately. There are two methods that this can be achieved. Firstly, the surveyor can use an air filled metal bar lowered below the transducer, attached at each end by a rope marked with depth values. If the values on the rope can be assumed to be correct, then the bar is lowered at set depth intervals and observed on the echo sounder trace. The values of echo sounder depth can be plotted against the "true" depth of the bar. Any fixed offset value would then be attributed to a draft value correction, and any gradient change seen is as a result of a difference in sound velocity. This method is called a "Bar Check", and is performed by the surveyor prior to gathering data. Secondly, the surveyor can use a sound velocity probe that can be lowered into the water in the area to be surveyed to measure the actual speed of sound. This has the advantage of being quicker than a bar check and it can be performed when there is boat motion due to swell and sea, although any draft offset of the vessel is not identified using this method. Theory of operation. There are two common methods to obtaining sound velocity in water using the probe method. Firstly, the main three variables that affect sound velocity may be measured using a Conductivity, Temperature & Depth Probe (CTD Probe). This instrument can determine the salinity, temperature and pressure variables, and then calculate the sound velocity of the water using one of the many formulae available. Secondly, the speed of sound may be directly measured using a small acoustic transducer and a reflecting surface, mounted at a known distance from the acoustic center of the transducer. If the distance from the transducer to the reflector is known, and the time taken from the transmit to the receive pulse is known, then the speed of sound in water can be calculated. Transducers used in sound velocity probes are typically of a high frequency (around 1 - 4 MHz) as the transmit and receive distances are close enough to mitigate any significant absorption losses.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=16304859

US Highway 45 (US 45) is a part of the United States Numbered Highway System that runs from Mobile, Alabama, to the Upper Peninsula (UP) of the state of Michigan. The highway forms a part of the state trunkline highway system that is maintained by the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT). It enters the state from Wisconsin south of Watersmeet, ending at an intersection with Ontonagon Street in Ontonagon. In between, the roadway crosses the UP running for approximately through the Ottawa National Forest and parallel to the Ontonagon River. The highway dates back to the 1930s in Michigan. At the time it was extended into the state, it replaced sections of M-26 and M-35. An segment was significantly reconstructed in the late 1950s, and an alignment change in the 1970s moved the routing of US 45 near Rockland before it was reversed soon afterwards. A segment of roadway that formerly carried US 45 is the site of the Paulding Light, a local phenomenon whose origins were scientifically described in 2010. Route description. US 45 crosses from Wisconsin to Michigan near Land O' Lakes, Wisconsin, east of the Sylvania Wilderness area of the Ottawa National Forest. The highway angles northeast from the state line before curving around to the north toward Watersmeet, where it intersects US 2. Watersmeet is home to the northern section of the Lac Vieux Desert Indian Reservation. Continuing north across the Gogebic–Ontonagon county line, US 45 crosses the boundary between the Central and Eastern time zones. In southern Ontonagon County, the highway runs west of the Bond Falls Flowage near Paulding. North of here, the trunkline enters Bruce Crossing and intersects M-28. After leaving town, US 45 runs northward parallel to the Middle Branch of the Ontonagon River, and the highway crosses the river near a roadside park south of Rockland. East of Rockland, US 45 meets the southern terminus of M-26; after the intersection, US 45 turns northwesterly and runs parallel to the Ontonagon River and a snowmobile trail (a former branch of the Escanaba and Lake Superior Railroad). US 45 enters the south side of Ontonagon on Rockland Road near the Holy Family Cemetery. The roadway turns due north, still running parallel to the course of the river. South of downtown, the highway crosses an intersection that serves as the joint termini of M-38 and M-64. M-64 crosses the river from the west on a bridge built in 2006 and ends at the intersection. M-38 comes into town from the east and also ends at the same intersection. US 45 continues north on Rockland Road and turns northwest on River Street along the eastern river bank through downtown. The northern terminus of US 45 is at Ontonagon Street, about from Lake Superior. History. US 45 debuted in Michigan by 1935 on maps of the time. The highway previously terminated in Des Plaines, Illinois, until it was extended northward to Michigan. US 45 replaced M-26 between the state line north toward Rockland, as well as M-35 between Rockland and Ontonagon. The Michigan State Highway Department (MSHD) rebuilt an section of the highway in the Military Hills area of eastern Ontonagon County starting in 1957. As part of the project, tons of waste copper rock were hauled into the area to provide a base for the reconstructed roadway, which was previously quite steep through the hills and muddy during rains. The project included a new bridge over the Ontonagon River that opened in late 1959. Along with this bridge, the last of US 45 in the country were paved, connecting the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Superior with a hard-surfaced road. A rerouting in late 1971 moved the US 45 designation along M-26 between Rockland and Greenland. From Greenland, US 45 followed Ontonagon–Greenland Road to Ontonagon. In late 1973, MDOT reversed the rerouting—US 45 was restored to its previous routing on Rockland Road between Rockland and Ontonagon and M-26 was re-extended south from Greenland to Rockland; M-38 was extended west along Ontonagon–Greenland Road. In 2010, students from Michigan Technological University solved the mystery of the Paulding Light, a local phenomenon commonly attributed to paranormal activity. The phenomenon is viewable from a section of Robbins Pond Road, the former routing of US 45 in the Paulding area. According to area folklore, and indicated on signs in the viewing area, the light is from the ghost of a railroad brakeman. Other explanations say the light comes from a ghost train from the 19th century. The students' investigation showed that the light comes from headlights of cars on US 45 in the Paulding area.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5807865

Reasi is a town and a notified area committee and tehsil in the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Situated at the bank of River Chenab, it is the headquarters of the Reasi district. In the eighth century, Reasi was a part of the Bhimgarh state established by Bhim Dev. The name Reasi is derived from the town's old name "Rasyal". Geography. Reasi is located at . It has an average elevation of 466 metres (1,529 feet). Reasi area. Reasi is a District, located 64 km from Jammu. Majority of the population ekes out its livelihood from small business ventures, govt jobs and agriculture. Of the 12293 hectares of agricultural land in the area, 1011 hectares is irrigated. Important crops are Maize, Wheat, Paddy and Bajra. Vegetables are also grown. Climatically, most parts of the area falls in the sub tropical zone and the rest in the temperate zone. Summers are generally warm and winters are cold with snowfall on the higher reaches. Brief history. The erstwhile Bhimgarh State, now called Reasi, was established by Bhim Dev in the eighth century. Brief accounts of successive rulers are known from 1652 when Hari Dev was the king of Jammu. In 1810, during the rule of Diwan Singh, Jammu was under turmoil. Palace intrigues and mutinies shook the administration. It was at this time that Maharaja Ranjit Singh sent Gulab Singh to take control. Gulab Singh came down heavily on the rebels and established the rule of law. After defeating the rebels in the Reasi area, he handed over the administration to his trusted commander, General Zorawar Singh. In 2005, the first municipal election was held and Mr. Kuldeep Mengi elected as a first chairman of the municipal corporation of Reasi. During the devastating floods of September 2014, Saddal Village in the Reasi district faced significant devastation, with a landslide that submerged all roads leading to the town. Demographics. India census, Reasi had a population of 36,355. Males constitute 54% of the population and females 46%. Reasi has an average literacy rate of 75%, higher than the national average of 59.5%: male literacy is 78%, and female literacy is 70%. In Reasi, 13% of the population is under 6 years of age. Reasi has 177 villages with total area of 74932 square km and toal population of 71501 individuals . Main spoken languages are Dogri, Hindi, Urdu, Gojri and Kashmiri. Religion. Hindu 48.91%, Sikh 0.99%, Muslim 49.66%, Historical places. Mata Vaishnodevi , Bhumika Temple, Deva Mai, Nau Pindian, Baba Dhansar, Siar Baba, Bhimgarh Fort, Kalika Temple, Sula Park, Sihar Baba & Shivkhori are few of the attractions of Reasi besides its picturesque locale and surroundings. Transport. Reasi is 64 km from Jammu and can be reached by Road, Rail or Air. Nearest Airport is 80 km and railway station 26 km. Geology and mining. Reasi has rich ores of bauxite, iron and precious stones. Current times. Being far away from the Jammu - Udhampur highway and somewhat inaccessible due to the hilly area, economic progress in Reasi has been rather slow. However, the economic activity picked up since the 1980s with the construction of the Salal Hydroelectric Project. The militancy in the 1990s came as a setback to prosperity but induction of Army in the area has given a sense of security to the people. But what may change the face of Reasi in the not so distant a future, is the Jammu - Srinagar Railway Line which will pass through Reasi and is likely to bring development and prosperity to this area, after providing district status development of Reasi would be tremendous. almost all major banks have their presence in reasi to meet financial need of newly created district. World's First in Reasi. Reasi is looking forward to have the World's tallest bridge by December 2019. Chenab Bridge (359 meters) being built by Konkan Railways will overtake The Millau Viaduct (323 meters) in southern France.

modest industry endeavors

10096-2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2835857

A braille translator is a software program that translates a script into braille and sends it to a braille embosser, which produces a hard copy of the original print text. Only the "script" is transformed, not the "language". Description. For the purposes of this article, the word "inkprint" means text prepared for reading by the eye, whether printed, displayed on a screen, or stored in a computer; "braille" means text prepared for reading by the finger, whether brailled, displayed on an electronic device, or stored in a computer. Braille translation software or embedded hardware converts inkprint into braille or braille into inkprint. Usually someone has inkprint in a word processor file or at an URL and wants braille. The braille could be sent to a braille embosser to produce physical braille or to an electronic notetaker. Another circumstance is that someone has braille in an electronic braille notetaker that they want to produced in inkprint to be shared with someone who does not read braille. Braille translation software is usually classified as assistive technology, since the action of the software provides braille for a blind person. Braille translators can be run by people with or without sight. A braille translator can run on a smartphone, personal computer, network server, or (historically) larger mini-computers or mainframes of larger institutions. Some languages use uncontracted braille, where each letter uses a specific braille character. Uncontracted braille requires manipulation of capitalization, emphasis, numbers, and punctuation. Some languages use contracted braille, where the rules for various braille abbreviations are quite complex. For example, in contracted English braille, the word "think" (5 letters) is rendered as 3 characters: ⠹⠔⠅(th)(in)k. The use or non-use of these contractions is related to pronunciation. For example, the "th" sign is used in "think", but not "pothole". Unless properly programmed, a computer might make a mistake that no person would make, such as using the contraction for "mother" in the word "chemotherapy". The most difficult part of producing braille is making the decision of when and when not to use contractions. When people make these decisions it is "braille transcription"; when computers make these decisions it is "braille translation". History. The first practical application of computer translation and production of braille used mainframe computers at the American Printing House for the Blind of Louisville, Kentucky. During the 1960s, there was an MIT project to automate the production of braille. Robert Mann wrote and supervised software for braille translation called DOTSYS, while another group created an embossing device which became known as the "M.I.T. Braillemboss.". Eventually, MIT outsourced the software work to Mitre Corporation. The Mitre Corporation team of Robert Gildea, Jonathan Millen, Reid Gerhart and Joseph Sullivan (now president of Duxbury Systems) developed DOTSYS III, the first braille translator written in a portable programming language. DOTSYS III was developed for the Atlanta Public Schools as a public domain program. At the first International Workshop on Computerized Braille Production, held in Muenster, Germany, March 1973, many braille-translation projects from around the world were described. An archive of documents on the history of braille, braille translation, and some braille devices is maintained by Duxbury Systems.

a different faction

3081-1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6858494

Sex comedy, erotic comedy or more broadly sexual comedy is a genre in which comedy is motivated by sexual situations and love affairs. Although "sex comedy" is primarily a description of dramatic forms such as theatre and film, literary works such as those of Ovid and Chaucer may be considered sex comedies. Sex comedy was popular in 17th century English Restoration theatre. From 1953 to 1965, Hollywood released a number of sex comedies, some featuring stars such as Doris Day, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe. The United Kingdom released a spate of sex comedies in the 1970s, notably the "Carry On" series. Hollywood released "Animal House" in 1978, which was followed by a long line of teen sex comedies in the early 1980s, e.g. "Porky's", "Bachelor Party" and "Risky Business." Other countries with a significant sex comedy film production include Brazil (pornochanchada), Italy (commedia sexy all'italiana) and Mexico (sexicomedias). Antiquity. Although the ancient Greek theatre genre of the satyr play contained farcical sex, perhaps the best-known ancient comedy motivated by sexual gamesmanship is Aristophanes' "Lysistrata" (411 BC), in which the title character persuades her fellow women of Greece to protest the Peloponnesian War by withholding sex. The "boy-meets-girl" plot that is distinctive of Western sexual comedy can be traced to Menander (343–291 BC), who differs from Aristophanes in focusing on the courtship and marital dilemmas of the middle classes rather than social and political satire. His successor Plautus, the Roman playwright whose comedies inspired the musical "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum", regularly based his plots on sexual situations. The popularity of Plautus's comedies was a major influence on the creation of situation sex comedy. Restoration sex comedy. During the decade 1672–82, sex comedy such as "The Country Wife" (1675) flourished as part of the revival of theatre in England resulting from the Restoration. Forerunners of the craze were John Dryden's "An Evening's Love" (1668) and Thomas Betterton's "The Amorous Widow" (ca. 1670). Sexual content was favored by the presence of female performers, in contrast to the drag performances of the Elizabethan stage. The main character was often a self-important rake or libertine, posturing heroically. Adultery was a major theme, and the couple is sometimes found "in flagrante delicto", represented by the stage direction "in disorder." The plays are often characterized by sexually charged banter, "swaggering masculine energy," and a superficially innocent heroine who is nonetheless alluring. This theatrical milieu produced the first woman of the Western tradition who made her living as playwright, Aphra Behn ("The Rover)." Sex comedy embraces a realm of drama in which women can be contenders. The war is fought with glances and flirtations, wit and beauty, manipulation and desire. And in this battle, women often win—even if the victory is sometimes equivocal. Presenting seduction and adultery as funny eased moral anxieties that might otherwise have attached to these themes. It is an open question as to whether the plays portraying libertinism endorse the lifestyle, or hold it up to satire and criticism. After the main vogue of Restoration sex comedy, William Congreve revived and reinvented the form, and bawdy comedy remained popular into the 18th century. Modern sex comedy. American sex comedy. Film historian Tamar Jeffers McDonald highlights the period 1953 to 1965 as an era where sex comedy came to be the main form of romantic comedy in Hollywood. She claims that 1953 was a key year as the producers of the film "The Moon Is Blue" challenged the Motion Picture Production Code rules against using the word 'virgin', Hugh Hefner introduced "Playboy" magazine, and sexologist Alfred Kinsey drew attention to the way women were having sex before marriage. In the movies, playboys played by actors such as Rock Hudson or Tony Curtis would try to bed marriage-minded women played by actresses such as Doris Day or Marilyn Monroe, and the central question would seem to be "will she or won't she? ", but in the end, the man would fall for the "girl", and sometimes agree to marry her. Notable sex comedies in this period were "Some Like It Hot", "The Apartment", "Pillow Talk", "Irma La Douce", "The Seven Year Itch", "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" and "Lover Come Back". According to McDonald, by 1965, the sexual revolution was under way, so "will she or won't she?" could no longer serve as the central dynamic, and filmmakers moved on to different topics. Some may also consider the 1967 film, "The Graduate", to be a sex comedy due to the story being about the main character, Benjamin Braddock, being seduced and starting an affair with his family friends' mother, Mrs. Robinson. Also during the beginning of the 1970s, there are films such as "Pretty Maids All in a Row", "The Chicken Chronicles", "The Swinging Cheerleaders", "The Pom Pom Girls", and "Cooley High" which share some to many elements from the genre. In 1978, "National Lampoon's Animal House" success led to a string of raunchy gross-out and sex comedies in the late 1970s and early to mid 1980s. "Animal House" featured many scenes that would become iconic and often parodied, such as the scene where John "Bluto" Blutarsky (John Belushi) acts as a "peeping tom" to spy on a half-naked pillow fight at a sorority. In 1981, the film "Porky's" cemented the wide appeal of the sex comedy. Although it would go on to become the fifth highest-grossing film of the year, it proved to be unpopular with critics, with many accusing it of being degrading to women as well as objectifying of them. The film would lead to three sequels and is credited by many as the start of the "teen" subgenre of the sex comedy. Some examples of these types of films from this era and some of which have actors/actresses starring in them that later went on to bigger fame include "Fast Times at Ridgemont High", "The Last American Virgin", "Losin' It", "Risky Business", "Mischief", "Bachelor Party", "Once Bitten", "Revenge of the Nerds", "The Sure Thing", "Class", "Private Lessons", "Private School", and "Private Resort". Another 80's teen comedy film that stars young actors and actresses that went onto bigger fame and is tamer on its handling of sex is "Little Darlings". Although not widely considered a "sex comedy," the 1998 critical and financial hit "There's Something About Mary" has many moments that have entered the pop culture lexicon, particularly the infamous scene in which Ted Stroehmann (Ben Stiller), following a scene of vigorous masturbation, discovers that his semen is hanging off of his ear. Mary (Cameron Diaz), mistaking it for hair gel, nonchalantly grabs it and runs it through her hair. A year later, the film "American Pie" was credited with reviving the "teen sex comedy" subgenre. In the film, a group of high schoolers make a pact to lose their virginity before they graduate. The film's most famous scene (which also provides its namesake) involves one of the high schoolers, Jim (Jason Biggs), having intercourse with a fresh apple pie after being told by a friend that it is similar to "getting to third base." The film spawned numerous sequels and spin-off films, all with varying degrees of financial and critical success, and kicked off a second wave of American sex comedy in the late 1990s and early 2000s. A third wave of American sex comedy emerged in the mid to late 2000s and into the early 2010s with a string of successful sex comedy films by Judd Apatow and his associates. Apatow's 2005 directorial debut "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" follows Andy Stitzer (Steve Carell) as he struggles with the pressures of reaching the age of 40 without ever having "done the deed." Although the film featured crude sexual humor, it was critically praised for balancing it with an underlying romantic message. Another Judd Apatow related film, "Superbad", shared many similar motifs from classic "teen" sex comedies of the past. Sex comedies of the 2010s include "The To Do List", puberty-themed series "Big Mouth", and "Yes, God, Yes". British sex comedy. According to David McGillivray in his history of the British sex film, "Doing Rude Things", "Mary Had a Little..." (1961) was the first British sex comedy. Bridging the gap between documentary nudist films and the later sex comedies was the film "The Naked World of Harrison Marks" (1965). George Harrison Marks' love of music hall and slapstick found its way into this spoof documentary biopic. Norman Wisdom's last starring role, "What's Good for the Goose" (1969), was a sex comedy made by Tony Tenser. He specialised in producing exploitation films and founded his own production company Tigon British Film Productions in 1966. In the movie, he leaves his wife and kids to go off on a business trip and has an affair with a young girl, played by Sally Geeson There apparently are two versions of the film: the 98-minute cut version was released in the UK, while the uncensored version (105 minutes) which shows nudity from Sally Geeson, was released in continental Europe. "Percy" was directed by Ralph Thomas and starred Hywel Bennett, Denholm Elliott, Elke Sommer, and Britt Ekland. The film is about a successful penis transplant. An innocent and shy young man (Bennett) whose penis is mutilated in an accident and has to be amputated wakes up after an operation to find out that it has been replaced by a womanizer's, which is very large. The rest of the movie is about its new owner following in his predecessor's footsteps and meeting all the women who are able to recognize it. There was a sequel, "Percy's Progress", released in 1974. To move with the times, the "Carry On" series added nudity to its saucy seaside postcard innuendo. Series producer Peter Rogers saw the George Segal movie "Loving" (1970) and added his two favourite words to the title, making "Carry On Loving" (1970) the twentieth in the series. Starring "countess of cleavage" Imogen Hassall, the story of a dating agency service is still very innocent stuff. It was followed by "Carry On Girls" (1973), based around a Miss World-style beauty contest. Next in the series was "Carry On Dick" (1974), with more risqué humour and Sid James and Barbara Windsor's on- and off-screen lovemaking. It has often been noted that historically, a defining characteristic of most British sex comedies – particularly in the period after the censorship rules were relaxed slightly at the turn of the 1970s – is that they were "neither sexy nor funny". The "Confessions" series. The "Confessions" series consisted of four sex comedy films released during the 1970s starring Robin Askwith. The films in the "Confessions" series—"Confessions of a Window Cleaner", "Confessions of a Driving Instructor", "Confessions of a Pop Performer", and "Confessions from a Holiday Camp"—concern the erotic adventures of Timothy Lea and are based on the novels of Christopher Wood, writing as Timothy Lea. Soon came "Adventures of...", directed by Stanley Long, which started with "Adventures of a Taxi Driver", starring sitcom star Barry Evans, and was followed by "Adventures of a Private Eye" and "Adventures of a Plumber's Mate", starring future record producer Christopher Neil. Long began his career as a photographer before producing striptease shorts (or "glamour home movies", as they were sometimes known), for the 8 mm market. Beginning in the late fifties, Long's feature film career would span the entire history of the British sex film, and as such exemplifies its differing trends and attitudes. His work ranges from coy nudist films ("Nudist Memories" 1959), to moralizing documentary ("The Wife Swappers", 1970) to a more relaxed attitude to permissive material ("Naughty! ", 1971) to out and out comedies at the end of the 1970s. He did not like sex scenes and was dismissive of pornography, saying it did not turn him on and he turned his back when such scenes were being filmed. Carry Ons become sexy. British sex comedy films became mainstream with the release in 1976 of "Carry On England", starring Judy Geeson, Patrick Mower, and Diane Langton, in which an experimental mixed-sex anti-aircraft battery in wartime is enjoying making love not war. However, the arrival of the new Captain S. Melly brings an end to their cosy life and causes terror in the ranks. In "Carry On Emmannuelle", the beautiful Emmannuelle Prevert just cannot get her own husband into bed. A spoof of "Emmanuelle", the film revolves around the eponymous heroine (Suzanne Danielle) and her unsuccessful attempts to make love to her husband, Emile (Kenneth Williams), a French ambassador. Emile grants Emmannuelle permission to sleep with anyone she likes, and her promiscuity turns her into a celebrity and a frequent talk show guest. Meanwhile, Theodore Valentine is besotted by her and wants them to get married. But Emmannuelle is obsessed with arousing her husband's sexual desire at almost any cost. This was the last of the original "Carry On" films. Sleaze and sexploitation. Producer/director Kenneth F. Rowles made a copycat cash-in with his "The Ups and Downs of a Handyman". His next movie, "Take an Easy Ride", purports to be a public information film warning of the dangers of hitchhiking but is actually a sexploitation film showing young girls being sexually assaulted and murdered (although Rowles says he had to add those scenes on request of the movie's distributor). Films like "Dreams of Thirteen", "The Younger the Better", "Geilermanns Töchter - Wenn Mädchen mündig werden", "Erika's Hot Summer", "Mrs. Stone's Thing", and "Come Play With Me" played in Soho and elsewhere, but with the arrival of the Margaret Thatcher government in 1979 the Eady Levy was abolished in 1985, killing off the genre. French sex comedy. Some French coming of age films contain many themes of the modern "sex comedy" genre, such as "Murmur of the Heart". Italian sex comedy. The commedia sexy all'italiana (lit. "sex comedy Italian style"), also known as "commedia scollacciata" or "commedia erotica all'italiana," is a subgenre of Italian "commedia all'italiana" film genre. It is characterized typically by both abundant female nudity and comedy, and by the minimal weight given to social criticism that was instead basic in the "commedia all'italiana" main genre. Japanese sex comedy. In Japanese, sexy movies or TV shows tend to be referred to as 'oiroke' お色気 which might be translated as 'with a tinge of colour.' 'Pink films' ピンク映画 are more narrowly sexy films made by independent studios for release to adult theatres. The traditional word for comedy is 'kigeki' 喜劇. It was applied to Kyōgen, short comic plays performed in theatres. The word 'kigeki' is also used in the titles of some movies from the 1960s, but more recently the loan word 'komedi' コメディ　has become the usual way of referring to humorous films or TV shows. In 1959, director Kon Ichikawa produced an adaptation of Junichirō Tanizaki's novel "The Key" titled "Odd Obsession" wherein a man whose powers are failing finds he can restore his vigor by spying on his daughter and her fiancé, so he hatches a scheme to involve his wife. Yasuzo Masumura's 1964 film adaptation of Junichirō Tanizaki's novel "Quicksand(Manji)" took a tongue-in-cheek approach to the melodrama of a housewife falling in love with a younger woman. Shohei Imamura released "The Pornographers" in 1966, parodying the workings of a small pornographic film company. In 1970–1, Yuji Tanno and Isao Hayashi directed a number of movies based on Go Nagai's manga "Harenchi Gakuen." Go Nagai's "Kekkou Kamen" manga has also been adapted into a movie and several Original Videos. Norifumi Suzuki has directed a number of sex comedies: "Ero Shogun to Juuichinin no Aishou" (The Erotic Shogun and his 11 Concubines 1972), "Onsen Mimizu Geisha" (Hot Springs Worm Geisha 1972), "Onsen Suppon Geisha" (Hot Springs Turtle Geisha 1972) all for big budget studio Toei as well as the teen sex comedy "Pantsu no Ana" (Hole in her Panties 1984). Yoshimitsu Morita has directed a number of racey comedies including "Something Like It (No You na Mono)" (1981), "Hot Stripper (Maru Hon Uwasa no Sutorippaa)"(1982) and "24 Hour Playboy (Ai to Heisei no Iro Otoko)" (1989). Director Juzo Itami's films such as "The Funeral", "Tampopo" and "A Taxing Woman" are comedies principally about non-sexual topics, but all have a side story that deals with sex, and features nudity. Takeshi Kitano's "Getting Any?" movie is about the quest for sex. Nikkatsu's Roman Porno series was usually fairly serious, but Morita's "Love Hard Love Deep" and manga adaptation "Minna Agechau" were Roman Pornos, and other films in the series such as "Pink Tush Girl" and "" have been described as comedies. Recently there has been a spate of sexy coming of age comedies, e.g. Haruka Ayase's "Oppai Volleyball" and live action adaptations of the manga "Tokyo Daigaku Monogatari", "Ibitsu", "Moteki" and "Recently, My Sister Is Unusual." The 2003 Japanese TV drama "Stand Up!" starring Kazunari Ninomiya is the story of four virgin boys, and bears some resemblance to American sex comedies of the 1980s.

no matter what

7528-2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21405210

The Indian Great Depression of 1930 had a very severe impact on India, which was then under the rule of the British Raj. How much India was affected has been hotly debated. Native historians have argued that the Great Depression slowed long-term industrial development. Although revisionist scholars argue that depression had only a small impact in India's modern secondary sector: in terms of output, there was no depression in India between 1929 and 1934. However there were negative impacts on the jute industry, as world demand fell and prices plunged. Local markets in agriculture and small-scale industry showed modest gains. The Government of India adopted a protective trade policy which, though beneficial to the United Kingdom, caused great damage to the Indian economy. During the period 1929–1937, exports and imports fell drastically crippling seaborne international trade. The railways and the agricultural sector were the most affected. The international financial crisis combined with detrimental policies adopted by the Government of India resulted in soaring prices of commodities. High prices along with the stringent taxes prevalent in British India had a dreadful impact on most Indians. The discontent of farmers manifested itself in rebellions and riots. The Salt Satyagraha of 1930 in which Gandhi ji walked 240 miles with his followers and it was one of the measures undertaken as a response to heavy taxation during the Great Depression. The Great Depression and the economic policies of the Government of India worsened already deteriorating Indo-British relations. When the first general elections were held according to the Government of India Act 1935, anti-British feelings resulted in the pro-independence Indian National Congress winning in most provinces with a very high percentage of the vote share. Economy of British India. Indian economy had been largely agricultural before and during the rule of the British. However, during British rule, there was a major shift from the growth of food grains to the cultivation of cash crops. This change was fostered by India's British rulers in order to provide for the textile mills in England, the most important of them being the cotton mills of Manchester and Lancashire which were fed with raw cotton produced in India. Since 1858, committees were established to investigate the possibility of cotton cultivation in India to provide raw materials for the mills in Lancashire. New technologies and industries were also introduced in India, albeit on a very small scale compared to developed nations of the world. Import duties on British goods were reduced following the 1879 famine. In 1882, apart from those on salt and liquor, all other import duties were abolished. Duties on cotton were revived in 1894 only to be removed once again in 1896. Problems caused by the gold standard. The United Kingdom adopted the gold standard in the 1790s. Gold was used to determine the value of the pound sterling throughout the 19th century and the first quarter of the 20th century. The value of the pound sterling depended on the amount of pound sterling needed to purchase a fixed quantity of gold. At the onset of the First World War, the cost of gold was very low and therefore the pound sterling had high value. But during the First World War, the value of the pound fell alarmingly due to rising war expenses (by prompting the government to print more money). At the conclusion of the war, the value of the pound was only a fraction of what it used to be prior to the commencement of the war. It remained low until 1925, when the then Chancellor of the Exchequer ( Finance Minister) of United Kingdom, Winston Churchill, restored it to pre-War levels. As a result, the price of gold fell rapidly. While the rest of Europe purchased large quantities of gold from the United Kingdom, there was little increase in the financial reserves. This dealt a blow to an already deteriorating economy. The United Kingdom began to look to its possessions as India to compensate for the gold that was sold. India at the onset of the Depression. India was one of the foremost suppliers of raw materials during the First World War. India provided large quantities of iron, steel and other material for the manufacture of arms and armaments. Manufacturing units were gradually established and for the first time, the British Raj adopted a policy of industrialization. India acted both as a supplier as well as a sprawling market for finished British goods in order to sustain Britain's wartime economy. When the war came to an end, the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms were enacted in order to provide certain concessions to Indians in return for their loyalty to the Empire during the war. In 1923, the British Raj offered government protection to nine industries posing them as a sincere bid to industrialize the economy. However, the measures appeared symbolic and were intended to finance and protect British enterprise as was evident from the fact that all the benefactors were British-run industries. At the onset of the Great Depression, as it had been always, much of India's imports were from the United Kingdom. On the eve of the First World War, India was the British Empire's single largest market with its exports to India at Rs. 730 million making up over one-sixth of the country's total exports. During the annual fiscal year 1928–29, the total revenue for the Government of India was Rs. 1,548 million. The total exports were valued at Rs. 3,390 million while imports were valued at Rs. 2,630 million. Impact of the Great Depression. India suffered badly due to the Great Depression. The price decline from late 1929 to October 1931 was 36 percent compared to 27 percent in the United Kingdom and 26 percent in the United States. Economic policy of the Raj during the Depression. During the Depression, the British Raj intensified the existing imperialistic economic policies. While these policies protected Britain's economy, they destroyed India's. Because the fall in prices had been higher in India compared to the rest of the world, the price of commodities manufactured in India rose dramatically compared to imports from the United Kingdom or some other country in the world. Farmers who were cultivating food crops had earlier moved over to cash crop cultivation in large numbers to meet the demands of the mills in the United Kingdom. Now, they were crippled as they were unable to sell their products in India due to the high prices; nor could they export the commodities to the United Kingdom which had recently adopted a protective policy prohibiting imports from India. Angus Maddison's historical dataset shows Indian GDP actually rose around 1% from 1929-32, a much better outcome than for most other economies. Rice, wheat, etc., could be used for private consumption but the cash crops which they now cultivated could not be used for private consumption. As there was little sale of indigenous manufactures and limited exports, commodities accumulated and the flow of cash was restricted. Moreover, imports were severely affected by the Swadeshi movement and the boycott of foreign goods imposed by Indian Freedom Fighters. There was a deficiency of money in many places causing widespread poverty. In such a condition, the most recommended course of action is the devaluation of currency. Most countries afflicted by the Great Depression as Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and Denmark reduced the exchange value of their currencies. However, the British Raj rejected the idea. A recommended course of action to increase mobility of cash is rise of government expenditure. However, the Government was less interested in spending than accumulation. International trade. International trade decreased a great deal. The imports fell by over 47% while the exports fell by over 49% between 1929 and 1932. Between 1928–29 and 1933–34, exports due to seaborne trade decreased by 55.75% to Rs. 1.25 billion while imports decreased by 55.51% to Rs. 2.02 billion. Impact on the Railways. Due to a decline in exports and imports, and thereby, in the transportation of goods, the railway revenues decreased exponentially. All the expenses for the years 1930–31 and 1931–32 were paid from the Railway Reserve Fund. There was a decrease of Rs. 151 million in the railway revenues between 1930 and 1932. Dealing with home charges. In British India, apart from existing imports and exports, there was also a particular amount of money which colonial India contributed towards administration, maintenance of the army, war expenses, pensions to retired officers and other expenses accrued by Britain towards maintenance of her colony. These were known as "Home charges" and were paid for almost entirely by India. The Home charges was made of five components Due to the drastic collapse of international trade and the very little revenue obtained for it, India could only pay off her home charges by selling off her gold reserves. From 1931–32 to 1934–35, India exported ₹ 2,330 million worth of gold. Consequences. The Great Depression had a terrible impact on Indian farmers. While there was a steady, uninhibited increase in land rent, the value of the agricultural produce had come down to alarming levels. Therefore, having incurred heavy losses, farmers were compelled to sell off gold and silver ornaments in their possession in order to pay the land rent and other taxes. By 1931, around 1600 ounces of gold were arriving every day at the port of Bombay. This gold intake was transported to the United Kingdom to compensate for the low bullion prices in the country and thereby revitalize the British economy. United Kingdom was overjoyed as its economy recovered with gold and silver from India. The Viceroy, Lord Willingdon remarked Founding of the Reserve Bank of India. The policies of the Government of India during the Great Depression resulted in widespread protests all over the country. As the national struggle intensified, the Government of India conceded some of the economic demands of the nationalists, including the establishment of a central bank. Accordingly, the Reserve Bank of India Act was passed in 1934 and a central bank came into being on April 1, 1935 with Sir Osborne Smith as its first Governor. However, when Osborne Smith tried to function independently and indulged in open confrontation with P. J. Grigg, the finance member of the Viceroy's Council, he was removed from office. Related events. Declaration of independence. On December 31, 1929, at a session of the Indian National Congress held on the banks of the river Ravi in Lahore, Jawaharlal Nehru unfurled the tricolor and declared that complete independence from British rule would, henceforth, be the goal of the Congress. This was a remarkable shift of policy for the Indian National Congress as it had, till now, been a staunch advocate of dominion status. This declaration also triggered the Civil Disobedience Movement, which commenced with the Salt Satyagraha. Salt Satyagraha. The Salt Satyagraha formed the highpoint of the Civil Disobedience Movement. While the heavy salt tax was always a burden to the poor peasant, the widespread poverty during the Great Depression made it even more difficult for the commoner to procure salt. In response to this tax, between March 12, 1930 and April 5, 1930, Mahatma Gandhi marched with over 30,000 followers to the coastal town of Dandi in Gujarat, where they illegally manufactured salt and defied the Government monopoly on salt. Subsequently, similar satyagrahas were organized at Dharasana and Vedaranyam. The Government responded with a massive roundup, but by then, the march and the media coverage had radically moulded international opinion.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=328173

is a city in Tokachi Subprefecture, Hokkaido, Japan. Obihiro is the only designated city in the Tokachi area. The next most populous municipality in Tokachi is the adjacent town of Otofuke, with less than a third of Obihiro's population. The city had approximately 500 foreign residents in 2008. The city contains the headquarters of the Fifth Division of the Northern Army of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force. It also hosts the Rally Japan World Rally Championship-event. In 2008, Obihiro was designated a "model environmental city" in Japan. Geography and transportation. The Tokachi-Obihiro Airport is located to the south of downtown Obihiro, but is still within the city's borders. It takes 50 minutes by car or 1 hour by bus from Obihiro Station to the airport. The next major airport nearby is New Chitose Airport. From Obihiro, it takes 2 hrs 30 mins to get New Chitose Airport by train and just over 4 hours to get there by car. Both airports have direct flights to and from Haneda Airport. History. Obihiro was the area first settled by Benzō Yoda in May 1883. It became a city on April 1, 1933. In 1957 the villages of Taishō and Kawanishi merged with Obihiro, bringing it to its current size. Industry. Obihiro, along with most of Tokachi, has a large agricultural sector that revolves around large scale farming operations. Farms within the boundaries of Obihiro have an average of approximately 24 hectares of arable land; exceeding the Hokkaido average (17.41 ha) and the national average (1.57 ha). The main crops produced are wheat, potatoes, beets, and beans, but there has also been progress in the production of "nagaimo" ("Dioscorea polystachya") and "gobō" ("Arctium lappa"); two of Tokachi's specialty products. The headquarters of 3 nationally renowned pastry companies (Rokkatei, Ryugetsu, and Cranberry) are also located in Obihiro. Education. Obihiro has 26 public elementary schools and 14 public middle schools. It also has five prefectural high schools, two private high schools, and one municipal high school. The Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine is the only university in Tokachi. Due to the decreasing birth rate in the area (and across the entire nation) some elementary schools are scheduled for closing by 2012. Environment. Rivers. Obihiro has one of Japan's most pristine rivers flowing through its city limits. Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism has chosen Obihiro's Satsunai River, which joins the Tokachi River outside of town, as the cleanest Class A river in Japan seven times since 1991. It is designated as a Class A River by the Japanese government due to its importance to environmental conservation and the national economy. In the Ainu language, Satnay means "dry river", and even today, most of its run is shallow. The city draws most of its drinking water from the Satsunai. The biggest pollutant in the river is nitrates from fertilizer run off from all the farming operations along the river's banks. The other major river in the city is the Tokachi, but its water is not used for drinking as it has much higher pollution levels. Forests. In 1974, a plan for the creation of an expansive city recreation space was initiated, and from 1975 to 2004 large groups of Obihiro citizens participated in "Tree Planting Festivals" (). These actions have resulted in the creation of a new forest; the "Obihiro no Mori" (). Recently, tree planting in the forest has been limited to small projects due to a lack of space to plant more trees. Climate. Obihiro has a humid continental climate (Köppen: "Dfb") with warm summers and cold winters, very similar with the coast of New England (although the lower averages are with more extreme records). Precipitation falls throughout the year, but is higher in late summer and early spring. Culture. Ban'ei horse racing. Obihiro is famous for the unique style of horse racing that takes place at the city's horse racetrack. Hokkaido farmers in the 1900s had tug-of-war contests between their work horses to judge their strength and value. This gradually became a more formalized event and eventually became the racing we know today as Ban'ei horse racing. Rather than an oblong track, which most people think of when talking about horse racing, Obihiro's ban'ei track is a straight 200 m run with two hills. Large and powerful draft horses pull sleds that can weigh more than a ton while their rider whips them hard to make them go faster. The track and facilities were renovated in 2007 due to major efforts by the city government to increase the popularity of the races. One unique aspect of the track is that spectators can walk alongside the track as the horses struggle towards the finish line. Starting in 2006, the City of Obihiro has poured money into reviving this sport and considers it a part of the city's traditional culture. Major festivals. Obihiro has three major festivals: the Flat Plain Festival, the Chrysanthemum Festival, and the Ice Festival. Kita no Yatai. The is an alleyway of unique foodstands that is open all year-round, and offers foods from many different countries. Food. Obihiro is famous for pork meat glazed in a special sauce on rice, which is called "butadon" and mutton, which is called "jingisukan", named after Genghis Khan. It is also famous for potatoes and dairy products, which are common produce in Tokachi. Obihiro also claims to be the origin of a dish called "chuuka chirashi". It is also known for its high quality turnips. Wild game, including venison and bear meat, is also eaten in Obihiro. Major city facilities. Tokachi International Relations Center. The was opened in 1996. It was created to facilitate international studies and events, academic study, and general interaction between people of different cultures and backgrounds. The establishment of the TIRC influenced the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in its decision to build the adjacent JICA Obihiro facility. Many events are now coordinated between the various organizations represented in buildings. The TIRC offers a library room, an all-purpose gymnasium, kitchen facilities, and a large indoor "winter garden" of indoor flora. Two major events held here each year are the "Friends of the World Cookout", where over 2,000 people gather to cook and eat international food, and the "Mori no Halloween" party where over 1,000 costumed parents and children celebrate a holiday that is not native to Japan. JICA Obihiro International Centre. JICA Obihiro (Japan International Cooperation Agency/Obihiro International Centre) was established in April 1996 as a center for international cooperation activities in eastern Hokkaido. JICA carries out a variety of programmes in connection with technical cooperation with developing countries. In all, there are three organizations housed in the International Centre; Japan International Cooperation Agency, Japan International Cooperation Center, and the Northern Regions Center. Obihiro Zoo. opened in 1963. Construction of a new monkey facility was completed in June, 2008. It cost approximately 266 million yen (2.66 million USD) Obihiro Library. The new Obihiro public library was opened in 2006, and currently has over 300 English language books available. Indoor ice-skating rink. An olympic size indoor speed skating rink, Meiji Hokkaido-Tokachi Oval, has been completed on the west side of Obihiro. Its construction was controversial due to its large price tag. The tentative budget for the project was the equivalent of US$30 million. It was the site for the Essent ISU World Sprint Speed Skating Championships 2010. Events. Parts of the 2017 Asian Winter Games are hosted in Obihiro. International sister cities. Obihiro has three international sister-cities: While on a business trip in Alaska, a (former) teacher at Obihiro's Agricultural High School, Yasuhiko Ohzono, was asked by the mayor of Seward to create some sort of cultural exchange between the two cities. On March 21, 1967, the mayor of Obihiro sent a picture album and other materials to introduce the city to the mayor of Seward. The mayor of Seward sent a message, a coat of arms, and a medal; all of which were personally delivered by a member of the entourage of the U.S.-Japan Fishing Industry Negotiation Team in Japan at the time. Obihiro sends the Mayor of Seward a wooden carving of a bear. On January 31, 1968 the resolution made by the Seward City Council arrives. The City of Obihiro also created a resolution on March 27, 1968, the sister city agreement was signed by both sides, and exchange between the two cities began. Since the Obihiro Economic Observation Group visited Seward in September, 1971, there have been various exchanges between Seward and Obihiro. Both mayors and many citizens of both cities have participated in exchanges, and the high school student exchange program has been put on every year since the summer of 1973. Interaction between the two cities began with Chaoyang's Economic Observation Group Visit to Obihiro on May 30, 1985. In September that same year, Obihiro sent the 15 member Northeast China Friendship and Observation Group to Chaoyang. Since then various groups have made exchange visits, agricultural trainees have been received, and there has even been exchanges of craft projects between elementary students. Since 1987, administrative and agricultural trainees have made 13 visits. In addition, JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) has been sending agricultural specialists to Chaoyang. At the end of October in 1999, the mayor of Obihiro at the time, Toshifumi Sunagawa, lead the Official Friendship Visit Group to Chaoyang, and he exchanged memos regarding the signing of a Friendship City Agreement. On November 17, 2000, the mayor of Chaoyang at the time, Daicao Wang, lead a delegation to Obihiro where a Friendship City Agreement was signed with the purpose of deepening interaction between the two cities across a wide range of fields, and to promote further friendship and peace between the two cities; not to mention China and Japan. The two cities have run a high school student exchange program since 2002. Obihiro became sister cities with Madison in October 2006. The two cities have almost the same latitude, and have similar climates. The content of the sister-city relationship has been mainly various visits to Madison regarding the field of mental health, but since the official start of the relationship there have been various fact-finding missions to and from Madison. There was even a short visit to Obihiro by two Madison area students, in August 2007. Obihiro hopes to learn more about Madison agriculture, mental health systems and facilities, and about how the University of Wisconsin–Madison runs various programs and organizations that have helped make it the university it is today. For example, the Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine has shown interest in marketing ice cream and other dairy products as the Babcock Dairy does at UW–Madison.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25189286

The debate over capital punishment in the United States existed as early as the colonial period. As of March 2020, it remains a legal penalty within 28 states, the federal government, and military criminal justice systems. The states of Colorado, New Hampshire, Illinois, Connecticut and Maryland (by the legislature and not the courts) abolished the death penalty within the last decade alone. Gallup, Inc. has monitored support for the death penalty in the United States since 1937 by asking "Are you in favor of the death penalty for a person convicted of murder?" Opposition to the death penalty peaked in 1966, with 47% of Americans opposing it; by comparison, 42% supported the death penalty and 11% had "no opinion." The death penalty increased in popularity throughout the 1970s and 1980s, when crime went up and politicians campaigned on fighting crime and drugs; in 1994, the opposition rate was less than 20%, less than in any other year. Since then, the crime rate has fallen and opposition to the death penalty has strengthened again. In the October 2016 poll, 60% of respondents said they were in favor and 37% were opposed. History. Colonial period. Abolitionists gathered support for their claims from writings by European Enlightenment philosophers such as Montesquieu, Voltaire (who became convinced the death penalty was cruel and unnecessary) and Bentham. In addition to various philosophers, many members of Quakers, Mennonites and other peace churches opposed the death penalty as well. Perhaps the most influential essay for the anti-death penalty movement was Cesare Beccaria's 1767 essay, "On Crimes and Punishment". Beccaria's strongly opposed the state's right to take lives and criticized the death penalty as having very little deterrent effect. After the American Revolution, influential and well-known Americans, such as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Rush, and Benjamin Franklin made efforts to reform or abolish the death penalty in the United States. All three joined the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, which opposed capital punishment. Following colonial times, the anti-death penalty movement has risen and fallen throughout history. In "Against Capital Punishment: Anti-Death Penalty Movement in America", Herbert H. Haines describes the presence of the anti-death penalty movement as existing in four different eras. First abolitionist era, mid-to-late 19th century. The anti-death penalty movement began to pick up pace in the 1830s and many Americans called for abolition of the death penalty. Anti-death penalty sentiment rose as a result of the Jacksonian era, which condemned gallows and advocated for better treatment of orphans, criminals, poor people, and the mentally ill. In addition, this era also produced various enlightened individuals who were believed to possess the capacity to reform deviants. Although some called for complete abolition of the death penalty, the elimination of public hangings was the main focus. Initially, abolitionists opposed public hangings because they threatened public order, caused sympathy for the condemned, and were bad for the community to watch. However, after multiple states restricted executions to prisons or prison yards, the anti-death penalty movement could no longer capitalize on the horrible details of execution. The anti-death penalty gained some success by the end of the 1850s as Michigan, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin passed abolition bills. Abolitionists also had some success in prohibiting laws that placed mandatory death sentences of convicted murderers. However, some of these restrictions were overturned and the movement was declining. Conflict between the North and the South in the run-up to the American Civil War and the Mexican–American War took attention away from the movement. In addition, the anti-gallow groups who were responsible for lobbying for abolition legislation were weak. The groups lacked strong leadership, because most members were involved in advocating for other issues as well, such as slavery abolishment and prison reform. Members of anti-gallow groups did not have enough time, energy, or resources to make any substantial steps towards abolition. Thus, the movement declined and remained latent until after the post-Civil War period. Second abolitionist era, late 19th and early 20th centuries. The anti-death penalty gained momentum again at the end of the 19th century. Populist and progressive reforms contributed to the reawakened anti-capital punishment sentiment. In addition, a "socially conscious" form of Christianity and the growing support of "scientific" corrections contributed to the movement's success. New York introduced the electric chair in 1890. This method was supposed to be more humane and appease death penalty opponents. However, abolitionists condemned this method and claimed it was inhumane and similar to burning someone on a stake. In an 1898 op-ed in "The New York Times", prominent physician Austin Flint called for the abolition of the death penalty and suggested more criminology-based methods should be used to reduce crime. Anti-death penalty activism of this period was largely state and locally based. An organization called the Anti-Death Penalty League was established Massachusetts in 1897. However, national leagues, such as the Anti-capital Punishment Society of America and the Committee on Capital Punishment of the National Committee on Prisons, developed shortly after. Many judges, prosecutors, and police opposed the abolition of capital punishment. They believed capital punishment held a strong deterrent capacity and that abolishment would result in more violence, chaos, and lynching. Despite opposition from these authorities, ten states banned execution through legislation by the beginning of World War I and numerous others came close. However, many of these victories were reversed and the movement once again died out due to World War I and the economic problems which followed. The American Civil Liberties Union, however, developed in 1925 and proved influential. The group focused on educating the public about the moral and pragmatic trouble of the death penalty. They also organized campaigns for legislative abolition and developed a research team which looked into empirical evidence surrounding issues such as death penalty deterrence and racial discrimination within the capital punishment process. Although the organization had little success when it came to abolition, they gathered a multitude of members and financial support for their cause. Many of their members and presidents were well-known prison wardens, attorneys, and academic scholars. These influential people wrote articles and pamphlets that were given out across the nation. They also gave speeches. Along with other social movements of the time, however, the group lost momentum and attention due to the Great Depression and World War II. Third abolitionist era, mid-20th century. The movement in 1950s and 1960s shifted focus from legislation to the courts. Although public opinion remained in favor of execution (aside from during the mid-1960s when pro and anti opinions were roughly equal), judges and jurors executed fewer people than they did in the 1930s. The decline in executions gave strength to various new anti-capital punishment organizations. Among these groups were: a California-based Citizens Against Legalized Murder, the Ohio Committee to Abolish Capital Punishment, the New Jersey Council to Abolish Capital Punishment, California's People Against Capital Punishment, the New York Committee to Abolish Capital Punishment, the Oregon Council to Abolish the Death Penalty, and the national Committee to Abolish the Federal Death Penalty. In addition to growing organizations, the movement also profited from growing European abolishment of the death penalty and from the controversial executions of Barbara Graham and Caryl Chessman. Success mounted in the late 1950s as Alaska, Hawaii, and Delaware abolished capital punishment. Oregon and Iowa followed their leads in the 1960s. Many other states added laws that restricted the use of the death penalty except in cases of extreme serious offenses. Abolitionists began to strongly challenge the constitutionality of the death penalty in the 1960s. Lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union and from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund launched a major campaign challenging the death penalty's constitutionality and insisted a moratorium for all executions while it was in process. The United States executed zero people from 1968 to 1976. The anti-death penalty movement's biggest victory of this time period was the Supreme Court Case, "Furman v. Georgia", of 1972. The Supreme Court found the current state of the death penalty unconstitutional due to its "arbitrary and discriminatory manner" of application. The court, however, left states with the option to revamp their laws and make them more constitutional. Twenty eight states did just that and the court eventually allowed the death penalty again through a series of cases in 1976, collectively known as "Gregg v. Georgia". Contemporary anti-death penalty movement. The anti-death penalty movement rose again in response to the reinstatement of capital punishment in many states. In the courts, the movement's response has yielded certain limitations on the death penalty's application. For example, juveniles, the mentally ill, and the intellectually disabled can no longer be executed. However, the Supreme Court also made it more difficult to allege racial discrimination within the capital punishment process. During this era, the movement diversified its efforts beyond those of litigation and lawyers, to include a wide range of organizations that attacked the death penalty legislatively. Some of the most influential organizations who continue to work against capital punishment today include Amnesty International USA, the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. The works of these organizations have brought about various restrictions on the use of capital punishment at the state level, including several statewide moratoriums and bans on capital punishment. As a result, some scholars consider the American death penalty to be relatively vulnerable in this contemporary period. Through both litigation and activism, the anti-death penalty movement has specifically targeted lethal injection as an unacceptable method of execution. By pressuring pharmaceutical manufacturers and raising awareness about protracted, painful, or "botched" execution attempts, activists have achieved some success at limiting the number of executions carried out. Contemporary activism and advocacy has also highlighted the possibility of executing innocent people, an issue that has gained salience as DNA testing has established the innocence of several death-row convicts. The Innocence Project has gained widespread recognition for its efforts to clear convictions using DNA evidence. Finally, many contemporary arguments focus on the greater cost of the death penalty compared to alternate sentences, which has attracted strong support in some state legislatures. Rather than possessing leaders and members who are possible beneficiaries of the movement's success, the anti-death penalty movement is composed of "moral entrepreneurs" who speak up for those who are under threat of being executed. Membership is not as strong as those of mass movements because it is often composed of "paper membership," which means members are with a group that represents other issues as well or members are involved in multiple other issue-oriented projects. Public opinion. In a poll completed by Gallup in October 2009, 65% of Americans supported the death penalty for persons convicted of murder, while 31% were against and 5% did not have an opinion. In the U.S., surveys have long shown a majority in favor of capital punishment. An ABC News survey in July 2006 found 65 percent in favour of capital punishment, consistent with other polling since 2000. About half the American public says the death penalty is not imposed frequently enough and 60 percent believe it is applied fairly, according to a Gallup poll from May 2006. Yet surveys also show the public is more divided when asked to choose between the death penalty and life without parole, or when dealing with juvenile offenders. Roughly six in 10 tell Gallup they do not believe capital punishment deters murder and majorities believe at least one innocent person has been executed in the past five years. As a comparison, in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, and Western Europe, the death penalty is a controversial issue. However certain cases of mass murder, terrorism, and child murder occasionally cause waves of support for restoration, such as the Robert Pickton case, the Greyhound bus beheading, Port Arthur massacre and Bali bombings, though none of these events or similar events actually caused the death penalty to be re-instated. Between 2000 and 2010, support for the return of capital punishment in Canada dropped from 44% to 40%, and opposition to it returning rose from 43% to 46%. The Canadian government currently "has absolutely no plans to reinstate capital punishment." Nonetheless, in a 2011 interview given to Canadian media, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper affirmed his private support for capital punishment by saying, "I personally think there are times where capital punishment is appropriate." According to some polls, as of 2012, 63% of surveyed Canadians believe the death penalty is sometimes appropriate, while 61% said capital punishment is warranted for murder. In Australia, a 2009 poll found that 23% of the public support the death penalty for murder, while a 2014 poll found that 52.5% support the death penalty for fatal terrorist attacks. A number of polls and studies have been done in recent years with various results. In the punishment phase of the federal capital case against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in 2015 for the Boston Marathon bombing, the convict was given the death penalty. Opinion polls in the state of Massachusetts, where the crime and the trial transpired, "showed that residents overwhelmingly favored life in prison for Mr. Tsarnaev. Many respondents said that life in prison for one so young would be a fate worse than death, and some worried that execution would make him a martyr. But the jurors in his case had to be 'death qualified' — that is, they all had to be willing to impose the death penalty to serve on the jury. So in that sense, the jury was not representative of the state." Deterrence. In regard to capital punishment, deterrence is the notion that the death penalty (for crimes such as murder) may deter other individuals from engaging in crimes of a similar nature. Up till 1975, most studies agreed that executing convicted criminals and publicizing these executions did not significantly deter other individuals from committing similar crimes. In 1975, however, Ehrlich famously contradicted existing social science literature by seemingly proving the validity of the deterrence argument. Although Ehrlich's study appeared to show that executing individuals and publicizing said execution resulted in lower crime rates from the 1930s through the 1960s, his findings drew criticism, due to other researchers' inability to replicate the study and its findings. Since the publication of Ehrlich's controversial findings, studies have been increasingly contradictory. As studies' findings become increasingly contradictory, the validity of the deterrence argument has become even more highly contested. In fact, a 2011 article about the validity of the deterrence effect problematizes previous studies, arguing that econometric estimates of execution deterrence are easily manipulated and, by extension, fallible. One reason that there is no general consensus on whether or not the death penalty is a deterrent is that it is used so rarely – only about one out of every 300 murders actually results in an execution. In 2005 in the "Stanford Law Review", John J. Donohue III, a law professor at Yale with a doctorate in economics, and Justin Wolfers, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote that the death penalty "is applied so rarely that the number of homicides it can plausibly have caused or deterred cannot reliably be disentangled from the large year-to-year changes in the homicide rate caused by other factors. ... The existing evidence for deterrence ... is surprisingly fragile." Wolfers stated, "If I was allowed 1,000 executions and 1,000 exonerations, and I was allowed to do it in a random, focused way, I could probably give you an answer." Naci Mocan, an economist at Louisiana State University, authored a study that looked at all 3,054 U.S. counties over death penalty on many different grounds. The study found that each execution prevented five homicides. Emory University law professor Joanna Shepherd, who has contributed to multiple studies on capital punishment and deterrence, has said, "I am definitely against the death penalty on lots of different grounds. But I do believe that people respond to incentives." Shepherd found that the death penalty had a deterrent effect only in those states that executed at least nine people between 1977 and 1996. In the "Michigan Law Review" in 2005, Shepherd wrote, "Deterrence cannot be achieved with a halfhearted execution program." The question of whether or not the death penalty deters murder usually revolves around the statistical analysis. Studies have produced disputed results with disputed significance. Some studies have shown a positive correlation between the death penalty and murder rates – in other words, they show that where the death penalty applies, murder rates are also high. This correlation can be interpreted in either that the death penalty increases murder rates by brutalizing society, which is known as the brutalization hypothesis, or that higher murder rates cause the state to retain or reintroduce the death penalty. However, supporters and opponents of the various statistical studies, on both sides of the issue, argue that correlation does not imply causation. There is evidence that some of the major studies of capital punishment and deterrence are flawed due to model uncertainty, and that once this is accounted for, little evidence of deterrence remains. The case for a large deterrent effect of capital punishment has been significantly strengthened since the 1990s, as a wave of sophisticated econometric studies have exploited a newly-available form of data, so-called panel data. Most of the recent studies demonstrate statistically a deterrent effect of the death penalty. However, critics claim severe methodological flaws in these studies and hold that the empirical data offer no basis for sound statistical conclusions about the deterrent effect. A similar conclusion was reached by the National Research Council in its 2012 report "Deterrence and the Death Penalty", which stated that "research to date on the effect of capital punishment on homicide rates is not useful in determining whether the death penalty increases, decreases, or has no effect on these rates." In 2009, a survey of leading criminologists found that 88% of them did not think capital punishment was an effective deterrent to crime. Surveys and polls conducted in the last 15 years show that some police chiefs and others involved in law enforcement may not believe that the death penalty has any deterrent effect on individuals who commit violent crimes. In a 1995 poll of randomly selected police chiefs from across the U.S., the officers rank the death penalty last as a way of deterring or preventing violent crimes. They ranked it behind many other forms of crime control including reducing drug abuse and use, lowering technical barriers when prosecuting, putting more officers on the streets, and making prison sentences longer. They responded that a better economy with more jobs would lessen crime rates more than the death penalty. In fact, only one percent of the police chiefs surveyed thought that the death penalty was the primary focus for reducing crime. In addition to statistical evidence, psychological studies examine whether murderers think about the consequences of their actions before they commit a crime. Most homicides are spur-of-the-moment, spontaneous, emotionally impulsive acts. Murderers do not weigh their options very carefully in this type of setting (Jackson 27). It is very doubtful that killers give much thought to punishment before they kill (Ross 41). But some say the death penalty must be enforced even if the deterrent effect is unclear, like John McAdams, who teaches political science at Marquette University: "If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call." Maimonides argued that executing a defendant on anything less than absolute certainty would lead to a slippery slope of decreasing burdens of proof, until we would be convicting merely "according to the judge's caprice." Caprice of various sorts are more visible now with DNA testing, and digital computer searches and discovery requirements opening DA's files. Maimonides' concern was maintaining popular respect for law, and he saw errors of commission as much more threatening than errors of omission. Cass R. Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule, both of Harvard law school, however, have argued that if there is a deterrent effect it will save innocent lives, which gives a life-life tradeoff. "The familiar problems with capital punishment—potential error, irreversibility, arbitrariness, and racial skew—do not argue in favor of abolition, because the world of homicide suffers from those same problems in even more acute form." They conclude that "a serious commitment to the sanctity of human life may well compel, rather than forbid, that form of punishment." Regarding any attempt to make a utilitarian moral argument for capital punishment, Albert Camus wrote: The extent to which the deterrence argument is well-founded, however, is far from the only interesting and important aspect of this common justification of capital punishment. In fact, current conceptualizations of the deterrence argument are also paramount, insofar as they implicitly operate under the assumption that the media and publicity are integral to shaping individuals' awareness and understandings of capital punishment. In other words, current conceptualizations of the deterrence argument presuppose that most people are made aware of executions through the media's coverage of said executions, which means that the media's selection of executions to cover, as well as the media's coverage of said executions are necessary for the deterrence effect to transpire. In this regard, in contemporary society, the deterrence argument relies upon the implicit understanding that people's understandings and actions – including actions that may deprive an individual of life – are influenced by the media. Although it is increasingly unclear as to whether or not the media's coverage has affected criminal behavior, it is necessary to examine how the media's coverage of executions and, more abstractly, its holistic construction of capital punishment has shaped people's actions and understandings related to this controversial practice. Use of the death penalty on plea bargain. Supporters of the death penalty, especially those who do not believe in the deterrent effect of the death penalty, say the threat of the death penalty could be used to urge capital defendants to plead guilty, testify against accomplices, or disclose the location of the victim's body. Norman Frink, a senior deputy district attorney in the state of Oregon, considers capital punishment a valuable tool for prosecutors. The threat of death leads defendants to enter plea deals for life without parole or life with a minimum of 30 years the two other penalties, besides death, that Oregon allows for aggravated murder. In a plea agreement reached with Washington state prosecutors, Gary Ridgway, a Seattle-area man who admitted to 48 murders since 1982, accepted a sentence of life in prison without parole in 2003. Prosecutors spared Ridgway from execution in exchange for his cooperation in leading police to the remains of still-missing victims. The media and the capital punishment debate. The media plays a crucial role in the production and reproduction of various cultural discourses, and is imperative to reflexively shaping and being shaped by pervading cultural beliefs and attitudes. In this regard, media messages and, by extension, people's beliefs and attitudes towards practices such as capital punishment may have considerable ramifications for not only convicted criminals, but also for jurors, attorneys, politicians, victims' families, and the broader public debate of capital punishment. Thus, it is imperative to understand how the media's framing of executions has massaged people's understandings and their support of capital punishment, as well as how this framing affects individuals' engagement in criminal activity. Media framing of capital punishment. Journalists and producers play integral roles in shaping the media's framing of the death penalty. But frames develop through a wide variety of social actors and stakeholders. In terms of capital punishment, the media's framing of Timothy McVeigh's execution was interactionally accomplished by a variety of people. Specifically, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which historically shied away from media attention, responded to increased scrutiny through enlisting a media advisory group to help shape the media's framing of McVeigh's execution. Despite the fact that media frames are ubiquitous, the public is not always cognizant of the particular frames with which they are bombarded. This is largely because the media frames issues in a way that, more often than not, keeps people from fully realizing said frames. For instance, examining the media's coverage of three Nebraskan executions reveals that the death penalty was framed in a particularly positive way, to ensure media coverage would correspond with the public's growing support for capital punishment at the time. This meant that journalists did not focus on the problems or tensions within each case, nor did they ask public officials hard-hitting questions regarding the cases or the death penalty more broadly. Media frames can dramatically over-simplify complex social issues. More specifically, the media simplifies complex cases by ensuring news stories adhere to generally taken-for-granted, preexisting cultural understandings of capital crimes. More specifically, the media frames capital punishment in a particularly negative and inaccurate way, by almost exclusively covering cases that involve minority offenders, 'worthy' victims, and especially heinous crimes; this is especially true for capital crimes that involve the sexual degradation of women. A 209 thematic content analysis of Associated Press articles finds that the media frames the death penalty in a way that portrays capital punishment as being overly fair, palatable, and simple. To accomplish such discursively positive illustrations of the death penalty and individual executions, journalists frame stories around inmates' choice. In order of popularity, the other common frames journalists use to frame execution and the death penalty pertain to competency, legal procedures, politics, religion, state-assisted suicide, and inmate suffering. Although most literature shows that in general, the media frames executions and capital punishment favorably by minimizing the complexities of each case, conversely, some studies show that the media frames executions and capital punishment in an overly negative way. Both conditions are achieved through reducing and obscuring the complexities embedded in capital crime cases. Content analyses reveal that "The New York Times", "The Washington Post", and Associated Press have framed the death penalty negatively by focusing on exceptions that challenge acceptance: innocence of some people convicted of capital crimes, the wrongfully accused and convicted, and convicted individuals' lack of competency. A formal content analysis of articles in "Time", "Newsweek", "The Progressive", and "National Review" found that frames used in the left-leaning "Progressive" and right-wing "National Review" contributed to each magazine's respective bias. "Time" and "Newsweek", however, were very centrist in their approaches to social issues, including the death penalty. Although these biased frames may seem insignificant, the media's framing of capital punishment has significant implications. Effect on public opinion. The media plays a critical role in shaping people's understanding of capital punishment. This is especially true insofar as the media's increased focus on the wrongful convictions of innocent people has resulted in the public becoming less supportive of the death penalty. This finding is supported by more recent studies, including a study involving the analysis of "The New York Times" articles' contents and the public's opinions on the death penalty. The media's increased focus on innocent people's wrongful convictions, referred to as the 'innocence frame,' has highlighted larger fallibilities within the justice system; it has contributed to a decline in public support of the death penalty. Furthermore, examinations of whether individuals' exposure to press coverage has the ability to alter their understandings of capital punishment reveal that the way in which the media portrays the public's support of capital punishment has bearings on the public's support of capital punishment. More specifically, if the media suggests there is widespread support of the death penalty, something of which the media has been guilty, individuals are more apt to support the death penalty. It is not only the abstracted 'general public' that is affected by the media's coverage of the death penalty. The media's framing of cases involving the sexual degradation of women affects district attorneys' conceptualizations of said cases, resulting in prosecutors being more apt to pursue the death penalty in cases that involve the sexual mistreatment of women. Cases involving the sexual degradation of women receive much more media attention than others do. Prosecutors are consequently more likely to pursue the death penalty for these crimes, despite the fact that they were, oftentimes, less heinous and gruesome than other capital crimes that did not involve the sexual degradation of women. News coverage has been found to shape people's understandings of the death penalty and specific cases of legally sanctioned execution. Dramatic television has also been found to have significant bearings on people's understandings of and actions pertaining to capital punishment. Viewing police reality shows and television news programs, one's viewership of crime dramas affects their support of the death penalty. In fact, people's viewership of crime dramas has been associated with completely altering people's pre-existing convictions about the death penalty. More to the point, crime dramas are able to reframe cases in ways that correspond with people's broader ideological beliefs, while challenging and changing their specific beliefs about execution. For example, people who identify as liberals have historically been against the death penalty, but crime dramas like Law and Order reframe criminal cases in a way that associates the death penalty with another closely held liberal value, such as the safety and protection of women. In doing so, crime dramas are able to appeal to and sustain people's ideological beliefs, while simultaneously influencing and altering their stances on the death penalty. The media's ability to reframe capital punishment and, by extension, affect people's support of capital punishment, while still appealing to their pre-existing ideological beliefs that may traditionally contradict death penalty support is a testament to the complexities embedded in the media's shaping of people's beliefs about capital punishment. How the media shapes people's understandings about capital punishment can be further complicated by the fact that certain mediums shape people's beliefs and subjectivities differently. People exposed to more complex forms of media, such as traditional, hard-hitting news shows, approach the death penalty in more complex, sophisticated ways than people who are exposed to less complex forms of media, including news magazine television shows. Although the medium is the message to some extent, it is also clear that every media form has some bearing – large or small – on the public's support of the death penalty. In this regard, questions must be raised about the ethics of capital punishment in an increasingly media-saturated society. Furthermore, the public and journalists alike must pay increasing attention to new investigative techniques that lend themselves to increased exonerations. These new techniques are illustrative of the fact that oftentimes, the media can play a meaningful role in matters of life and death. Racial and gender factors. People who oppose capital punishment have argued that the arbitrariness present in its administration make the practice both immoral and unjust. In particular, they point to the systemic presence of racial, socio-economic, geographic, and gender bias in its implementation as evidence of how the practice is illegitimate and in need of suspension or abolition. Anti-death penalty groups specifically argue that the death penalty is unfairly applied to African Americans. African Americans have constituted 34.5 percent of those persons executed since the death penalty's reinstatement in 1976 and 41 percent of death row inmates as of April 2018, despite representing only 13 percent of the general population in 2010. The race of the victim has also been demonstrated to affect sentencing in capital cases, with those murders with white victims more likely to result in a death sentence than those with non-white victims. Advocates have been mostly unsuccessful at alleging systemic racial bias at the Supreme Court, due to the necessity of demonstrating individualized bias in a defendant's case. Approximately 13.5% of death row inmates are of Hispanic or Latino descent, while they make up 17.4% of the general population. Some attribute the racial disparities in capital punishment to individual factors. According to Craig Rice, a black member of the Maryland state legislature: "The question is, are more people of color on death row because the system puts them there or are they committing more crimes because of unequal access to education and opportunity? The way I was raised, it was always to be held accountable for your actions." Others point to academic studies that suggest African American defendants are more likely to receive a death sentence than defendants of other races, even when controlling for the circumstances of the murder, suggesting that individual factors do not explain the racial disparities. As of 2017, women account for 1.88% (53 people) of inmates on death row, with men accounting for the other 98.12% (2764). Since 1976, 1.1% (16) of those executed were women. Sexual orientation may also bias sentencing. In 1993, a jury deliberating over the sentencing of convicted murderer Charles Rhines submitted a written question to the judge asking if Rhines might enjoy prison because he was sexually attracted to men. The judge would not answer that question, and the jury sentenced Rhines to death. In 2018, the Supreme Court said that it would not interfere with the execution of Rhines. Diminished capacity. In the United States, there has been an evolving debate as to whether capital punishment should apply to persons with diminished mental capacity. In "Ford v. Wainwright", the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the state from carrying out the death penalty on an individual who is insane, and that properly raised issues of execution-time sanity must be determined in a proceeding satisfying the minimum requirements of due process. In "Atkins v. Virginia", the Supreme Court addressed whether the Eighth Amendment prohibits the execution of mentally retarded persons. The Court noted that a "national consensus" had developed against it. While such executions are still permitted for people with marginal retardation, evidence of retardation is allowed as a mitigating circumstance. However, the recent case of Teresa Lewis, the first woman executed in Virginia since 1912, proved to be very controversial because Governor Bob McDonnell refused to commute her sentence to life imprisonment, even though she had an IQ of 70. Limits to majority. In theory, opponents of capital punishment might argue that as a matter of principle, death penalties collide with the substance of Madison's understanding on democratic rule. According to the Madisonian principle, the majority's will shall prevail, but at the same time, the minority shall be respected. Hence, the majority cannot pass legislation which imposes the death penalty for the simple reason that such legislation eliminates in total the minority that chooses to disobey the law. Thus the question pertaining to capital punishment is whether the majority has the power to enact legislation imposing capital punishment on the minorities that disobey the laws and exercise the prohibited conduct. As a result, the punishment for disobeying the law – i.e., the prohibition to murder, cannot be the death penalty, because it threatens the existence of the minority. Cost. Recent studies show that executing a criminal costs more than life imprisonment does. Many states have found it cheaper to sentence criminals to life in prison than to go through the time-consuming and bureaucratic process of executing a convicted criminal. Donald McCartin, an Orange County, California jurist famous for sending nine men to death row during his career, said that "it's 10 times more expensive to kill [criminals] than to keep them alive." McCartin's estimate is actually low, according to a June 2011 study by former death penalty prosecutor and federal judge Arthur L. Alarcón, and law professor Paula Mitchell. According to Alarcón and Mitchell, California has spent $4 billion on the death penalty since 1978, and death penalty trials are 20 times more expensive than trials seeking a sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole. Studies in other states show similar patterns. Wrongful execution. Capital punishment is often opposed on the grounds that innocent people will inevitably be executed. In a study carried out by National Academy of Sciences in the US it states that 1 in 25 people executed in the US are innocent. Supporters of capital punishment object that these lives have to be weighed against the far more numerous innocent people whose lives can be saved if the murderers are deterred by the prospect of being executed. Between 1973 and 2005, 123 people in 25 states were released from death row when new evidence of their innocence emerged. Whether all of these exonerations are cases of actual innocence rather than technical exonerations of the defendants due to legal issues in their cases that allow their convictions to be legally quashed is disputed by death penalty supporters. Statistics likely understate the actual problem of wrongful convictions because once an execution has occurred there is often insufficient motivation and finance to keep a case open, and it becomes unlikely at that point that the miscarriage of justice will ever be exposed. In the case of Joseph Roger O'Dell III, executed in Virginia in 1997 for a rape and murder, a prosecuting attorney bluntly argued in court in 1998 that if posthumous DNA results exonerated O'Dell, "it would be shouted from the rooftops that ... Virginia executed an innocent man." The state prevailed, and the evidence was destroyed. Despite this, some controversial cases have been re-investigated following the execution by state authorities, such as post-conviction DNA testing ordered by Mark Warner of evidence in the Roger Keith Coleman case in Virginia and reviewing the forensic evidence in the Cameron Todd Willingham case in Texas. Another issue is the quality of the defense in a case where the accused has a public defender. The competence of the defense attorney "is a better predictor of whether or not someone will be sentenced to death than the facts of the crime". In 2015, the Justice Department and the FBI formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an FBI forensic squad overstated forensic hair matches for two decades before the year 2000. 26 out of 28 forensic examiners overstated evidence of forensic hair matches in 268 trials reviewed, and 95% of the overstatements favored the prosecution. Those cases involve 32 cases in which defendants were sentenced to death.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1215815

Giuseppe "Joe" Profaci (; October 2, 1897 – June 6, 1962) was an Italian-born New York City La Cosa Nostra boss who was the founder of what became the Colombo crime family. Established in 1928, this was the last of the Five Families to be organized. He was the family's boss for over three decades. Biography. Early life. Giuseppe Profaci was born in Villabate, in the Province of Palermo, Sicily, on October 2, 1897. In 1920, Profaci spent one year in prison in Palermo on theft charges. Family ties. Profaci's sons were Frank Profaci and John Profaci Sr. Frank eventually joined the Profaci crime family while John Sr. followed legitimate pursuits. Two of Profaci's daughters married the sons of Detroit Partnership mobsters William Tocco and Joseph Zerilli. Profaci's brother was Salvatore Profaci, who served as his consigliere for years, and is known to have been heavily into dealing of pornographic materials. One of Profaci's brothers-in-law was Joseph Magliocco, who would eventually become Profaci's underboss. Profaci's niece Rosalie Profaci was married to Salvatore Bonanno, the son of Bonanno crime family boss Joseph Bonanno. Profaci was the uncle of Salvatore Profaci Jr., also a member of the Profaci crime family. Rosalie Profaci offered the following description of her uncle: He was a flamboyant man who smoked big cigars, drove big black Cadillacs, and did things like buy tickets to a Broadway play for us cousins. But he didn't buy two or three or even four seats, he bought a whole row. Released from prison in 1921, Profaci emigrated to the United States, arriving in New York City on September 4. Profaci settled in Chicago, where he opened a grocery store and bakery. However, the business was unsuccessful, and in 1925, Profaci relocated to New York, where he entered the olive oil import business. On September 27, 1927, Profaci became a United States citizen. At some point after his move to Brooklyn, Profaci became involved with local gangs. Rise to family boss. On December 5, 1928, Profaci attended a mob meeting in Cleveland, Ohio that would make him an organized crime boss in Brooklyn. In October 1928, Brooklyn boss Salvatore D'Aquila had been murdered. An important part of the Cleveland meeting, attended by mobsters from Tampa, Florida, Chicago, and Brooklyn, was to appoint Profaci as Aquila's replacement so as to maintain calm among the Brooklyn gangs. Magliocco was named as Profaci's second-in-command. Given Profaci's lack of experience in organized crime, it is unclear why the New York gangs gave him power in Brooklyn. Some speculated that Profaci received this position due to his family's status in Sicily, where they may have belonged to the Villabate Mafia. Profaci may have also benefited from contacts made through his olive oil business. Cleveland police eventually raided the meeting and expelled the mobsters from Cleveland, but Profaci's business was accomplished. By 1930, Profaci was controlling numbers, prostitution, loansharking, and narcotics trafficking in Brooklyn. In 1930, the Castellammarese War broke out in New York City. Some sources say that Profaci remained neutral, while others say that Profaci was firmly aligned with Castellammarese boss Salvatore Maranzano. When the war finally ended in 1931, top mobster Charles "Lucky" Luciano reorganized the New York gangs into five organized crime families. At this point, Profaci was recognized as boss of what was now the Profaci crime family, with Magliocco as underboss and Salvatore Profaci as consigliere. When Luciano created the National Crime Syndicate, also known as the Mafia Commission, he gave Profaci a seat on the governing board. Profaci's closest ally on the board was Bonanno, who would cooperate with Profaci over the next 30 years. Profaci was also allied with Stefano Magaddino, the boss of the Buffalo crime family. Business and faith. Profaci obtained most of his wealth through traditional illegal enterprises such as protection rackets and extortion. However, to protect himself from federal tax evasion charges, Profaci still maintained his original olive oil business, known as Mamma Mia Importing Company, leading to his nickname as "Olive Oil King". As the demand for olive oil skyrocketed after World War II, his business thrived. Profaci owned 20 other businesses that employed hundreds of workers in New York. Profaci owned a large house in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, a home in Miami Beach, Florida, and an estate near Hightstown, New Jersey, which previously belonged to President Theodore Roosevelt. Profaci's estate had its own airstrip and a chapel with an altar that replicated one in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Profaci was a devout Catholic who made generous cash donations to Catholic charities. A member of the Knights of Columbus, Profaci would invite priests to his estate to celebrate Mass. In May 1952, a thief stole valuable jeweled crowns from the Regina Pacis Votive shrine in Brooklyn. Profaci sent his men to recover the crowns and reportedly kill the thief. However, accounts of the thief being strangled with a rosary are unfounded. In 1949, the Vatican received a petition from a group of New York Catholics to confer a knighthood on Profaci. However, when the Brooklyn District Attorney complained about the move, the Vatican denied the petition. Legal problems. In 1953, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service sued Profaci for over $1.5 million in unpaid income taxes. The taxes were still unpaid when Profaci died nine years later. In 1954, the US Department of Justice moved to revoke Profaci's citizenship. The government claimed that when Profaci entered the United States in 1921, he lied to immigration officials about having no arrest record in Italy. In 1960, a U.S. Court of Appeals reversed Profaci's deportation order, ending the legal action. In 1956, law enforcement recorded a phone conversation between Profaci and Antonio Cottone, a Sicilian mafioso, about exporting Sicilian oranges to the United States. In 1959, US Customs agents intercepted one of those orange crates in New York. The crate contained 90 wax oranges containing a total of pure heroin. Smugglers in Sicily had filled the hollow oranges with heroin until they weighed as much as real oranges, then packed them in the crate. Profaci was never prosecuted for this crime. In 1957, Profaci attended the Apalachin Conference, a national mob meeting, at the farm of mobster Joseph Barbara in Apalachin, New York. While the conference was in progress, New York State Troopers surrounded the farm and raided it. Profaci was one of over 60 mobsters arrested that day. On January 13, 1960, Profaci and 21 others were convicted of conspiracy and he was sentenced to five years in prison. However, on November 28, 1960, a United States Court of Appeals overturned the verdicts. First Colombo war. In contrast to Profaci's generosity to his relatives and the church, many of his "soldati" considered him miserly and mean with money. One reason for their rancor was that Profaci required each family member to pay him a $25 a month tithe, an old Sicilian gang custom. The money, which amounted to approximately $50,000 a month, was meant to support the families of mobsters in prison. However, most of this money stayed with Profaci. In addition, Profaci did not tolerate any dissent from his policies, and people who expressed discontent were murdered. On February 27, 1961, the Gallos, led by Joe Gallo, kidnapped four of Profaci's top men: underboss Magliocco, Frank Profaci (Joe Profaci's brother), capo Salvatore Musacchia and soldier John Scimone. Profaci himself eluded capture and flew to sanctuary in Florida. While holding the hostages, Larry and Albert Gallo sent Joe Gallo to California. The Gallos demanded a more favorable financial scheme for the hostages' release. Gallo wanted to kill one hostage and demand $100,000 before negotiations, but his brother Larry overruled him. After a few weeks of negotiation, Profaci made a deal with the Gallos. Profaci's consigliere Charles "the Sidge" LoCicero negotiated with the Gallos and all the hostages were released peacefully. However, Profaci had no intention of honoring this peace agreement. On August 20, 1961 Joseph Profaci ordered the murder of Gallo members Joseph "Joe Jelly" Gioielli and Larry Gallo. Gunmen allegedly murdered Gioielli after inviting him to go fishing. Larry Gallo survived a strangulation attempt in the Sahara club of East Flatbush by Carmine Persico and Salvatore "Sally" D'Ambrosio after a police officer intervened. The Gallo brothers had been previously aligned with Persico against Profaci and his loyalists; The Gallos then began calling Persico "The Snake" after he had betrayed them. the war continued on resulting in nine murders and three disappearances. With the start of the gang war, the Gallo crew retreated to the Dormitory. Mob standoff. By 1962, Profaci's health was failing. In early 1962, Carlo Gambino and Lucchese crime family boss Tommy Lucchese tried to convince Profaci to resign to end the gang war. However, Profaci strongly suspected that the two bosses were secretly supporting the Gallo brothers and wanted to take control of his family. Profaci vehemently refused to resign; furthermore, he warned that any attempt to remove him would spark a wider gang war. Gambino and Lucchese did not pursue their efforts. Death. On June 6, 1962, Profaci died in South Side Hospital in Bay Shore, New York of liver cancer. He is buried at Saint John Cemetery in the Middle Village section of Queens, in one of the largest mausoleums in the cemetery. After Profaci's death, Magliocco succeeded him as head of the family. In late 1963, the Mafia Commission forced Magliocco out of office and installed Joseph Colombo as family boss. At this point, the Profaci crime family became the Colombo crime family.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=65741426

Juddha Barun Yantra (Nepali: जुद्ध वरुण यन्त्र)or popularly known as Damkal (Nepali:दमकल) is the oldest fire brigade of Kathmandu, Nepal. Initially, it served for all districts inside the Kathmandu valley - namely Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Patan and were operated under the Home Ministry with a central office at Newroad, Basantapur. However, with increasing demand, currently, the offices are run separately in each districts. Currently, it operates various fire engines. The refill is done at the nearest water sources or the reservoirs at Mahankal and Jorpati. It has 39 staffs — 11 from the Armed Police Force (APF), 10 from Metropolitan Police and 18 mobilised from the Home Ministry. The fire brigade can be called by dialing 101 from anywhere in Nepal. The brigade handles about 600 cases annually. History. The first vehicle was brought from Germany by Juddha Shumsher Rana in 1937 AD. He was inspired by his visit to England to build the fire Brigade. Although fire accidents were rare, he managed to bring the first fire engine, Maurice, a fire engine brand from England. Maurice was transported via India through Bhimphedi and finally to Kathmandu. The engine was disassembled and carried by the porters, and later put together. This first fire engine rests as an exhibit in the back garage of the Juddha Barun Yantra (Damkal), Basantapur. Juddha Shumser also had constructed water hydrants around the city for the engine to get water from. Currenlty, the fire water hydrants have been demolished. In 1944, Juddha Barun Yantra extended its services to Patan and Bhaktapur. Capacity. The office has following fire engines: A training center is under construction at Ramhiti in Kathmandu.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3142190

The Gardermoen Line () is a high-speed railway line between Oslo and Eidsvoll, Norway, running past Lillestrøm and Oslo Airport, Gardermoen. The line is long and replaced the older Hoved Line as the main line north-east of Oslo. The older Hoved Line now handles commuter and freight traffic, while the Gardermoen Line handles high-speed passenger trains and freight trains laden with jet fuel for the airport. Both lines are owned by Bane NOR. The line was opened in 1998, at the same time as the airport that gave the line its name. It is used by the Flytoget airport express train service as well as express trains by Vy. It is the only high-speed railway in the kingdom, with a maximum permitted speed of . Most of the line between Oslo and Lillestrøm is through the Romeriksporten tunnel—the longest railway tunnel in Norway. The decision to build the line was made in 1992; construction started two years later. The line was subjected to severe criticism during construction when the Romerike Tunnel sprung severe leaks due to hurried construction. As a result, the tunnel was opened a year after the rest of the line. History. When the Parliament of Norway decided on 8 October 1992 to build a new central airport for Eastern Norway, they also decided that the main mode of ground transport to the airport should be by railway. While the previous airport, Oslo Airport, Fornebu, was located just outside the city limits; the new Oslo Airport, Gardermoen, would be located some 50 kilometers north of the city, outside the reach of the existing public transport systems. The political agreement to build the airport stated that the costs of construction should not be borne by the tax payers. As a result, the entire airport was financed with money borrowed through Oslo Lufthavn AS, a subsidiary of the Norwegian Airport Administration. The same principle was chosen for the airport rail link. The Norwegian State Railways (NSB) created the subsidiary, NSB Gardermobanen AS, on 24 November 1992 to perform the construction of the line. This company would be able to charge train operators using the railway line; and could use this income to cover its down payments and interest on the debt created to pay for the infrastructure investment. It was planned to give a profit margin of 7.5%. In 1996 NSB Gardermoen stated that they expected to charge commuter and intercity trains 100 million Norwegian krone per year to use the new line. County politicians in Akershus stated that it was not reasonable for commuters to have to pay for the new railway. Early estimates showed that this would almost double to price from Oslo to Eidsvoll, and that passengers would have different prices, depending on which route they followed. Stor-Oslo Lokaltrafikk, which was responsible for buses in Akershus, stated that they had no way to influence NSB's prices, but that they would consider starting a coach service along the route, which would not charge the surcharge. Construction. Construction of the railway started on 1 August 1994. Gardermoen is located about north of Oslo, but is not located on the Hoved Line. A different right-of-way had to be chosen north of Kløfta. The Hoved Line has heavy traffic, with many small stops until Lillestrøm, and continues northwards from Lillestrøm as single track. Therefore, an all-new railway would have to be built; it would bypass the intermediate railway until Lillestrøm, running through a tunnel, and continue northwards to the airport and onwards to Eidsvoll. This northernmost part is used to allow trains operating on the Dovre Line to Lillehammer and Trondheim to use the Gardermoen Line. The Gardermoen Line was the second attempt to build a high-speed railway in Norway. The first was the line from Ski to Moss on the Østfold Line. However, operational speeds in excess of could not be achieved due to the short distances and limitations on rolling stock. The Gardermoen Line, therefore, became the first real high-speed railway line in Norway. Due to the domination of single track in Norway, the Gardermoen Line increased the total length of double track in the kingdom by more than 50%. The projected costs of the railway line were NOK 4.3 billion ±20%. Total costs ended at NOK 7.7 billion, including 1.3 billion extra used on extraordinary expenditures on the Romeriksporten. On 1 October 1996 it was decided that the construction company, NSB Gardermobanen, would also become the operator of the airport express train. However, due to limited profitability with the company, from 1 January 2001 the ownership of Gardermobanen was transferred to the Norwegian National Rail Administration, who also owns the rest of railway lines in Norway. The operating company changed its name to Flytoget AS. Construction challenges. The most challenging part of the construction was the railway tunnel from Etterstad, just east of Oslo S, to Lillestrøm. Romeriksporten is the longest railway tunnel in Norway, and is underneath the recreational area Østmarka, in geologically highly unstable ground. During the construction in 1997, the water level in some of the lakes above the tunnel, including Lutvann and Nordre Puttjern, fell dramatically. After they were discovered on 3 February 1997 sanctions were initiated by the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate requiring leakage prevention measures in the tunnel. At the worst, 3,000 liters of water per minute leaked into the tunnel. The substance Rhoca-Gil was used to fix the leakages, but the substance failed to work properly. Not only did it fail to polymerize and stop the leaks, it also contaminated the surroundings with acrylamide. The entire process of fixing the leak and cleaning up the toxicity delayed the process of building the tunnel by one year; and it was first opened on 22 August 1999. Further complications arose due to conflicts between NSB Gardermobanen and the construction company. Retrospective surveys showed a lack of control and reporting procedures during incidents that should have been addressed in 1995, and were never taken seriously. About sixty houses received damage due to the construction of the tunnel. An evaluation performed by the Ministry of Transport and Communications showed that NOK 500 million was used on fixing the leaks; however, the report claimed this was, to a large extent, a waste of money due to inefficient engineering procedures. The same report criticized the planning and organization of the entire construction of the railway. Opening. When the new airport opened on 8 October 1998, and the Flytoget airport express train service started operations with sixteen Type 71 multiple units. Trains had to use the old Hoved Line from Oslo S to Lillestrøm, but could use the new high-speed line from Lillestrøm to Gardermoen. Regular operations using Romeriksporten started on 22 August 1999. To be able to use the new Gardermoen Line infrastructure, Norges Statsbaner had to buy new trains capable of higher speeds. Twenty-two locomotive designated El 18, based on the Swiss lok 2000, where delivered in 1996. They are capable of speeds of up to . However, the B7 passenger carriages used are not permitted to operate at more than . Full speed utilization of long-distance trains is only possible with the Type 73 units that started operation on the Dovre Line in 2000. These trains are nearly identical to those used by the Flytoget airport express train company, and capable of on the Gardermoen Line. They are equipped with tilting technology allowing quicker operation on the rest of the line to Trondheim. Other trains used on the line by NSB are only capable of . Future expansion. Plans for an expansion of the high-speed line to Hamar have been launched, but have not been incorporated into any specific plans. This suggestion would increase the length of the high-speed rail north of Oslo with —almost a doubling. The project may or may not incorporate a further high-speed line to Trondheim. Operations. The railway is used by both Vy, Flytoget and SJ for their passenger services, as well as freight trains with jet fuel for the airport. Airport express train. The Flytoget airport express train service is the largest user of the Gardermoen Line, with six departures from Oslo Central to Oslo Airport per hour. The trains only use the line as far as Gardermoen, and not the northernmost sixteen kilometers. Service is provided using sixteen Type 71 three-car units, which together transported 5.4 million passengers in 2007. Direct services to Oslo S take 19 minutes. Half of the services make an intermediate stop at Lillestrøm, and continue on past Oslo Central to Asker Station. Flytoget has a 34% market share on ground transport to Oslo Airport. Vy. Vy (formerly NSB) uses Gardermobanen for express and some regional trains north of Oslo. This includes five daily departures to Trondheim (including one NSB Night Train). The line is operated by two regional services, the R10 service between Drammen and Lillehammer, the R11 service between Skien/Larvik and Eidsvoll, as well as the local service, L12 between Kongsberg and Eidsvoll. These services is carried out with Type 74 for R10 and R11, and Type 75 for line L12. Both trains are capable of 200 km/t operation. The southernmost part of the line is used by commuter trains heading to the Kongsvinger Line. These trains divert from the Gardermo Line at Lillestrøm. Also the commuter trains operating to Dal along the Hoved Line use the Gardermoen Line until Lillestrøm. Other services. Because there is a parallel line, the Hoved Line running all the way from Oslo S to Eidsvoll, some trains can choose to use this line instead. This is primarily done by some commuter trains, as well as all freight trains. The only exception to this are trains hauling jet fuel to the airport, who have to use the Gardermoen Line from Kløfta. This service is provided by CargoNet. The Swedish state railways, SJ also operate on the southern part of Gardermoen on their intercity services X 2000. This was for some years provided by Linx, a joint venture between SJ and NSB, using X2 stock, but the company was later dissolved.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=488213

Surface-supplied diving is diving using equipment supplied with breathing gas using a diver's umbilical from the surface, either from the shore or from a diving support vessel, sometimes indirectly via a diving bell. This is different from scuba diving, where the diver's breathing equipment is completely self-contained and there is no link to the surface. The primary advantages of conventional surface supplied diving are lower risk of drowning and considerably larger breathing gas supply than scuba, allowing longer working periods and safer decompression. Disadvantages are the absolute limitation on diver mobility imposed by the length of the umbilical, encumbrance by the umbilical, and high logistical and equipment costs compared with scuba. The disadvantages restrict use of this mode of diving to applications where the diver operates within a small area, which is common in commercial diving work. The copper helmeted free-flow standard diving dress is the version which made commercial diving a viable occupation, and although still used in some regions, this heavy equipment has been superseded by lighter free-flow helmets, and to a large extent, lightweight demand helmets, band masks and full-face diving masks. Breathing gases used include air, heliox, nitrox and trimix. Saturation diving is a mode of surface supplied diving in which the divers live under pressure in a saturation system or underwater habitat and are decompressed only at the end of a tour of duty. Airline, or hookah diving, and "compressor diving" are lower technology variants also using a breathing air supply from the surface. Variations. There are several arrangements for supplying breathing gas to divers from the surface: Application. Surface-supplied diving equipment and techniques are mainly used in professional diving due to the greater cost and complexity of owning and operating the equipment. This type of equipment is used in saturation diving, as the gas supply is relatively secure, and the diver can not bail out to the surface, and for diving in contaminated water, where the diver must be protected from the environment, and helmets are generally used for environmental isolation. There has been development of low-cost airline systems for shallow recreational diving, where limited training is offset by physically limiting the depth accessible. History. The first successful surface-supplied diving dress equipment was produced by the brothers Charles and John Deane in the 1820s. Inspired by a fire accident he witnessed in a stable in England, he designed and patented a "Smoke Helmet" to be used by firemen in smoke-filled areas in 1823. The apparatus comprised a copper helmet with an attached flexible collar and garment. A long leather hose attached to the rear of the helmet was to be used to supply air - the original concept being that it would be pumped using a double bellows. A short pipe allowed breathed air to escape. The garment was constructed from leather or airtight cloth, secured by straps. The brothers had insufficient funds to build the equipment themselves, so they sold the patent to their employer, Edward Barnard. It was not until 1827 that the first smoke helmets were built, by German-born British engineer Augustus Siebe. In 1828 they decided to find another application for their device and converted it into a diving helmet. They marketed the helmet with a loosely attached "diving suit" so that a diver could perform salvage work but only in a full vertical position, otherwise water entered the suit. In 1829 the Deane brothers sailed from Whitstable for trials of their new underwater apparatus, establishing the diving industry in the town. In 1834 Charles used his diving helmet and suit in a successful attempt on the wreck of at Spithead, during which he recovered 28 of the ship's cannon. In 1836, John Deane recovered timbers, guns, longbows, and other items from the rediscovered "Mary Rose" shipwreck. By 1836 the Deane brothers had produced the world's first diving manual, "Method of Using Deane's Patent Diving Apparatus" which explained in detail the workings of the apparatus and pump, plus safety precautions. In the 1830s the Deane brothers asked Siebe to apply his skill to improve their underwater helmet design. Expanding on improvements already made by another engineer, George Edwards, Siebe produced his own design; a helmet fitted to a full-length watertight canvas diving suit. The real success of the equipment was a valve in the helmet. Siebe introduced various modifications on his diving dress design to accommodate the requirements of the salvage team on the wreck of HMS "Royal George", including making the helmet be detachable from the corselet; his improved design gave rise to the typical standard diving dress which revolutionised underwater civil engineering, underwater salvage, commercial diving and naval diving. Equipment. The essential aspect of surface-supplied diving is that breathing gas is supplied from the surface, either from a specialized diving compressor, high-pressure cylinders, or both. In commercial and military surface-supplied diving, a backup source of surface-supplied breathing gas should always be present in case the primary supply fails. The diver may also wear a bailout cylinder which can provide self-contained breathing gas in an emergency. Thus, the surface-supplied diver is less likely to have an "out-of-air" emergency than a scuba diver using a single gas supply, as there are normally two alternative breathing gas sources available. Surface-supplied diving equipment usually includes communication capability with the surface, which adds to the safety and efficiency of the working diver. Surface-supplied diving equipment is required for a large proportion of the commercial diving operations conducted in many countries, either by direct legislation, or by authorised codes of practice, as in the case of IMCA operations. Surface-supplied equipment is also required under the US Navy operational guidance for diving in harsh contaminated environments which was drawn up by the Navy Experimental Diving Unit. Breathing apparatus. Lightweight demand helmets. Lightweight demand helmets are rigid structures which fully enclose the head of the diver and supply breathing gas "on demand". The flow of gas from the supply line is activated by inhalation reducing the pressure in the helmet to slightly below ambient, and a diaphragm in the demand valve senses this pressure difference and moves a lever to open the valve to allow breathing gas to flow into the helmet. This flow continues until the pressure inside the helmet again balances the ambient pressure and the lever returns to the shut position. This is exactly the same principle as used for scuba demand valves, and in some cases the same components are used. Sensitivity of the lever can often be adjusted by the diver by turning a knob on the side of the demand valve. Lightweight demand helmets are available in open circuit systems (used when breathing standard air) and closed circuit (reclaim) systems (which may be used in order to reduce costs when breathing mixed gas such as heliox and trimix: the exhaled gas is returned to the surface, scrubbed of carbon dioxide, re-oxygenated, and returned to the diver). The helmet may be of metal or reinforced plastic composite (GRP), and is either connected to a neck dam or clamped directly to a drysuit. The neck dam is the lower part of the helmet, which seals against the neck of the diver in the same way that the neck seal of a dry suit works. Neck dams may have neoprene or latex seals, depending on diver preference. Attachment to the neck dam is critical to diver safety and a reliable locking mechanism is needed to ensure that it is not inadvertently released during a dive. When using a dry suit, the neck dam may be permanently omitted and the lower part of the helmet assembly attached directly to the suit. The term "Lightweight" is relative; the helmets are only light in comparison with the old copper hats. They are supported only by the head and neck of the diver, and are uncomfortably heavy (Weight of KM 77 = 32.43 pounds) out of the water, as they must be ballasted for neutral buoyancy during the dive, so they don't tend to lift the diver's head with excess buoyancy. There is little difference in weight between the metal shell and GRP shell helmets because of this ballasting, and the weight is directly proportional to the total volume - smaller helmets are lighter. To avoid fatigue, divers avoid donning the helmet until just prior to entering the water. Having the helmet supported by the head has the advantage that the diver can turn the helmet to face the job without having to turn the entire upper torso. This is particularly an advantage when looking upwards. This allows the helmet to have a relatively small faceplate, which reduces overall volume and hence the weight. Demand breathing systems reduce the amount of gas required to adequately ventilate the diver, as it needs only to be supplied when the diver inhales, but the slightly increased work of breathing caused by this system is a disadvantage at extreme levels of exertion, where free-flow systems may be better. The demand system is also quieter than free-flow, particularly during the non-inhalation phase of breathing. This can make voice communication more effective. The breathing of the diver is also audible to the surface team over the communications system, and this helps to monitor the condition of the diver and is a valuable safety feature. Open circuit demand helmets. The open circuit demand system exhausts gas to the environment at ambient pressure (or a very small difference from ambient pressure required to open the exhaust valve). As a result, all exhaled gas is lost to the surroundings. For most surface orientated commercial diving where air is the breathing gas in use, this is no problem, as air is cheap and freely available. Even with nitrox it is generally more cost effective to use open circuit, as oxygen is an easily available and relatively inexpensive gas, and blending nitrox is technologically simple, both to mix and to analyse. Reclaim helmets. In the case of compressed air, or Nitrox mixtures, the exhaled gas is not valuable enough to justify the expense of recycling, but helium-based mixtures are considerably more expensive, and as the depth increases, the amount of gas used (in terms of mass, or number of molecules) increases in direct proportion to the ambient pressure. As a result, gas cost is a significant factor in deep open circuit diving with helium-based mixtures for long periods. By using a return line for the exhaled gas, it can be recompressed and used again, almost indefinitely. It is necessary to remove carbon dioxide from the reclaimed gas, but this is relatively cheap and uncomplicated. It is generally removed by a scrubber, which is a filter packed with a chemical which reacts with and removes the carbon dioxide from the gas. The reclaimed gas is also filtered to remove odour and microorganisms, and oxygen is added to the required concentration. The gas is compressed for storage between uses. There is a technical problem with recovery of the exhaled gas. Simply venting it to a return hose through a non-return valve will not work, as the hose must be maintained at exactly the ambient pressure at the depth of the helmet, otherwise the gas from the helmet will either free-flow out under pressure, or not flow out at all because of back pressure. This obstacle is overcome by using an exhaust valve working on the same principle as the demand valve, which opens the exhaust valve by using the leverage of a diaphragm sensing the pressure difference between the helmet interior pressure and the ambient pressure, This only requires the pressure in the reclaim hose to be lower than ambient at the diver to function. The same principle is used in a diving chamber's built-in breathing system (BIBS). Free flow helmet. A free flow helmet supplies a continuous flow of air to the diver, and he breathes this as it flows past. Work of breathing is minimal, but flow rate must be high if the diver works hard, and this is noisy, affecting communications and requiring hearing protection to avoid damage to the ears. This type of helmet is popular where divers have to work hard in relatively shallow water for long periods. It is also useful when diving in contaminated environments, where the helmet is sealed onto a dry suit, and the entire system is kept at a slight positive pressure by adjusting the back-pressure of the exhaust valve, to ensure that there is no leakage into the helmet. This type of helmet is often large in volume, and as it is attached to the suit, it does not move with the head. The diver must move his body to face anything he wants to see. For this reason the faceplate is large and there is often an upper window or side windows to improve the field of vision. Standard diving helmet (Copper hat). The helmet is usually made of two main parts: the bonnet, which covers the diver's head, and the corselet which supports the weight of the helmet on the diver's shoulders, and is clamped to the suit to create a watertight seal. The bonnet is attached and sealed to the corselet at the neck, either by bolts or an interrupted screw-thread, with some form of locking mechanism. The helmet may be described by the number of bolts which hold it to the suit or to the corselet, and the number of vision ports, known as lights. For example, a helmet with four vision ports, and twelve studs securing the suit to the corselet, would be known as a "four light, twelve bolt helmet", and a three-bolt helmet used three bolts to secure the bonnet to the corselet, clamping the flange of the neck seal between the two parts of the helmet. When the telephone was invented, it was applied to the standard diving dress for greatly improved communication with the diver. Bonnet. The bonnet is usually a copper shell with soldered brass fittings. It covers the diver's head and provides sufficient space to turn the head to look out of the glazed faceplate and other viewports (windows). The front port can usually be opened for ventilation and communication when the diver is on deck, by being screwed out or swung to the side on a hinge. The other lights (another name for the viewports) are generally fixed. Viewports were glass on the early helmets, with some of the later helmets using acrylic, and are usually protected by brass or bronze grilles. The helmet has fittings to connect the air line and the diver's telephone. All except the earliest helmets include a non-return valve where the airline is connected, which prevents potentially fatal helmet squeeze if the pressure in the hose is lost. The difference in pressure between the surface and the diver can be so great that if the air line is cut at or near the surface and there is no non-return valve, the diver would be partly squeezed into the helmet by the external pressure, and injured or possibly killed. Helmets also have a spring-loaded exhaust valve which allows excess air to leave the helmet. The spring force is adjustable by the diver to prevent the suit from deflating completely or over-inflating and the diver being floated uncontrollably to the surface. Some helmets have an extra manual valve known as a spit-cock, which can be used to vent excess air when the diver is in a position where the main exhaust can not function correctly. Corselet. The corselet, also known as a breastplate, is an oval or rectangular collar-piece resting on the shoulders, chest and back, to support the helmet and seal it to the suit, usually made from copper and brass, but occasionally steel. The helmet is usually connected to the suit by placing the holes around the rubberised collar of the suit over bolts along the rim of the corselet, and then clamping the brass straps known as brailes against the collar with wing nuts to press the rubber against the metal of the corselet rim to make a water-tight seal. An alternative method was to bolt the bonnet to the corselet over a rubber collar bonded to the top of the suit. Most six and twelve bolt bonnets are joined to the corselet by 1/8th turn interrupted thread. The helmet neck thread is placed onto the neck of the corselet facing the divers left front, where the threads do not engage, and then rotated forward, engaging the thread and seating on a leather gasket to make a watertight seal. The helmet usually has a safety lock which prevents the bonnet from rotating back and separating underwater. Other styles of connection are also used, with the joint secured by clamps or bolts (usually three). Band mask. A band mask is a heavy duty full-face mask with many of the characteristics of a lightweight demand helmet. In structure it is the front section of a lightweight helmet from above the faceplate to below the demand valve and exhaust ports, including the bailout block and communications connections on the sides. This rigid frame is attached to a neoprene hood by a metal clamping band, hence the name. It is provided with a padded sealing surface around the frame edge which is held firmly against the diver's face by a rubber "spider", a multiple strap arrangement with a pad behind the diver's head, and usually five straps which hook onto pins on the band. The straps have several holes so the tension can be adjusted to get a comfortable seal. A band mask is heavier than other full face masks, but lighter than a helmet, and can be donned more quickly than a helmet. They are often used by the standby diver for this reason. Full-face mask. A full-face mask encloses both mouth and nose, which reduces the risk of the diver losing the air supply compared to a half mask and demand valve. Some models require a bailout block to provide alternative breathing gas supply from the umbilical and bailout cylinder, but are not suitable for accepting an alternative air supply from a rescue diver, while a few models accept a secondary demand valve which can be plugged into an accessory port (Draeger, Apeks and Ocean Reef). The unique Kirby Morgan 48 SuperMask has a removable DV pod which can be unclipped to allow the diver to breathe from a standard scuba demand valve with mouthpiece. Despite the improvement in diver safety provided by the more secure attachment of the breathing apparatus to the diver's face, some models of full face mask can fail catastrophically if the faceplate is broken or detached from the skirt, as there is then no way to breathe from the mask. This can be mitigated by carrying a standard secondary second stage, and preferably also a spare half mask. A full face mask is lighter and more comfortable for swimming than a helmet or band mask, and usually provides an improved field of vision, but it is not as secure, and does not provide the same level of protection as the heavier and more sturdily constructed equipment. The two types of equipment have different ranges of application. Most full face masks are adaptable for use with scuba or surface supply. The full face mask does not usually have a bailout block fitted, and this is usually attached to the diver's harness, with a single hose to supply the mask from main or bailout gas which is selected at the block. The strap arrangement for full face masks is usually quite secure, but not as secure as a bandmask or helmet, and it is possible for it to be dislodged in the water. However it is also quite practicable for a trained diver to replace and clear a full face mask under water without assistance, so this is more an inconvenience than a disaster unless the diver is rendered unconscious at the same time. Breathing gas supply. Diver's umbilical. The umbilical contains a hose to supply the breathing gas and usually several other components. These usually include a communications cable (comms wire), a pneumofathometer, and a strength member, which may be the airline hose, communications cable, or a rope. When needed, a hot water supply line, helium reclaim line, video camera and lighting cables may be included. These components are neatly twisted into a multistrand cable, and are deployed as a single unit. The diver's end has underwater connectors for the electrical cables, and the air hoses are usually connected to the helmet, band mask, or bailout block by JIC fittings. A screw-gate carabiner or similar connector is provided on the strength member for attachment to the diver's harness, and may be used to lift the diver in an emergency. Similar connections are provided for attachment to the diving bell, if used, or to the surface gas panel and communications equipment. A diver's umbilical supplied from a bell gas panel is called an excursion umbilical, and the supply from the surface to the bell panel is the bell umbilical. Air line. Hookah, and Snuba systems are categorised as "air line" equipment, as they do not include the communication, lifeline and pneumofathometer hose characteristic of a full diver's umbilical. Most hookah diving uses a demand system based on a standard scuba second stage, but there have been special purpose free-flow full-face masks specifically intended for hookah diving (see photos). A bailout system, or emergency gas supply (EGS) is not an inherent part of an airline diving system, though it may be required in some applications. Their field of application is very different from full surface-supplied diving. Hookah is generally used for shallow water work in low-hazard applications, such as archaeology, aquaculture, and aquarium maintenance work, but is also sometimes used for open water hunting and gathering of seafood, shallow water mining of gold and diamonds in rivers and streams, and bottom cleaning and other underwater maintenance of boats. Sasuba and Snuba are mainly a shallow water recreational application for low-hazard sites. Sasuba and hookah diving equipment is also used for yacht or boat maintenance and hull cleaning, swimming pool maintenance, shallow underwater inspections. The systems used to supply air through the hose to a demand valve mouthpiece, are either 12-volt electrical air pumps, gasoline engine powered low-pressure compressors, or floating scuba cylinders with high pressure regulators. These hookah diving systems usually limit the hose length to allow less than 7 metres depth. The exception is the gasoline engine powered unit, which requires a much higher level of training and topside supervision for safe use. A notable exception to this trend are the inshore diamond diving operations on the west coast of South Africa, where hookah is still the standard equipment for diamondiferous gravel extraction in the hostile conditions of the surf zone, where the water temperature is usually around 8 to 10 °C, visibility is usually low, and is often strong. Divers work shifts of about two hours with a crowbar and a suction hose, are heavily weighted to stay in place while working, and the standard method of ascent is to ditch the weighted harness and regulator and make a free swimming ascent. The next diver will free dive down the airline, fit the regulator and wriggle into the harness before continuing with the job. Until the South African abalone fishery was closed, hookah was the only mode of diving permitted for harvesting wild abalone, and several aspects of this practice were in direct contravention of the diving regulations at the time. Abalone divers were not allowed to have a standby diver on the boat. Gas panel. A gas panel or gas manifold is the control equipment for supplying the breathing gas to the divers. Primary and reserve gas is supplied to the panel through shutoff valves from a low-pressure compressor or high-pressure storage cylinders ("bombs", "bundles", "quads", or "kellys"). The gas pressure may be controlled at the panel by an industrial pressure regulator, or it may already be regulated closer to the source (at the compressor, or at the storage cylinder outlet). The supply gas pressure is monitored on a gauge at the panel, and an over-pressure valve is fitted in case the supply pressure is too high. The gas panel may be operated by the diving supervisor if the breathing gas is air or a fixed ratio premix, but if the composition must be controlled or monitored during the dive it is usual for a dedicated gas panel operator, or "gas man" to do this work. There is a set of valves and gauges for each diver to be supplied from the panel. These include: The gas panel may be fairly large and mounted on a board for convenience of use, or may be compact and mounted inside a portable box, for ease of transport. Gas panels are usually for one, two or three divers. In some countries, or under some codes of practice, the surface standby diver must be supplied from a separate panel to the working diver/s. A wet or closed bell will be fitted with a bell gas panel to supply gas to the divers' excursion umbilicals. The bell gas panel is supplied with primary gas from the surface via a bell umbilical, and on-board emergency gas from high-pressure storage cylinders mounted on the frame of the bell. Pneumofathometer. A Pneumofathometer is a device used to measure the depth of a diver by displaying the back-pressure on a gas supply hose with an open end at the diver, and a flow rate with negligible resistance in the hose. The pressure indicated is the hydrostic pressure at the depth of the open end, and is usually displayed in units of metres or feet of seawater, the same units used for decompression calculations. The pneumo line is usually a bore hose in the diver's umbilical, supplied with breathing gas from the gas panel via a supply valve. Downstream from the valve there is a branch to a high resolution pressure gauge, a restriction to flow to the gauge, and an overpressure relief valve to protect the gauge from full panel supply pressure in case the pneumo line is used for emergency breathing gas supply. Each diver has an independent pneumofathometer, and if there is a bell, it will also have an independent pneumofathometer. Low-pressure breathing air compressor. A low-pressure compressor is often the air supply of choice for surface-supplied diving, as it is virtually unlimited in the amount of air it can supply, provided the delivery volume and pressure are adequate for the application. A low-pressure compressor can run for tens of hours, needing only refueling, periodical filter drainage and occasional running checks, and is therefore more convenient than high-pressure storage cylinders for primary air supply. It is however, critical to diver safety that the compressor is suitable for breathing air delivery, uses a suitable oil, is adequately filtered, and takes in clean and uncontaminated air. Positioning of the intake opening is important, and may have to be changed if the relative wind direction changes, to ensure that no engine exhaust gas enters the intake. Various national standards for breathing air quality may apply. Power for portable compressors is usually a 4-stroke petrol (gasoline) engine. Larger, trailer mounted compressors, may be diesel powered. Permanently installed compressors on dive support boats are likely to be powered by 3-phase electric motors. The compressor should be provided with an accumulator and a relief valve. The accumulator functions as an additional water trap, but the main purpose is to provide a reserve volume of pressurised air. The relief valve allows any excess air to be released back to the atmosphere while retaining the appropriate supply pressure in the accumulator. High pressure main gas supply. The main gas supply for surface-supplied diving can be from high pressure bulk storage cylinders. When the storage cylinders are relatively portable this is known as a "scuba replacement" system in the commercial diving industry. The application is versatile and can ensure high quality breathing gas in places where atmospheric air is too contaminated to use through a normal low pressure compressor filter system, and is easily adaptable to a mixed gas supply and oxygen decompression provided that the breathing apparatus and gas supply system are compatible with the mixtures to be used. Scuba replacement is often used from smaller diving support vessels, for emergency work, and for hazmat diving. Mixed breathing gases are provided from high pressure bulk storage systems for saturation diving, but these are less portable, and generally involve manifolded racks of cylinders of approximately 50 litres water capacity arranged as "quads" and even larger racks of high pressure "tubes". If gas reclaim systems are used, the reclaimed gas is scrubbed of carbon dioxide, filtered of other contaminants, and recompressed into high pressure cylinders for interim storage, ans is generally blended with oxygen or helium to make up the required mix for the next dive before re-use. Decompression gas. Reducing the partial pressure of the inert gas component of the breathing mixture will accelerate decompression as the concentration gradient will be greater for a given depth. This is achieved by increasing the fraction of oxygen in the breathing gas used, whereas substitution of a different inert gas will not produce the desired effect. Any substitution may introduce counter-diffusion complications, owing to differing rates of diffusion of the inert gases, which can lead to a net gain in total dissolved gas tension in a tissue. This can lead to bubble formation and growth, with decompression sickness as a consequence. Partial pressure of oxygen is usually limited to 1.6 bar during in water decompression for scuba divers, but can be up to 1.9 bar in-water and 2.2 bar in the chamber when using the US Navy tables for surface decompression, High-pressure reserve gas. An alternative to a low-pressure compressor for gas supply is high-pressure storage cylinders feeding through a pressure regulator which will be set to the required supply pressure for the depth and equipment in use. In practice HP storage may be used for either reserve gas supply or both main and reserve gas supplies to a gas panel. High-pressure bulk cylinders are quiet in operation and provide gas of known quality (if it has been tested). This allows the relatively simple and reliable use of nitrox mixtures in surface-supplied diving. Bulk cylinders are also quiet in operation compared to a low-pressure compressor, but have the obvious limitation of amount of gas available. The usual configurations for surface-supplied bulk gas storage are large single cylinders of around 50 litres water capacity, often referred to as "J"s or "bombs", "quads", which are a group (sometimes, but not necessarily four in number) of similar cylinders mounted on a frame and connected together to a common supply fitting, and "kellys" which are a group of "tubes" (long large volume pressure vessels) usually mounted in a container frame, and usually connected together to a common connection fitting. Bailout gas supply. Bailout gas is usually carried by the diver in a scuba cylinder, mounted on the back of the harness in the same position as is used with recreational scuba. The size of the cylinder will depend on operational variables. There should be sufficient gas to enable the diver to reach a place of safety on the bailout gas in an emergency. For surface oriented dives, this may require gas for decompression, and bailout sets generally start at about 7 litres internal capacity and can be larger. Bell diving bailout options: For bell dives there is no requirement for decompression gas, as the bell itself carries bailout gas. However at extreme depths the diver will use gas fast, and there have been cases where twin 10 litre 300 bar sets were required to supply sufficient gas. Another option which has been used for extreme depth is a rebreather bailout set. A limitation for this service is that the diver must be able to get in and out of the bell while wearing the bailout equipment. Mounting options: The bailout cylinder may be mounted with the valve at the top or at the bottom, depending on local codes of practice. A generally used arrangement is to mount the cylinder with the valve up, as this is better protected while kitting up, and the cylinder valve is left fully open while the diver is in the water. This means that the regulator and supply hose to the bailout block will be pressurised during the dive, and ready for immediate use by opening the bailout valve on the harness or helmet. The bailout block is a small manifold fitted either to the harness where it is in a convenient but protected position, commonly on the right side on the waist strap, or on the helmet, also usually on the right side of the temple, with the valve knob to the side to distinguish it from the free-flow or defogging valve which is commonly to the front. The bailout block has a connection for the main gas supply from the umbilical through a non-return valve. This route can not be closed and supplies the helmet demand valve and free flow valve under normal circumstances. The bailout gas from the back mounted cylinder passes through a conventional scuba first stage at the cylinder valve, to the bailout block, where it is normally isolated by the bailout valve. When the diver needs to switch over to bailout gas he simply opens the bailout valve and the gas is supplied to the helmet or mask. As the valve is normally closed, a leak in the first stage regulator seat will cause the interstage pressure to rise, and unless an overpressure relief valve is fitted to the first stage the hose may burst. Aftermarket overpressure valves are available which can be fitted into a standard low-pressure port of most first stages. Bailout supply pressure options: If the interstage pressure for the bailout regulator is lower than the main supply pressure, the main supply will override the bailout gas, and continue to flow. This can be a problem if the diver switches to bailout because main supply is contaminated. If on the other hand, bailout pressure is higher than main supply pressure, the bailout gas will override the main gas supply if the valve is opened. This will result in the bailout gas being used up if the valve leaks. The diver should periodically check that bailout pressure is still sufficient for the rest of the dive, and abort the dive if it is not. For this reason the bailout regulator must be fitted with a submersible pressure gauge to which the diver can refer to check the pressure. This is usually clipped off or tucked into the harness on the left side, where it can be easily reached to read, but is unlikely to snag on anything. Diver's harness. The diver's harness is an item of strong webbing, and sometimes cloth, which is fastened around a diver over the exposure suit, and allows the diver to be lifted without risk of falling out of the harness. Several types are in use. Jacket harness. The jacket harness is a waistcoat (vest) style garment with strong adjustable webbing straps which are adjustable and securely buckled over the shoulders, across the chest and waist, and through the crotch or around each thigh, so that the diver can not slide out under any predictable circumstance. The harness is fitted with several heavy duty D-rings, fixed to the webbing in such a way that the full weight of the diver and all his equipment can be safely supported. A minimum strength of 500kgf is recommended or required by some codes of practice. A jacket harness is usually provided with webbing straps or a cloth pocket on the back to support the bailout cylinder, and may have a variety of pockets to carry tools, and may also carry ditchable or fixed main weights. There are usually several strong D-rings to secure the umbilical and other equipment. Bell harness. A bell harness has the same function as a jacket harness, but lacks the cloth jacket component, and is made entirely of webbing, with a similar configuration of straps. It too may have a means of carrying a bailout cylinder, or the bailout cylinder may be carried on a separate backpack. Harness with buoyancy compensation. The AP Valves Mk4 Jump Jacket is a harness with integral buoyancy jacket specifically designed for commercial diving work with helmets and bells. There is a direct feed to the jacket from the main air supply, from the pneumo line and from bailout, and a system which allows the diver's pneumo to be directly connected to another diver's helmet as an emergency air supply. Buoyancy control. Surface-supplied divers may be required to work in mid-water or on the bottom. They must be able to stay down without effort, and this usually requires weighting. When working in mid-water the diver may wish to be neutrally buoyant or negative, and when working on the bottom he will usually want to be several kilos negative. The only time the diver may want to be positively buoyant is when on the surface or during a limited range of emergencies where uncontrolled ascent is less life-threatening than remaining under water. Surface-supplied divers generally have a secure supply of breathing gas, and there are very few occasions where weights should be jettisoned, so in most cases the surface-supplied diver weighting arrangement does not provide for quick release. On those occasions when surface supplied divers need variable buoyancy, it may be provided by inflation of the dry suit, if used, or by a buoyancy control device similar in principle to those used by scuba divers, or both. Weight systems. The diver needs to stay on the bottom to work some of the time, and may need to have neutral buoyancy some of the time. The diving suit is usually buoyant, so added weight is usually necessary. This can be provided in several ways. Unwanted positive buoyancy is dangerous to a diver who may need to spend significant time decompressing during the ascent, so the weights are usually attached securely to prevent accidental loss. Weight belts. Weight belts for surface supplied diving are usually provided with buckles which can not accidentally be released, and the weight belt is often worn under the jacket harness. Weight harnesses. When large amounts of weight are needed, a harness may be used to carry the load on the diver's shoulders, rather than around the waist, where it may tend to slip down into an uncomfortable position if the diver is working in a vertical posture, which is often the case. Sometimes this is a separate harness, worn under the safety harness, with pockets at the sides to carry the weights, and sometimes it is an integrated system, which carries the weight in pockets built into or externally attached to the safety harness. Trim weights. If the diver needs to adjust trim for greater comfort and efficiency while working, trim weights of various types may be added to the harness. Weighted boots. Weighted boots of several styles may be used if the diver will be working heavy. Some are in the form of clogs which strap on over the boots, and others use lead inner soles. Ankle weights are also an option, but less comfortable. These weights give the diver better stability when working upright on the bottom, which can significantly improve productivity for some kinds of work. Environmental protection. Wetsuits are economical and used where the water temperature is not too low - more than about , the diver will not be spending too long in the water, and the water is reasonably clean. Dry suits are better thermal protection than most wetsuits, and isolate the diver from the environment more effectively than other exposure suits. When diving in contaminated water, a drysuit with integral boots, sealed dry gloves and a helmet sealed directly to the suit provides the best environmental isolation. The suit material must be selected to be compatible with the expected contaminants. Thermal undersuits can be matched to the expected water temperature. Hot water suits provide active warming which is particularly suitable for use with helium based breathing gases. Heated water is provided from the surface through a hose in the umbilical, and water flow can be adjusted to suit the diver's needs. Heated water continuously flows into the suit and is distributed by perforated internal tubes down the front and back of the torso and along the limbs. The hot water supply hose of the umbilical is commonly bore, and is connected to a supply manifold at the right hip of the suit with a set of valves which allow the diver to control flow to the front and back of the torso, and to the arms and legs, and to dump the supply to the environment if the water is too hot or too cold. The manifold distributes the water through the suit through perforated tubes. The hot-water suit is normally a one-piece neoprene wetsuit, fairly loose fitting, to fit over a neoprene undersuit, which can protect the diver from scalding if the temperature control system fails, with a zipper on the front of the torso and on the lower part of each leg. Gloves and boots are worn which receive hot water from the ends of the arm and leg hoses. If a full-face mask is worn, the hood may be supplied by a tube at the neck of the suit. Helmets do not require heating. The heating water flows out at the neck and cuffs of the suit through the overlap with gloves, boots, or hood. Communications system. Both hard-wired (cable) and through-water electronic voice communications systems may be used with surface-supplied diving. Wired systems are more popular as there is a physical connection to the diver for gas supply in any case, and adding a cable does not change the handling characteristics of the system. Wired communications systems are still more reliable and simpler to maintain than through-water systems. Diver's telephone. The communications equipment is relatively straightforward and may be of the two-wire or four-wire type. Two wire systems use the same wires for surface to diver and diver to surface messages, whereas four wire systems allow the diver's messages and the surface operator's messages to use separate wire pairs. In a two wire system the standard arrangement for diver communications is to have the diver's side normally on, so that the surface team can hear anything from the diver at all times except when the surface is sending a message. In a four-wire system the diver's side is always on, even when the surface operator is talking. This is considered an important safety feature, as the surface team can monitor the diver's breathing sounds, which can give early warning of problems developing, and confirms that the diver is alive. Helium divers may need a decoder system (unscrambler) which reduces the frequency of the sound to make it more intelligible. Video. Closed circuit video is now also popular, as this allows the surface personnel to see what the diver is doing, which is particularly useful for inspection work, as a non-diving specialist can see the underwater equipment in real time and direct the diver to look at particular features of interest. Wireless systems. Dry bells may have a through water communication system fitted as a backup. This is intended to provide communications in the event that the cable is damaged, or even if the bell is completely severed from the umbilical and deployment cables. Equipment maintenance and testing. All components of a surface supplied diving system are required to be maintained in good working condition and may be required to be tested or calibrated at specified intervals. Diving spread. The diving spread is a commercial diving term for the topside dive site infrastructure supporting the diving operations for a diving project. The diving contractor provides the diving and support equipment and sets it up on site, usually at a place provided for the purpose by the client, or on a diving support vessel. Two types of diving spread are in common use: Air spreads for surface oriented diving operations, where the divers are deployed from normal atmospheric pressure, and decompressed back to atmospheric pressure at the end of the dive, either in-water, or in a chamber for surface decompression, using compressed air as the primary breathing gas, and saturation spreads, where divers are deployed under pressure from the saturation accommodation via a closed diving bell to the underwater worksite, and returned under pressure in the bell to the saturation accommodation system, usually breathing a helium based gas mixture. At the end of their contract the divers are decompressed to surface pressure. The process of selecting, transporting, setting up and testing the equipment is the mobilisation stage of the project, and the demobilisation involves dismantling, transportation and return to storage of the spread components. Surface oriented mixed gas diving spreads may also be used, but are less common, and are likely to be associated with projects which are too deep for air but require only a short working time at depth. Air spread. An air spread will include the breathing air supply equipment, and often a deck decompression chamber. Where a chamber is present, facilities for hyperbaric oxygen treatment are usually required. If the planned decompression is to be long, a diving stage or bell and the associated handling equipment is likely to be included to allow better control of ascent rate and decompression depth. Equipment for in-water or surface decompression on oxygen (SurDO2) may be available. Equipment may be necessary to facilitate safe entry to and exit from the water, and may include extrication equipment in case the diver is injured. Saturation spread. A saturation spread will include the closed bell and launch and recovery system, saturation habitat, breathing gas supplies and services, all the life support and control equipment, dive equipment stores and workshops, and may also include power supplies and other equipment not directly involved in the diving. It does not include the diving platform as such, for example a DP vessel, or offshore drilling rig, on which the spread is established, or other services such as catering and accommodation for the topside personnel, which would usually be provided to the dive team. Diving procedures. There are a large number of standard procedures associated with surface-supplied diving. Some of these have their equivalents in scuba, and others are very different. Many procedures are common to all surface-supplied diving, others are specific to stage and bell operations or to saturation diving. Details will vary depending on the equipment used, as manufacturers will specify some checks and procedures in detail, and the order may vary to some extent. The working diver. Preparation of the working diver for the dive is very much a routine, but details depend on the diving equipment and the task, and to some extent on the site, particularly aspects of accessibility. Preparation for diving. Before a diving operation it is usually necessary to set up the surface supply equipment. There are a number of components which must be connected in the correct order, with checks at various stages to ensure that there are no leaks and everything functions correctly. Most diving contractors will have comprehensive checklists that are used to ensure that the equipment is connected in the appropriate sequence and all checks are done. Some checks are critical to the safety of the diver. The compressor must be set up so that it gets uncontaminated air to the intake. Filters should be checked in case they need to be changed. Air supply hoses will be connected to the air panel and checked for leaks, umbilicals connected to the panels and helmets, and the communications equipment connected and tested. Before the umbilical is connected to the helmet or full face mask, the umbilical should be blown through to ensure there is no dirt inside, and the non return valve on the bailout block must be given a function test. This is important, as it is there to prevent backflow of air up the umbilical if the line is cut, and if it fails the diver may suffer a helmet squeeze, or a neck dam flood. Compared to scuba diving, dressing the diver in is a relatively laborious process, as the equipment is bulky and fairly heavy, and several components are connected together by hoses. This is more so with helmets, and less so with light full-face masks. It is not usual for the diver to do all the dressing in without the assistance of a diver's tender, who will also manage the umbilical during the dive. There are a series of pre-dive checks which are done after the diver is locked into the helmet, and before he is committed to the water. These should be done every time a diver is prepared for a dive. Surface checks are done after the diver enters the water, but before he is allowed to descend. They are checks which can not be done as effectively, or at all, in air. Emergency procedures. The diver must be able to deal with the following emergencies. Some are life-threatening, whereas others are more inconveniences. Wet bell and stage emergency procedures. Emergency procedures for wet bell and diving stages include: Stand-by diver. The stand by diver will be prepared in the same way as the working diver, but will not enter the water until needed. He will usually be prepared to the stage of readiness to enter the water, and then will remove his mask, or have his helmet removed and will then sit in as comfortable a place as can be found, so that in case of an emergency he can be readied for action in as short a time as possible. This often means setting up some form of shelter from the weather, and heat and sunshine are usually more of a problem than cold and wet. It is frequently necessary to cool the standby diver to avoid overheating, and dehydration can also be a problem. When the working diver is using a helmet, the stand-by diver may use a full face mask or bandmask, as this makes it quicker to get into the water in an emergency. The stand-by diver's job is to wait until something goes wrong, and then be sent in to sort it out. For this reason a stand by diver should be one of the best divers on the team regarding diving skills and strength, but does not have to be expert at the work skills for the specific job. When deployed, the standby diver will normally follow the umbilical of the diver who is in trouble, as unless it has been severed, it will reliably lead to the correct diver. The standby diver must maintain communications with the supervisor throughout the dive and is expected to give a running commentary of progress so that the supervisor and surface crew know as much as possible what is happening and can plan accordingly, and must take the necessary steps to resolve incidents, which may involve supply of emergency air or locating and rescuing an injured or unconscious diver. In bell diving, the bellman is the primary standby diver, and may have to recover a distressed diver to the bell and give first aid if necessary and possible. There will generally also be a surface standby diver in a bell operation, as some types of assistance are provided from the surface. A rescue tether is a short length of rope or webbing with a clip at one or both ends, which the stand-by diver uses to clip the unresponsive diver to his harness to free up both hands during a recovery. This can be useful if he needs to climb a structure, shotline or topographical feature, and the umbilicals can not be safely used to lift the divers due to snags or sharp edges. Bellman. A bellman is a stand-by diver who tends the working diver's umbilical from a wet or closed bell, and is ready to go to the diver's assistance at all times. The bellman must be in effective voice communication with the supervisor. Underwater tending point. For some operations it is necessary to control the umbilical at a point underwater. This is known as an underwater tending point, and it may be done by another diver or by the diver passing through a closed fairlead placed in the required position. This is usually done to prevent inadvertent access to a known hazard by making the length of the umbilical extending beyond the tending point too short to let the diver get to the hazard. The fairlead must constrain the umbilical laterally and vertically, while allowing free passage away from and back to the bell or stage, and should not interfere with the bellman's ability to pay out or take up slack when the diver travels to the workplace and back. It may be held in position by suspending a weighted hoop from a crane, resting a frame on the bottom, or other methods as may suit the job. Underwater tending may also be used for penetrations of enclosed spaces, such as wrecks, caves, penstocks, sewers, culverts and the like. A diving stage or basket is a by default an underwater tending point, as the umbilical passes through it from the surface to the diver, which also serves as a guide line for the diver to get back to the stage. A diving bell is also an underwater tending point, as the excursion umbilical is tended from the bell by the bellman. Occupational health and safety issues. Divers face specific physical and health risks when they go underwater with diving equipment, or use high pressure breathing gas. A hazard is any agent or situation that poses a level of threat to life, health, property, or environment. Most hazards remain dormant or potential, with only a theoretical risk of harm, and when a hazard becomes active, and produces undesirable consequences, it is called an incident and may culminate in an emergency or accident. Hazard and vulnerability interact with likelihood of occurrence to create risk, which can be the probability of a specific undesirable consequence of a specific hazard, or the combined probability of undesirable consequences of all the hazards of a specific activity. A hazard that is understood and acknowledged may present a lower risk if appropriate precautions are taken, and the consequences may be less severe if mitigation procedures are planned and in place. The presence of a combination of several hazards simultaneously is common in diving, and the effect is generally increased risk to the diver, particularly where the occurrence of an incident due to one hazard triggers other hazards with a resulting cascade of incidents. Many diving fatalities are the result of a cascade of incidents overwhelming the diver, who should be able to manage any single reasonably foreseeable incident. The use of surface supplied breathing gas reduces one of the most significant hazards in diving, that of loss of breathing gas supply, and mitigates that risk by the use of a suitable emergency gas supply, usually in the form of a scuba bailout set, which is intended to provide the diver with sufficient breathing gas to reach a place of relative safety with more breathing gas available. The risk of the diver getting lost or being unable to call for assistance is also drastically reduced in comparison with most scuba, as the diver is physically connected to the surface control point by the umbilical, making it relatively simple for the standby diver to get to a diver in distress, and the standard application of hard-wired voice communications allows the surface team to constantly monitor the diver's breathing sounds. The assessed risk of a dive would generally be considered unacceptable if the diver is not expected to cope with any single reasonably foreseeable incident with a significant probability of occurrence during that dive. Precisely where the line is drawn depends on circumstances. Professional diving operations tend to be less tolerant of risk than recreational, particularly technical divers, who are less constrained by occupational health and safety legislation and codes of practice. This is one of the factors driving the use of surface supplied equipment where reasonably practicable for professional work. Diving disorders are medical conditions specifically arising from underwater diving. The signs and symptoms of these may present during a dive, on surfacing, or up to several hours after a dive. Surface supplied divers have to breathe a gas which is at the same pressure as their surroundings (ambient pressure), which can be much greater than on the surface. The ambient pressure underwater increases by for every of depth. The principal disorders are: decompression illness (which covers decompression sickness and arterial gas embolism); nitrogen narcosis; high pressure nervous syndrome; oxygen toxicity; and pulmonary barotrauma (burst lung). Although some of these may occur in other settings, they are of particular concern during diving activities. Long term diving disorders include dysbaric osteonecrosis, which is associated with decompression sickness. These disorders are caused by breathing gas at the high pressures encountered at depth, and divers may breathe a gas mixture different from air to mitigate these effects. Nitrox, which contains more oxygen and less nitrogen, is commonly used as a breathing gas to reduce the risk of decompression sickness at depths to about . Helium may be added to reduce the amount of nitrogen and oxygen in the gas mixture when diving deeper, to reduce the effects of narcosis and to avoid the risk of oxygen toxicity. This is complicated at depths beyond about , because a helium–oxygen mixture (heliox) then causes high pressure nervous syndrome. More exotic mixtures such as hydreliox, a hydrogen–helium–oxygen mixture, are used at extreme depths to counteract this. Compressor diving. Compressor diving is a method of surface-supplied diving used in some tropical sea areas including the Philippines and the Caribbean. The divers swim with a half mask covering the eyes-and-nose and (often home-made) fins and are supplied air from the boat by plastic hoses from an industrial low-pressure air compressor of the type commonly used to supply jackhammers. There is no reduction valve; the diver holds the hose end in his mouth with no demand valve or mouthpiece. Excess air spills out through the lips. If several people are compressor diving from the same boat, several line tenders are needed in the boat to stop the airlines from getting tangled and kinked and so blocked. Compressor diving is the most common method used to fish for Caribbean spiny lobster ("Panulirus argus") in the Caribbean. However, it is illegal because it contributes to overfishing, is environmentally destructive, and is harmful to the health of the fishers. When fishing with compressors, fishers either use gaffs or harpoons to spear lobsters immediately upon sight, killing or injuring the lobsters before they can be checked for eggs or assessed as legally sized. Compressors allow fishers to fish in deeper waters for longer periods of time, facilitating reef damage as fishers search for lobsters hidden underneath corals and other living refuges. The misuse of compressors has also resulted in health problems for many fishers, such as respiratory problems, limb paralysis, and death due to decompression illness. This method of diving is commonly used in Philippines waters for "pa-aling" fishing, which is fishing with big nets on coral reef areas where a surface-dragged net would snag on coral; the compressor air hoses are also used to make a curtain of bubbles to corral and herd the fish into the nets, since muro-ami fishing was stopped in the area. At least one "pa-aling" fishing fleet has been found and arrested in a protected fishery area. Compressor diving was shown, and so called, used for "pa-aling" fishing, in episode 1 (Oceans: Into the Blue) of the BBC television series "Human Planet". The cameramen used ordinary scuba gear, but one of them had a trial-dive with the crew's compressor-diving gear. Training and registration. Almost all surface-supplied diving is done by professional divers, and consequently the training is done by schools which specialise in the training of professional divers. Registration of professional divers is generally subject to national or state legislation, though international recognition is available for some qualifications. External links. Hookah: Compressor diving

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=37656109

The 1959 Hickory 250 was a NASCAR Grand National Series event that was held on May 2, 1959, at Hickory Speedway in Hickory, North Carolina. Harlan Richardson would make his grand debut into the NASCAR Cup Series during this event. Background. Hickory Motor Speedway is a short track located in Hickory, North Carolina. It is one of stock car racing's most storied venues, and is often referred to as the "World's Most Famous Short Track" and the "Birthplace of the NASCAR Stars". The track first opened in 1951 as a dirt track. Gwyn Staley won the first race at the speedway and later became the first track champion. Drivers such as Junior Johnson, Ned Jarrett, and Ralph Earnhardt also became track champions in the 1950s, with Earnhardt winning five of them. In 1953, NASCAR's Grand National Series visited the track for the first time. Tim Flock won the first race at the speedway, which became a regular part of the Grand National schedule. After winning his track championship in 1952, Junior Johnson became the most successful Grand National driver at Hickory, winning there seven times. The track has been re-configured three times in its history. The track became a 0.4-mile (644 meters) dirt track in 1955, which was paved for the first time during the 1967 season. Race report. There were 21 drivers who were on the starting grid for this 250-lap racing event. Drivers who were on the lead lap were Junior Johnson, Speedy Thompson, Joe Weatherly, and Buck Baker. Eleven drivers were knocked out of the race due to various vehicle-related problems; Rex White was credited with the last-place finish due to troubles with his transmission on lap 27. All of the drivers were born in the United States of America. Only four cautions slowed the race for an undetermined number of laps. Five thousand people eventually got to see Junior Johnson defeat Joe Weatherly by two and a half laps. The average speed of all the stock cars in this event was ; closer to the pole position speed of set by Junior Johnson than in today's NASCAR competitions. The entire race was done on a dirt track. Delta Auto Sales was the only "corporate" sponsor for the drivers in this event. Model years for the vehicles ranged from 1957 to 1959. Most of the field were driving Chevrolet stock cars. The time it took the race to go from the first green flag to the checkered flag was one hour and thirty-six minutes. Individual prize winnings for each driver ranged from the winner's share of $800 ($ when adjusted for inflation) to the last-place finishers' share of $50 ($ when adjusted for inflation). The entire prize purse for this event added up to $3,375 ($ when adjusted for inflation). Finishing order. "* Driver failed to finish race"

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9172787

, real name , was a Japanese professional sumo wrestler from Atsuta District, Hokkaido. He was the sport's 43rd "yokozuna". He suffered a number of injuries and only won one tournament championship, but was a popular wrestler. He was a runner-up five times, and earned three special prizes and two gold stars in his top division career. After his retirement in 1958 he revived and led the Miyagino stable until his death in 1977. Career. He entered sumo in a curious way. He had travelled to Tokyo on a train to attend school, but was met at the station by a sumo wrestler who was expecting a new recruit, who had in fact had second thoughts and not made the trip. The conspicuously large Ikeda was mistaken for him and taken back to Takashima stable before he even realised what was going on. He made his professional debut in May 1938 using the "shikona" or ring name . After suffering appendicitis he had to undergo emergency surgery and changed his ring surname to Yoshibayama in May 1939 in honour of the doctor (Shosaku Yoshiba) who had saved his life. He got to the verge of promotion to the "jūryō" division in 1942 but was then drafted into the Japanese army and took part in World War II. He was seriously wounded in gunfights during his service. He was shot in the leg twice, and the second bullet permanently lodged itself in his foot. He was actually reported as dead for some time. He came back alive, but was surprisingly thin when he returned to Japan. It is generally believed among sumo scholars that if he had not been conscripted and lost several years of his career, he could have become an even stronger and longer lasting wrestler than he was. In spite of his war injury, Yoshibayama returned to sumo in 1947 and was promoted to the top "makuuchi" division in November of that year. He remained in the "maegashira" ranks until September 1950. He was promoted to "ōzeki" in May 1951, after two successive runner-up performances of 13–2 at the rank of "sekiwake". Yoshibayama recorded an "azukari", or hold, on the 12th day of September 1951 tournament. The reason is that his opponent, Azumafuji, could not stand up any more. Yoshibayama could have been awarded a win, but sportingly insisted on a draw. In May 1953 he finished with 14 wins and only one loss, but the championship went to undefeated "maegashira" Tokitsuyama whom Yoshibayama had not been paired against. Yoshibayama was promoted to "yokozuna" after winning his first championship with a perfect 15–0 record in January 1954, but did not win a single bout at the rank until the autumn tournament of that year. He was unable to win any championships in his "yokozuna" career and had only one runner-up result. Although he was popular with the public, he ate and drank to excess and had several internal ailments, including kidney problems. Having finally reached his physical limit, he announced his retirement during the January 1958 tournament. His old rival Kagamisato, who had been promoted to "ōzeki" alongside him in May 1951, also decided to retire on the final day, the first time that two "yokozuna" had quit in the same tournament. Fighting style. Because of the bullet in his ankle, Yoshibayama's style of fighting was erratic. It also did not help that his favourite technique was the controversial "ketaguri", or leg kick, which was considered to be unacceptable at his top "yokozuna" rank. Scholars conceded however that Yoshibayama had had little time to master acceptable sumo techniques because of his time out of sumo due to the war. Retirement from sumo. After his retirement, Yoshibayama became the 8th head coach of Miyagino stable. The previous head coach was the 24th "yokozuna" Ōtori, but Miyagino stable was closed once after his death in 1956. While still an active wrestler, he managed his own stable, a practice no longer permitted. Ōtori's son-in-law Fukunosato Ushinosuke belonged to his stable. He officially renamed his stable to Miyagino stable in 1960. He developed a number of top division wrestlers, such as Myōbudani. He was also a judge of tournament bouts, and on the Japan Sumo Association's board of directors. He also opened a number of "chankonabe" restaurants that still operate today. Future "makuuchi" wrestler Chikubayama also joined his stable, but could not reach the top "makuuchi" division by 1977 when Yoshibayama died. Chikubayama accepted future "yokozuna" Hakuhō when he was the Miyagino stablemaster. Yoshibayama performed the "yokozuna dohyō-iri" (ring entering ceremony) in the "shiranui" style. When Hakuhō was promoted to "yokozuna", he succeeded Yoshibayama's style. At the Meiji Jingu shrine on June 1, 2007, Hakuhō performed the ring entering ceremony wearing Yoshibayama's "keshō-mawashi" and used a sword ("tachi") of another "yokozuna", Ōtori. Pre-modern career record. </table> Modern top division record.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8484472

"St. Cecilia, or the Power of Music" () is a short story by the German author Heinrich von Kleist. The story was written on October 27, 1810 as a gift for daughter of his friend Adam Müller, and was first published in November 1810 in Kleist's literary journal, the "Berliner Abendblätter". Plot summary. The story begins with the arrival of three brothers and a fourth, a predicant, in Aachen at the end of the sixteenth century. The brothers, all four of them avowed Bilderstürmer, decide to attack the convent in the city during a festival celebration. When they arrive, however, they are overcome by the music being played by the nuns of the convent, and the attack is aborted. Six years later, the mother of the young men arrives in Aachen. She enquires about the whereabouts of her sons, and is told that four young men meeting their description are in residence in the city's house for the insane. She goes to visit them and discovers that they spend their days dressed as monks, praying in front of a crucifix, and singing the Gloria in excelsis Deo. They appear to be severely mentally disturbed and incapable of functioning in normal society; many of the city's residents describe them as insane. Finally, the mother decides to visit the nuns of the convent where her sons' transformation took place, where she learns that the exact circumstances of that day were quite mysterious: the nun who was said to have been conducting the orchestra during the mass on that day had actually been confined to bed with a severe fever during the mass, and no one is quite sure who actually directed the orchestra that played the music that overcame the four men. The nuns attribute this to a work of God, who they believe intervened to save the convent from destruction. In the end of the story, the mother returns home and her sons remain in the madhouse, where they live out their lives and die a peaceful death at an old age.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29156200

Waymo LLC is an American autonomous driving technology development company. It is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc, the parent company of Google. Waymo operates a commercial self-driving taxi service in the greater Phoenix, Arizona area called "Waymo One", with Chandler, Arizona fully mapped. In October 2020, the company expanded the service to the public, and it is the only self-driving commercial service that operates without safety backup drivers in the vehicle. Waymo also develops driving technology for use in other vehicles, including delivery vans and Class 8 tractor-trailers for delivery and logistics. Waymo is run by co-CEOs Tekedra Mawakana and Dmitri Dolgov. The company has raised $3 billion in two outside funding rounds. Waymo has partnerships with multiple vehicle manufacturers to integrate Waymo's technology, including with Daimler AG, Nissan-Renault, Stellantis, Jaguar Land Rover, and Volvo. History. Ground work. Google's development of self-driving technology began on January 17, 2009, at the company's secretive X lab run by co-founder Sergey Brin. The project was launched by Sebastian Thrun, the former director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL) and Anthony Levandowski, founder of 510 Systems and Anthony's Robots. Before working at Google, Thrun and 15 engineers, including Dmitri Dolgov, Anthony Levandowski, and Mike Montemerlo worked together on a digital mapping technology project for SAIL called VueTool. Many of the team members had met at the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge where both Thrun and Levandowski had teams competing in the robotic, self-driving car challenge. In 2007, Google acqui-hired the entire VueTool team to help advance Google's Street View technology. As part of Street View's development, 100 Toyota Priuses were purchased and outfitted with the Topcon box, digital mapping hardware developed by Levandowski's company 510 Systems. In 2008, the Street View team launched project Ground Truth, to create accurate road maps by extracting data from satellites and street views. This laid the groundwork for the Google's self-driving car program. Pribot. In February 2008, a Discovery Channel producer for the documentary series "Prototype This!" called Levandowski. The producer requested to borrow Levandowski's Ghost Rider, the autonomous two-wheeled motocycle Levandowski's Berkeley team had built for the 2004 DARPA Grand Challenge. However, in 2007, Levandowski had donated the self-driving bike to the Smithsonian. Since the motorcycle was not available, Levandowski offered to retrofit a Toyota Prius as a self-driving pizza delivery car for the show. As a Google employee, Levandowski asked Larry Page and Sebastian Thrun, if Google was interested in participating in the show. Both declined, citing liability issues. However, they authorized Levandowski to move forward with building the car, given it was clear that it was not associated with Google. Within weeks Levandowski founded Anthony's Robots so that he and his team could modify a Toyota Prius without reference to Google. He retrofitted the car with light detection and ranging technology (LiDAR), sensors, cameras, and software from his company 510 Systems and named the prototype, the Pribot. The Pribot was the first self-driving car to drive on public roads. The episode featuring Pribot driving itself and the pizza across the San Francisco Bay Bridge under police escort aired in December 2008. After the broad press coverage of the Pribot, Levandowski and Thrun were greenlit to launch Google's self-driving car program in January 2009. In 2011, Google quietly acquired Levandowski's technology - the nucleus of Google's self-driving car project, via his two companies, 510 Systems, co-founded alongside Pierre-Yves Droz and Andrew Schultz, and Anthony's Robots for an estimated $20 million. Project Chauffeur. Project Chauffeur ran for almost two years undetected, road testing with seven vehicles before the "New York Times" revealed their existence on October 9, 2010. Google announced its self-driving car initiative via its blog later the same day. Starting in 2010, lawmakers in various states expressed concerns over how to regulate the emerging technology. Nevada passed a law in June 2011 concerning the operation of autonomous cars in Nevada, which went into effect on March 1, 2012. A Toyota Prius modified with Google's experimental driverless technology was licensed by the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) in May 2012. The car was "driven" by Chris Urmson with Anthony Levandowski in the passengers seat. This was the first license issued in the United States for a self-driven car. In late May 2014, Google revealed a new prototype of its driverless car, which had no steering wheel, gas pedal, or brake pedal, being 100% autonomous. In December, they unveiled a fully functioning prototype that they planned to test on San Francisco Bay Area roads beginning in early 2015. Called the Firefly, the car was intended to serve as a platform for experimentation and learning, not mass production. In 2015, co-founder Anthony Levandowski and CTO, Chris Urmson left the project. In August 2015, Google hired former Hyundai Motor executive, John Krafcik, as CEO. In fall 2015, Google provided "the world's first fully driverless ride on public roads" to a legally blind friend of principal engineer Nathaniel Fairfield. The ride was taken by Steve Mahan, former CEO of the Santa Clara Valley Blind Center, in Austin, Texas. It was the first entirely driverless drive on a public road. It was not accompanied by a test driver or police escort. The car had no steering wheel or floor pedals. By the end of 2015, Project Chauffeur had driven more than a million self-driven miles. Waymo. In December 2016, the unit was renamed Waymo and spun-off into a new division in Alphabet. The name Waymo was derived from its mission, "a new way forward in mobility." Waymo moved to further test its cars on public roads after its spin-out. In 2017, Waymo sued Uber for allegedly stealing trade secrets. A court document revealed Google had spent $1.1 billion on the project between 2009 and 2015. For comparison, the acquisition of Cruise Automation by General Motors in March 2016 was reported at just over $500 million, and Uber's acquisition of Otto in August 2016 was for $680 million. Waymo began testing autonomous minivans without a safety driver on public roads in Chandler, Arizona, in October 2017. In April 2019, Waymo announced plans for vehicle assembly in Detroit at the former American Axle & Manufacturing plant, bringing between 100 and 400 jobs to the area. Waymo will use vehicle assembler Magna to turn Jaguar I-PACE and Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans into Waymo Level 4 autonomous vehicles. Waymo subsequently decided to continue retrofitting existing car models rather than manufacturing a new design like the Firefly. In March 2020, the Alphabet unit formally launched Waymo Via after announcing that it has raised $2.25 billion from a group of investors. In May 2020, Waymo raised an additional $750 million, bringing their total outside investment to $3 billion. In July 2020, the company announced an exclusive partnership with auto manufacturer Volvo to integrate Waymo's self-driving technology into Volvo's vehicles. In April 2021, John Krafcik stepped down as CEO and was replaced by two co-CEOs: Waymo's COO Tekedra Mawakana and CTO Dmitri Dolgov. Technology. In 2017, Waymo unveiled new sensors and chips that are less expensive to manufacture, cameras that improve visibility, and wipers to clear the lidar system. Waymo manufactures a suite of self-driving hardware developed in-house. These sensors and hardware-enhanced vision system, improved radar, and laser-based lidar—reduce Waymo's dependence on suppliers. The in-house production system allows Waymo to integrate its technology to the hardware efficiently. At the beginning of the self-driving car program, the company spent $75,000 for each lidar system from Velodyne. In 2017, the cost decreased approximately 90 percent, with Waymo designing its own version of lidar. Waymo officials said the cars the company uses are built for full autonomy with sensors that give 360-degree views and lasers that detect objects up to 300 meters away. Short-range lasers detect and focus on objects near the vehicle, while radar is used to see around vehicles and track objects in motion. The interior of these cars includes buttons for riders to control certain functions: "help," "lock," "pull over," and "start ride." Waymo engineers have also created a program called Carcraft, a virtual world where Waymo can simulate driving conditions. The simulator was named after the video game "World of Warcraft". With Carcraft, 25,000 virtual self-driving cars navigate through models of Austin, Texas, Mountain View, California, Phoenix, Arizona, and other cities. , Waymo has driven more than 5 billion miles in the virtual world. Waymo has created partnerships with Stellantis, Daimler AG, Lyft, AutoNation, Avis, Intel, Jaguar Land Rover, and Volvo. The Waymo project team has equipped various types of cars with the self-driving equipment, including the Toyota Prius, Audi TT, Fiat Chrysler Pacifica, and Lexus RX450h. Google also developed a custom vehicle, approximately 100 of which were assembled by Roush Enterprises with equipment from Bosch, ZF Lenksysteme, LG, and Continental. In May 2016, Google and Stellantis announced an order of 100 Chrysler Pacifica hybrid minivans to test the self-driving technology. Waymo ordered an additional 500 Pacifica hybrids in 2017, and in late May 2018, Alphabet announced plans to add up to 62,000 Pacifica Hybrid minivans to the fleet. In March 2018, Jaguar Land Rover announced that Waymo had ordered up to 20,000 of its planned electric I-Pace cars at an estimated cost of more than $1 billion. Jaguar is to deliver the first I-Pace prototype later in the year, and the cars are to become part of Waymo's ride-hailing service in 2020. Waymo partnered with Intel to use Intel technologies, such as processors, inside Waymo vehicles. It has deals with Avis and AutoNation for vehicle maintenance. With Lyft, Waymo is partnering on pilot projects and product development. Road testing. By 2018, Waymo had tested its system in six states and 25 cities across the U.S over a span of nine years. In 2009, Google began testing its self-driving cars in the San Francisco Bay Area. Google's vehicles have traversed San Francisco's Lombard Street, famed for its steep hairpin turns, and through city traffic. The cars have driven over the Golden Gate Bridge and around Lake Tahoe. The system operates at the speed limit it has stored on its maps and maintains its distance from other vehicles using its system of sensors. By December 2013, four U.S. states had passed laws permitting autonomous cars: Nevada, Florida, California, and Michigan. A law proposed in Texas would also allow testing of, "autonomous motor vehicles". In April 2014, the team announced that their vehicles had logged nearly 700,000 autonomous miles (1.1 million km). In June 2015, the team announced that their vehicles had driven over , stating that this was "the equivalent of 75 years of typical U.S. adult driving", and that in the process they had encountered 200,000 stop signs, 600,000 traffic lights, and 180 million other vehicles. Google also announced its prototype vehicles were being road tested in Mountain View, California. During testing, the prototypes' speed did not exceed and had safety drivers aboard. As a consequence, one of the vehicles was stopped by police for impeding traffic flow. In 2015, Google expanded its road-testing to Texas, where regulations did not prohibit cars without pedals and a steering wheel. Bills were introduced by interested parties to similarly change the legislation in California. Google took its first driverless ride on public roads in October 2015, when Mahan took a 10-minute solo ride around Austin in a Google "pod car" with no steering wheel or pedals. In 2016, the company expanded its road testing to the dry Phoenix, Arizona, area, and Kirkland, Washington, which has a wet climate. In May 2016, the company opened a 53,000 square foot self-driving technology development center in Novi, Michigan. , Google had test driven its fleet of vehicles, in autonomous mode, a total of . In August 2016 alone, their cars traveled a "total of 170,000 miles; of those, 126,000 miles were autonomous (i.e., the car was fully in control)". Beginning of 2017, Waymo reported to California DMV a total of 636,868 miles covered by the fleet in autonomous mode, and the associated 124 disengagements, for the period from December 1, 2015, through November 30, 2016. In November 2017, Waymo altered its Arizona testing by removing safety drivers in the driver position from their autonomous Chrysler Pacificas. The cars were geofenced within a 100 square mile region surrounding Chandler, Arizona. Waymo's early rider program members were the first to take rides using the new technology. Waymo began testing its level 4 autonomous cars in Arizona for several reasons: good weather, simple roads, and lax autonomous vehicle laws. Users hail vehicles through the Waymo app. They also have access to an onboard support system that can connect riders to a Waymo agent. In 2017, Waymo began weather testing in Michigan. Also, in 2017, Waymo unveiled its test facility, Castle, on 91 acres in Central Valley, California. Castle, a former airbase, has served as the project's training course since 2012. According to a Waymo report, as of March 2018, Waymo's self-driving technology had driven more than 5 million miles on public roads and more than 5 billion miles via simulation. Waymo's 25,000 virtual self-driving cars travel 8 million miles per day. By October 2018, Waymo had completed 10 million miles of driving on public roads and over 7 billion simulation miles, and by January 2020, 20 million miles of driving on public roads had been completed. In March 2018, Waymo announced its plans to build additional real-world self-driving experiments with the company's self-driving trucks delivering for sister company Google's data centers located in Atlanta, Georgia. , Waymo was waiting for permits to test the cars in California, hoping to test in Los Altos, Mountain View, Palo Alto, and Sunnyvale. On October 30, 2018, the California Department of Motor Vehicles issued a permit for Waymo to operate fully driverless cars (i.e., cars without human safety drivers). Waymo was the first company to receive a permit, that allows day and night testing on public roads and highways in California. In a blog post, Waymo announced that its fully driverless cars would be restricted to Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Los Altos, and Palo Alto — all communities close to parent company Alphabet's headquarters (Googleplex). In July 2019, Waymo was permitted by California regulators to transport passengers in its vehicles. In December 2018, Waymo launched the commercial self-driving car service called "Waymo One", allowing users in the Phoenix metropolitan area to use an app and request a pick-up. The service uses safety backup drivers who monitor the rides, with a smaller percentage of rides being provided in select areas by fully driverless vehicles. In November 2019, Waymo One was the first autonomous service worldwide operating without any safety drivers in the car. The service was paused in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with a limited service restarted in June 2020. In September 2020, Waymo announced it had partnered with fellow Alphabet company Verily to provide COVID-19 testing to its front-line employees and partners. Crashes. In June 2015, Google confirmed the occurrence of 12 collisions. By July 2015, Google's 23 self-driving cars have been involved in 14 minor collisions on public roads. On February 14, 2016, while creeping forward to a stoplight, a Google self-driving car attempted to avoid sandbags blocking its path. During the maneuver, it struck the side of a bus. Google addressed the crash, saying, "In this case, we clearly bear some responsibility because if our car hadn't moved there wouldn't have been a collision." Some incomplete video footage of the crash is available. Google characterized the crash as a misunderstanding and a learning experience. The company also stated, "This type of misunderstanding happens between human drivers on the road every day." Google maintained that, in all cases other than the February 2016 incident, the vehicle itself was not at fault because the cars were either being manually driven or the driver of another vehicle was at fault. Google initially maintained monthly reports that include any traffic incidents that its self-driving cars had been involved in. Waymo now publishes its own safety reports. Waymo and other companies are required by the California DMV to report the number of incidents during testing where the human driver took control for safety reasons. Some of these incidents were not reported by Google when simulations indicated the car would have stopped on its own. There is some controversy concerning this distinction between driver-initiated disengagements that Google reports and those that it does not report. Limitations. Waymo operates in some of its testing markets, such as Chandler, Arizona, at level 4 autonomy with no one sitting behind the steering wheel, sharing roadways with other drivers and pedestrians. However, more testing is needed. Waymo's earlier testing has focused on areas without harsh weather, extreme density, or complicated road systems, but it has moved on to test under new conditions. As a result, Waymo has begun testing in areas with harsher conditions, such as its winter testing in Michigan. In 2014, a critic wrote in the "MIT Technology Review" that unmapped stopped lights would cause problems with Waymo's technology and the self-driving technology could not detect potholes. Additionally, the lidar technology cannot spot some potholes or discern when humans, such as a police officers, signal the car to stop, the critic wrote. Waymo has worked to improve how its technology responds in construction zones. Commercialization. In 2012, Brin stated that Google Self-Driving cars would be available for the general public in 2017. In 2014, this schedule was updated by project director Chris Urmson to indicate a possible release from 2017 to 2020. In December 2016, Waymo CEO John Krafcik stated in a blog post, "We can see our technology being useful in personal vehicles, ridesharing, logistics, or solving last mile problems for public transport. Our next step as Waymo will be to let people use our vehicles to do everyday things like run errands, commute to work, or get safely home after a night on the town." Temporary use of vehicles is known as Transportation as a Service (TaaS). Waymo highlighted four specific business uses for its autonomous tech in 2017: Ridesharing, users can hail cars equipped with Waymo technology via transportation network company apps; trucking and logistics, urban last-mile solutions for public transportation, and passenger cars. In 2017, Waymo was also considering licensing autonomous technology to vehicle manufacturers. In May 2018, Waymo established a subsidiary in Shanghai, Huimo Business Consulting, with $441,000 of funding. Robo-taxis. In August 2013, news reports surfaced about Robo-Taxi, a proposed driverless vehicle taxicab service from Google. These reports re-appeared again in early 2014, following the granting of a patent to Google for an advertising fee funded transportation service which included autonomous vehicles as a transport method. Google consultant Larry Burns says self-driving, taxi-like vehicles "should be viewed as a new form of public transportation". In April 2017, Waymo launched an early rider program in Phoenix, Arizona, which signed up 400 users to try out a test edition of Waymo's transportation service. Over the next year, 400 riders used the Waymo service, providing feedback. In May 2018, Waymo announced that it plans to allow everyone in Phoenix to request a driverless ride before the end of the year. On December 5, 2018, the company launched a commercial self-driving car service called "Waymo One"; users in the Phoenix metropolitan area use an app to request a pick-up. By November 2019, the service was operating autonomous vehicles without a safety backup driver, the first autonomous service worldwide operating without safety drivers in the car. Trucking and delivery. "Waymo Via" is the trucking division of Waymo, which launched in March 2020. Using the same sensors and software as Waymo's other autonomous vehicles, Class 8 tractor-trailers began testing Waymo's self-driving technology in California and Arizona in 2017. In 2018, Waymo launched a pilot program with Google to use autonomous trucks to move freight to its sister company's Atlanta-area data centers. According to a "Transport Topics" news article, "Waymo does not intend to get into truck manufacturing or shipping services. Instead, it wants to work with OEMs and motor carriers to get its technology into vehicles." In October 2019, CEO John Krafcik stated that Waymo was fleshing out the trucking side of the business, and that self-driving commercial business vehicles might catch on faster than the ride-hailing robotaxi service. In June 2020, Waymo announced its plans to focus testing efforts on southwest shipping routes including, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. In August 2020 the company added a new trucking hub in Dallas, Texas, to test their fleet of Peterbilt trucks in various commercial settings. In October 2020, Waymo announced a global strategic partnership with Daimler AG to integrate Waymo's driver technology into a fleet of Freightliner Cascadia semi-trailer trucks. Waymo has also expanded the use of their self-driving technology to commercial delivery vehicles. In January 2020 the company announced a pilot program with United Parcel Service, where Waymo vehicles transfer packages from UPS stores to a UPS sorting facility. This process allows packages at the UPS stores to be moved more rapidly into the UPS delivery system, instead of waiting to pick them up at the end of the day. In July 2020 Waymo and Stellantis announced an expansion of their partnership, including the development of level 4 autonomous Ram ProMaster delivery vehicles. "Waymo LLC v. Uber Technologies, Inc. et al.". In February 2017, Waymo sued Uber and its subsidiary self-driving trucking company, Otto, for allegedly stealing trade secrets and patent infringement. The company claimed that three ex-Google employees, including Anthony Levandowski, had stolen trade secrets, including thousands of driverless car technology files from Google, before joining Uber. The infringement is related to Waymo's proprietary lidar technology, which could measure the distances between objects using laser and create their three-dimensional representations. Google accused Uber of colluding with Levandowski to obtain information about its lidar and other technologies in its driverless car project. The former Google engineer downloaded 9 gigabytes of data that included over a hundred trade secrets; eight were at stake during the trial. The trial began on February 5, 2018, and was dismissed on February 9, as a settlement was announced with Uber giving Waymo 0.34 percent of Uber's stock, the equivalent of $245 million in Uber equity and agreeing to ensure Uber does not infringe Waymo's intellectual property. Part of the agreement included a guarantee that "Waymo confidential information is not being incorporated in Uber Advanced Technologies Group hardware and software." In released statements after the settlement, Uber maintained that it received no trade secrets. In May, according to the statement from Matt Kallman, an Uber spokesman, Uber had fired Levandowski, which resulted in a loss of roughly $250 million of his own equity in Uber and this value almost exactly equaled to the stock value Uber paid to Waymo LLC.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=384104

In the C++ programming language, the C++ Standard Library is a collection of classes and functions, which are written in the core language and part of the C++ ISO Standard itself. Overview. The C++ Standard Library provides several generic containers, functions to use and manipulate these containers, function objects, generic strings and streams (including interactive and file I/O), support for some language features, and functions for everyday tasks such as finding the square root of a number. The C++ Standard Library also incorporates most headers of the ISO C standard library ending with ".h", but their use is deprecated. No other headers in the C++ Standard Library end in ".h". Features of the C++ Standard Library are declared within the codice_1 namespace. The C++ Standard Library is based upon conventions introduced by the Standard Template Library (STL), and has been influenced by research in generic programming and developers of the STL such as Alexander Stepanov and Meng Lee. Although the C++ Standard Library and the STL share many features, neither is a strict superset of the other. A noteworthy feature of the C++ Standard Library is that it not only specifies the syntax and semantics of generic algorithms, but also places requirements on their performance. These performance requirements often correspond to a well-known algorithm, which is expected but not required to be used. In most cases this requires linear time O("n") or linearithmic time O("n" log "n"), but in some cases higher bounds are allowed, such as quasilinear time O("n" log2 "n") for stable sort (to allow in-place merge sort). Previously, sorting was only required to take O("n" log "n") on average, allowing the use of quicksort, which is fast in practice but has poor worst-case performance, but introsort was introduced to allow both fast average performance and optimal worst-case complexity, and as of C++11, sorting is guaranteed to be at worst linearithmic. In other cases requirements remain laxer, such as selection, which is only required to be linear on average (as in quickselect), not requiring worst-case linear as in introselect. The C++ Standard Library underwent ISO standardization as part of the C++ ISO Standardization effort, and is undergoing further work regarding standardization of expanded functionality. Implementations. GNU C++ Standard Library (libstdc++). The library is part of the GCC sources and released as GPLv3 with an exception to link closed source application when built with GCC . Current version is 11. Microsoft C++ Standard Library (STL). At "CppCon 2019" on September 16th, 2019, Microsoft announced releasing their implementation of the C++ Standard Library (also known as the STL) as open source. It is hosted on GitHub and licensed under the Apache License 2.0 with LLVM Exception. Apache C++ Standard Library. The Apache C++ Standard Library is another open source implementation. It was originally developed commercially by Rogue Wave Software and later donated to the Apache Software Foundation. However, after more than five years without a release, the board of the Apache Software Foundation decided to end this project and move it to Apache Attic. LLVM C++ Standard Library. The LLVM project includes an implementation of the C++ Standard Library called libc++, dual-licensed under the MIT License and the UIUC license. Since v9.0.0, it was relicensed to the Apache License 2.0 with LLVM Exceptions. Standard headers. The following files contain the declarations of the C++ Standard Library. Numerics library. Components that C++ programs may use to perform seminumerical operations. C standard library. Each header from the C Standard Library is included in the C++ Standard Library under a different name, generated by removing the .h, and adding a 'c' at the start; for example, 'time.h' becomes 'ctime'. The only difference between these headers and the traditional C Standard Library headers is that where possible the functions should be placed into the std:: namespace. In ISO C, functions in the standard library are allowed to be implemented by macros, which is not allowed by ISO C++.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6687171

Ivan Vasilyevich Smirnov, or Iwan Smirnoff (; 30 January 1895 – 28 October 1956), was a Russian World War I flying ace and naturalized Dutch aviator who pioneered the Europe to South East Asia routes. He was born to a poor peasant family, but through courage and good fortune managed to become an officer in the Imperial Russian Air Service. After surviving extremely dangerous infantry combat, he trained as a pilot, and was subsequently credited with 11 aerial victories during World War I. When the October Revolution ended his participation in the war, he deserted and became an itinerant pilot. He served short spells in the Royal Air Force, the Volunteer Army of Anton Denikin, Handley Page and SNETA. The Russian emigrant subsequently piloted for KLM for the next 25 years, pioneering air routes to the Dutch East Indies in the process. In December 1941, Smirnov returned to military flying during the frenzied air evacuation of Dutch nationals. After the Dutch East Indies were overrun by the Japanese, he joined the U.S. Air Transport Command. Despite official attempts to ground the aged and oft wounded pilot, he served through war's end. He then returned to KLM. After the inevitable grounding (after 30,000+ flying hours), he continued with the company as its chief advisor. Early life and World War I infantry service. Ivan Vasilyevich Smirnov was born on 30 January 1895. He was the fourth child born into a peasant family whose farm was near Vladimir. He received little schooling; his family existed in a state of near-serfdom. The peasantry to which he belonged could not even work in a local factory without continuing to farm the community's land. It was a situation with little chance for improving one's life. At the outbreak of World War I Smirnov enrolled as a volunteer in the 96th Omsk Infantry Regiment. After a short spell of training, the unit went into ferocious combat in the Battle of Łódź; the barely-trained regiment suffered severe casualties both from its well-schooled German foe and from the foul weather. Concerning this period, Smirnov later remarked, "We were thrown in as mere gun fodder..." He also noted that his contingent of 90 soldiers was rapidly reduced to 19 by casualties. In late October, Ivan Smirnov carried out a series of hazardous ground reconnaissance patrols. For this, he was recommended for the Fourth Class Cross of St. George on 24 October 1914. Shortly thereafter, he was the final man standing out of the original 90 recruits. He was seriously wounded in the leg by machine gun fire on 8 December 1914 and was medically evacuated on a hospital train to Petrograd. He would be laid up five months. During that time, he became interested in flying. As it happened, his nurse's father was a general on the staff of Grand Duke Michael, who was the Inspector-general of the Imperial Russian Air Service; the nurse's father had sufficient influence to arrange Smirnov's transition to aviation. After healing in hospital, he was sent home on a month's convalescent leave. While on this leave, he sent an official appeal to Grand Duke Michael; in it Smirnov requested a transfer to aviation. It was granted, and he reported to pilot's training in Petrograd on 21 August 1915. World War I aviation service. Smirnov trained for 18 days at Petrograd, progressing to flying 3.5 hours dual instruction with an instructor on a Caudron trainer. He was then shifted to the flying school in Moscow. He arrived there on 25 October 1915, to begin mastery of the Farman IV biplane. He soloed on the Farman, and was first in his class to graduate the primary course and begin advanced training. As the IRAS revamped its structure in 1916, Smirnov received advanced instruction on Morane-Saulnier G and Moska MBbis aircraft to fit him for flying fighters in the new fighter squadrons being formed. On 10 September 1916, Efreitor Smirnov qualified as a military pilot, on a Morane-Saulnier L. He was then assigned to the elite 19th "Korpusnoi Aviatsionniy Otrad" (19th Corps Aviation Detachment) at Lutsk. When he reported in on 20 September 1916, he was cordially greeted by his new commander, Alexander Kazakov. As the newest pilot, Smirnov was assigned a two-seater Nieuport 10, as more experienced pilots had first call on the unit's single-seater fighters. Undeterred by his inferior aircraft; as early as 1 October, he was already in combat. However, worsening autumn weather slowed the unit's operational tempo for the winter. Smirnov would not score his first victory until 2 January 1917, when he and his observer downed an enemy machine with rifle fire. While this was occurring, the 19th KAO was ensnarled in its logistical move to Galicia. Differing railway gauges and incompetent staff logistic work delayed the fighter unit's arrival at its new base until 6 April 1917. As a result, Smirnov did not fly combat again until 18 April, when he closed within 50 meters firing range of an enemy plane, but failed to down it. On 27 April, he won the Third Class Cross of Saint George, in an action whose details do not survive. Ivan Smirnov would not score his second confirmed victory until 2 May 1917. He was granted the Second Class Cross of Saint George for this feat. His initial victory brought the young corporal a recommendation for commissioning. While the recommendation was in progress, he was promoted to "Starshyi Unter-Officer" (Sergeant). On 13 May 1917, the appointment as "Praporshchik" came through on Order 506 of the Southwest Front armies. Five days later, he fought an inconclusive battle with an enemy aircraft over Bolshovtse; there were no witnesses to the enemy's forced landing, and Smirnov's machine was badly damaged in the encounter. On 3 June, Smirnov was recommended for the official title of Military Pilot and rewarded with a month's leave. After his return, on 5 July, Smirnov moved up to a newer machine, Nieuport 17 serial number N2522. The 19th would move again a few days later. Smirnov continued to fly combat, and to fight, but with no further success until August, when he was promoted to Ensign. In August 1917, Smirnov racked up more flight time than anyone else in the 19th, clocking 56 hours air time in 27 sorties. On the 23rd, he fought six times, and was credited with his third aerial victory. This began a victory run that extended through his 11th victory, on 26 November 1917. Intermixed with these successes, Smirnov flew escort missions for the huge Sikorsky Ilya Muromets bombers on both 2 and 12 September, but encountered no opposition. List of aerial victories. Confirmed victories are numbered and listed chronologically. Defection. The political turmoil of the October Revolution now affected the unit, with the local Revolutionary Military Committee usurping command in December 1917. The incoming Bolshevik regime declared a ceasefire on 7 November 1917, though Smirnov continued to fly. Soldiers Committees began to take power in the Russian military; they condoned the murder of their officers. Smirnov's last victory had brought him a congratulatory telegram from General Vyatcheslav Tkachev; that brought the attention of Bolshevik enlisted men in his unit. On 18 December 1917, the IRAS was grounded. Fearing Bolshevist persecution because they were officers, Smirnov and two other pilots deserted on the 27th. They commandeered an automobile to take them to Kamianets-Podilskyi. The three deserters secretively boarded a train to continue their escape. They spent a hazardous month dodging Soviet authorities while transiting Russia. They reached Vladivostok before the incoming Bolsheviks could arrive to assume control. Smirnov and his friends made the rounds of foreign consulates, being refused help by both the Americans and the French. However, the British were amenable to their joining the Royal Flying Corps in England. A friend supplied Smirnov with someone else's Russian passport to travel upon. Smirnov and his friend Lipsky set out on a nine-month voyage to the British Isles. Their journey took them through the ports of Hong Kong, Shanghai, Saigon, and Singapore; they had to escape confinement in a prisoner of war camp in the latter. After further stops in Yangon, Colombo, and Aden, they came ashore in Suez and caught on as pilots with a British Airco DH.9 squadron for a while. When they left the squadron, they transited Port Said and Alexandria, Egypt. They finally landed in England at Plymouth. Through the intercession of Air Vice-Marshal Sefton Brancker, they were retrained at the Central Flying School at Upavon on Bristol F.2 Fighters, Avro 504Ks, and Royal Aircraft Factory SE.5as. However, the end of World War I saw Smirnov demobilized from the Royal Air Force. Civilian pilot of KLM. When he was demobilized, Smirnov snagged a flight instructor's job through a Russian officers' emigre association. The ace taught Russian pilots to fly Sopwith Camels, Airco DH.9s, Sopwith Snipes, and Bristol F.2 Fighters at RAF Netheravon. The flying school closed after a few months. Smirnov then took ship again, joining a group of other Russian pilots bound for Novorossiysk to join the Volunteer Army of the White Russian counter-revolutionists. When Smirnov arrived in August 1919, he was met by his old friend Lipsky. The latter advised Smirnov that the Volunteer Army was disintegrating from defeat, and that he should flee the coming disaster. Smirnov stowed away on an outbound ship the next morning. He ended up in Paris, where he became the assistant Air Attaché and Chief Pilot for the Russian royalist government in exile. After the new Communist government gained control in Russia, Smirnov returned to work in the Handley Page factory. Following this, he returned to piloting, joining the pioneering Belgian airline SNETA in 1920. He carried passengers in SPADs and Airco DH.9s until in September 1921 a hangar fire consumed his assigned aircraft, leaving him jobless. He moved on to the Netherlands, and began flying for KLM in 1922. On 19 October 1923, he departed Schiphol in a Fokker F.III loaded with three passengers. Engine failure brought them down on the Goodwin Sands of the English Channel, necessitating a rescue by the collier "Primo" before incoming tides submerged the aircraft. Smirnov was consequently nicknamed "Earl of the Goodwins". In September 1928, Smirnov pioneered the postal route from Amsterdam to Batavia, Dutch East Indies for KLM, an 18,000 mile round trip. The first flight to Java, scheduled to take 12 days of daylight flying, took 16 days including stops and accidents. Five years later, between 18 and 22 December 1933, he and his crew (, J.M.H. Grosfeld and C.H. van Beukering) set a record time of 100 hours and 35 minutes on this route, flying a Fokker F.XVIII dubbed "Pelikaan" ("Pelican"). On the return flight (27–30 December), they bested this time by 10 minutes despite bad weather conditions. 22,000 people welcomed them back at Schiphol to celebrate their return. In 1940, Smirnov was permanently posted in Indonesia by KLM. World War II. At the time of the German invasion of the Netherlands in May 1940, Smirnov and his wife lived in Napels, which since the outbreak of World War II had functioned as the terminal of the KLM route to the East Indies. He moved to Java and continued flying the route, until the Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies in December 1941. Though returned to military flying as a (reserve) captain in the army aviation corps, he remained also active as a civilian pilot. He evacuated Dutch women, children, and VIPs to Australia, at times taking off just minutes before the invaders arrived. Eventually, on 3 March 1942, his luck ran out. He was flying PK-AFV, a DC-3 Dakota again dubbed "Pelikaan", when he was attacked by three Japanese Zeroes. Although wounded five times in the arm, the ex-fighter pilot threw his transport into a diving spiral away from the attacking fighters to make his escape. He crashlanded the DC-3 on a sandy beach, four of his passengers dying in the event. The survivors and cargo were rescued five days later, though a packet of diamonds went missing. (For more details, see 1942 KNILM Douglas DC-3 shootdown) After recovery from his injuries Smirnov worked as a captain in the US 317th Troop Carrier Group despite attempts to ground him because of his age and chronic injuries. He would serve through war's end, and return to his civil job with KLM. His Second World War exploits brought him the Dutch Distinguished Flying Cross, the French "Croix de Guerre", and installation as Knight of the Order of Orange Nassau from the Netherlands. After the war. Back in The Netherlands, Smirnov took up old activities and began to fly on his beloved Java route again. But in 1948 Smirnov got an offer he could not resist. He was asked to pilot a World Tour. The American Atlas Supply Company, a subsidiary of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, was planning a 100-day round-the-world flight on which heads of important American firms would act as their own commercial travellers. The plane in which they flew would be a travelling stockroom, loaded with colour films, scale models, give-away samples and literature in many languages. The Sky Merchant, a Douglas DC4, was to travel a route of 80.000 kilometres, crossing the equator six times, visiting all five continents, twenty-eight countries and forty-five principal cities. Smirnov was delighted. Postwar, Smirnov was eventually grounded for medical reasons after 30,000+ flying hours, but remained with KLM as a senior advisor until his retirement in August 1949. Personal life. Since moving to the Netherlands in 1921 Smirnov lived In Amsterdam. In October 1925 he married the Danish actress Margot Linnet, whom he had met in June of that year in Copenhagen. In 1929, he became a naturalized Dutch citizen with the name Iwan Wasiliwitsj Smirnoff, a spelling he always used himself. He moved to Heemstede in 1936, where he named his house "De Pelikaan" after the airplane of his record flight. After Margot's death of cancer in July 1947 he married the American heiress Mina (Niki) Redwood in September 1948 in New York. He did not have children in either marriage. In November 1952 Mina and Ivan moved from Heemstede to Cala d'Or on the Balearic Island of Majorca. He died in Palma on 28 October 1956 and was buried on the island. However, on 20 November 1959, he was reinterred in Heemstede. Bibliography. Ivan meets Margot Linnet

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=641982

Mushroom poisoning refers to harmful effects from ingestion of toxic substances present in a mushroom. These symptoms can vary from slight gastrointestinal discomfort to death in about 10 days. The toxins present are secondary metabolites produced by the fungus. Mushroom poisoning is usually the result of ingestion of wild mushrooms after misidentification of a toxic mushroom as an edible species. The most common reason for this misidentification is close resemblance in terms of colour and general morphology of the toxic mushrooms species with edible species. To prevent mushroom poisoning, mushroom gatherers familiarize themselves with the mushrooms they intend to collect, as well as with any similar-looking toxic species. The safety of eating wild mushrooms may depend on methods of preparation for cooking. Signs and symptoms. Poisonous mushrooms contain a variety of different toxins that can differ markedly in toxicity. Symptoms of mushroom poisoning may vary from gastric upset to organ failure resulting in death. Serious symptoms do not always occur immediately after eating, often not until the toxin attacks the kidney or liver, sometimes days or weeks later. The most common consequence of mushroom poisoning is simply gastrointestinal upset. Most "poisonous" mushrooms contain gastrointestinal irritants that cause vomiting and diarrhea (sometimes requiring hospitalization), but usually no long-term damage. However, there are a number of recognized mushroom toxins with specific, and sometimes deadly, effects: The period of time between ingestion and the onset of symptoms varies dramatically between toxins, some taking days to show symptoms identifiable as mushroom poisoning. Causes. New species of fungi are continuing to be discovered, with an estimated number of 800 new species registered annually. This, added to the fact that many investigations have recently reclassified some species of mushrooms from edible to poisonous has made older classifications insufficient at describing what now is known about the different species of fungi that are harmful to humans. Thus, contrary to what older registers state, it is now thought that of the approximately 100,000 known fungi species found worldwide, about 100 of them are poisonous to humans. However, by far the majority of mushroom poisonings are not fatal, and the majority of fatal poisonings are attributable to the "Amanita phalloides" mushroom. A majority of these cases are due to mistaken identity. This is a common occurrence with "A. phalloides" in particular, due to its resemblance to the Asian paddy-straw mushroom, "Volvariella volvacea". Both are light-colored and covered with a universal veil when young. "Amanita"s can be mistaken for other species, as well, in particular when immature. On at least one occasion they have been mistaken for "Coprinus comatus". In this case, the victim had some limited experience in identifying mushrooms, but did not take the time to correctly identify these particular mushrooms until after he began to experience symptoms of mushroom poisoning. The author of "Mushrooms Demystified", David Arora cautions puffball-hunters to beware of "Amanita" "eggs", which are "Amanita"s still entirely encased in their universal veil. "Amanita"s at this stage are difficult to distinguish from puffballs. Foragers are encouraged to always cut the fruiting bodies of suspected puffballs in half, as this will reveal the outline of a developing "Amanita" should it be present within the structure. A majority of mushroom poisonings in general are the result of small children, especially toddlers in the "grazing" stage, ingesting mushrooms found in the lawn. While this can happen with any mushroom, "Chlorophyllum molybdites" is often implicated due to its preference for growing in lawns. "C. molybdites" causes severe gastrointestinal upset but is not considered deadly poisonous. A few poisonings are the result of misidentification while attempting to collect hallucinogenic mushrooms for recreational use. In 1981, one fatality and two hospitalizations occurred following consumption of "Galerina marginata", mistaken for a "Psilocybe" species. "Galerina" and "Psilocybe" species are both small, brown, and sticky, and can be found growing together. However, "Galerina" contains amatoxins, the same poison found in the deadly "Amanita" species. Another case reports kidney failure following ingestion of "Cortinarius orellanus", a mushroom containing orellanine. It is natural that accidental ingestion of hallucinogenic species also occurs, but is rarely harmful when ingested in small quantities. Cases of serious toxicity have been reported in small children. "Amanita pantherina", while containing the same hallucinogens as "Amanita muscaria" (e.g., ibotenic acid and muscimol), has been more commonly associated with severe gastrointestinal upset than its better-known counterpart. Although usually not fatal, "Omphalotus" spp., "Jack-o-lantern mushrooms", are another cause of sometimes significant toxicity. They are sometimes mistaken for chanterelles. Both are bright-orange and fruit at the same time of year, although "Omphalotus" grows on wood and has true gills rather than the veins of a "Cantharellus". They contain toxins known as illudins, which causes gastrointestinal symptoms. Bioluminescent species are generally inedible and often mildly toxic. "Clitocybe dealbata", which is occasionally mistaken for an oyster mushroom or other edible species contains muscarine. Toxicities can also occur with collection of morels. Even true morels, if eaten raw, will cause gastrointestinal upset. Typically, morels are thoroughly cooked before eating. "Verpa bohemica", although referred to as "thimble morels" or "early morels" by some, have caused toxic effects in some individuals. "Gyromitra" spp., "false morels", are deadly poisonous if eaten raw. They contain a toxin called gyromitrin, which can cause neurotoxicity, gastrointestinal toxicity, and destruction of the blood cells. The Finns consume "Gyromitra esculenta" after parboiling, but this may not render the mushroom entirely safe, resulting in its being called the "fugu of the Finnish cuisine". A more unusual toxin is coprine, a disulfiram-like compound that is harmless unless ingested within a few days of ingesting alcohol. It inhibits aldehyde dehydrogenase, an enzyme required for breaking down alcohol. Thus, the symptoms of toxicity are similar to being hung over—flushing, headache, nausea, palpitations, and, in severe cases, trouble breathing. "Coprinus" species, including "Coprinopsis atramentaria", contain coprine. "Coprinus comatus" does not, but it is best to avoid mixing alcohol with other members of this genus. Recently, poisonings have also been associated with "Amanita smithiana". These poisonings may be due to orellanine, but the onset of symptoms occurs in 4 to 11 hours, which is much quicker than the 3 to 20 days normally associated with orellanine. "Paxillus involutus" is also inedible when raw, but is eaten in Europe after pickling or parboiling. However, after the death of the German mycologist Dr Julius Schäffer, it was discovered that the mushroom contains a toxin that can stimulate the immune system to attack its own red blood cells. This reaction is rare, but can occur even after safely eating the mushroom for many years. Similarly, "Tricholoma equestre" was widely considered edible and good, until it was connected with rare cases of rhabdomyolysis. In the fall of 2004, thirteen deaths were associated with consumption of "Pleurocybella porrigens" or "angel's wings". In general, these mushrooms are considered edible. All the victims died of an acute brain disorder, and all had pre-existing kidney disease. The exact cause of the toxicity was not known at this time and the deaths cannot be definitively attributed to mushroom consumption. However, mushroom poisoning is not always due to mistaken identity. For example, the highly toxic ergot "Claviceps purpurea", which grows on rye, is sometimes ground up with rye, unnoticed, and later consumed. This can cause devastating, even fatal effects, which is called ergotism. Cases of idiosyncratic or unusual reactions to fungi can also occur. Some are probably due to allergy, others to some other kind of sensitivity. It is not uncommon for an individual person to experience gastrointestinal upset associated with one particular mushroom species or genus. Some mushrooms might concentrate toxins from their growth substrate, such as Chicken of the Woods growing on yew trees. Poisonous mushrooms. Of the most lethal mushrooms, five—the death cap ("A. phalloides"), the three destroying angels ("A. virosa", "A. bisporigera", and "A. ocreata"), and the fool's mushroom ("A. verna")—belong to the genus "Amanita", and two more—the deadly webcap ("C. rubellus"), and the fool's webcap ("C. orellanus")—are from the genus "Cortinarius". Several species of Galerina, Lepiota, and Conocybe also contain lethal amounts of amatoxins. Deadly species are listed in the List of deadly fungi. The following species may cause great discomfort, sometimes requiring hospitalization, but are not considered deadly. Prognosis and treatment. Some mushrooms contain less toxic compounds and, therefore, are not severely poisonous. Poisonings by these mushrooms may respond well to treatment. However, certain types of mushrooms contain very potent toxins and are very poisonous; so even if symptoms are treated promptly, mortality is high. With some toxins, death can occur in a week or a few days. Although a liver or kidney transplant may save some patients with complete organ failure, in many cases there are no organs available. Patients hospitalized and given aggressive support therapy almost immediately after ingestion of amanitin-containing mushrooms have a mortality rate of only 10%, whereas those admitted 60 or more hours after ingestion have a 50–90% mortality rate. In the United States alone each year, an average of seven people die from mushroom poisoning, and several thousand are sickened. Society and culture. Folk traditions. Many folk traditions concern the defining features of poisonous mushrooms. However, there are no general identifiers for poisonous mushrooms, so such traditions are unreliable. Guidelines to identify particular mushrooms exist, and will serve only if one knows which mushrooms are toxic. Examples of erroneous folklore "rules" include:

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=7951059

Flea allergy dermatitis (FAD) is an eczematous itchy skin disease of dogs and cats. For both of these domestic species, flea allergy dermatitis is the most common cause of skin disease. Affected animals develop allergic reactions to chemicals in flea saliva. Symptoms of this reaction include erythema (redness), papules (bumps), pustules (pus-filled bumps), and crusts (scabs). If severe, hair loss will occur in the affected area. Dogs with flea allergy dermatitis often show hair loss and eczematous skin rash on the lower back, upper tail, neck, and down the back of the legs. Cats with flea allergy dermatitis may develop a variety of skin problems, including feline eosinophilic granuloma, miliary dermatitis, or self-inflicted alopecia from excessive grooming. Cause. The flea found most commonly on both dogs and cats with a flea infestation is the cat flea, "Ctenocephalides felis". Pets that develop FAD have an allergic response to flea saliva injected during flea feeding. The itch associated with just one flea bite persists long after that flea is gone and leads to significant self-trauma. Diagnosis. The diagnosis of flea allergy dermatitis is complicated by the grooming habits of pets. Cats in particular are very efficient at grooming out fleas, often removing any evidence of infestation. Fleas begin biting within 5 minutes of finding a host, and there are no flea treatments that kill fleas before biting occurs. Treatment. The aim of treatment is to relieve the allergy-induced itch and to remove the fleas from the pet and its home environment. In some cases, secondary bacterial or yeast infections will also need treatment before the itching subsides. The administration of oral or topical flea prevention is also required to kill fleas currently on the animal. Environmental flea control includes using flea foggers or bombs, vacuuming, and treating pet bedding by washing on a hot cycle (over 60 degrees Celsius) in the washing machine. Many pets with FAD may also have other allergies, such as allergies to food, contact allergies, and atopic dermatitis.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=60826569

Hair plates are a type of mechanoreceptor found in insects. Hair plates are tightly packed groups of sensory hairs that sense movements of one body segment relative to an adjoining segment. Hair plates are considered external proprioceptors. Structure. Hair plates typically consist of several dozen individual sensory hairs. Each hair is innervated by a single sensory neuron (see schematic cross-section). Hair plates are often positioned next to folds within the cuticle, so that hairs are deflected during joint movement. Hair plates are located on different body parts, including the legs, the neck, and the antennae. Function. Hair plates function as proprioceptors. The sensory neurons innervating the hair plate may respond phasically to hair movements (rapidly adapting) or tonically to maintained deflections (slowly adapting). Thus, hair plates can encode the position and movement of an adjoining body segment. Hair plate neurons project to the insect central nervous system, where they form synapses with multiple postsynaptic partners. They can provide direct excitatory and indirect inhibitory input to motor neurons as well as presynaptic inhibition to other proprioceptors. Hair plates located at the leg joints provide sensory feedback for the control of walking. In stick insects and cockroaches, the surgical removal of a hair plate on the proximal leg causes the leg to overstep and collide with the leg in front, indicating that proprioceptive signals from the hair plate limit the forward movement of the leg. This “limit detector” function is similar to that of mammalian joint receptors. Hair plates located on the neck (known as the prosternal organ) monitor head position relative to the thorax and provide sensory feedback for the control of head posture. In the blowfly "Calliphora", surgical removal of the prosternal organ hairs on one side causes the fly to compensate by rolling the head toward the operated side. Hair plates located on the proximal segments of the antenna (see schematic) provide sensory feedback for the control of antennal movement and are thought to play an important role in active sensing, object localization, and targeted reaching movements.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=46484448

Starcom is an international media network, with headquarters in Chicago is part of France’s Publicis, the third-largest communications group globally History. The global holding company Starcom Mediavest Group was formed in 2000. Jack Klues, who had been the Chief Executive Officer of Starcom Worldwide, was named SMG’s first CEO upon its formation. Former CEO Laura Desmond became one of the business world’s youngest CEOs ever when she was named to the position in 2008. In recent years, SMG has had partnerships with companies such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Acxiom, Tencent and more involving data, analytics and "technology-fueled creativity". SMG also reorganized into 3 divisions—Connections (media brands), Content (creative assets), and Tech solutions (RUN, extech)—to reflect the fact that it now derives more than 50% of its business from digital, content, and data/analytics. Resources. SMG Performance Marketing: Full-service media agency. LiquidThread: branded entertainment content and on-ground activation specialists. MRY: Full-service digital creative agency. Relevant24: Real-time content agency creating multi-media branded content marketing RUN: Mobile-first data management and programmatic buying platform for the digital world that executes cross-device campaigns across multiple formats, including display and video . Data & Analytics: Extech: Offers new marketplace products and services. SPORTS at SMG: Sports and event marketing, including strategy, planning, rights acquisition and activation to SMG clients. VivaKi: Programmatic advertising and media buying IP Pixel: digital creative agency. IP Pixel was founded in 2003 by Nicholas Yecke, John Rafferty, and Jen Schreiber then members of Starcom IP - Starcom WorldWide, held by the Publicis Groupe. In 2007, Publicis restructured Pixel into a fully integrated part of its Starcom MediaVest Group. Employees and Locations. SMG employs roughly 8,000 people in 110 offices worldwide

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=51349069

The Party of Moderate Progress Within the Bounds of the Law (PMPWBL, ) was a satirical political party in Cisleithania (Austro-Hungary), founded by Jaroslav Hašek in 1911. The party campaigned satirically for election to the Imperial Council (Austria). Due to their dual nature as both a political "party" and a political-artistic "action group", it is often extremely difficult to differentiate the reality from the fiction of the SMPVMZ. History. Founding. According to the statements of the party leader Hašek, the party was founded in 1904 in the restaurant 'The Golden Liter' (Czech: "Zlatý litr") in Prague's Vinohrady quarter. Other participants were the writer František Langer and the Prague Technikum official Eduard Drobílek, who came up with the idea and served as treasurer. The party name referred to the controversial Imperial Rescript dated September 12, 1871, in which the Bohemian Landtag, as the representative organ of Czech political power, was asked to contribute to "the contemporary constitutional order, in the spirit of moderation and reconciliation." The party was most likely founded as a direct response to the overly accommodating behavior of the Czech Social Democratic Party ("Evolution, not Revolution"), whose Prague representatives held events in Zlatý litr. The party slogan abbreviation was "SRK", which officially stood for "Solidarity, Rights and Comradeship" () but in practice meant Slivovitz, Rum and Kontusovka. The party grew slowly. By its own account, there were only eight members as of December 14, 1904. As time went on the membership grew to include a few lawyers and doctors, as well as numerous figures from Prague's cultural scene: the anarchist journalist and publisher Antonín Bouček; satirist, painter, and anarchist František Gellner, who served two stints as party secretary; writers and satirists including Karel Toman, Josef Mach, Gustav Roger Opočenský, Louis Křikava, and Josef Skružný; the anarchist poet Josef Rosenzweig-Moir; the journalists Karel Pelant and Karel V. Rypáček; the illustrator Josef Lada; the ballet dancer Franz Wagner; "Hero of the Macedonian Uprising" and self-proclaimed Voivode Jan Klimeš, as well as the police commissioner Slabý, who served as "Enforcers" at party meetings. There is no evidence the party engaged in any public activities until 1911. The only record is a political pamphlet by Hašeks from 1904 referred to as "I am a member of a secondment from the country" that is possibly a description of the earliest form of the party's work. However, numerous researchers place the founding of the party with the activities of the 1911 elections. In contrast, numerous texts describe pre-1911 propaganda expeditions by party members to different regions of the K.u.K-Monarchy. The journeys were described by the party leader as figurative "apostolic missions" through Moravia, Lower Austria, Hungary, Croatia, the Carniola, Styria, Upper Austria, Bohemia and Vienna. Since these trips have a strong resemblance to the "Vagabond Wanderinsg" () Hašek regularly undertook starting in 1900, perhaps the party history is a case of an after-the-fact blurring and mystification on the part of the author, as evidence shows Hašek active as a journalist for an anarchist newspaper and an anarcho-syndicalist organizer during this time. For example, in 1907 he disturbed an electoral event of the Clerical Party as an agent provocateur, and in the same year was sentenced to a month in prison on charges of "assassination" and "incitement to assault". Therefore, some researchers consider the PMPWBL an "anarchist front-group". 1911 election. On April 8, 1911, after the dissolution of the old imperial council, the Austrian Interior Minister set a general election date of June 13, 1911, for the election of deputies to the 21st session of the Austrian House of Deputies that was to begin in mid-July. A few days later at the new party headquarters, the Cow Stall () in the Vinohrady quarter, an executive committee of the reorganized "Party for Moderate Progress Within the Bounds of the Law" announced they would participate in the election with their own candidate. At the same time, they published a manifesto to the Czech people, in which they introduced to party ideology of "Moderate Progress": The manifesto was even signed by leading Czech social democrats Emanuel Škatula und Bohumír Šmeral, later co-founders of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. However the two politicians stood in the election as candidates, and it is highly doubtful they were aware of their signatures in advance. The platform of the candidate for the Vinorhady election district, Jaroslav Hašek, consisted of seven points: The party hosted numerous speaker evenings, which included Max Brod and Franz Kafka among the spectators. Hašek gave multi-hour campaign speeches "with a great deal of promises and reforms, [he] smeared the other parties, denounced his opponents, everything that befits a decent candidate to such an honorable [position]", according to attendee František Langer. The songwriter Josef Mach wrote a party hymn especially for the campaign: English Translation (from German): Moreover, they campaigned for their candidate with pamphlets and placards: "Voters - what you hope to get from Vienna, you'll also get from me!" "Voters, use your ballot to protest against the earthquake in Mexico!" and "Each of our voters will receive a small pocket aquarium". Even on the day of the election, the leadership of the party tried to expand the size of the campaign team by hanging a notice: "Wanted: a respectable man to defame opposing candidates". All of this was in vain: after the around 3,000 votes cast in the Vinorhady district were totaled, only 38 were cast for the PMPWBL, or according to a contemporary periodical publication, as few as 16 votes. The newspaper "Čas" reported in its "Daily Chronicle", on July 15, 1911, "Nothing is known about the fate of this candidacy, and the Imperial press office has not made any official statement regarding it. The candidate intends to protest." The silence of the Imperial election commission was not unexpected, as the party had apparently not even officially registered its candidacy. As a result, the votes for Hašek were considered invalid. Later, on July 17, 1911, PMPWBL-member František Gellner wrote a positive review of the campaign in the magazine "Karikatury": Further developments. The first party congress was held in 1913, in the restaurant Na Smetance in the Prague district of Žižkov, but was only attended by a few party members. When the party leader inadvertently sat down on the service cap of the supervising police commissioner, the event was dissolved. Hašek reports on a subsequent "long-term persecution of the party", a subsequent dramatic exaggeration. After the outbreak of the First World War Hašek was called up in February 1915 as a soldier, and was captured by Russians in September 1915. In 1916 he joined the Czechoslovak Legion, but deserted to the Red Army in 1918, where he held various functions, mainly serving as political commissar in the Political Department of the 5th Siberian Army. In December 1920 Hašek returned to Prague under false papers. During the year 1921 the second PMPWBL congress took place in Prague-Žižkov, in a large hall in the restaurant Yugoslavia"," and was attended by about 300 people. The highlight of the congress was the unanimous adoption of a foreign policy resolution calling for the demolition of the globe due to the hopeless world situation. Although it had been declared that a third, secret party congress would be announced by newspaper advertisements in the section "Where to Today?," the activities of the PMPWBL ended in 1921. This was due to poor health of the party founder and chairman Jaroslav Hašek, who retired to Lipnice nad Sázavou in August 1921, where he worked until his death in January 1923 on his novel "The Good Soldier Švejk". Reality and literary treatment. The actual existence of the Party of Moderate Progress Within the Bounds of the Law is beyond dispute. Apart from the literary treatment by Jaroslav Hašek, there are numerous contemporary newspaper and magazine articles describing the activity of the party. Furthermore, it comes up repeatedly in the memoirs of participants and contemporary witnesses as well as in scientific works. According to Kindler's Neuem Literaturlexikon, Hašek's published speeches appear to have actually been delivered "in the same or similar form". On the other hand, there is no realistic basis for the allegation that Hašek attended over 1,000 election campaign events during the campaign. In 1911-12, Jaroslav Hašek wrote almost 30 texts about the PMPWBL and its members. These are partly literary accounts, partly fictitious satire. The manuscript was bought in 1912 by the Prague publisher Karel Ločák, but not published because he feared problems due to the personality rights of the described persons. The next owner of the manuscript, Alois Hatina, only published ten of the texts in the magazine "Směr" after Hašek's death in 1924/25. Nevertheless, the party was remembered. In 1928, when the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia wanted to distract from its failures with intensified populist propaganda campaigns, the Social Democratic newspaper "Právo Lidu asked" ironically: "Are the Communists the Party of Moderate Progress Within the Bounds of the Law?" In 1937, the newspaper Rudé právo published 23 of Hašek's works. They appeared in their entirety in book form for the first time in 1963 in Czech, and in 1971 in German translation. In the appendix to this edition "("Quellen und Materialien")" there are two further texts obviously written by Hašek for the election campaign of 1911, as well as one of Hašek's election speeches as recorded by František Langer and Josef Mach. Separately, in the early 1920s Hašek also wrote "Minutes of the Second Party Convention", first published in German in 1957"." Legal status of the party. From today's perspective, the freedom Hašek and his colleagues exercised for their party activities seems amazing, given the Habsburg Monarchy's contempt for the party system and the monarchy's lack of a constitutional role for political parties. In legal practice at the time, the concept of "party" was used either in the sense of a political "club", an "association" or in the sense of "electoral list" as outlined in contemporaneous electoral regulations. A party law was not issued in Austria until 1975. Prior to this date, a party could be founded either by a simple statement of the participants (see. the later foundations of the ÖVP, SPÖ and KPÖ, known as "Declarations of Independence"), or by a "founding agreement" according to the rules of the Association Act. Starting in 1867, founding legally recognized associations with no longer required approval of the supervisory authority, and they were instead only subject to a four-week "prohibition period" (§ 6), which the PMPWBL effortlessly survived due to its "pro-state" demeanor. However, due to the presumed danger of parties in the Association Act, association activities were regulated in great detail. These regulations included the obligation to report all association activities to the government, and the right of the government to send officers to supervise the association. The election events of the PMPWBL were also subject to police supervision. While the supervising officer was allowed to dissolve meetings, he was explicitly forbidden to interfere in the debate or talk to anyone other than the club chairman, which severely curtailed his practical threat to PMPWBL public gatherings: Scholarly assessment. There is wide academic agreement on the motivation for the founding of the PMPWBL. The author and publisher Günther Jarosch argues social critique and ridiculing the contemporary opportunist party system through "hyper-loyalty" were the driving force behind the founding of the PMPWBL. These forces were also the basis for the Prague Czech cultural elite's acceptance of the party's provocative activities, which can only understood in the context of the decades-long smoldering problem of nationalities in Bohemia. The political scientist Ekkehart Krippendorff emphasizes that in a "mixture of jests, and ultimate seriousness [...] the confusion and the morally pretentious rhetoric of party politics of the time was pointedly" brought into sharp relief. Only the Hašek researcher Gustav Janouch considers the party a kind of drunken joke, which was only supposed to increase the beverage turnover in the Kravín inn. This is contradicted by Jaroslav Hašek son Richard, "My father took his candidacy in the elections of 1911 very seriously and was operated from the assumption that he would get the number of necessary votes. After the election defeat, he was very disappointed and depressed." According to Slavist Gisela Riff, the actions of Hašek and his party comrades reveal a merciless play on the "concepts" and "values" of political life. The philologist Walter Schamschula describes Hašek's goal as disillusioning spectators by breaking bourgeois taboos - not only in relation to Austro-Hungarian parliamentarism and its leading figures, but also in relation to individuals themselves. Therefore Hašek did not limit himself to criticism of himself and his party, but also anecdotally described accounts of their own willingness to lie deceive and deny their own political beliefs for personal gain. Gisela Riff also emphasizes the "impeccable" character of Hašek's performances. Hašek's main means of doing so was freely improvised speech, where he used long chains of association to combine the important with the trivial, fact with fiction. Hašek said in a campaign speech: As events went on, however, the lines of argument would become more and more absurd: Riff and her pupil the linguist and translator Jana Halamíčková drew parallels to artistic forms and mediums such as happenings, Dada events, audience participation, and the play "Offending the Audience". Thus, the PMPWBL is one of the precursors of forms of political action that, since the 1968 movement and the formation of a new alternative culture, have questioned the established political institutions, forces and media. This type of political practice led to new practices of political expression emanating from average citizens. For example, see Sponti groups, revolutionary spontaneity or guerilla communication strategies. Consequences. After the collapse of communism in November 1989, the party, which according to self-mystification continued to exist illegally since 1921, returned to the public under the leadership of the cartoonists Josef Kobra Kučera and Vít Hrabánek and hosted the long-ago announced third Party Congress. Furthermore, from 1990 to 1992 the party published "Skrt", a satirical magazine with an official circulation of 300,000. In the following years, the party faced contemporary political problems: In 2000, it called for "moderate globalization within the bounds of the law" and suggested sending as many of its own children abroad as possible - and to have them demonstrate against globalization there. In January 2006, Richard Hašek, grandson of Jaroslav Hašeks and a leading member of the party, concluded a "non-aggression pact" for the upcoming parliamentary elections with KDU-ČSL, the Christian Democratic Party of the Czech Republic. The contract, in which reciprocal attacks with beer and slivovitz continued to be expressly allowed, was signed by the then chairman of the KDU-ČSL Miroslav Kalousek in the presence of his deputy Jan Kasal, vice-president of the Czech House of Representatives. In 2003 a sister party was founded in Austria under the name of the "Party of Reasonable Progress Within Moderate Limits." Since no activities of this party are detectable, it is assumed to be a mystification.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=43341873

Joseph Fortuné Séraphin Layraud (15 October 1834 – 12 October 1912) was a French painter. There is no complete clearance as to the birth' and the death' dates. Some sources refer to 1833-1913. His range included historical scenes and figures, religious and mythological subjects, landscapes, and portraits of contemporaries. Life and career. Layraud was born at La Roche-sur-le-Buis in south-eastern France. After beginning his training in Marseilles in 1853 he moved to Paris in 1856, studying at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts under Léon Cogniet and Tony Robert-Fleury. He was awarded the Grand Prix de Rome in 1863. After his time in Rome, Layraud travelled in Italy and Portugal, painting landscapes, he did some history paintings and many portraits. From 1892 he was a professor at the Académie des beaux-arts in Valenciennes. His pupils included Jules Chaine, Max Albert Decrouez, Grégoire Nicolas Finez, Lucien Hector Jonas, Charles Paris, Maurice Rufin and Alfred Léon Sauvage. Layraud exhibited at the Paris Salon, winning medals in 1872; his work was shown at the 1889 and 1900 Expositions Universelles. Layraud was appointed Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur in 1890 and was promoted to Officer in 1903. He died 1913 on his birth day, in Valenciennes. Works. Layraud's works are on show in French galleries in: The Musée des beaux-arts of his adopted city, Valenciennes, holds many works by Layraud, including Bulls Brought Out and many portraits of which that of Liszt is among the best known. Internationally, Layraud's work is displayed in Melbourne (Italian Highwaymen), the Ajuda National Palace, and Smith College Museum of Art, Massachusetts (Portrait de Pierre Dupont).

date of initial existence

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1531060

The National Middle School Science Bowl is a middle school academic competition, similar to Quiz Bowl, held in the United States. Two teams of four students each compete to answer various science-related questions. In order to determine which student has the right to answer the question, a buzzer system (or "lockout system") is used, similar to those seen on popular television game shows such as "Jeopardy!". The National Middle School Science Bowl (" NMSSB") has been organized and sponsored by the United States Department of Energy since the competition's inception in 2002. Subject areas. Questions are asked in the categories of Physical Science, Life Science, Earth and Space Science, Energy, and Mathematics. Although they are not subcategorized, the questions fall into the subcategories of Chemistry, Algebra, Computer Science, Biology, Physics, Astronomy, Geometry, and Current Events. The newest addition was a category specially made for the 2006 National competition: a group of about 5 questions asked through graphics and models projected onto computer screens and as hard copies distributed to competing teams. These were only used in semi-finals and championship rounds. Before the 2010 year, there was no Energy category, and Earth and Space Science was called Earth Science. The General Science category was dropped in 2017. Regional competitions. Each year, in late April or early May, the National Science Bowl competition is held in Chevy Chase, Maryland in the National 4-H Youth Conference Center. The winning team of each regional Science Bowl competition is invited to participate in the National Science Bowl all expenses paid. There are a number of regional competitions all over the United States; the exact amount changes from year to year. Typically, any middle school that meets the eligibility rules of the National Middle School Science Bowl competition is permitted to register for any regional competition in the country, but no middle school or student group may compete in multiple regionals. In addition, some regional competitions permit schools to register up to three teams. Teams composed entirely of homeschooled students are also permitted to enter. Rules. This section is concerned with the rules of the national competition. The rules of regional competitions vary greatly. There are very few prescribed rules for regional competitions. Some regionals are run nearly identically to the national competition, while others use variations of the rules or different methods of scoring. General rules. A team consists of four or five students from a single middle school (unless the team is composed entirely of home schooled students). Only four students play at any one time, while the fifth is designated as the "alternate." Substitutions may be made during the two-minute "halftime" and between rounds. Two teams compete against each other in each match. Each match has exactly 25 questions (that is, 25 toss-ups and 25 bonuses in corresponding categories). The match is over when all the toss-up questions have been read, or after two eight-minute halves have elapsed (ten-minute at the national competition), whichever occurs first. The team with the most points at this time is the winner. Toss-ups. Every match begins with a toss-up question. The moderator announces the subject of the question (see "Subject Areas" above), as well as its type (Multiple Choice or Short Answer). Once the moderator completes the reading of the question, students have five seconds to buzz in and give an answer. Students may buzz in at any time after the category has been read — there is no need to wait for the moderator to finish. However, there is a penalty for interrupting the moderator and giving an incorrect answer. Once a student from a team has buzzed in, that team may not buzz in again on that question. Conferring between members of a team is not allowed on toss-up questions; if conferring occurs on a question, the team is disqualified from answering that question. The rules regarding conferring are typically very strict: excessive noise, eye contact, or even noticeable shifts in position can be considered conferring, as they convey information to teammates. The moderator rules an answer given by a student correct or incorrect. On short answer questions, if the answer given differs from the official one, the moderator uses his or her judgment to make a ruling (which is subject to challenge by the competitors). On multiple-choice questions, the answer given by the student is only correct if it matches the official answer "exactly". Alternatively, the student may give the letter choice that corresponds to the correct answer. The letters W, X, Y and Z are used in lieu of A, B, C and D to avoid confusion between similar-sounding letters. The decision to require multiple-choice answers to be exact has been a controversial one, but experience has shown that it is the best way to avoid complicated disputes during matches. Bonuses. If a student answers a toss-up question correctly, that student's team receives a bonus question. The bonus question is always in the same category as the corresponding toss-up question. Since "only" that team has the opportunity to answer the bonus question, there is no need to buzz in to answer it. After the moderator finishes reading the question, the team has twenty seconds to answer. Conferring between team members is permitted, but the designated team captain must give the team's final answer. Teams are given a 5-second warning after 15 seconds of the time allotted have elapsed. Even if the clock runs out (either for the half or the round), a team that has correctly responded to a toss-up before the expiration of time still receives a bonus. The moderator/scientific judge ignores the timer and proceeds to read the question in its entirety, and the team receives the full 20 seconds of allotted response time. The half/round is completed as soon as the team's answer has been given and no more questions are read to either team. The same rules apply to the judging of responses to bonus questions as apply to responses to toss-up questions. Once the team's answer has been ruled right or wrong, the moderator proceeds to the next toss-up question. If neither team answers the toss-up question correctly, the bonus question is not read, and the moderator proceeds to the next toss-up question. Scoring. The scoring at NMSSB is similar to scoring for Quiz Bowl, although with different numbers. Correct responses to toss-up questions are worth 4 points each, and correct responses to bonus questions are worth 10 points each. If a student buzzes in on a toss-up question before the moderator has completely read the question ("interrupting" the question) and responds "incorrectly", then 4 points are awarded to the opposing team, and the question is re-read in its entirety so that the opposing team has an opportunity to buzz in. Note the difference between interrupt scoring in Science Bowl and in Quiz Bowl: the interrupt penalty in Quiz Bowl is -5 to the interrupting team, while in Science Bowl it is +4 to the non-interrupting team. Also, if a team "blurts" (shouts out the answer after buzzing but without recognition), the question is treated as an incorrect interrupt. If the judges rule that a team has conferred amongst themselves before buzzing in on a toss-up, that team is disqualified from answering the question and no points are awarded to either side. Competition format. This section is concerned with the format of the national competition only. As is the case with competition rules, the competition format varies greatly among the different regional competitions. The national competition always consists of two stages: round robin and double elimination. Round robin. All competing teams are randomly arranged into several round robin groups of six teams each. Every team plays every other team in its group once, receiving 2 points for a win, 1 point for a tie, or zero points for a loss. The top 32 teams across all divisions make it into double elimination; however, it is done so that the same number of teams (or as close as possible to this) in each division make double elimination. Tiebreaks. In the event that two or more teams are tied for one of the top four spots in a round robin group, there are several tiebreak procedures, applied in the following order: If a tie still exists after the third tiebreak step, the third step is reapplied until the tie is resolved. Double elimination. Starting in 2020, 32 teams advance from the round robin (as opposed to approximately 16 in prior years). The competition then proceeds like a typical double elimination tournament bracket. Unlike in the round robin, a match in double elimination cannot be tied. If a match is tied at the end of regulation, overtime periods of five questions each are played until the tie is broken. As each team is eliminated from the original bracket, they proceed to the "Challenger's Bracket" for the second chance. By the end of the competition, this system produces a champion from each bracket. The two championship teams face off in the final round to determine the first and second-place winners. Sponsors. Several companies and organizations sponsor the National Middle School Science Bowl competition, the most prominent being the United States Department of Energy. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory sponsors NMSSB, and General Motors is also a regular sponsor of the event and has in recent years sponsored the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Car competition held at NMSSB, where teams compete to build the fastest or most powerful fuel cell-powered miniature car. Results at the national competition. 2012. In 2012, the top 4 teams in both the academic competition and Hydrogen Fuel Cell Car Competition were: 2011. The top placing teams in the academic competition held in 2011 were: 2010. In 2009, there were two competitions: the academic competition and the solar car competition. There were two parts to the solar car competition: the actual race and the design document contest. 37 teams competed in the Nationals for the middle school. 2009. In 2009, there were two competitions: the academic competition and the hydrogen fuel cell car competition. There were two parts to the fuel cell competition: the actual race and the design document contest. For the first time, these competitions were held in Chevy Chase, Maryland, instead of in Colorado. 36 teams competed in the Nationals for the middle school. 2008. In 2008, there were two competitions: the academic competition and the hydrogen fuel cell car competition. For the first time this year, the fuel cell car competition was divided into three parts: the fuel cell car race, a presentation on hydrogen, and a design document/presentation to be shown to judges at the event. A total of 36 teams competed. 2007. In 2007, there were two competitions: the academic competition and the hydrogen fuel cell car competition. 2006. In 2006, there were two competitions: the academic competition and the hydrogen fuel cell car competition. 2005. In 2005, there were two competitions: the academic competition and the hydrogen fuel cell car competition. 2004. In 2004, there were three competitions: the academic competition, the hydrogen fuel cell car competition (stock class), and the hydrogen fuel cell car competition (open class). Academic competition. The top three teams at the 2004 National Middle School Science Bowl Academic Competition were 2003. In 2003, there were two competitions: the academic competition and the solar car competition. 2002. In 2002, there were two competitions: the academic competition and the solar car competition.

literal event

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=475545

Brooks Calbert Robinson Jr. (born May 18, 1937) is an American former professional baseball player. He played for the Baltimore Orioles for 23 seasons (1955–1977), the longest career spent with a single team in Major League Baseball (MLB) history (tied with Carl Yastrzemski). Robinson batted and threw right-handed. Nicknamed "The Human Vacuum Cleaner" or "Mr. Hoover", he is considered the greatest defensive third baseman in major league history. Born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, Robinson attracted the notice of MLB scouts while playing American Legion Baseball. Signed by the Orioles in 1955, he debuted with them that same year. He was Baltimore's Opening Day third baseman in 1957, but it was not until the second half of the 1959 season that he took over the third base position full-time. In 1960, he was selected to the first of 18 straight All-Star Games. That year, he won the first of 16 consecutive Gold Glove Awards, tied with Jim Kaat for the second-most for any player at any position (behind Greg Maddux's 18). Starting in 1960, Robinson helped the Orioles contend for their first pennant since the team moved to Baltimore in 1954. The team was in contention until late in the year in 1960, 1961, and 1964. Third in Most Valuable Player (MVP) voting in 1960, Robinson won the award in 1964, one of his finest seasons. In 1966, he finished second in MVP voting to teammate Frank Robinson as the Orioles won a pennant, then swept the Los Angeles Dodgers for their first ever World Series title. With his 193rd home run in 1969, Robinson broke Al Rosen's record for American League (AL) third basemen. In the 1970 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds, Robinson drew the attention of baseball fans around the United States with his strong defensive play against the Reds, time after time robbing the Cincinnati players of base hits. His performance won him the World Series MVP Award as Baltimore defeated the Reds in five games. He became one of just 12 players to earn over $100,000 annually in 1971, playing for several more years before retiring during the 1977 season. Robinson was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1983 in his first year of eligibility. Following his career, he served as a broadcaster for the Orioles and also joined Opening Day Partners, which owns several minor league teams. Robinson was popular with the Oriole fans for his kindness and patience with them. "Never has a player meant more to a franchise and more to a city than Brooks has meant to the Orioles and the city of Baltimore," said Oriole historian Ted Patterson. Early life. Brooks Calbert Robinson, Jr., was born on May 18, 1937, in Little Rock, Arkansas, to Brooks Calbert and Ethel Mae (née Denker) Robinson. His father worked for Colonial Bakery in Little Rock and later became a captain with the Little Rock Fire Department. Meanwhile, his mother worked for Sears Roebuck & Company before accepting a position with the state controller's office. Young Brooks drew a salary himself from delivering the "Arkansas Gazette" on his bicycle, as well as operating the scoreboard and selling soft drinks at Lamar Porter Field. Brooks Sr. had played second base for a semi-pro baseball team. He would play the game with his son during Brooks Jr's younger years. Growing up, Brooks Jr. rooted for the St. Louis Cardinals; Stan Musial was his favorite player. In high school, he played American Legion Baseball for the M. M. Eberts Post No. 1 Doughboys, among the greatest American Legion teams in that part of the country. The team reached the regional finals in 1952, when Robinson was 15. They then advanced to the sectional tournament in 1953. Robinson graduated from Little Rock High School on May 27, 1955, impressing the University of Arkansas enough with his basketball ability that the school offered him a full scholarship. However, Robinson desired to become a professional baseball player. Lindsay Deal, who went to Capitol View Methodist Church with Robinson, had been a teammate of Baltimore Orioles manager Paul Richards on a minor league team, and he wrote a letter to Richards praising Robinson's ability. "He's no speed demon, but neither is he a truck horse," Deal wrote. "Brooks has a lot of power, baseball savvy, and is always cool when the chips are down." In 1955, three Major League Baseball (MLB) teams sent scouts to Little Rock to try to sign Robinson: the New York Giants, the Cincinnati Redlegs, and the Orioles. Each offered $4,000, but only Cincinnati and Baltimore were offering major league contracts. Robinson ultimately chose to sign with Baltimore because the Orioles had shown the most interest and had the most opportunities for young players to become everyday players on their roster. Art Ehlers was the scout who signed him. Baltimore Orioles. Early years (1955-1959). After some games in the minor leagues including the Vancouver Mounties, Robinson made his first appearance with the Orioles on September 17, 1955 at Memorial Stadium against the Washington Senators, batting sixth in the lineup. He had two hits in four at bats, singling in the fourth inning against Chuck Stobbs for his first hit before driving in a run on a single in the eighth inning in the 3–1 win. After that, he went hitless in his next 18 at bats before sitting for the season's final two games. "Those American League pitchers made me look like just what I was—a young, green, immature eighteen-year-old who'd been lucky that first day against Washington," he later reflected. After the season, the Orioles assigned him to the Willard Blues, a Colombian winter league team where Baltimore sent some of its best prospects. Earl Wilson hit Robinson in the head with a pitch in one of the games, but Robinson was protected from severe injury because of a new fiberglass batting helmet the team was testing on their players. In 1956, Robinson was allowed to stay in spring training with the Orioles until March 21, but Baltimore acquired Bobby Adams to play third base, thinking the 18-year-old Robinson was not quite ready for the major leagues. He spent most of the year with the Class AA San Antonio Missions, where he tore cartilage in his right knee while sliding into a base in August. The injury was initially feared to require surgery, but rest and heat reduced the swelling, and he only missed a few games. Promoted to Baltimore after the minor league season, he appeared in 15 games, demonstrating fielding ability beyond his years, though only batting .227. Robinson competed with future Hall of Famer George Kell to be Baltimore's everyday third baseman in 1957, though Kell happily mentored the younger player. Both made the starting lineup (Robinson at third base, Kell at first), but two weeks into the season, Robinson completely tore the cartilage in his knee while swerving to avoid a tag at first base. He missed all of May and spent most of June on a rehab assignment in San Antonio but regained the starting job when he returned. On August 2, he was again hit in the head with a pitch, this time by Ned Garver. The errant throw resulted in a mild concussion and a wound above Robinson's left eye that required 10 stitches, but after five days, the ballplayer was ready to perform again. On August 14, Pedro Ramos threw him a pitch that he turned into his first major league home run. In 50 games, he batted .239. Because of the time he had missed, the Orioles had him play winter baseball again to continue his development. This time in Havana, he led the league with nine home runs. When the Orioles played the New York Yankees in late April 1958, Yogi Berra said that Robinson had "got a great future" after the third baseman dove to catch a Gil McDougald ground ball, stood up, and still threw out Berra trying to score. Offensively, Robinson batted .406 through April. Towards midseason, he developed a hitch in his swing and started hitting too many pop flies, which caused him to lose playing time to Dick Williams in August. He helped Hoyt Wilhelm throw a no-hitter on September 28 by making three terrific fielding plays after replacing Williams at third base in the eighth inning. "There weren't too many bright spots in my 1958 season, but being in on Wilhelm's no-hitter was the big one for me," Robinson recalled. In 145 games, he batted .238 with three home runs in 463 at bats, weak offensive numbers, but his defense was more impressive. "I think Brooks is in a class by himself as a defensive third baseman," said Oriole manager Paul Richards. Following the 1958 season, Robinson served six months in the Arkansas National Guard, which spared him the risk of being drafted by the United States military and having to serve continuously for two years. The service kept him from being in optimal baseball shape, and shortly after the 1959 season started, Robinson was sent to the Vancouver Mounties of the Class AAA Pacific Coast League. On May 17, he had a terrifying moment when, as he fell into a Capilano Stadium dugout to catch a ball, he caught his right biceps on a hook, tearing tendons and causing severe bleeding. The injury just missed tearing a nerve, which would have ended his career, but he only had to miss 25 games. Fulfilling a promise he made when he demoted Robinson, Richards recalled him before the season's first All-Star Game. The time in the minors had helped his hitting; biographer Doug Wilson wrote that "He was no longer overmatched by big league pitchers." He batted .284 in 88 games, and Richards said that he was "the best player in the American League [for] the last five weeks of the season." Everyday player, MVP (1960-1965). By 1960, Robinson was unquestionably the Oriole third baseman. He started the year in the sixth slot in the batting lineup but ascended to third after batting .333 in June and .351 in July. In July, he was selected to his first of 18 straight Major League Baseball All-Star Games; he would be a part of both games from 1960–62, in which two games a year were played. On July 15, he recorded five hits in five at bats, hitting for the cycle in a 5–2 victory over the Chicago White Sox. For the first time since their arrival in Baltimore, the Orioles were contenders for the AL pennant, part of a three-way race with the Yankees and the White Sox as September arrived. In the first game of an early September series against the Yankees in Baltimore, Robinson had the first RBI, then fielded a ball hit off of Milt Pappas's leg in the ninth and threw out Hector Lopez at first base. He drove in the only runs in the second game, in which the Orioles took over first place in the AL on September 3. Baltimore swept the series, but a fever briefly hospitalized Robinson at the end of the series, and he went into a batting slump. After getting swept in a four-game series against New York later in the month, Baltimore finished in second. In 152 games, Robinson batted .294 and hit 14 home runs. He finished third in AL Most Valuable Player (MVP) voting (behind Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle), was named the Most Valuable Oriole by sportscasters and sportswriters around Baltimore, and won his first of 16 consecutive Gold Glove Awards at third base. For most of 1961, Robinson batted first in Baltimore's lineup. He further solidified his defensive reputation in 1961; sportswriter Bob Addie reported, "The 'young old-timers' in the press box are beginning to compare Baltimore's Brooks Robinson with the great third basemen of the past." One of two players in the AL to appear in every game of the season, he batted .287 with 192 hits (second in the league only to Norm Cash's 193) and seven home runs. After two straight second-place finishes, the Orioles slumped to seventh place in the league in 1962, but Robinson had another fine year. In consecutive games on May 6 and 9, Robinson hit a grand slam, one of six major leaguers to ever do so at the time. In August, he had eight straight hits over a three-game span. "Sports Illustrated" proclaimed him "the best third baseman in the league." He batted higher than .300 for the first time (.303) and topped 20 home runs (23), recording 86 RBI as he was named the Most Valuable Oriole for the second time. Robinson got off to an excellent start offensively to the 1963 season and had hits in both of his at bat's in that year's All-Star Game. Overall, his offensive production would be diminished, as he batted just .219 after the All-Star break and saw a streak of 462 consecutive games played come to an end when manager Billy Hitchcock benched him hoping to improve his hitting. For the year, he batted .251 with 11 home runs and 67 RBI. Robinson spent extra time in 1964 spring training practicing offense with hitting coach Gene Woodling. The coach encouraged Robinson to stop swinging at bad pitches, and Robinson started using a slightly heavier bat. Against the Yankees early in the year, he made what Wilson said "was generally agreed to be the play of the year," diving to stop a hard-hit ground ball off the bat of Bobby Richardson and throwing him out while still seated on the ground. With the Orioles, Yankees, and White Sox in a three-way race for the pennant, Robinson batted .464 with 28 RBI from September 7 through the end of the season, though the Orioles again finished behind the Yankees. The Orioles honored him with a "Brooks Robinson Night" late in the season, which the ballplayer said "will always remain one of the great moments of my life." Maxwell Kates of the Society for American Baseball Research said "Robinson had perhaps his best season in 1964." Playing all but two innings of Baltimore's 163-game season, Robinson hit for a .318 batting average with 28 home runs. He led the league with 118 RBI, winning the AL MVP Award. For much of 1965, Robinson batted over .300 again, though his average fell to .297 by the end of the year. He led Baltimore in batting average and RBI (80). World Series champion (1966-1971). 1966-1970. During the 1965–66 offseason, the Orioles acquired former National League (NL) MVP Frank Robinson from the Cincinnati Reds; Frank would bat third in the lineup, right in front of Brooks. Halfway through the year, Brooks had 70 RBI. In the All-Star Game, played in conditions, he made several outstanding defensive plays and recorded three hits, getting named the game's MVP even though the AL lost 2–1. Over 28 games in August, he struggled, batting .187 with just three RBI. Still, the Orioles clinched the AL pennant on September 15 for the first time in Robinson's tenure with the team. In 157 games, Robinson batted .269 with 23 home runs and 100 RBI, his second and final season with at least 100 RBI. He finished second to Frank, that year's Triple Crown winner, in the AL MVP voting; teammate Boog Powell came in third. Against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series, Frank and Brooks hit back-to-back home runs off of Don Drysdale in Game 1, a 5–2 victory. "Drysdale's second pitch to me was a high fast ball, and I parked it in almost the same seats in the left field pavilion [that Frank had hit his to]," Robinson recalled. In Game 4, the Orioles nursed a 1–0 lead in the fifth inning when Jim Lefebvre led off with a single. The next batter, Wes Parker, hit a ground ball that Robinson had to stretch to catch. After stumbling, Robinson threw the ball to second baseman Davey Johnson, who threw out Parker at first base to complete a double play. The score remained 1–0 through the end of the game, and the Orioles completed a four-game sweep of the Dodgers for Baltimore's first World Series championship. A picture of Robinson leaping into the air as he ran to the pitcher's mound to congratulate Dave McNally after the game remains one of the most iconic Oriole photos. After the season, he and multiple other baseball celebrities went on a tour of Vietnam, visiting US troops stationed there during the Vietnam War. In 1967 spring training, Phil Niekro hit Robinson in the head with a pitch, causing a mild concussion. Robinson slumped early in the year but improved towards the end of June, posting 17 hits over 39 at bats in one 10-game stretch, including five home runs. His home run in the All-Star Game was the only run for the AL in its 2–1, 15-inning loss. On August 6, he hit into a triple play for the fourth time in his career, a major league record. "I wouldn't mind seeing someone erase my record of hitting into four triple plays," he said. Towards the end of the year, he went hitless in 49 out of 51 at bats. In 158 games, he batted .269 with 22 home runs and 77 RBI. He played all 162 games for the Orioles in 1968, batting .253 with 17 home runs and 75 RBI. Through May 1969, Robinson batted .216, only raising his average to .234 by the end of the year. Manager Earl Weaver attributed his struggles to swinging at bad pitches, as well as his slow pace, which prevented him from getting as many infield hits. On August 13, he had three RBI in an 8–0 victory over the Oakland Athletics, including his 193rd career home run against George Lauzerique, which broke Al Rosen's record for most home runs by an AL third baseman. Robinson hit .234 with 23 home runs and 84 RBI, and the Orioles won the newly created AL East division to advance to the postseason. In Game 1 of the AL Championship Series (ALCS) versus the Minnesota Twins, Robinson had four hits in Baltimore's 4–3 win. He gloved a hard-hit line drive off the bat of Rod Carew in Game 3, an 11–2 victory that clinched the Orioles a trip to the World Series to face the New York Mets. During the first game of the World Series, Rod Gaspar hit a slow, bouncing ball towards third base that both Gaspar and pitcher Mike Cuellar thought would be a hit. Robinson caught it barehanded and threw it to first before he had fully stood up, retiring Gaspar as the Orioles went on to win 4–1. He made a similar play to keep Jerry Grote from getting a hit in Game 2 and had an RBI single against Jerry Koosman, but Baltimore lost 2–1. With the Orioles trailing the Mets 1–0 in the ninth inning of Game 4, Robinson batted against Tom Seaver with runners on first and third and one out. He sent the ball towards right field but was robbed of a hit when Ron Swoboda made a diving catch; Wilson wrote that the catch "is one of the all-time great plays in World Series history." Baltimore lost 2–1 in 10 innings, then went on to lose the series in five games. Robinson started using a heavier bat in 1970, which he attributed to an improved start to the season, as he batted .311 in April. On May 9, he hit his 200th home run. His 2,000th hit came on June 20, a three-run home run that provided the margin of victory in a game against the Washington Senators. Against the Red Sox on September 4, he recorded five hits, two home runs, and four RBI in an 8–6 victory. In the first game of a doubleheader against the Senators on September 29, he had his 1000th career RBI against Joe Coleman, who had also allowed his 200th home run. Robinson had his highest batting average (.276) and RBI (94) totals since 1966, adding 18 home runs as the Orioles again won the AL East. 1970 postseason. In the ALCS, against the Twins, Robinson batted .583 with three runs scored and two RBI as Baltimore completed the sweep, sending them to the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. With Game 1 of the World Series tied at 3–3 in the sixth inning, Lee May hit a one-hop ball fair past third. Playing behind the base, Robinson lunged, backhanded the ball, spun 180 degrees, and made a one-hop toss to first that narrowly beat May to the bag. Years later, Jayson Stark of ESPN considered this the third-greatest play of all time. Against Gary Nolan in the seventh inning, Robinson's solo home run provided the winning margin in Baltimore's 4–3 triumph. As it turned out, these were just the first of many fine plays Robinson would make during the Series. During Game 2, Robinson darted into the gap between him and shortstop Mark Belanger to field a ground ball hit by Bobby Tolan in the first inning. Throwing sidearm to second, he forced out Pete Rose. Then, in the third inning, he snagged a hard line drive off May's bat, whirling and throwing almost immediately to second for a double play that ended the inning. Baltimore won the game 6–5. Robinson made an over-the-head catch of a bouncing ball off of Tony Pérez's bat in the first inning of Game 3, outracing Rose to third base and throwing to first to complete a double play. Fielding a slow grounder hit by Tommy Helms in the second inning, Robinson partially circled the ball before picking it up, allowing him to throw to first on a better angle. He dove to his left to rob Johnny Bench of a hit in the sixth inning, barely holding onto a hard line drive. Offensively, he had two RBI in Baltimore's 9–3 win. In Game 4, he had four hits and a home run, though Baltimore lost 6–5. Finally, in Game 5, he made a diving back-handed catch of a line drive off of Bench's bat in the ninth, and fielded Pat Corrales' ground ball for the final out, as Baltimore won the game 9–3 to clinch their second World Series victory. Though Robinson batted .429 with two home runs in the series, his defensive prowess was what really stood out, as he started two double plays and fielded 23 chances while making several outstanding plays. His performance won him the World Series MVP Award. During the Series, Reds manager Sparky Anderson quipped, "I'm beginning to see Brooks in my sleep. If I dropped this paper plate, he'd pick it up on one hop and throw me out at first." "I've never seen anything like him in my life," Rose said. "He has to be the greatest third baseman of all time," said Pérez, who played the same position. "I just enjoy watching him play. He's in the right place every time." Wilson wrote that Robinson's outstanding play in the series, which was televised nationally, helped his ability to be appreciated by baseball fans outside the Baltimore area. After the season, he won the Hickok Belt, presented annually to the top professional athlete of the year. 1971. Before the 1971 season, Robinson signed a $100,000 contract, becoming only one of 12 players with such a high baseball salary at the time. He played 50 games in a row without committing an error and received the most votes of AL players in the All-Star Game. On July 28, he uncharacteristically made three errors in a game, though Baltimore still won 3–2. Wilson pointed out, "men had literally walked on the moon before Brooks Robinson had made three errors in a game." In 156 games, he batted .272, hitting 20 home runs and driving in 92 runs as he finished fourth in AL MVP voting. For the third year in a row, the Orioles won the AL East. In Game 2 of the ALCS against the Athletics, Robinson hit a home run against Catfish Hunter. He had two RBI in Game 3 and batted .364 in the series as Baltimore swept the Athletics, advancing them to the World Series where they would face the Pittsburgh Pirates. In Game 2, Robinson had three RBI and reached base safely five times, joining Babe Ruth and Lou Brock as the only other players to do so in a World Series game. During the eighth inning, he landed on his chest after diving for a bouncing ball off the bat of Manny Sanguillén, but he stood up in time to throw the runner out. Baltimore won 11–3. After the Pirates got two baserunners in the first inning of Game 3, Robinson snagged a hard line drive off the bat of Bob Robertson, throwing to second for a double play. Baltimore would lose that game 5–1. With the Orioles facing elimination in Game 6, Robinson hit a 10th-inning sacrifice fly against Bob Miller that scored the winning run in a 3–2 victory. He batted .318 in the series and tied with other Orioles and Pirates for the most RBI in the series (five), but Pittsburgh defeated the Orioles in seven games. Later years (1972-1977). Robinson served as the Major League Baseball Players Association player's representative for much of his career with the Orioles. In 1972, he and Belanger were among the 47 who voted in favor of the 1972 Major League Baseball strike. "I want to play," Robinson told reporters. "All players do. It all boils down to whether the owners are willing to make some concessions. I think our fellows are willing to make some, too, and that seems to be the best chance." The strike only wound up cancelling games on 10 days of the 1972 season, but Robinson was booed in his first at bat of the year at Memorial Stadium. In 153 games in 1972, Robinson batted .250. His eight home runs and 64 RBI were his lowest totals in those categories since 1961. During the season, he criticized Weaver publicly when Weaver suggested that some of the Oriole veterans were getting too old to play. "I find the remark embarrassing," Robinson said. "I don't enjoy going places to hear people say I'm over the hill, or know that they're thinking it." He recognized that Weaver was a great manager, however, and observed a couple years later that "Rarely have I questioned his action." Robinson still won the Commissioner's Award, presented annually to the individual who best represented baseball as a player and as a person. Robinson hit two home runs on Opening Day in 1973, but his batting average was under .200 by the middle of June. He still made the All-Star Game, but sportswriters observed that his selection had more to do with popularity than it did with his performance that season. On May 4, he had his 2,417th career hit, breaking Pie Traynor's record for most hits by a third baseman. Defensively, he started two 5-4-3 triple plays; one on July 7 against the Athletics, and one on September 20 against the Detroit Tigers. In the season's final two-and-a-half months, he batted nearly .300. He played 155 games, batting .257 with nine home runs and 72 RBI as the Orioles returned to the playoffs after a one-year absence. In the ALCS against Oakland, he batted .250 with a run scored and two RBI as the Athletics defeated Baltimore in five games. Though Robinson made more errors than usual in 1974, he was batting .311 at the All-Star break. In the second-to-last game of the year, Robinson scored from first on a pinch-hit double by Andy Etchebarren. The run provided the margin of victory in a game that, coupled with a Yankee loss later that day, made the Orioles AL East champions. Robinson batted .288 with seven home runs. His batting average was the best it had been since 1965, though his RBI total was at its lowest since 1959. Oriole historian Ted Patterson wrote that 1974 was "his last solid season." The Orioles again faced the Athletics in the ALCS; in Game 1, Robinson dove to catch a ball hit by Dick Green, then threw him out at first, adding a solo home run in Baltimore's 6–1 win. He would bat just .083 in the series, which Oakland won in four games. Plagued by a sore thumb and declining ability in 1975, Robinson missed the All-Star Game for the first time since 1960. His batting average was .159 at one point, and on July 7, a pinch-hitter was substituted for him for the first time since 1958. In 144 games, he batted .201 with six home runs and 53 RBI. On the bright side, he led AL third basemen in fielding percentage for the 11th time. The Orioles had a young third base prospect named Doug DeCinces, and on May 17, 1976, Weaver informed Robinson that DeCinces would be taking over his position; though still a fine fielder, Robinson was only batting .165. Robinson requested a trade to a team that would give him more playing time and was nearly sent to the White Sox, but he vetoed the deal because Chicago did not want to give him a contract through 1978. In 71 games, he batted .211 with three home runs and 11 RBI. 1977 would be his final season; his playing time was infrequent. "Brooks' last great moment," according to Patterson, came against the Indians on April 19, when he pinch-hit in the bottom of the 10th inning of a game against the Indians which Baltimore trailed 5–3. There were two men on base, and after working the count full and fouling off several pitches, Robinson hit a walkoff home run against Dave LaRoche for a 6–5 Oriole win. He made his final batting appearance on August 5 at Anaheim Stadium, pinch hitting for Belanger in the top of the eighth inning and lining out. However, he would play briefly in one more game, eight days later at Memorial Stadium against the Athletics. He entered as a pinch hitter for Al Bumbry against the left-handed Bob Lacey. When Oakland manager Bobby Winkles replaced Lacey with right-hander Doug Bair, Weaver replaced Robinson with left-handed Tony Muser before the at bat even started. With the Orioles needing another roster spot when Rick Dempsey returned from the disabled list, Robinson retired on August 21, with more than a month to go in the season. Career statistics. Robinson batted .267 in his 23-year career, accumulating 2,848 hits, 268 home runs, and 1,357 RBI. In 39 postseason games, he batted .303 with 5 home runs and 22 RBI. Several of these statistics were achieved during what biographer Wilson terms the "second dead ball era" (1962-68), in which very few players hit over .300. Defensively, Robinson set an AL record by leading the league in fielding percentage 11 seasons. His career fielding percentage of .971 was higher than that of any other third baseman when he retired. Other third baseman's records he holds include most games played at the position (2,870), most putouts (2,697), most assists (6,205), most total chances (8,902), and most double plays (618). Prior to Robinson, no other player in MLB history had spent as many as 23 seasons exclusively with one ballclub; the only player to do so since is Carl Yastrzemski. Robinson reached 18 straight All-Star Games (1960-74) and participated in the World Series four times. Player profile. Robinson was very animated while waiting to hit. He would grab the top of his helmet, swing his bat with his left hand, and rock forwards and backwards before pitches. Though he was not a fast baserunner, he would swing his arms as he ran the bases, emphasizing the fact that he was running as fast as he could. As a hitter, Robinson's trademark was his custom-made batting helmet with a 1-inch bill that was much shorter than the standard. He would use a hacksaw blade to shorten the bill to keep it from distracting him at the plate. His strong defensive play caused him to be nicknamed the "Human Vacuum Cleaner" and "Mr. Hoover," as he was so skilled at catching balls hit towards third base. As a fielder, he was always on the move, not typical for third basemen of the time. His arm did not appear to be one of baseball's strongest partly because he was so quick at letting go of the ball. Instead of cocking his arm back before throwing, he would transfer the ball from his glove to his hand and fire it "in one seamless motion," according to Wilson. He had a knack for knowing which play to make, and he was well-known for running towards the plate to field bunts or other slow ground balls. "He didn't have a typical athletic body, he was kind of slump-shouldered, not a real muscular guy, and he didn't appear to have a strong arm," said teammate Chuck Estrada. "But then watching him play, you found out that none of that mattered, because he had great hands, a quick release, and the runner was always out." Robinson's 16 Gold Glove awards at third base are tied with Jim Kaat for the second most won by any player, behind Greg Maddux's 18. Jim Murray of "The Los Angeles Times" wrote during Robinson's career that "In the future, Brooks Robinson will be the standard every third baseman will be measured by"; writing 40 years later, Wilson said "That statement has withstood the test of time." Casey Stengel and Home Run Baker, each of whom was involved in the game of baseball for over 50 years, both agreed that Robinson was the greatest third baseman they ever witnessed. Traynor, a great third baseman of the past to whom Robinson was often compared, said, "I once thought of giving him some tips, but dropped the idea. He's just the best there is." Umpire Ed Hurley said, "He came down from a higher league." Robinson was very particular about his glove. He would try the gloves of different players and trade two of his own for theirs if he really wanted it. Once he found one he liked, he would take a year to prepare it. When he felt it was ready for game action, he would use it exclusively during games, using others for batting practice and infield workouts. He was also picky about his bat, though he would use different ones from game to game, sampling those of his teammates and even opposing players before he found one he wanted to utilize. Aside from his playing ability, Robinson endeared himself to the Orioles fans because of his personality. "Other stars had fans," goes a quote in Patterson's book. "Robby made friends." He treated them with patience and kindness while taking an interest in them as well. “When fans ask Brooks Robinson for his autograph,” commented Oriole broadcaster Chuck Thompson, “he complied while finding out how many kids you have, what your dad does, where you live, how old you are, and if you have a dog. … His only failing is that when the game ended, if Brooks belonged to its story – usually he did – you better leave the booth at the end of the eighth inning. … By the time the press got [to the clubhouse] Brooks was in the parking lot signing autographs on his way home." "Never has a player meant more to a franchise and more to a city than Brooks has meant to the Orioles and the city of Baltimore," wrote Patterson. Off-the-field occupations, post-retirement. In 1961, Robinson became the part owner of Brooks and Eddie Robinson's Gorsuch House restaurant, located near Memorial Stadium. He started Brooks Robinson Sporting Goods in 1963; the company did a great deal of wholesale business with Baltimore-area teams. By the 1970s, they had established multiple locations in the Baltimore area. They briefly supplied uniforms for the Orioles, then later outfitted the short-lived Baltimore Claws of the American Basketball Association. In 1974, the company took out a loan to expand to York, Pennsylvania, but delays in construction of the new store ran the company into debt, forcing it to cease operations shortly thereafter. A judge ordered Robinson's house to be sold in the fall of 1976 to pay the company's debt, but Robinson managed to keep the house by paying nearly $180,000 out of his personal savings. He became a spokesman for Crown Central Petroleum in 1968 and spent over 30 years working for them. After the sporting goods business failed, Robinson and Ron Shapiro founded Personal Management Associates, which managed money for athletes. Following his retirement as a player, Brooks began serving as a color commentator for the Orioles' television broadcasts, travelling to around 50 road games for the Orioles and calling 10 home games as well. He served as a broadcaster until 1993, when he decided to spend more time focusing on his business pursuits. In 1982, Robinson helped start the Major League Baseball Players Alumni Association, an organization that helps retired players secure benefits, promotes baseball, raises money for charity, and helps retired players interact with each other. He succeeded Kaat as president of the organization in the late 1980s and is still its head. Robinson became a part owner of Opening Day Partners, an organization which owns several minor league teams, in 2005. The group owns four teams in the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball, and Robinson played a significant role in establishing the York Revolution. Founded in York, Pennsylvania, in 2007, the team was York's first since 1969; Robinson himself had played minor league ball for the York White Roses in 1955. The team's stadium, PeoplesBank Park, is located at 5 Brooks Robinson Way, and the plaza at its entrance is named in his honor. In the 1980s and again in 2006, Robinson helped raise money to restore Lamar Porter Field in his hometown of Little Rock, where he had played baseball while growing up. Honors. Robinson's jersey number (5) was retired by the Orioles on April 14, 1978. In 1983, Robinson was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, one of 16 players to have been honored on the first ballot (not counting the inaugural class of 1936). Coincidentally, Kell got in the same year. "It was unbelievable that two kids raised just 90 miles apart, and with the same churchgoing backgrounds and the same ideals, would go into the Hall of Fame the same day," Kell said. "You couldn't write the script any better." Brooks and Frank were the first members of the Baltimore Orioles Hall of Fame in 1977, and Brooks was selected to the Arkansas Hall of Fame the following year. Robinson and former Baltimore Colts football player Johnny Unitas had plaques in their honor in the lobby of Memorial Stadium. When the Orioles played their last game there on October 6, 1991, Robinson and Unitas were invited to throw out the ceremonial first pitches. Robinson threw a baseball, while Unitas threw a football. After the game, Robinson led 119 former Oriole players in uniform out onto the field, where they took their old positions. In 1999, Robinson ranked Number 80 on "The Sporting News" list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players and was elected to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Fans elected Robinson to the All-Time Rawlings Gold Glove Team in 2008; Robinson accumulated the most votes of any player elected. In 2015, Robinson was selected as one of the Orioles Franchise Four, recognizing the four greatest living players in Orioles history, along with Jim Palmer, Frank Robinson, and Cal Ripken Jr. He was the 2020 National Baseball Hall of Fame Recipient of the Bob Feller Act of Valor Award for his service in the Vietnam War. Robinson has won several awards not specifically for baseball players as well. In 1984, he was presented the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. He was awarded the Silver Beaver Award by the Boy Scouts of America in 1990. Radio Tower Drive, a road in Pikesville, Maryland, was renamed Brooks Robinson Drive in honor of Robinson's 70th birthday on May 16, 2007. Three statues of Robinson have been created. The first was placed in the Brooks Robinson Plaza outside PeoplesBank Park in York in 2008. On October 22, 2011, the second was unveiled on Washington Boulevard in downtown Baltimore. This statue depicted Robinson preparing to throw out a runner at first base. Present for the unveiling of the statue, Robinson commented that it "gave him more hair than he deserved." The Orioles unveiled a larger-than-life bronze sculpture of Robinson at Oriole Park at Camden Yards on September 29, 2012, as part of the Orioles Legends Celebration Series during the 20th anniversary of the ballpark. Personal life. Robinson met his future wife, Constance Louise "Connie" Butcher, on an Orioles team flight from Kansas City to Boston in July 1959, where she was working as a flight attendant for United Airlines. He was so smitten with her that he kept ordering iced teas from her. Some of his teammates encouraged him to go talk to her. After drinking his third glass, he returned it to her in the galley. There he told her: "I want to tell you something. If any of these guys, the Baltimore Orioles, ask you for a date, tell 'em you don't date married men. Understand? I'm the only single guy on the team." Actually, nearly half of the Orioles were single. Before the plane landed in Boston the two had made a date to go out. Brooks and Constance were married in her hometown of Windsor, Ontario, Canada on October 8, 1960. They have four children: Brooks David (b. 1961), Chris (b. 1963), Michael (b. 1964), and Diana (b. 1968). Raised a Methodist, in 1970 Robinson converted to Catholicism, his wife's faith. He was inspired to do so when his son, Brooks David, asked why he always went to a different church than the rest of the family on Sunday mornings. In deciding to convert, Robinson sought the advice of family friend Father Martin Schwalenberg, who taught Robinson about the Catholic faith. "For me, there is still one absolute–Jesus Christ," Robinson wrote in his 1974 autobiography. "The rest of us are still trying to reach his spiritual perfection, and that's the significant goal, no matter what form our worship takes." He has been a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes since early in his baseball career. One of Robinson's biggest hobbies is reading; while he was with the Orioles, he was a part of multiple book clubs. "Books about the Civil War and about World War II especially appeal to me," he wrote in his 1974 autobiography. He also enjoys country western music. Robinson was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2009, but it was discovered early, and treatments were successful. In 2010, doctors performed a large abdominal operation on Robinson. While recovering from it, he developed an infection on March 31, 2011, and spent nearly a month in the hospital. Even after he was released, further complications with the condition left him weakened the rest of the year. In January 2012, Robinson attended a charity banquet at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in South Florida. While sitting on the third level of a raised platform on a stage, he leaned backwards, and his chair fell off the platform, resulting in another month-long hospital stay and more rehab. In April 2014, Robinson and his attorneys sought a $9.9 million settlement with the Seminole Indian tribe as a result of the accident.

a solitary jump

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=55170833

Environmental risk transition is the process by which traditional communities with associated environmental health issues become more economically developed and experience new health issues. In traditional or economically undeveloped regions, humans often suffer and die from infectious diseases or of malnutrition due to poor food, water, and air quality. As economic development occurs, these environmental issues are reduced or solved, and others begin to arise. There is a shift in the character of these environmental changes, and as a result, a shift in causes of death and disease. Risk transition framework. Several transition frameworks have been established to better understand the impacts of socioeconomic development. Of these, the oldest and most well-known framework is the Demographic transition framework, which was established in the 1940s. This describes the shift from high fertility and high mortality in underdeveloped societies to lower fertility and mortality rates as a result of development. Then around 1970, the Epidemiological transition framework was used to characterize changes in the health of societies during development. To better categorize causes of death and disease when studying the epidemiological shifts more well-defined categories were created to describe illnesses and injuries: In 1990, environmental health researcher Kirk R. Smith at the University of California, Berkeley proposed the "risk transition" framework in relation to the established demographic and epidemiological transition frameworks. This theory was based on the concept that there must be a shift in risk factors leading up to a shift in causes of death and disease. In efforts to prevent, rather than respond to diseases, the risk transition was further studied and quantified. Figure 1 shows the relationship between risk, epidemiological, and demographic transition, in which risk factors change to affect patterns of disease and health, which in turn affects the demographic. However, a shift in population also impacts the risk factors, and so these three frameworks all show significant impact on one another. The "environmental risk transition" framework further developed by Smith then more specifically categorizes the risks as traditional and modern as well as spatially. Based on the framework, during the first stages of development, environmental health issues concentrated in the household, such as poor sanitation, are resolved by shifting them into the community, causing issues such urban pollution. This can be labeled as traditional and modern risks, respectively. Then, upon further development, these risks in the community are decreased and shifted to the global environment, creating concern for changes such as heightened greenhouse gas emissions, etc. Modern risks, in contrast to traditional risks, tend to be accrued over time in which adverse effects do not have single identifiable causes. These categorizations were made since it was found that the majority of environmental risks associated with category I diseases presented itself in the household, and as these were resolved with development, the impact of environmental causes of category II diseases became more significant and emerged at the community level. This concept is illustrated in Figure 2. Quantifying. Utilizing data from the Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) and the Comparative Risk Assessment (CRA) managed by the World Health Organization (WHO), empirical data was gathered to test the environmental risk transition framework. Measuring development. Well established metrics of quantifying development in a society include income per capita adjusted for local purchasing power in 2000. This is termed dollars of gross domestic product/capita, adjusted for purchasing power ($PPP/capita). Similarly, the Human Development Index (HDO), utilizes a combination of purchasing power income per capita, life expectancy, and education level in 2000 to measure development in a population. Risk metric. To understand the effects of environmental risks internationally, a per capita measure of a risk factor's impact is more useful, so risks were quantified in percent of total disease burden measured in % Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) and burden per capita (DALYs per 1000 capita). Household. The following summarizes the three major environmental risks present in households with young children most at risk: With increased development as indicated in dollars of gross domestic product/capita, adjusted for purchasing power ($PPP/capita) the household environmental risks declined considerably. Between poor and rich countries as determined by $PPP/capita, there was a more than two orders of magnitude decline observed in household risks. Community. The following names major environmental risks are present at the community level: It has been found that there are more rises and falls in community risks with development in comparison to household risks, and the pattern of risk is more complicated and not as pronounced. However, a general pattern of overall rising with development, then following can be seen in traffic accidents and air pollution. Lead and occupational risks, however, displayed varying significantly. Global. The WHO CRA only analyzed one environmental risk that presents itself at the global level: No data was collected for other global risks such as ozone depletion and land-use changes for the project. It has been found that climate change has thus far had minimal impact on human health worldwide. However, exposure to climate change will continue to increase in future years, which may magnify prevalent risks such as malaria. Results show that risks from climate change decreased with increased development, highlighting that poorer populations are more susceptible and in contact with the diseases affected by climate change. This contradicts the environmental transition framework since it takes account of where the risk is experienced rather than where it originates from. However, it remains true, that as development proceeds, the global risk of climate change expands as well. Limitations. Many important environmental health risks could not be addressed and analyze throughout the study. Considered, a "super distal risk factor", environmental risk factors have some influence in every disease. Thus, the study assigned at least 5% of environmental burden of disease of every disease to the environment, with larger proportions to diseases like diarrhea with direct attribution to environmental factors. With no better and reasonable method of accounting for environmental factors, the uniform 5% distribution is not realistic, but was used as a way to account for the estimated burden of environmental factors in diseases. A better understanding of the full causal web establishing various relationships between environmental and other risk factors to their respective diseases would be necessary for a more comprehensive study. Furthermore, the study does not take into account high-consequence, low probability hazards which include natural disasters (earthquakes, tsunamis), high-impact technological failures (nuclear explosion), new and old infectious diseases caused by human activities such as trade, tourism, etc. Conclusion. Main conclusions: A true and comprehensive test of the environmental risk transition hypothesis remains unattainable with the accessible data. However, by using the database of the WHO CRA project, a cross-sectional analysis of environmental health transition reveals some valuable takeaways: Risk overlap. In the environmental risk transition framework, there exists the concept of "risk overlap" which describes societies that experience both the traditional and modern, household and community risks simultaneously. The population that is especially susceptible to this condition is the urban slum. People tend to live in poor household environments while also affected by the contamination of the city, such as air pollution, traffic, and solid waste. Risk overlap creates interactions between different risks such as: These overlap situations may further concentrate the harmful effects of environment risks present in the community and deepen the burden of disease and ill-health. The poorer populations thus have to bear the brunt of the adverse environmental changes brought by development in additional to those brought by global climate change.

Planet wide danger

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6998073

was a Japanese "daimyō" of the early Edo period who was a key figure in the early decades of the Tokugawa shogunate. Origins. Hotta Masamori rose through the ranks of the Tokugawa shogunate; his family had a very short history with the Tokugawa family prior to his father Masayoshi's generation. Masayoshi was granted a 700 "koku" stipend and his house instituted as a hatamoto family, following his and his ancestors' service with a variety of other clans, among them the Oda, Toyotomi, Maeda, and Kobayakawa. Thanks to his distinction at the Osaka Winter Campaign, Masayoshi was granted an increase in stipend to 1000 "koku", and the family was at this level of income when Masamori succeeded his father as the family head. Career. The early period of Masamori's rise in the ranks can be ascribed to his relation to Lady Kasuga, the Shōgun Iemitsu's wetnurse. Because of this connection, he was close to the Shōgun, and this was to open the doors wide for his future success. In 1626 (Kan'ei-3), he received his first post as a captain of the page corps ("koshōgumi-bangashira"). His income subsequently rose to the range of 5000 "koku", and an additional 5000 "koku" was granted that year. He entered the ranks of the "fudai daimyōs" with the income of 10,000 "koku". On the 23rd day of the 3rd month of Kan'ei 10 (1633), he was appointed a member of the "rokunin-shu" (what became the wakadoshiyori council) together with Matsudaira Nobutsuna, and was granted another 5000 "koku", together with the rank that came with being a castle lord. Masamori was subsequently shown great favor by Iemitsu, who promoted him to Rōjū on the 1st day of the 3rd month of Kan'ei 12 (1635). His income rose to 1,000,000 koku, and he was granted the fief of Matsumoto Domain, in Shinano Province. In 1642 he was moved to Sakura Domain in Shimotsuke Province, where his family remained enfeoffed at 110,000 "koku" for the remainder of the Edo period. Masamori committed "junshi" (suicide after the death of one's lord) in 1651, at the age of 44.

considerable partisanship

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11543693

James Brown Mason (January 28, 1775August 31, 1819) was an American physician and legislator who served in the Rhode Island House of Representatives from 1804 to 1814, where he was speaker from 1812 to 1814. Elected to Congress in November 1814, he represented one of Rhode Island's two at-large congressional districts from 1815 until 1819. Early life. Mason was born on January 28, 1775 in the small rural town of Thompson in the Connecticut Colony. He was the son of John and Rose Anna (née Brown) Mason. As a young man, James pursued classical studies and graduated from Providence's Brown University in 1791. He studied medicine and was admitted to practice. Career. Mason moved to Charleston, South Carolina where he practiced medicine from 1795 to 1798. While in South Carolina, he met and married his first wife. Upon her death in 1798, he returned to Rhode Island. In Providence, Rhode Island, James engaged in mercantile pursuits between 1798 and 1819. He served as a trustee of Brown University 1804-1819. Political career. He served as member of the Rhode Island House of Representatives from 1804 to 1814 and served as Speaker of the House from February 1812 to May 1814. Mason was elected as a Federalist to the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Congresses (March 4, 1815 – March 3, 1819). He was not a candidate for renomination in 1818 to the Sixteenth Congress. Personal life. On July 16, 1800, James married Alice Brown (1777–1823), the youngest daughter of John Brown and Sarah (née Smith) Brown. Her father was a wealthy merchant, slave trader, and statesman from Providence, Rhode Island, and a founder of Brown University. James and Alice's children were: Six months after leaving Congress, Mason died in Providence at the age of 44 and was interred in North Burial Ground. Descendants. Through his daughter Sarah, he was the grandfather of Alice Elmira Ruggles (1826–1833), Sarah Harriette Ruggles (1827–1836), George Benjamin Ruggles (1828–1878), John Mason Ruggles (1834–1836), Harriet Ruggles Eaton (1838–1841), Amasa Mason Eaton (1841–1914), Anna Grosvenor Eaton (1845–1865), and Frank Howe Eaton (1847–1852). Through his daughter Rosa, he was the grandfather of William Grosvenor (1838–1906), James Brown Mason Grosvenor (1840–1905), Amasa Mason Grosvenor (1841–1841), Alice Mason Grosvenor Mason (1843–1886), Robert Grosvenor (1848–1879), Eliza Howe Grosvenor (1849–1853), and Rosa Anne Grosvenor (1855–1942).

servant merchant

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14932561

Jaime Lynn Herrera Beutler ( ; born November 3, 1978) is an American politician who is the U.S. Representative for . The district includes much of the southwestern quadrant of the state, but most of the voters live on the Washington side of the Portland metropolitan area. A Republican, Herrera Beutler was appointed to the Washington House of Representatives in 2007 and elected to that body in 2008. In 2010, she was elected to represent Washington's 3rd congressional district in Congress. Herrera Beutler has been reelected five times. Herrera Beutler was one of ten Republicans to vote to impeach Donald Trump after the January 6, 2021, siege of the U.S. Capitol. During the Senate trial, she issued a statement (after both sides had rested their cases) that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had revealed that he spoke by phone with Trump during the insurrection, asking the President “to publicly and forcefully call off the riot” and for help with resources to defend the Capitol. According to Beutler, McCarthy said that Trump insisted that the rioters were with Antifa, not his supporters; McCarthy rejected the assertion. Her statement, via Twitter, said, "That’s when, according to McCarthy, the president said: ‘Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.’" The next day, lead House Impeachment Manager Jamie Raskin asked the Senate for permission to call her as a witness. Early life, education, and early career. Jaime Lynn Herrera was born in Glendale, California, the daughter of Candice Marie (Rough) and Armando D. Herrera. Her father is of Mexican descent, and her mother has English, Irish, Scottish, and German ancestry. She was raised in Ridgefield, where her father was a lithographer. She was home-schooled through ninth grade, and graduated from Prairie High School, where she played basketball. In 2004, Herrera earned a B.A. in communications from the University of Washington. Herrera served as an intern in both the Washington State Senate and in Washington, D. C., at the White House Office of Political Affairs. In 2004, she was an intern in the office of Washington State Senator Joe Zarelli, who later supported her campaigns. She was a senior legislative aide to U.S. Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers. Washington State House of Representatives. 2008 election. Herrera moved back to the 18th Legislative District to run for state representative, and was appointed to the Washington House of Representatives in 2007 to replace Richard Curtis, who resigned amid a sex scandal. She won the 2008 election to retain her seat with 60% of the vote. Tenure. Herrera was elected as Assistant Floor Leader, the youngest member of her party's leadership in the State House. Her first sponsored bill gave tax relief to business owners serving in the military. Governor Christine Gregoire signed it into law on March 27, 2008. During her time in the House, Herrera also opposed Senate Bill 5967, which mandated equal treatment of the sexes in community athletic programs run by cities, school districts, and private leagues. In March 2021, she voted against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. U.S. House of Representatives. Elections. 2010. Herrera ran for when Democratic incumbent Brian Baird retired. She advanced to the general election with 28% of the vote, well ahead of fellow Republican candidates David Hedrick and David Castillo. State Representative Denny Heck, a Democrat, ranked first with 31% of the vote. Herrera raised over $1.5 million in contributions, 62% of which came from individual contributors and 35% from political action committees. The biggest single contributor was construction and mining contractor Kiewit Corporation, which gave her campaign over $16,000. During the campaign, she received support from state Republican leaders Cathy McMorris Rodgers and former U.S. Senator Slade Gorton. "The Columbian" called her "a rising star in the Republican Party". In October, Herrera was named one of Time Magazine's 40 under 40: "The Washington Republican survived a Tea Party challenge to win the GOP primary in the Evergreen State's 3rd Congressional District. Now Herrera, a 31-year-old Latina and former congressional staffer, has successfully recast herself as the outsider as she takes on a longtime Democratic pol in November." In the November general election, Herrera defeated Heck, 53%–47%. She won five of the district's six counties. Heck later represented , serving alongside Herrera. On December 22, 2010, she announced that she had taken her husband's name and would thenceforth call herself Jaime Herrera Beutler. 2012. Herrera Beutler announced her candidacy for reelection in January 2012. She quickly outraised her two opponents, Democrat Jon Haugen and Independent Norma Jean Stevens. She won the open primary with 61% of the vote. By the end of the campaign, she had raised more than $1.5 million to Haugen's $10,000. She defeated Haugen 60%–40%. 2014. Herrera Beutler ran for reelection in 2014. She faced Republican challenger Michael Delavar and Democratic challenger Bob Dingethal. Dingethal and Herrera Beutler advanced to the general election, where Herrera Beutler defeated Dingethal, 60% to 40%. 2016. In the nonpartisan blanket primary, Herrera Beutler finished first with 55.4% of the vote; Democrat Jim Moeller finished second with 24.4%. In the general election, Herrera Beutler won with 62% of the vote to Moeller's 38%. 2018. In the nonpartisan blanket primary, Herrera Beutler finished first with 40.9% of the vote; Democrat Carolyn Long, a political science professor at Washington State University's Vancouver campus, finished second with 36.6%. Combined, the Democrats in the primary received just over 50% of the vote. In the general election, Herrera Beutler defeated Long with 53% percent of the vote, the closest race since her first campaign. She is now one of only two Republicans, the other being Don Young of Alaska, representing a seat west of the Cascades or on the Pacific Coast. 2020. Herrera Beutler received over 56% of the vote in the blanket primary and Long just under 40%, setting up a rematch between the two. In the general election, Herrera Beutler won by a larger margin than in 2018, defeating Long by about 13 points. Tenure. In March 2011, Herrera Beutler introduced her first bill to Congress. The Savings Start With Us Act would reduce the salaries of members of Congress, the president, and the vice president by 10%. After the birth of her daughter Abigail (who was diagnosed with Potter's syndrome) in July 2013, Herrera Beutler announced that she would still be active in the House for key votes, but would dedicate a good deal of time to Abigail's care. In June 2014, Herrera Beutler proposed the Advancing Care for Exceptional Kids Act, which would help coordinate care for children met with medical complexities in Medicaid. The bill was passed by a committee, but did not get a vote on the House floor. Herrera Beutler is a member of the Republican Main Street Partnership and the Congressional Western Caucus. In the first impeachment of Donald Trump, on December 18, 2019, Herrera Beutler voted against both articles of impeachment, along with all other voting Republicans. On January 12, 2021, she announced her support for Trump's second impeachment, after the storming of the U.S. Capitol six days earlier, citing "indisputable evidence" of Trump's impeachable conduct. She blamed him for inciting the storming and upbraided him for continuing to push lawmakers to object to certifying the results of the presidential election rather than "doing anything meaningful to stop the attack". She called Trump's initial statement denouncing the violence "pathetic". Responding to claims that impeaching Trump would only "inflame Republican voters", Herrera Beutler said that as a Republican herself, she believed that she and other Republicans "will be best served when those among us choose truth". The next day, she and nine other Republican representatives voted to impeach Trump. In response to backlash from Republicans in her district over her vote, Herrera Beutler made several Twitter posts on January 15 expanding on her reasoning, citing "indisputable and publicly available facts" that proved Trump had engaged in impeachable conduct. She said Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy asked Trump to tell the rioters to cease and desist and Trump responded, "Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.” She told a CNN reporter that the quote showed that “either [Trump] didn't care, which is impeachable, because you cannot allow an attack on your soil, or he wanted it to happen and was OK with it, which makes me so angry." Political positions. During the 117th United States Congress, which began in 2021, Herrera Beutler has voted with her party 90% of the time, ranking her the 35th most bipartisan member of the House. During Trump's presidency, Herrera Beutler voted in line with his position 79.7% of the time. Her partisan reputation has softened as her tenure in Congress has lengthened. Bio-defense. In 2019, the Alliance for Biosecurity, a consortium of companies that develop products to respond to national security threats, gave Herrera Beutler its 2019 Congressional Biosecurity Champion Award. The award is given once a year to a member of Congress who works to improve the country's ability to prevent and combat major bio-security threats to national security. Budget. In April 2011, Herrera Beutler voted for Paul Ryan's budget, which would have lowered taxes for the highest earners from 35% to 25% and made Medicare a voucher system. Donald Trump. In December 2019, Herrera Beutler voted against impeaching President Trump, saying that there was inadequate proof that he engaged in obstruction of justice and abuse of power. In 2021, she voted in favor of Trump's second impeachment in the wake of the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol, which she blamed him for inciting. On May 19, 2021, Herrera Beutler was one of 35 Republicans who joined all Democrats in voting to approve legislation to establish the January 6, 2021 commission meant to investigate the storming of the U.S. Capitol. Health care. Herrera Beutler favors repealing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). In March 2017, she said she would vote against the American Health Care Act, a Republican replacement for Obamacare, because of its adverse effects on children who depend on Medicaid. Immigration. After Trump implemented an executive order banning immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries, "The Seattle Times" reported in January 2017 that Herrera Beutler "was vaguely critical of the order, without saying she opposed it or calling for any specific changes". LGBT rights. Herrera Beutler opposes same-sex marriage. Sexual abuse. In November 2013, Herrera Beutler co-sponsored the Military Justice Improvement Act, which would address a rise in military sexual assaults. Under the act, the military chain of command would lose the power to evaluate and respond to such incidents. "Despite efforts by military leadership to address this serious issue, the problem remains", she said in a news release. "A Defense Department report found that fewer than one in six cases were being reported to authorities, often due to fear of retaliation by superiors. A quarter of the time, the perpetrators of these crimes were in the victims' direct chain of command." In December 2017, Trump signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2018, which included part of Herrera Beutler's and Suzan DelBene’s (WA-01) Child Abuse Accountability Enhancement Act (H.R. 1103). The act closed a legal loophole that denied justice to some survivors of child abuse. Personal life. In August 2008, Herrera married Daniel Beutler, who worked for SeaPort Airlines. The couple lives in Camas, Washington. In December 2010, she announced that she had taken her husband's name, and would thenceforth be known as Jaime Herrera Beutler. In May 2013, Herrera Beutler announced that she and her husband were expecting their first child. In June 2013, she announced that her unborn child had been diagnosed with Potter's Syndrome, an often fatal condition in which abnormally low amniotic fluid caused by impaired kidney function inhibits normal lung development. A stranger who read the news suggested that she try an experimental treatment: saline injections into her uterus that would enable the baby to develop without kidneys. She said she tried several hospitals, and told CNN that "most wouldn't even return her calls". Finally, a doctor at Johns Hopkins agreed to try this treatment. The results were instantaneous. For four weeks, she drove every morning from the District of Columbia to Baltimore for injections. Herrera Beutler is the ninth woman in history to give birth while serving in Congress. On July 29, 2013, it was announced that her baby had been born two weeks earlier, at 28 weeks' gestation. The girl, Abigail, was born without kidneys, and became the first child in recorded medical history to breathe on her own without both kidneys. In a Facebook post, Herrera Beutler said, "She is every bit a miracle." On July 24, 2013, Herrera Beutler was absent for a roll call vote concerning the NSA, citing health reasons. When she revealed Abigail's birth, it was understood that it was her reason for missing what was considered an important vote. In early December 2013, it was announced that Abigail would be going home from the hospital nearly six months after her birth. On February 8, 2016, at age two, she received a kidney from her father at the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford in California. In May 2016, Herrera Beutler gave birth to a boy. In May 2019, she gave birth to her third child, a girl named Isana. Her husband is a stay-at-home father.

significant problem

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21559501

The Eridania quadrangle is one of a series of 30 quadrangle maps of Mars used by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Astrogeology Research Program. The Eridania quadrangle is also referred to as MC-29 (Mars Chart-29). The Eridania quadrangle lies between 30° and 65° south latitude and 180° and 240° west longitude on the planet Mars. Most of the classic region named Terra Cimmeria is found within this quadrangle. Part of the Electris deposits, a 100–200 meters thick, light-toned deposit covers the Eridania quadrangle. Many slopes in Eridania contain gullies, which are believed to be caused by flowing water. Martian Gullies. The Eridania quadrangle is the location of gullies that may be due to recent flowing water. Gullies occur on steep slopes, especially on the walls of craters. Gullies are believed to be relatively young because they have few, if any craters. Moreover, they lie on top of sand dunes which themselves are considered to be quite young. Usually, each gully has an alcove, channel, and apron. Some studies have found that gullies occur on slopes that face all directions, others have found that the greater number of gullies are found on poleward facing slopes, especially from 30-44 S. Although many ideas have been put forward to explain them, the most popular involve liquid water coming from an aquifer, from melting at the base of old glaciers, or from the melting of ice in the ground when the climate was warmer. Because of the good possibility that liquid water was involved with their formation and that they could be very young, scientists are excited. Maybe the gullies are where we should go to find life. There is evidence for all three theories. Most of the gully alcove heads occur at the same level, just as one would expect of an aquifer. Various measurements and calculations show that liquid water could exist in aquifers at the usual depths where gullies begin. One variation of this model is that rising hot magma could have melted ice in the ground and caused water to flow in aquifers. Aquifers are layer that allow water to flow. They may consist of porous sandstone. The aquifer layer would be perched on top of another layer that prevents water from going down (in geological terms it would be called impermeable). Because water in an aquifer is prevented from going down, the only direction the trapped water can flow is horizontally. Eventually, water could flow out onto the surface when the aquifer reaches a break—like a crater wall. The resulting flow of water could erode the wall to create gullies. Aquifers are quite common on Earth. A good example is "Weeping Rock" in Zion National Park Utah. As for the next theory, much of the surface of Mars is covered by a thick smooth mantle that is thought to be a mixture of ice and dust. This ice-rich mantle, a few yards thick, smooths the land, but in places it has a bumpy texture, resembling the surface of a basketball. The mantle may be like a glacier and under certain conditions the ice that is mixed in the mantle could melt and flow down the slopes and make gullies. Because there are few craters on this mantle, the mantle is relatively young. An excellent view of this mantle is shown below in the picture of the Ptolemaeus Crater Rim, as seen by HiRISE. The ice-rich mantle may be the result of climate changes. Changes in Mars's orbit and tilt cause significant changes in the distribution of water ice from polar regions down to latitudes equivalent to Texas. During certain climate periods, water vapor leaves polar ice and enters the atmosphere. The water comes back to ground at lower latitudes as deposits of frost or snow mixed generously with dust. The atmosphere of Mars contains a great deal of fine dust particles. Water vapor will condense on the particles, then fall down to the ground due to the additional weight of the water coating. When Mars is at its greatest tilt or obliquity, up to 2 cm of ice could be removed from the summer ice cap and deposited at midlatitudes. This movement of water could last for several thousand years and create a snow layer of up to around 10 meters thick. When ice at the top of the mantling layer goes back into the atmosphere, it leaves behind dust, which insulating the remaining ice. Measurements of altitudes and slopes of gullies support the idea that snowpacks or glaciers are associated with gullies. Steeper slopes have more shade which would preserve snow. Higher elevations have far fewer gullies because ice would tend to sublimate more in the thin air of the higher altitude. The third theory might be possible since climate changes may be enough to simply allow ice in the ground to melt and thus form the gullies. During a warmer climate, the first few meters of ground could thaw and produce a "debris flow" similar to those on the dry and cold Greenland east coast. Since the gullies occur on steep slopes only a small decrease of the shear strength of the soil particles is needed to begin the flow. Small amounts of liquid water from melted ground ice could be enough. Calculations show that a third of a mm of runoff can be produced each day for 50 days of each Martian year, even under current conditions. Dust devil tracks. Many areas on Mars, including Eridania, experience the passage of giant dust devils. A thin coating of fine bright dust covers most of the Martian surface. When a dust devil goes by it blows away the coating and exposes the underlying dark surface. Dust devils occur when the sun warms up the air near a flat, dry surface. The warm air then rises quickly through the cooler air and begins spinning while moving ahead. This spinning, moving cell may pick up dust and sand then leave behind a clean surface. Dust devils have been seen from the ground and high overhead from orbit. They have even blown the dust off of the solar panels of the two Rovers on Mars, thereby greatly extending their lives. The twin Rovers were designed to last for 3 months, instead they lasted more than six years, and one is still going after 8 years. The pattern of the tracks have been shown to change every few months. A study that combined data from the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) and the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) found that some large dust devils on Mars have a diameter of 700 meters and last at least 26 minutes. Paleomagnetism. The Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) discovered magnetic stripes in the crust of Mars, especially in the Phaethontis and Eridania quadrangles (Terra Cimmeria and Terra Sirenum). The magnetometer on MGS discovered 100 km wide stripes of magnetized crust running roughly parallel for up to 2000 km. These stripes alternate in polarity with the north magnetic pole of one pointing up from the surface and the north magnetic pole of the next pointing down. When similar stripes were discovered on Earth in the 1960s, they were taken as evidence of plate tectonics. Researchers believe these magnetic stripes on Mars are evidence for a short, early period of plate tectonic activity. When the rocks became solid they retained the magnetism that existed at the time. A magnetic field of a planet is believed to be caused by fluid motions under the surface. However, there are some differences, between the magnetic stripes on Earth and those on Mars. The Martian stripes are wider, much more strongly magnetized, and do not appear to spread out from a middle crustal spreading zone. Because the area containing the magnetic stripes is about 4 billion years old, it is believed that the global magnetic field probably lasted for only the first few hundred million years of Mars' life, when the temperature of the molten iron in the planet's core might have been high enough to mix it into a magnetic dynamo. There are no magnetic fields near large impact basins like Hellas. The shock of the impact may have erased the remnant magnetization in the rock. So, magnetism produced by early fluid motion in the core would not have existed after the impacts. Some researchers have proposed that early in its history Mars exhibited a form of plate tectonics. At about 3.93 billion years ago Mars became a one plate planet with a superplume under Tharsis. When molten rock containing magnetic material, such as hematite (Fe2O3), cools and solidifies in the presence of a magnetic field, it becomes magnetized and takes on the polarity of the background field. This magnetism is lost only if the rock is subsequently heated above a particular temperature (the Curie point which is 770 °C for iron). The magnetism left in rocks is a record of the magnetic field when the rock solidified. Dunes. Dunes, including barchans are present in the Eridania quadrangle and some pictures below. When there are perfect conditions for producing sand dunes, steady wind in one direction and just enough sand, a barchan sand dune forms. Barchans have a gentle slope on the wind side and a much steeper slope on the lee side where horns or a notch often forms. The whole dune may appear to move with the wind. Observing dunes on Mars can tell us how strong the winds are, as well as their direction. If pictures are taken at regular intervals, one may see changes in the dunes or possibly in ripples on the dune’s surface. On Mars dunes are often dark in color because they were formed from the common, volcanic rock basalt. In the dry environment, dark minerals in basalt, like olivine and pyroxene, do not break down as they do on Earth. Although rare, some dark sand is found on Hawaii which also has many volcanoes discharging basalt. Barchan is a Russian term because this type of dune was first seen in the desert regions of Turkistan. Some of the wind on Mars is created when the dry ice at the poles is heated in the spring. At that time, the solid carbon dioxide (dry ice) sublimates or changes directly to a gas and rushes away at high speeds. Each Martian year 30% of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere freezes out and covers the pole that is experiencing winter, so there is a great potential for strong winds. Glacial features. Glaciers, loosely defined as patches of currently or recently flowing ice, are thought to be present across large but restricted areas of the modern Martian surface, and are inferred to have been more widely distributed at times in the past. Lobate convex features on the surface known as viscous flow features and lobate debris aprons, which show the characteristics of non-Newtonian flow, are now almost unanimously regarded as true glaciers. Lake. The Eridania Basin, located near 180 E and 30 South, is thought to have contained a large lake with a depth of 1 km in places. The basin is composed of a group of eroded and connected topographically impact basins. The lake has been estimated to have an area of 3,000,000 square kilometers. Water from this lake entered Ma'adim Vallis which starts at the lake's north boundary. It is surrounded by valley networks that all end at the same elevation, suggesting that they emptied into a lake. Magnessium-rich clay minerals and opaline silica have been detected in the area. These minerals are consistent with the presence of a large lake. The region of this lake shows strong evidence for ancient magnetism on Mars. It has been suggested that the crust was pulled apart here, as on plate boundaries on the Earth. There are high levels of potassium in the area which may point to a deep mantle source for volcanism or major changes in the crust. Later research with CRISM found thick deposits, greater than 400 meters thick, that contained the minerals saponite, talc-saponite, Fe-rich mica (for example, glauconite-nontronite), Fe- and Mg-serpentine, Mg-Fe-Ca-carbonate and probable Fe-sulphide. The Fe-sulphide probably formed in deep water from water heated by volcanoes. Analyses from the "Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter" provided evidence of ancient hydrothermal seafloor deposits in Eridania basin, suggesting that hydrothermal vents pumped mineral-laden water directly into this ancient Martian lake. Latitude dependent mantle. Much of the Martian surface is covered with a thick ice-rich, mantle layer that has fallen from the sky a number of times in the past. In some places a number of layers are visible in the mantle. Some surfaces in Eridania are covered with this ice-rich mantling unit. In some places the surface displays a pitted or dissected texture; these textures are suggestive of material that once held ice that has since disappeared allowing the remaining soil to collapse into the subsurface. Channels. There is enormous evidence that water once flowed in river valleys on Mars. Images of curved channels have been seen in images from Mars spacecraft dating back to the early seventies with the Mariner 9 orbiter. Indeed, a study published in June 2017, calculated that the volume of water needed to carve all the channels on Mars was even larger than the proposed ocean that the planet may have had. Water was probably recycled many times from the ocean to rainfall around Mars. Other features in Eridania quadrangle. File:ESP 055104 1385pyramid.jpg|Layered feature in a crater, as seen by HiRISE under HiWish program

likely explanation

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=36085281

Founded in the 17th century as a Dutch outpost, Harlem developed into a farming village, a revolutionary battlefield, a resort town, a commuter town, a center of African-American culture, a ghetto, and a gentrified neighborhood. 1637–1866. Before the arrival of European settlers, the area that would become Harlem (originally Haarlem) was inhabited by the Manhattans, a native tribe, who along with other Native Americans, most likely Lenape occupied the area on a semi-nomadic basis. As many as several hundred farmed the Harlem flatlands. The first European settlement in the area was by siblings Hendrick (Henry), Isaac and Rachel de Forest, Franco-Dutch immigrants in 1637. In 1639 Jochem Pietersen Kuyter established the homestead named "Zegendaal", or "Blessed Valley", stretched along the Harlem River from about the present 127th Street to 140th Street. Early European settlers were forced to flee to New Amsterdam in lower Manhattan whenever hostilities with the natives heated up, and the native population gradually decreased amidst conflict with the Dutch. The settlement was named "Nieuw Haarlem" (New Haarlem), after the Dutch city of Haarlem, and was formally incorporated in 1660 under the leadership of Peter Stuyvesant. The Indian trail to Harlem's lush bottomland meadows was rebuilt and eventually developed into the Boston Post Road. In 1664, the English took control of the New Netherland colony, and English colonial Governor Richard Nicolls established the "Harlem Line" as the southern border patent line of the village of Nieuw Haarlem (later, the village of Harlem) running approximately northward between near modern East 74th Street, at the East River, and West 129th Street, on the Hudson River. The British also tried to change the name of the community to "Lancaster", but the name never stuck, and eventually settled down to the Anglicized "Harlem". The Dutch took control of the area again for one year in 1673. The village grew very slowly until the middle 18th century, and it became a resort of sorts for the rich of New York City. Only the Morris-Jumel Mansion survives from this period. Harlem played an important role in the American Revolution. The British had established their base of operations in lower Manhattan, and George Washington fortified the area around Harlem to oppose them. From Harlem, he could control the land routes to the north, as well as traffic on the Harlem River. The New York Provincial Congress met in White Plains, as did the convention drafting the constitution for New York State. On September 16, 1776, the Battle of Harlem Heights, sometimes referred to as the "Battle of Harlem" or "Battle of Harlem Plain", was fought in western Harlem around the Hollow Way (now West 125th Street), with conflicts on Morningside Heights to the south and Harlem Heights to the north. The American troops were outnumbered, 5000 to 2000, and were ill-equipped compared to their opponents, but outflanked the British and forced them to retreat to the area around what is now West 106th Street. It was Washington's first American victory. Later that year, the British would avenge this defeat by chasing Washington and his troops north, then turning back and burning Harlem to the ground. Rebuilding took decades, and infrastructure was improved much more slowly than was happening in New York City proper. The village remained largely rural through the early 19th century and, though the "grid system" of streets, designed downtown, was formally extended to Harlem in 1811, it does not seem that anybody expected it would mean much. The 1811 report that accompanied the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 noted that it was "improbable that (for centuries to come) the grounds north of the Harlem Flat will be covered with houses." Though undeveloped, the area was not poor. Harlem was "a synonym for elegant living through a good part of the nineteenth century." The village remained largely farmland estates, such as [Conrad] Van Keulen's Hook, "orig". Otterspoor, bordered north of the Mill Creek (now 108th St., "orig". Montagne Creek at 109th St.), which flowed into Harlem Lake, to the farm of Morris Randall, northwest on the Harlem River, and westward to the Peter Benson, or Mill Farm. This former bowery [of land] was subdivided into twenty-two equal plots, of about 6 to each, of which portions later owned by Abraham Storm, including thirty-one acres (east of Fifth Avenue between 110th & 125th St.) were sold by Storm's widow Catherine in 1795 to James Roosevelt (great grandfather of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1760–1847). This branch of the Roosevelt family subsequently moved to the town of Hyde Park, but several of Roosevelt's children remain interred in Harlem. As late as 1820, the community had dwindled to 91 families, a church, a school, and a library. Wealthy farmers, known as "patroons", maintained these country estates largely on the heights overlooking the Hudson River. Service connecting the outlays of Harlem with the rest of the City of New York (on the southern tip of the island of Manhattan) was done via steamboat on the East River, an hour-and-a-half passage, sometimes interrupted when the river froze in winter, or else by stagecoach along the Boston Post Road, which descended from McGown's Pass (now in Central Park) and skirted the salt marshes around 110th Street, to pass through Harlem. The New York and Harlem Railroad (now Metro North) was incorporated in 1831 to better link the city with Harlem and Westchester County, starting at a depot at East 23rd Street, and extending north to a railroad junction in Columbia County at Chatham, New York by 1851. Charles Henry Hall, a wealthy lawyer and land speculator, recognized the changes that this railroad would make possible in Harlem and began a successful program of infrastructure development, building out streets, gas lines, sewer lines, and other facilities needed for urban life. Piers were also built, enabling Harlem to become an industrial suburb serving New York City. The rapid development of infrastructure enabled some to become wealthy, and the area became important to politicians, many of whom lived in Harlem. New York mayors Cornelius Van Wyck Lawrence and Daniel Tiemann both lived in Harlem in this period. For many in New York City, Harlem was at this time regarded as a sort of country retreat. The village had a population of poorer residents as well, including blacks, who came north to work in factories or to take advantage of relatively low rents. Between 1850 and 1870, many large estates, including Hamilton Grange, the estate of Alexander Hamilton, were auctioned off as the fertile soil was depleted and crop yields fell. Some of the land became occupied by Irish squatters, whose presence further depressed property values. 1866–1920. During the American Civil War, Harlem saw draft riots, along with the rest of the city, but the neighborhood was a significant beneficiary of the economic boom that followed the end of the war, starting in 1868. The neighborhood continued to serve as a refuge for New Yorkers, but increasingly those coming north were poor and Jewish or Italian. Factories, homes, churches, and retail buildings were built at great speed. The Panic of 1873 caused Harlem property values to drop 80%, and gave the City of New York the opportunity to annex the troubled community as far north as 155th Street. Recovery came soon, and row houses (as distinct from the previous generation's free-standing houses) were being constructed in large numbers by 1876. Development accelerated in part in anticipation of elevated railroads, which were extended to Harlem in 1880. With the construction of the "els", urbanized development occurred very rapidly. Developers anticipated that the planned Lexington Avenue subway would ease transportation to lower Manhattan. Fearing that new housing regulations would be enacted in 1901, they rushed to complete as many new buildings as possible before these came into force. Early entrepreneurs had grandiose schemes for Harlem: Polo was played at the original Polo Grounds, later to become home of the New York Giants baseball team. Oscar Hammerstein I opened the Harlem Opera House on East 125th Street in 1889. By 1893, even row houses did not suffice to meet the growing population, and large-scale apartment buildings were the norm. In that year, "Harlem Monthly Magazine" wrote that "it is evident to the most superficial observer that the centre of fashion, wealth, culture, and intelligence, must, in the near future, be found in the ancient and honorable village of Harlem." However, also in that year, the construction glut and a delay in the building of the subway led to a fall in real estate prices which attracted immigrant Eastern Europe Jews and Italians to Harlem in accelerating numbers. There had been a Jewish community of 12 in Harlem in 1869 that grew to a peak of almost 200,000 in about 1915. Presaging their resistance to the arrival of blacks, existing landowners tried to stop Jews from moving into the neighborhood. At least one rental sign declared "Keine Juden und Keine Hunde" (No Jews and no dogs). Italians began to arrive in Harlem only a few years after the Jews did. By 1900 there were 150,000 Italians in Harlem. Both groups moved particularly into East Harlem. The Jewish population of Harlem embraced the City College of New York, which moved to Harlem in 1907. In the years after the move, 90% of the school's students were Jewish, and many of the school's most distinguished graduates date from this period. Both the Jewish Mob and Italian Mafia emerged in East Harlem and soon expanded their operations to the entire neighborhood. West 116th Street between Lenox and 8th Avenue became a vice district. The neighborhood also became a major center for more conventional entertainment, with 125th Street as a particular center for musical theater, vaudeville, and moving pictures. The Jewish presence in Harlem was ephemeral, and by 1930, only 5,000 Jews remained. As they left, their apartments in East Harlem were increasingly filled by Puerto Ricans, who were arriving in large numbers by 1913. Italian Harlem lasted longer, and traces of the community lasted into the 1980s and to the present in the area around Pleasant Avenue. Black population increase. Black residents have been present in Harlem continually since the 1630s, and as the neighborhood modernized in the late 19th century, they could be found especially in the area around 125th Street and in the "Negro tenements" on West 130th Street. By 1900, tens of thousands lived in Harlem. The mass migration of blacks into the area began in 1904, due to another real estate crash, the worsening of conditions for blacks elsewhere in the city, and the leadership of black real estate entrepreneurs including Phillip Payton, Jr. After the collapse of the 1890s, new speculation and construction started up again in 1903 and the resulting glut of housing led to a crash in values in 1904 and 1905 that eclipsed the late-19th century slowdown. Landlords could not find white renters for their properties, so Philip Payton stepped in to bring blacks. His company, the Afro-American Realty Company, has been credited with the migration of blacks from their previous neighborhoods, the Tenderloin, San Juan Hill (now the site of Lincoln Center), Minetta Lane in Greenwich Village and Hell's Kitchen in the west 40s and 50s. The move to northern Manhattan was driven in part by fears that anti-black riots such as those that had occurred in the Tenderloin in 1900 and in San Juan Hill in 1905 might recur. In addition, a number of tenements that had been occupied by blacks in the west 30s were destroyed at this time to make way for the construction of the original Penn Station. In 1907, black churches began to move uptown. Several congregations built grand new church buildings, including St Philip's on West 134th Street just west of Seventh Avenue (the wealthiest church in Harlem), the Abyssinian Baptist Church on West 138th Street and St Mark's Methodist Church on Edgecombe Avenue. More often churches purchased buildings from white congregations of Christians and Jews whose members had left the neighborhood, including Metropolitan Baptist Church on West 128th and Seventh Avenue, St James Presbyterian Church on West 141st Street, and Mt Olivet Baptist Church on Lenox Avenue. Only the Catholic Church retained its churches in Harlem, with white priests presiding over parishes that retained significant numbers of whites until the 1930s. The early 20th-century Great Migration of blacks to northern industrial cities was fueled by their desire to leave behind the Jim Crow South, seek better jobs and education for their children, and escape a culture of lynching violence. During World War I, expanding industries recruited black laborers to fill new jobs, thinly staffed after the draft began to take young men. So many blacks came that it "threaten[ed] the very existence of some of the leading industries of Georgia, Florida, Tennessee and Alabama." Many settled in Harlem. In 1910, Central Harlem was about 10% black. By 1920, central Harlem was 32.43% black. The 1930 census showed 70.18% of Central Harlem's residents as black and lived as far south as Central Park, at 110th Street. The expansion was fueled primarily by an influx of blacks from the southern U.S. states, especially Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia, who took trains up the East Coast. There were also numerous immigrants from the West Indies. As blacks moved in, white residents left. Between 1920 and 1930, 118,792 white people left the neighborhood and 87,417 blacks arrived. Between 1907 and 1915, some white residents of Harlem resisted the neighborhood's change, especially once the swelling black population pressed west of Lenox Avenue, which served as an informal color line until the early 1920s. Some made pacts not to sell to or rent to blacks. Others tried to buy property and evict black tenants, but the Afro-American Realty Company retaliated by buying other property and evicting whites. Some even attempted to convince banks to deny mortgages to black buyers, but soon gave up those efforts. Soon after blacks began to move into Harlem, the community became known as "the spiritual home of the Negro protest movement." The NAACP became active in Harlem in 1910 and Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1916. The NAACP chapter there soon grew to be the largest in the country. Activist A. Philip Randolph lived in Harlem and published the radical magazine "The Messenger" starting in 1917. It was from Harlem that he organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. W. E. B. Du Bois lived and published in Harlem in the 1920s, as did James Weldon Johnson and Marcus Garvey. Italian Harlems. Southern Italians and Sicilians, with a moderate number of Northern Italians, soon predominated, especially in the area east of Lexington Avenue between 96th and 116th Streets and east of Madison Avenue between 116th and 125th Streets, with each street featuring people from different regions of Italy. The neighborhood became known as "Italian Harlem", the Italian American hub of Manhattan; it was the first part of Manhattan to be referred to as "Little Italy". The first Italians arrived in East Harlem in 1878, from Polla in the province of Salerno, and settled in the vicinity of 115th Street. There were many crime syndicates in Italian Harlem from the early Black Hand to the bigger and more organized Italian gangs that formed the Italian-American Mafia. It was the founding location of the Genovese crime family, one of the Five Families that dominated organized crime in New York City. In the 1920s and early 1930s, Italian Harlem was represented in Congress by future Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, and later by Italian-American socialist Vito Marcantonio. The Italian neighborhood approached its peak in the 1930s, with over 100,000 Italian-Americans living in its crowded, run-down apartment buildings. The 1930 census showed that 81 percent of the population of Italian Harlem consisted of first- or second-generation Italian Americans. (Somewhat less than the concentration of Italian Americans in the Lower East Side's Little Italy with 88 percent; Italian Harlem's total population, however, was three times that of Little Italy.) Although in certain areas, particularly around Pleasant Avenue, Italian Harlem lasted through the 1970s, today most of the former Italian population is gone. Most of these predominantly older residents are clustered around Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, mainly from 114th to 118th Streets. According to the 2000 Census, there were only 1,130 Italian-Americans still living in this area. Still, vestiges of the old Italian neighborhood remain. The annual Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and the "Dancing of the Giglio", the first Italian feast in New York City, is still celebrated there every year on the second weekend of August by the Giglio Society of East Harlem. Italian retail establishments still exist, such as Rao's restaurant, started in 1896, and the original Patsy's Pizzeria which opened in the 1933. In May 2011, one of the last remaining Italian retail businesses in the neighborhood, a barbershop owned by Claudio Caponigro on 116th Street, was threatened with closure by a rent increase. 1921–1929. Starting around the time of the end of World War I, Harlem became associated with the New Negro movement, and then the artistic outpouring known as the Harlem Renaissance, which extended to poetry, novels, theater, and the visual arts. The growing population also supported a rich fabric of organizations and activities in the 1920s. Fraternal orders such as the Prince Hall Masons and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks set up lodges in Harlem, with elaborate buildings including auditoriums and large bands. Parades of lodge members decked out in uniforms and accompanied by band music were a common sight on Harlem's streets, on public holidays, lodge anniversaries, church festivities and funerals. The neighborhood's churches housed a range of groups, including athletic clubs, choirs and social clubs. A similar range of activities could be found at the YMCA on 135th Street and the YWCA on 137th Street. The social pages of Harlem's two African-American newspapers, the "New York Age" and the "New York Amsterdam News", recorded the meetings, dinners and dances of hundreds of small clubs. Soapbox speakers drew crowds on Seventh and Lenox Avenues until the 1960s, some offering political oratory, with Hubert Harrison the most famous, while others, particularly in the late 1920s, sold medicine. Harlem also offered a wealth of sporting events: the Lincoln Giants played baseball at Olympic Field at 136th and Fifth Avenue until 1920, after which residents had to travel to the Catholic Protectory Oval in the Bronx; men's and women's basketball teams from local athletic clubs played in church gymnasiums, and, as they became more popular, at the Manhattan Casino on 155th Street, before giving way to professional teams, most famously the Rens, based at the Renaissance Ballroom on Seventh Avenue; and boxing bouts took place at the Commonwealth Casino on East 135th Street (run by white promoters the McMahon brothers). The biggest crowds, including many whites, came to see black athletes compete against whites. In 1921 Belstrat laundry was Incorporated in Harlem. With over 65 employees and twenty horses and carriages, Belstrat was the largest employer in Harlem. Founded by David R. and Collins Doles. Mr Doles was also the president of The Business Mens Club of Harlem. It took years for business ownership to reflect the new reality. A survey in 1929 found that whites owned and operated 81.51% of the neighborhood's 10,319 businesses, with beauty parlors making up the largest number of black-owned businesses. By the late 1960s, 60% of the businesses in Harlem responding to surveys reported ownership by blacks, and an overwhelming fraction of new businesses were black owned after that time. Marginalized in the legitimate economy, a small group of blacks found success outside the law, running gambling on numbers. Invented in 1920 or 1921, numbers had exploded by 1924 into a racket turning over tens of millions of dollars every year. That year the "New York Age" reported that there were at least thirty bankers (the name given to someone running a numbers game) in Harlem, with many employing between twelve and twenty people to collect bets, and Marcellino, the largest banker, employing over one hundred. By the late 1920s, Wallace Thurman guessed there were over a thousand collectors taking bets from 100,000 clients a day. The most successful bankers, who could earn enormous sums of money, were known as Kings and Queens. The wealthiest numbers king of all was almost certainly the reputed inventor of the game, Casper Holstein. He owned a fleet of cars, apartment buildings in Harlem and a home on Long Island, but did not have the ostentatious style and lifestyle of many other kings. He, and other bankers, gave money to charities and loans to aspiring businessmen and needy residents. Holstein's role in the community extended further than most of his colleagues, included membership in the Monarch Lodge of the Elks, support for Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association, philanthropy in his native Virgin Islands, and patronage of the Harlem Renaissance. Harlem adapted rapidly to the coming of Prohibition, and its theaters, nightclubs, and speakeasies became major entertainment destinations. Claude McKay would write that Harlem had become "an all white picnic ground", and in 1927 Rudolph Fisher published an article titled "The Caucasian Storms Harlem". Langston Hughes described this period at length, including this passage from his 1940 autobiography, In response to the white influx, some blacks operated alternative venues in their homes. Called buffet flats, they offered alcohol, music, dancing, prostitutes, and, commonly, gambling, and, less often, rooms to which a couple could go. Their location in residential buildings, typically on cross streets above 140th Street, away from the nightclubs and speakeasies on the avenues, offered a degree of privacy from police, and from whites: you could only find a buffet flat if you knew the address and apartment number, which hosts did not advertise. Puerto Rican and Latin American immigration after the First World War established an enclave at the western portion of East Harlem – around 110th Street and Lexington Avenue – which became known as "Spanish Harlem". The area slowly grew to encompass all of East Harlem, including Italian Harlem, as Italians moved out – to the Bronx, Brooklyn, upstate New York, and New Jersey – and Hispanics moved in during another wave of immigration in the 1940s and 1950s. The newly dominant Puerto Rican population, which reached 63,000 in 1950, continued to define the neighborhood according to its needs, establishing bodegas and botánicas as it expanded; by the 1930s there was already an enclosed street market underneath the Park Avenue railroad viaduct between 111th and 116th Streets, called "La Marqueta" ("The Market"). Catholic and evangelistic Protestant churches appeared in storefronts. Although "Spanish Harlem" had been in use since at least the 1930s to describe the Hispanic enclave – along with "Italian Harlem" and "Negro Harlem" – around the 1950s the name began to be used to describe the entire East Harlem neighborhood. Later, the name "El Barrio" ("The Neighborhood") began to be used, especially by inhabitants of the area. Since the 1920s, this period of Harlem's history has been highly romanticized. With the increase in a poor population, it was also the time when the neighborhood began to deteriorate to a slum, and some of the storied traditions of the Harlem Renaissance were driven by poverty, crime, or other social ills. For example, in this period, Harlem became known for "rent parties", informal gatherings in which bootleg alcohol was served and music played. Neighbors paid to attend, and thus enabled the host to make his or her monthly rent. Though picturesque, these parties were thrown out of necessity. Further, over a quarter of black households in Harlem made their monthly rent by taking in lodgers, many of whom were family members, but who sometimes brought bad habits or even crime that disrupted the lives of respectable families. Lodgers also experienced disruption, with many having to move frequently when households relocated, roommates quarreled or they could not pay rent. Urban reformers campaigned to eliminate the "lodger evil" but the problem got worse before it got better; in 1940, still affected by the Depression, 40% of black families in Harlem were taking in lodgers. The high rents and poor maintenance of housing stock, which Harlem residents suffered through much of the 20th century, was not merely the product of racism by white landlords. By 1914, 40% of Harlem's private houses and 10% of its tenements were owned by blacks. Wealthier blacks continued to purchase land in Harlem, and by 1920, a significant portion of the neighborhood was owned by blacks. By the late 1960s, 60% of the businesses in Harlem responding to surveys reported ownership by blacks, and an overwhelming fraction of new businesses were black owned after that time. In 1928, the first effort at housing reform was attempted in Harlem with the construction of the Paul Laurence Dunbar Houses, backed by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. These were intended to give working people of modest means the opportunity to live in and, over time, purchase, houses of their own. The Great Depression hit shortly after the buildings opened, and the experiment failed. They were followed in 1936 by the Harlem River Houses, a more modest experiment in housing projects. And by 1964, nine giant public housing projects had been constructed in the neighborhood, housing over 41,000 people. 1930–1945. The job losses of the Depression were exacerbated by the end of Prohibition in 1933 and by the Harlem Riot of 1935, which scared away the wealthier whites who had long supported Harlem's entertainment industry. White audiences decreased almost totally after a second round of riots in 1943. Many Harlemites found work in the military or in the Brooklyn shipyards during World War II, but the neighborhood declined rapidly once the war ended. Some middle-class blacks moved north or west to suburbs, a trend that increased after the 1960s Civil Rights Movement decreased discrimination in housing. The neighborhood enjoyed few benefits from the massive public works projects in New York under Robert Moses in the 1930s, and as a result had fewer parks and public recreational sites than other New York neighborhoods. Of the 255 playgrounds Moses built in New York City, he placed only one in Harlem. The earliest activism by blacks to change the situation in Harlem itself grew out of the Great Depression, with the "Don't Buy Where You Can't Work" movement. This was the ultimately successful campaign to force retail shops on 125th Street to hire black employees. Boycotts were originally organized by the Citizens' League for Fair Play in June 1934 against Blumstein's Department Store on 125th Street. The store soon agreed to integrate its staff more fully. This success emboldened Harlem residents, and protests continued under other leadership, including that of preacher and later congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., seeking to change hiring practices at other stores, to effect the hiring of more black workers, or the hiring of members of particular protesting groups. Communism gained a following in Harlem in the 1930s, and continued to play a role through the 1940s. In 1935, the first of Harlem's five riots broke out. The incident started with a boy that was supposedly caught stealing from a store on 125th Street had been killed by the police. By the time it was over, 600 stores had been looted and three men were dead. The same year saw internationalism in Harlem politics, as Harlemites responded to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia by holding giant rallies, signing petitions and sending an appeal to the League of Nations. Such internationalism continued intermittently, including broad demonstrations in favor of Egyptian president Nasser after the Suez invasion of 1956. Black Harlemites took positions in the elected political infrastructure of New York starting in 1941 with the election of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. to the City Council. He was easily elected to Congress when a congressional district was placed in Harlem in 1944, leaving his City Council seat to be won by another black Harlemite, Benjamin J. Davis. Ironically, Harlem's political strength soon deteriorated, as Clayton Powell, Jr. spent his time in Washington or his vacation home in Puerto Rico, and Davis was jailed in 1951 for violations of the Smith Act. The year 1943 saw the second Harlem riot. Allegedly, a black soldier knocked down a policeman who then shot him. An onlooker shouted that the soldier had been killed, and this news spread throughout the black community and provoked rioting. A force of 6,600, made up of city police, military police and civil patrolmen, in addition to 8,000 State Guardsmen and 1,500 civilian volunteers was required to end the violence. Hundreds of businesses were destroyed and looted, the property damage approaching $225,000. Overall, six people died and 185 were injured. Five hundred people were arrested in connection with the riot. 1946–1969. Many groups mobilized in Harlem in the 1960s, fighting for better schools, jobs, and housing. Some were peaceful and others advocated violence. By the early 1960s, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) had offices on 125th street, and acted as negotiator for the community with the city, especially in times of racial unrest. They urged civilian review boards to hear complaints of police abuse, a demand that was ultimately met. As chairman of the House Committee of Education and Labor at the start of the 1960s, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. used this position to direct federal funds to various development projects in Harlem. The largest public works projects in Harlem in these years were public housing, with the largest concentration built in East Harlem. Typically, existing structures were torn down and replaced with city-designed and managed properties that would, in theory, present a safer and more pleasant environment than those available from private landlords. Ultimately, community objections halted the construction of new projects. From the mid-20th century, the terrible quality of local schools has been a source of distress. In the 1960s, about 75% of Harlem students tested under grade levels in reading skills, and 80% tested under grade level in math. In 1964, residents of Harlem staged two school boycotts to call attention to the problem. In central Harlem, 92% of students stayed home. 1960s race riots. The influence of the southern nonviolent protest movement was muted in Harlem. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was the black leader most respected in Harlem. But on September 20, 1958, Izola Curry, deluded into believing the NAACP was controlled by Communists, approached Dr. King at a Blumstein's book-signing, and asked him if he was Martin Luther King Jr. When King replied in the affirmative, she said, "I've been looking for you for five years", then thrust a letter opener into his chest. NYPD officers took King, still in the chair where he had sat, to an ambulance that took him to Harlem Hospital, for removal of the blade. Reportage recalling the event for Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2014, noted: At least two dozen groups of black nationalists also operated in New York, many of them in Harlem. The most important of these was the Nation of Islam, whose Temple Number Seven was run by Malcolm X from 1952–1963. Malcolm X was assassinated in the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights in 1965. The neighborhood remains an important center for the Nation of Islam. In 1963, Inspector Lloyd Sealy became the first African-American officer of the NYPD to command a police station, the 28th precinct in Harlem. Community relations between Harlem residents and the NYPD were strained as civil rights activists requested that the NYPD hire more black police officers, specifically in Harlem. In 1964, across Harlem's three precincts, the ratio was one black police officer for every six white officers. A riot broke in the summer of 1964 following the fatal shooting of an unarmed 15-year-old black teenager by an off-duty white police lieutenant. One person was killed, more than 100 were injured, and hundreds more were arrested. Property damage and looting were extensive. The riot would later spread out of Manhattan and into the borough of Brooklyn and neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, the heart of Brooklyn's African-American community. In the aftermath of the riots, the federal government funded a pilot program called Project Uplift, in which thousands of young people in Harlem were given jobs during the summer of 1965. The project was inspired by a report generated by HARYOU called "Youth in the Ghetto." HARYOU was given a major role in organizing the project, along with the National Urban League and nearly 100 smaller community organizations. In 1966, the Black Panthers organized a group in Harlem, agitating for violence in pursuit of change. Speaking at a rally of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Max Stanford, a Black Panther, declared that the United States "could be brought down to its knees with a rag and some gasoline and a bottle." In April 1968, Harlemites rioted after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., as did black residents in over 100 other U.S. cities. Two people died—one stabbed to death in a crowd and another trapped in a burning building. However, the rioting in New York was minor compared to that in other American cities. Mayor John Lindsay helped to quell the rioting by marching up Lenox Avenue in a "hail of bricks" to confront the angry crowds. ("See also King assassination riots.") Housing stock. Little investment in private homes or businesses took place in the neighborhood between 1911 and the 1990s. However, the unwillingness of landlords elsewhere in the city to rent to black tenants, together with a significant increase in the black population of New York, meant that rents in Harlem were for many years "higher" than rents elsewhere in the city, even as the housing stock decayed. In 1920, one-room apartments in central Harlem rented for $40 to whites or $100–$125 to blacks. In the late 1920s, a typical white working-class family in New York paid $6.67 per month per room, while blacks in Harlem paid $9.50 for the same space. The worse the accommodations and more desperate the renter, the higher the rents would be. This pattern persisted through the 1960s; in 1965, CERGE reported that a one-room apartment in Harlem rented for $50–$74, while comparable apartments rented for $30–$49 in white slums. The high rents encouraged some property speculators to engage in block busting, a practice whereby they would acquire a single property on a block and sell or rent it to blacks with great publicity. Other landowners would panic, and the speculators would then buy additional houses relatively cheaply. These houses could then be rented profitably to blacks. After the Harlem River Houses, America's first federally subsidized housing project, were opened in 1937, other massive housing projects soon followed, with tens of thousands of units constructed over the next twenty years, especially in Harlem. In the post-World War II era, Harlem ceased to be home to a majority of the city's blacks, but it remained the cultural and political capital of black New York, and possibly black America. The character of the community changed in the years after the war, as middle-class blacks left for the outer boroughs (primarily the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn) and suburbs. The percentage of Harlem that was black peaked in 1950, at 98.2%. Thereafter, Hispanic, Asian, and white residents have increased their share. The high cost of space forced people to live in close quarters, and the population density of Harlem in these years was stunning—over 215,000 per square mile in the 1920s. By comparison, in 2000, Manhattan as a whole had a population density under 70,000 per square mile. The same forces that allowed landlords to charge more for Harlem space also enabled them to maintain it less, and many of the residential buildings in Harlem fell into disrepair. The 1960 census showed only 51% of housing in Harlem to be "sound", as opposed to 85% elsewhere in New York City. In 1968, the New York City Buildings Department received 500 complaints daily of rats in Harlem buildings, falling plaster, lack of heat, and unsanitary plumbing. Tenants were sometimes to blame; some would strip wiring and fixtures from their buildings to sell, throw garbage in hallways and airshafts, or otherwise damage the properties which they lived in or visited. As the building stock decayed, landlords converted many buildings into "single room occupancies", or SROs, essentially private homeless shelters. In many cases, the income from these buildings could not support the fines and city taxes charged to their owners, or the houses suffered damage that would have been expensive to fix, and the buildings were abandoned. In the 1970s, this process accelerated to the point that Harlem, for the first time since before World War I, had a lower population density than the rest of Manhattan. Between 1970 and 1980, for example, Frederick Douglass Boulevard between 110th Street and 125th Street in central Harlem lost 42% of its population and 23% of its remaining housing stock. By 1987, 65% of the buildings in Harlem were owned by the City of New York, and many had become empty shells, convenient centers for drug dealing and other illegal activity. The lack of habitable buildings and falling population reduced tax rolls and made the neighborhood even less attractive to residential and retail investment. Inadequate housing contributed to racial unrest and health problems. However, the lack of development also preserved buildings from the 1870–1910 building boom, and Harlem as a result has many of the finest original townhouses in New York. This includes work by many significant architects of the day, including McKim, Mead, and White; James Renwick; William Tuthill; Charles Buek; and Francis Kimball. 1970–1989. By some measures, the 1970s was the darkest period in Harlem's history. Some Harlemites left the neighborhood in search of safer streets and better schools in the suburbs, those who remained would contribute greatly to local efforts in revitalising the sprawling community despite external efforts to prove otherwise. For example, the federal government's Model Cities Program spent $100 million on job training, health care, education, public safety, sanitation, housing, and other projects over a ten-year period, Harlem showed no improvement. This article shows the ravine between white institutions and the Black community, often filled with ambiguity and racially charged justifications for socially approved negative judgments on and of the latter. The numbers following reflect the results of corrupt representation instigated by outside agitators with financial interests in Harlem: The deterioration shows up starkly in the statistics of the period. In 1968, Harlem's infant mortality rate had been 37 for each 1000 live births, as compared to 23.1 in the city as a whole. Over the next eight years, infant mortality for the city as whole improved to 19, while the rate in Harlem increased to 42.8, more than double. Statistics describing illness, drug addiction, housing quality, and education are similarly grim and typically show rapid deterioration in the 1970s. The wholesale abandonment of housing was so pronounced that between 1976 and 1978 alone, central Harlem lost almost a third of its total population, and east Harlem lost about 27%. The neighborhood no longer had a functioning economy; stores were shuttered and by estimates published in 1971, 60% of the area's economic life depended on the cash flow from the illegal "Numbers game" alone. The most dangerous part of Harlem was the "Bradhurst section" between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Edgecombe, from 139th Street through 155th. In 1991, this region was described in the "New York Times" as follows: "Since 1970, an exodus of residents has left behind the poor, the uneducated, the unemployed. Nearly two-thirds of the households have incomes below $10,000 a year. In a community with one of the highest crime rates in the city, garbage-strewn vacant lots and tumbledown tenements, many of them abandoned and sealed, contribute to the sense of danger and desolation that pervades much of the area." Plans for rectifying the situation often started with the restoration of 125th Street, long the economic heart of black Harlem. In 1978, Harlem artist Franco the Great began a project on the 125th Street, painting over 200 storefronts to create a positive image of Harlem. However, by the late 1970s, only marginalized and poor retail remained. Plans were drafted for a "Harlem International Trade Center", which would have filled the entire block between 125th Street and 126th, from Lenox to Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, with a center for trade with the third world. A related retail complex was planned to the west, between Frederick Douglass Boulevard and St. Nicholas. However, this plan depended on $30 million in financing from the federal government, and with the election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency of the United States, it had no hope of being completed. The city did provide one large construction project, though not so favored by residents. Starting in the 1960s and continuing through the 1970s, Harlemites fought the introduction of an immense sewage treatment plant, the North River Water Pollution Control Plant, on the Hudson River in West Harlem. A compromise was ultimately reached in which the plant was built with a state park, including extensive recreational facilities, on top. The park, called Riverbank State Park, was opened in 1993 (the sewage plant having been completed some years earlier). The city began auctioning its enormous portfolio of Harlem properties to the public in 1985. This was intended to improve the community by placing property in the hands of people who would live in them and maintain them. In many cases, the city would even pay to completely renovate a property before selling it (by lottery) below market value. The program was soon beset by scandal—buyers were acquiring houses from the city, then making deals with churches or other charities in which they would inflate the appraised values of the properties and the church or charity would take out federally guaranteed 203(k) mortgage and buy it. The original buyer would realize a profit and the church or charity would default on the mortgage (presumably getting some kind of kickback from the developer). Abandoned shells were left to further deteriorate, and about a third of the properties sold by the city were tenements which still had tenants, who were left in particularly miserable conditions. These properties, and new restrictions on Harlem mortgages, bedeviled the area's residential real estate market for years. 1990s. After four decades of decline, Central Harlem's population bottomed out in the 1990 census, at 101,026. It had decreased by 57% from its peak of 237,468 in 1950. Between 1990 and 2015 the neighborhood's population grew by 16.8%, with the percentage of black people decreasing from 87.6% to 62%, During this time, there was a significant drop to 54.4% in 2010, while the percentage of whites increased from 1.5% to 10% by 2015. Hispanics are the second largest demographic in Central Harlem, making up 23% of the population as of 2015, however, although whites make up only 10% of the population, they are the fastest growing demographic, with a 678% increase since 1990. From 1987 through 1990, the city removed long-unused trolley tracks from 125th Street, laid new water mains and sewers, installed new sidewalks, curbs, traffic lights, streetlights, and planted trees. Two years later, national chains opened branches on 125th Street for the first time – The Body Shop opened a store at 125th street and 5th Avenue, and a Ben & Jerry's ice cream franchise employing formerly homeless people opened across the street. Neither store is extant. The development of the region would leap forward a few years later with the 1994 introduction of the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone, which brought $300 million in development funds and $250 million in tax breaks. Plans were laid for shopping malls, movie theaters, and museums. However, these plans were nearly derailed by 1995 attack on Freddy's Fashion Mart which killed 8 people. These riots did not resemble their predecessors and were organized by black activists against Jewish shop owners on 125th street. Five years later, the revitalization of 125th Street resumed, with the construction of a Starbucks outlet backed in part by Magic Johnson (1999), the first supermarket in Harlem in 30 years, the Harlem USA retail complex, which included the first first-run movie theater in many years (2000), and a new home for the Studio Museum in Harlem (2001). In the same year, former president Bill Clinton took office space in Harlem, at 55 West 125th Street. In 2002, a large retail and office complex called Harlem Center was completed at the corner of Lenox and 125th. There has been extensive new construction and rehabilitation of older buildings in the years since. After years of false starts, Harlem began to see rapid gentrification in the late 1990s. This was driven by changing federal and city policies, including fierce crime fighting and a concerted effort to develop the retail corridor on 125th Street. The number of housing units in Harlem increased by 14% between 1990 and 2000, and the rate of increase has been much more rapid in recent years. Property values in Central Harlem increased nearly 300% during the 1990s, while the rest of New York City saw only a 12% increase. Even empty shells of buildings in the neighborhood were routinely selling for nearly $1,000,000 each as of 2007. In January 2010, "The New York Times" reported that in "Greater Harlem", which they defined as running from the East River to the Hudson River, from 96th Street to 155th Street, blacks ceased to be a majority of the population in 1998, with the change largely attributable to the rapid arrival of new white and Hispanic residents. The paper reported that the population of the area had grown more since 2000 than in any decade since the 1940s. Median housing prices dropped farther in Harlem than in the rest of Manhattan during the real estate crash of 2008, but recovered more rapidly as well. The neighborhood's changes have provoked some discontent. James David Manning, pastor of the ATLAH World Missionary Church on Lenox Avenue, has received press for declaring a boycott on all Harlem shops, restaurants, other businesses, and churches other than his own. He believes that this will cause an economic crash that will drive out white residents and drop property values to a level his supporters can afford. There have been rallies against gentrification. On March 12, 2014, two buildings in East Harlem were destroyed in a gas explosion. By the mid-2010s, Harlem was less than 40% Black, and the white and Asian population was increasing greatly. The COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, in 2020, resulted in an influx of white residents from Midtown

indeed, abandoned hollows

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6923557

National Federation of the Blind v. Target Corporation, 452 F. Supp. 2d 946 (N.D. Cal. 2006), was a class action lawsuit in the United States that was filed on February 7, 2006 in the Superior Court of California for the County of Alameda, and subsequently moved to federal court (the district court for the northern district of California). The case challenged whether the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, specifically Title III's provisions prohibiting discrimination by "places of public accommodation" (42 U.S.C. 12181 et seq) apply to websites and/ or the Internet, or are restricted to physical places. The plaintiff, National Federation of the Blind (NFB), sued Target Corporation, a national retail chain, claiming that blind people were unable to access much of the information on the defendant's website, nor purchase anything from its website independently. In August 2008, the NFB and Target reached a class action settlement. Title III of the ADA and Public Accommodations. The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law in 1990 with the intent of eliminating discrimination on the basis of disability. Some of the protections listed in the ADA for people with disabilities include the rights to equal places of public accommodations as non disabled people. Each title of the ADA provides people with disabilities different protections, Title III of the ADA is specifically designed to forbid “discrimination against persons on the basis of disability in the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of any place of public accommodation by any person who owns, leases (or leases to), or operates a place of public accommodation.” The ADA defines “places of public accommodations” as a place that is operated by a private entity which is categorized into twelve groups. Some of these categories cover public entities such as restaurants, parks, hospitals, museums, offices, theaters, hotels and stores. With the Americans with Disabilities Act being enacted before the internet existed, the term “public accommodation” has been historically interpreted as a physical place. The ADA does not clearly address accessibility to the internet for people with disabilities, along with not defining “public accommodations” as either a physical facility or place. Both the statue and the implementing regulations of Title III by the Department of Justice do not mention the internet. From Congress' broad definition of “public accommodations” and with the internet being a new concept, issues on accessibility to the internet have become controversial. With little clarity from congress, and  a lack of case law analyzing internet accessibility issues, has caused the accessibility to the internet to remain an unresolved issue. National Federation of the Blind v. Target has become one of the most recent court cases that has addressed and analyzed this issue to give more clarity. Pre-trial negotiations and filing. A series of unsuccessful negotiations were commenced between the NFB and Target Corporation in May 2005, which continued until January 2006. In May 2005, the NFB wrote to Target, asking for it to make its website accessible to people who are blind. The NFB requested that Target optimize its website accessibility for the blind by adopting standards promulgated by the World Wide Web Consortium, including the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines or the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board's Section 508 Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 standards, specifically encouraging Target to adopt the alt attribute for clickable images featured on the website. In its petition, NFB alleged that in one instance, when a blind user visiting this website selected an image of a Dyson vacuum cleaner using his or her tab key, the voice synthesizer on the computer would say "Link GP browse dot HTML reference zero six zero six one eight nine six three eight one eight zero seven two nine seven three five 12 million 957 thousand 121" instead of a useful description of the image. The NFB also claimed that the site lacked image maps and other accommodations, which prevented legally blind individuals from navigating through the website, and that the design of the online checkout pages prevented users with visual disabilities from being able to determine where the mouse pointer was on the screen. On February 7, 2006, the NFB filed a civil lawsuit against Target Corporation in the Superior Court of California for the County of Alameda, alleging that the defendant corporations consumer website operated in violation of the California Unruh Civil Rights Act, the California Disabled Persons Act (Civil Code Sections 54 – 55.32), and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Along with the NFB, the National Federation of the Blind of California (NFB-CA) and Bruce Sexton, a blind individual who represented himself and his own experiences in the case as well as "all others similarly situated," filed the lawsuit as plaintiffs. Motions. Following a successful motion for removal of the case to federal court on March 6, 2006, a subsequent motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim was filed by Target Corporation in defense of the allegations. In its motion to dismiss, Target Corporation argued that the applicable civil rights laws mandated that only retail stores must provide accessibility accommodations to disabled persons, and thus that dismissal should be granted for failure to state a valid claim against its online activities. Target argued that the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 was intended to apply exclusively to physical accommodations instead of cyberspace, and that such application of the California acts on accessibility would violate the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution. Holding. On September 7, 2006, the court ordered that a retailer may be sued if its website is inaccessible to the blind. In the court's opinion, Judge Marilyn Hall Patel explained that the order of the court was based upon "42 U.S. Code § 12182", the prohibition of discrimination by public accommodations clause of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, which prohibits discrimination in the "enjoyment of goods, services, facilities or privileges." On October 2, 2007, the U.S. Federal District Court for the Northern District of California certified a nationwide class action pursuit against Target Corporation consisting of all legally blind individuals in the United States who had attempted to access Target.com and as a result were denied access to the enjoyment of goods and services offered in the defendant's stores. The order furthered certified a California subclass, which included all legally blind individuals in California who attempted to access Target.com on behalf of blind Internet customers. The court previously denied Target's motion to dismiss and upheld NFB's argument that websites like Target.com must be accessible to the blind under both California law and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Settlement and award. In August 2008, the parties reached a civil action settlement. As stipulated in the settlement agreement, "there is no admission or concession by Target, direct or indirect, express or implied, that Target.com is any way inaccessible or that Target has violated the Unruh Civil Rights Act, California Civil Code §§ 51 "et seq"., the Disabled Persons Act, California Civil Code §§ 54 "et seq.," the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12181 "et seq. ", or any other federal, state, or local law, regulation, order, or rule." The three-year term agreement stated that Target would pay $6 million to the California settlement class for damages. This payment is not inclusive of attorney's fees, which Target also agreed to pay. Additionally, the agreement stipulated conditions in which Target would work with the NFB to ensure equal accessibility standards of Target.com. This would require NFB certification, NFB monitoring, NFB training, and guest feedback. Any future disputes involving the agreement were required to be resolved through the order of meeting and conferral, then mediation, and finally submission to U.S. magistrate judge, if a resolution could not be reached. On August 3, 2009, Judge Patel awarded $3.7 million in attorney's fees and costs to the plaintiffs. The court substantiated the award by declaring that the "plaintiffs have broken new ground in an important area of law" and noting that the "litigation [extended] important areas of disability law into an emerging form of electronic commerce that promises to grow in importance." Aftermath. The intent of the court order was to certify that certain online retailers may be required to provide access to the disabled. Target issued a response by claiming "We believe our Web site complies with all applicable laws and are committed to vigorously defending this case. We will continue to implement technology that increases the usability of our Web site for all our guests, including those with disabilities." On February 9th, 2010, the NFB, a national organization which advocates for the accessibility of the internet by persons suffering from partial or total blindness, awarded the Gold Level NFB-NVA Certification to Target.com. The NFB and Target have established a continued partnership to help ensure equal access is given to Target.com products and information to blind consumers and the NFB commended Target as a leader in web accessibility. On June 2nd, 2016 Target and the NFB entered into an agreement designating Target as a Strategic Nonvisual Access Partner of the NFB.

brick-and-mortar facility