Design and development.

The aircraft was designed and built by a team led by Paul B. MacCready, a noted American aeronautics engineer, designer, and world soaring champion. "Gossamer Albatross" was his second human-powered aircraft, the first being the "Gossamer Condor", which had won the first Kremer prize on August 23, 1977, by completing a -long figure-eight course. The second Kremer challenge was then announced as a flight across the English Channel recalling Louis Blériot's crossing of 1909.  The aircraft is of "canard" configuration, using a large horizontal stabilizer forward of the wing in a manner similar to the Wright brothers' successful "Wright Flyer" aircraft and powered using pedals to drive a large, two-bladed propeller. The "Gossamer Albatross" was constructed using a carbon fiber frame, with the ribs of the wings made with expanded polystyrene; the entire structure was then wrapped in a thin, transparent plastic (mylar PET film). The empty mass of the structure was only, although the gross mass for the Channel flight was almost. To maintain the craft in the air, it was designed with very long, tapering wings (high aspect ratio), like those of a glider, allowing the flight to be undertaken with a minimum of power. In still air, the required power was on the order of, though even mild turbulence made this figure rise rapidly.

The crossing.

Just before 6 am on June 12, 1979, amateur cyclist and pilot Bryan Allen, powered the "Albatross" to the rehearsed speed of 75 revolutions per minute and took off from a point near Folkestone, England. The Channel conditions and lack of wind were ideal for the crossing.  However, issues soon started to affect the aircraft and pilot. Allen's radio failed for a while and he was only able to communicate with the accompanying boats by hand and head movements. Next, Allen's water supply had been estimated for a two-hour flight, but headwinds delayed the crossing and his supply ran out. Without adequate water, Allen suffered from dehydration and leg cramps.  With increasing headwinds, concern grew that the flight would have to be called off. With the coast of France still unseen, an accompanying boat maneuvered in front of the "Albatross" to hook it to safety. However, for the hooking procedure, Allen had gone a little higher and found less air turbulence, so he continued to pedal the aircraft and see if progress could be made. With a calming surface wind, Allen continued, and landed on a beach at Cape Gris-Nez in France. Allen completed the crossing in 2 hours and 49 minutes, achieving a top speed of and an average altitude of.

Versions.

MacCready's team built two Albatrosses; the back-up plane was jointly tested as part of the NASA Langley/Dryden flight research program in 1980 and was also flown inside the Houston Astrodome, the first ever controlled indoor flight by a human-powered aircraft. The "Gossamer Albatross II" is currently on display at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington.  Alistair Cooke devoted some of his "Letter From America" broadcast of 15/17 Jun 1979 to Allen's achievement.

Prizes.

For his work on the "Gossamer Albatross", MacCready was later awarded the Collier Trophy.

The Gossamer Albatross is a human-powered aircraft built by American aeronautical engineer Dr. Paul B. MacCready's company AeroVironment. On June 12, 1979, it completed a successful crossing of the English Channel to win the second £100,000 (£ today) Kremer prize.


Overview.

When an amplifier is pushed to create a signal with more power than its power supply can produce, it will amplify the signal only up to its maximum capacity, at which point the signal can be amplified no further. As the signal simply "cuts" or "clips" at the maximum capacity of the amplifier, the signal is said to be "clipping". The extra signal which is beyond the capability of the amplifier is simply cut off, resulting in a sine wave becoming a distorted square-wave-type waveform.  Amplifiers have voltage, current and thermal limits. Clipping may occur due to limitations in the power supply or the output stage. Some amplifiers are able to deliver peak power without clipping for short durations before energy stored in the power supply is depleted or the amplifier begins to overheat.

Effects.

The additional high frequency energy in the harmonics generated by an amplifier operating in clipping can damage the tweeter in a connected loudspeaker via overheating.  Clipping can occur within a system as processing (e.g. an all-pass filter) can change the phase relationship between spectral components of a signal in such a way as to create excessive peak outputs. The excessive peaks may become clipped even though the system can play any simple sine wave signals of the same level without clipping.  Electric guitarists frequently and intentionally overdrive their guitar amplifiers to cause clipping and other distortion in order to get a desired sound.

Digital clipping.

In digital signal processing, clipping occurs when the signal is restricted by the range of a chosen representation. For example, in a system using 16-bit signed integers, 32767 is the largest positive value that can be represented. If, during processing, the amplitude of the signal is doubled, sample values of, for instance, 32000 should become 64000, but instead cause an integer overflow and saturate to the maximum, 32767. Clipping is preferable to the alternative in digital systems—wrapping—which occurs if the digital processor is allowed to overflow, ignoring the most significant bits of the magnitude, and sometimes even the sign of the sample value, resulting in gross distortion of the signal.

Avoiding clipping.

The simplest way to avoid clipping is to reduce the signal level. Alternatively the system can be improved to support higher signal level without clipping. Some audiophiles will use amplifiers that are rated for power outputs over twice the speaker's ratings. A limiter can be used to dynamically bring the levels of the loud parts of a signal down (for example, bass and snare drums).  Many amplifier designers have incorporated circuits to prevent clipping. The simplest circuits act like a fast limiter, which engages about one decibel before the clipping point. A more complex circuit, called "soft-clip", has been used from the 1980s onward to limit the signal at the input stage. The soft-clip feature begins to engage prior to clipping, for instance starting at 10 dB below maximum output power. The output waveform retains a rounded characteristic even in the presence of an overload input signal as much as 10 dB higher than maximum specified.

Repairing a clipped signal.

It is preferable to avoid clipping, but if a recording has clipped, and cannot be re-recorded, repair is an option. The goal of repair is to make up a plausible replacement for the clipped part of the signal.  Complex hard-clipped signals cannot be restored to their original state because the information contained in the peaks that are clipped is completely lost. Soft-clipped signals can be restored to their original state to within a case-dependent tolerance because no part of the original signal is completely lost. In this case, the degree of information loss is proportional to the degree of compression caused by the clipping. Lightly clipped bandwidth-limited signals that are highly oversampled have the potential for perfect repair.  Several methods can partially restore a clipped signal. Once the clipped portion is known, one can attempt partial recovery. One such method is interpolation or extrapolation of known samples. Advanced implementations may use cubic splines to attempt to restore a continuously differentiable signal. While these reconstructions are only an approximation of the original, the subjective quality may be improved. Other methods include copying the signal directly from one stereo channel to another, as it may be the case that only one channel is clipped.  Several software solutions of varying results and methods exist to repair clipping: CuteStudio Declip, Sony Sound Forge, iZotope Rx3 and Rx7, Adobe Audition, Nero AG Wave Editor, Stereo Tool, declipping solutions from CEDAR Audio, and Audacity plugins such as Clip Fix.

Sources.

In analog audio equipment, there are several causes of clipping:

Detection.

Clipping in a circuit can be detected by comparing the original input signal with an output signal with adjustment for applied gain. For instance, if a circuit has 10 dB of applied gain, it can be tested for clipping by attenuating the output signal by 10 dB and comparing it to the input signal. The difference between the two signals can be used to illuminate clipping detection indicators and can be used to decrease the gain of a preceding circuit to manage clipping.

Clipping is a form of waveform distortion that occurs when an amplifier is overdriven and attempts to deliver an output voltage or current beyond its maximum capability. Driving an amplifier into clipping may cause it to output power in excess of its power rating.


Early life.

Dragutin Dimitrijević was born in Belgrade, Principality of Serbia in the summer of 1876 to an Aromanian family. His father and two brothers were often away working as tinsmiths and he grew up with his two older sisters in Niš. At the age of nine, his father died.  When Dimitrijević's oldest sister married, the family moved back to Belgrade where, at the age of 16, Dimitrijević entered the Belgrade Military Academy as a cadet in 1892. His fellow cadets called him Apis, which means "The Bull", due to his strong physique and energy. Dimitrijević finished the Academy's lower school sixth in his class in 1896 and two years later enrolled in the higher school, where he was assigned to the General Staff of the Serbian Army upon graduation.

May Coup.

Captain Dimitrijević and a group of junior officers planned the assassination of the King of Serbia. On 11 June 1903, the group stormed the royal palace and killed both King Alexander and his wife Queen Draga. During the attack, Dimitrijević was shot three times and the bullets were never removed from his body.  The Serbian parliament described Dimitrijević as "the saviour of the fatherland" and he was appointed Professor of Tactics at the Military Academy. He visited Germany and Russia where he studied the latest military ideas. During the Balkan Wars that took place in 1912 and 1913, Dimitrijević's military planning helped the Serbian Army achieve several important victories.  Dimitrijević's main concern was what he viewed as the liberation of all South Slavs, especially Serbs, from Austria-Hungary. Although Serbia was already an independent country, many Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Vojvodina were still under Austro-Hungarian rule. Dimitrijević, who used the code name "Apis", became leader of the secret Black Hand group. Dimitrijević had his men disguised as Albanians while committing political murders.

Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

In 1911, Dimitrijević organised an attempt to assassinate the Austrian Emperor Franz Josef. When this failed, Dimitrijević turned his attention to the heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Dimitrijević was concerned about Ferdinand's plans to grant concessions to the South Slavs, fearing that, if this happened, a unified South Slavic state under Serbian leadership would be more difficult to achieve.  Unknown to Dimitrijević, Major Vojislav Tankosić was informing Nikola Pašić, the prime minister of Serbia about the plot. Although Pašić supported the main objectives of the Black Hand group, he did not want the assassination to take place, as he feared it would lead to a war with Austria-Hungary. He therefore gave instructions for the arrest of the three young would-be-assassins when they attempted to leave the country. However, his orders were not implemented, and the three men arrived in what was then known as the Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where they joined forces with fellow conspirators, Veljko and Vaso Čubrilović, Muhamed Mehmedbašić, Danilo Ilić, Cvjetko Popović and Miško Jovanović.  After the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife on 28 June 1914, several Black Hand members, under interrogation by the Austrian police and investigative magistrates, admitted that three men in Serbia (Dimitrijević, Milan Ciganović, and Major Voja Tankosić) had organised the assassination.  On 23 July 1914, the Austro-Hungarian government sent its July Ultimatum to the Serbian government with a lengthy list of ten different demands. In his response on 25 July 1914, Serbian prime minister Nikola Pašić, accepted all the points of the ultimatum except point #6, demanding Serbia to allow an Austrian delegation to participate in a criminal investigation against those participants in the conspiracy that were in Serbia. Three days later the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on Serbia.  In 1916, Dimitrijević was promoted to colonel.

Execution.

Nikola Pašić decided to get rid of the most prominent members of the Black Hand movement, by then officially disbanded. Dimitrijević and several of his military colleagues were arrested in December 1916, and tried on charges blaming them with attempted assassination of regent Aleksandar I Karađorđević in September 1916. On 23 May 1917, following the "Salonika Trial", Dimitrijević was found guilty of treason and sentenced to death. A month later, on 24 June 1917, he was executed by firing squad.  In 1953, Dimitrijević and his co-defendants were all posthumously retried by the Supreme Court of Serbia and found not guilty, because there was no proof for their alleged participation in the assassination plot.

Dragutin Dimitrijević (; 17 August 1876 – 24 June 1917), known as Apis (Апис), was a Serbian colonel. He was a leading member of the military group that organized the 1903 overthrow of the Serbian government, which included the assassination of Alexander I of Serbia


History.

The first rapid transit railway service in Barcelona was founded in 1863 by the private company "Ferrocarril de Sarrià a Barcelona" ("Railway from Sarrià to Barcelona", after 1916 Sarrià joined the municipality of Barcelona). Later this line evolved in what now is basically the current L6 metro service. This railway system, now part of the Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya company, was later inspired by the London Underground naming style having long names for the lines ("Sarrià line", "Balmes line"...).  Much later, in the 1920s, a second and a third rapid transit railway systems were founded with the construction of the "Gran Metro" between Lesseps and the Plaça de Catalunya (part of the modern L3) and, two years later, the "Metro Transversal" (now part of L1). This third one was built between the Plaça de Catalunya and la Bordeta to link the city centre with the Plaça d'Espanya and Montjuïc, the site of the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition. These two later rapid transit companies contrasted with the first one in being inspired by the "Métropolitain de Paris" (from where the word "metro" comes).  Today the network consists of 12 lines managed by 2 different operators: Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB) and Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya (FGC, or Catalan Government Railways). Fares and nomenclature are controlled by the Autoritat del Transport Metropolità, a citywide system that also includes local and regional buses, tramways and some commuter and regional train services.

Network.

The total length of the network since 1/2/2020 is 166 km. and 189 stations, including TMB+FGC+Montjuic funicular.  The major network, operated by TMB, consists of eight lines, numbered L1 to L5 and L9 to L11 (which are distinguished on network maps by different colours), covering of route and 141 stations.  FGC lines are numbered L6, L7, L8 and L12. These lines, except all L12 and part of L7, share tracks with commuter rail lines.  The Barcelona Metro lines do not have a name of their own but are generally referred to by their colour or by the number and the names of their termini.

Lines.

The lines run as follows:  In addition to those, Renfe and FGC trains and the increasingly important Trambaix and Trambesòs routes and stations are displayed on most recent maps, including the info maps in the metro stations, all in a single variety of dark green.

L9 and L10.

Construction work is taking place currently on L9/L10, which will run from Badalona and Santa Coloma de Gramenet to the Zona Franca district and El Prat International Airport. The lines, which share a central section between Bon Pastor and Torrassa (L1), will be the longest automated metro line in Europe, at, and will have 52 stations. The project was approved in 2000 but has been challenged by some technical difficulties and some of their sections are pending further geological analysis. The first section of Line 9 that runs between La Sagrera and Can Zam opened in 2009, and by June 2010 eleven new stations on the new Lines L9 and L10 had opened., the 15-station, south section of Line L9 between Zona Universitària and the airport opened.

Tickets and pricing.

In addition to the one-way ticket there are a number of other tickets and cards. All of the Autoritat del Transport Metropolità (ATM) transport cards are valid and can be used in the Barcelona Metro. These are:  All of the metro stations are within fare zone 1.

Stations.

At the end of 2018, there are currently 187 operational stations in the Barcelona Metro, served by the 12 lines in current use. Average distance between 2 stations is 807.50 metres.  An overwhelming majority of stations in the network lack related buildings or structures aboveground, mostly consisting of an access with stairs, escalators or elevators. The official TMB metro indicator, a red rhombus with a M inside, remains unused by FGC lines, which use their company logo and a different rhombus-shaped logo (actually rather similar to the one used inside the Madrid Metro) inside stations. Below ground their decoration is remarkably sober, with the exception of all the new stations.

Disused stations.

A number of stations in the network have been closed, were never inaugurated, or have been moved to a nearby location. See the main article for more details.

Accessibility.

Accessibility for wheelchairs and for passengers with pushchairs is being improved but the metro system is not yet fully accessible. A project of improvements is gradually adding more lifts from street level to ticket office level and then from ticket office level to the platforms, though some stations remain without access. 17 of 180 are not fully accessible as of 2016. See Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona for more information on which stations are currently accessible. As of 2018, only 9 stations are not accessible for wheelchair users. These are: Espanya, Plaça de Sants, Urquinaona, Clot, Vallcarca, Maragall, Verdaguer, Ciutadella|Vila Olímpica, Virrei Amat. Around June 2018, accessibility works at Jaume I started. On December 28, construction finished lowering the number of inaccessible stations to 9.

Transportation in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona.

The Barcelona Metro is part of a larger transportation network, regulated and fare-integrated by Autoritat del Transport Metropolità.  Among these services, there are two large systems which operate both inside and outside the city limits of Barcelona: the commuter train lines operated by Renfe, amalgamated in the Rodalies Barcelona, or Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya lines which start in the metro lines the company operates (L6, L7 and L8) and which become a fully-fledged railway system which serves most of the metropolitan area: list of FGC lines. FGC is developing Sabadell Metro and Terrassa Metro as extensions of its network in the large cities of Sabadell and Terrassa respectively.

The Barcelona Metro (Catalan and Spanish: ) is an extensive network of rapid transit electrified railway lines that run mostly underground in central Barcelona and into the city's suburbs. It is part of the larger public transport system of Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia, Spain with unified fares under the (ATM) scheme. As of 2014, the network is operated by two separate companies: (TMB) and (FGC). It is made up of 12 lines, combining the lines owned by the two companies. Two lines, L9 and L10 are being built at present, with both lines having different sections of each opened between 2009 and 2016. They are due to be fully completed in 2026. Three lines on the network have opened as automatic train operation/driverless vehicle systems since 2009: Line 11, Line 9 and Line 10, in chronological order. The network length is 166 kilometres, with 189 stations, as of June 2019.


Life and work.

The son of a small farmer, Gossec was born at the village of, then a French exclave in the Austrian Netherlands, now in Belgium. Showing an early taste for music, he became a choir-boy in Antwerp. He went to Paris in 1751 and was taken on by the composer Jean-Philippe Rameau. He followed Rameau as the conductor of a private orchestra kept by the "fermier général" Le Riche de La Poupelinière, a wealthy amateur and patron of music. Gradually he became determined to do something to revive the study of instrumental music in France.  Gossec's own first symphony was performed in 1754, and as conductor to the Prince de Condé's orchestra he produced several operas and other compositions of his own. He imposed his influence on French music with remarkable success. His "Requiem" premiered in 1760, a ninety-minute piece which made him famous overnight. Years later, in 1778, Mozart visited Gossec during a trip to Paris, and described him in a letter to his father as "a very good friend and a very dry man".  Gossec founded the "Concert des Amateurs" in 1769 and in 1773 he reorganised the "Concert Spirituel" together with Simon Leduc and Pierre Gaviniès. In this concert series he conducted his own symphonies as well as those by his contemporaries, particularly works by Joseph Haydn, whose music had become increasingly popular in Paris, finally even superseding Gossec's symphonic work.  In the 1780s Gossec's symphonic output decreased as he began concentrating on operas. He organized the "École de Chant" in 1784, together with Etienne Méhul, was conductor of the band of the "Garde Nationale" of the French Revolution, and was appointed (with Méhul and Luigi Cherubini) inspector of the "Conservatoire de Musique" at its creation in 1795. He was an original member of the "Institut" and a "chevalier" of the Legion of Honour. In 1815, after the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, the Conservatoire was closed for some time by Louis XVIII, and the eighty-one-year-old Gossec had to retire. Until 1817 he worked on his last compositions, including a third "Te Deum", and was supported by a pension granted by the Conservatoire.  He died in the Parisian suburb of Passy. The funeral service was attended by former colleagues, including Cherubini, at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. His grave is near those of Méhul and Grétry.  Some of his techniques anticipated the innovations of the Romantic era: he scored his "Te Deum" for 1200 singers and 300 wind instruments, and several oratorios require the physical separation of multiple choirs, including invisible ones behind the stage. He wrote several works in honor of the French revolution, including "Le Triomphe de la République", and "L'Offrande à la Liberté".  Gossec's "Gavotte" remains familiar in popular culture because Carl Stalling and Charles M. Jones used arrangements of it in several Warner Brothers cartoons. Arguably the most notable of these is Porky Pig’s dance to an uncredited version of Gossec’s Gavotte in Jones’ ‘’Porky’s Cafe’’ (1942).  Gossec was little known outside France, and his own numerous compositions, sacred and secular, were overshadowed by those of more famous composers; but he was an inspiration to many, and powerfully stimulated the revival of instrumental music.

François-Joseph Gossec (17 January 1734 – 16 February 1829) was a French composer of operas, string quartets, symphonies, and choral works.


Student, educator and poet.

Aimé Césaire was born in Basse-Pointe, Martinique, France, in 1913. His father was a tax inspector and his mother was a dressmaker. He was a lower class citizen but still learned to read and write. His family moved to the capital of Martinique, Fort-de-France, in order for Césaire to attend the only secondary school on the island, Lycée Schoelcher. He considered himself of Igbo descent from Nigeria, and considered his first name "Aimé" a retention of an Igbo name; though the name is of French origin, ultimately from the Old French word "amée", meaning beloved, its pronunciation is similar to the Igbo "eme", which forms the basis for many Igbo given names. Césaire traveled to Paris to attend the Lycée Louis-le-Grand on an educational scholarship. In Paris, he passed the entrance exam for the École Normale Supérieure in 1935 and created the literary review "L'Étudiant noir" ("The Black Student") with Léopold Sédar Senghor and Léon Damas. Upon returning home to Martinique in 1936, Césaire began work on his long poem "Cahier d'un retour au pays natal (Notebook of a Return to the Native Land)", a vivid and powerful depiction of the ambiguities of Caribbean life and culture in the New World.  Césaire married fellow Martinican student Suzanne Roussi in 1937. Together they moved back to Martinique in 1939 with their young son. Césaire became a teacher at the Lycée Schoelcher in Fort-de-France, where he taught Frantz Fanon, becoming a great influence for Fanon as both a mentor and contemporary. Césaire also served as an inspiration for, but did not teach, writer Édouard Glissant.

World War II.

The years of World War II were ones of great intellectual activity for the Césaires. In 1941, Aimé Césaire and Suzanne Roussi founded the literary review "Tropiques", with the help of other Martinican intellectuals such as René Ménil and Aristide Maugée, in order to challenge the cultural status quo and alienation that characterized Martinican identity at the time. Césaire's many run-ins with censorship did not deter him, however, from being an outspoken defendant of Martinican identity. He also became close to French surrealist poet André Breton, who spent time in Martinique during the war. (The two had met in 1940, and Breton later would champion Cesaire's work.)  In 1947, his book-length poem "Cahier d'un retour au pays natal", which had first appeared in the Parisian periodical "Volontés" in 1939 after rejection by a French book publisher, was published. The book mixes poetry and prose to express Césaire's thoughts on the cultural identity of black Africans in a colonial setting. Breton contributed a laudatory introduction to this 1947 edition, saying that the "poem is nothing less than the greatest lyrical monument of our times." When asked by Rene Depestres about his writing style, Aimé Césaire replied by saying that "Surrealism provided me with what I had been confusedly searching for."

Political career.

In 1945, with the support of the French Communist Party (PCF), Césaire was elected mayor of Fort-de-France and deputy to the French National Assembly for Martinique. He was one of the principal drafters of the 1946 law on departmentalizing former colonies, a role for which pro-independence politicians have often criticized him.  Like many left-wing intellectuals in 1930s and 1940s France, Césaire looked toward the Soviet Union as a source of progress, virtue, and human rights. He later grew disillusioned with the Soviet Union after the 1956 suppression of the Hungarian revolution. He announced his resignation from the PCF in a text entitled "Lettre à Maurice Thorez" (Letter to Maurice Thorez). In 1958 Césaire founded the Parti Progressiste Martiniquais.  His writings during this period reflect his passion for civic and social engagement. He wrote "Discours sur le colonialisme" ("Discourse on Colonialism"), a denunciation of European colonial racism, decadence, and hypocrisy that was republished in the French review "Présence Africaine" in 1955 (English translation 1957). In 1960, he published "Toussaint Louverture", based on the life of the Haitian revolutionary. In 1969, he published the first version of "Une Tempête", a radical adaptation of Shakespeare's play "The Tempest" for a black audience.  Césaire served as President of the Regional Council of Martinique from 1983 to 1988. He retired from politics in 2001.

Later life.

In 2006, he refused to meet the leader of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), Nicolas Sarkozy, a probable contender at the time for the 2007 presidential election, because the UMP had voted for the 2005 French law on colonialism. This law required teachers and textbooks to "acknowledge and recognize in particular the positive role of the French presence abroad, especially in North Africa", a law considered by many as a eulogy to colonialism and French actions during the Algerian War. President Jacques Chirac finally had the controversial law repealed.  On 9 April 2008, Césaire had serious heart troubles and was admitted to Pierre Zobda Quitman hospital in Fort-de-France. He died on 17 April 2008.  Césaire was accorded the honor of a state funeral, held at the Stade de Dillon in Fort-de-France on 20 April. French President Nicolas Sarkozy was present but did not make a speech. Pierre Aliker, who served for many years as deputy mayor under Césaire, gave the funeral oration.

Legacy.

Martinique's airport at Le Lamentin was renamed Martinique Aimé Césaire International Airport on 15 January 2007. A national commemoration ceremony was held on 6 April 2011, as a plaque in Césaire's name was inaugurated in the Panthéon in Paris.

Works.

Each year links to its corresponding "[year] in poetry" article for poetry, or "[year] in literature" article for other works:

Other writings.

Discourse on Colonialism.

Césaire's "Discourse on Colonialism" challenges the narrative of the colonizer and the colonized. This text criticizes the hypocrisy of justifying colonization with the equation "Christianity=civilized, paganism=savagery" comparing white colonizers to "savages". Césaire writes that "no one colonizes innocently, that no one colonizes with impunity either" concluding that "a nation which colonizes, that a civilization which justifies colonization - and therefore force - is already a sick civilization". He condemns the colonizers, saying that though the men may not be inherently bad, the practice of colonization ruins them.  Césaire continues to deconstruct the colonizer, and ultimately concludes that by colonizing those white men often lose touch with who they were, and become brutalized into hidden instincts that result in the rape, torture, and race hatred that they put onto the people they colonize. He also examines the effects colonialism has on the colonized, stating that "colonization = 'thing-ification'", where because the colonizers are able to "other" the colonized, they can justify the means by which they colonize.  The text also continuously references Nazism, blaming the barbarism of colonialism and how whitewashed and accepted the tradition, for Hitler's rise to power. He says that Hitler lives within and is the demon of "the very distinguished, very humanistic, very Christian bourgeois of the twentieth century."  Césaire originally wrote his text in French in 1950, but later worked with Joan Pinkham to translate it to English. The translated version was published in 1972.

Aimé Fernand David Césaire (; ; 26 June 1913 – 17 April 2008) was a Francophone and French poet, an Afro-Caribbean author and politician from the region of Martinique. He was "one of the founders of the négritude movement in Francophone literature". His works included "Une Tempête", a response to Shakespeare's play "The Tempest", and "Discours sur le colonialisme" ("Discourse on Colonialism"), an essay describing the strife between the colonizers and the colonized. His works have been translated into many languages.


Life.

Born in Prague, Bohemia to Emil and Alice Adler, Hans Günther Adler was a Jew, though not devout. After his graduation in 1935 from Charles University, where he studied music and literature, arts and sciences, he worked as a secretary and teacher at the Urania, a pedagogical institute. This also involved him in some radio broadcasting.  In 1941 he was sent to a Jewish labour camp where he worked until shortly before his deportation to Theresienstadt with his family on February 8, 1942. Adler was to spend two and a half years in Theresienstadt with his family before being deported to Auschwitz. At Theresienstadt, Adler avoided doing work that might implicate him in the running of the ghetto and did only manual work, such as room duty and building. His wife, who was a medical doctor and chemist, led the medical central bureau. On Oct 14, 1944 he arrived with his wife and her mother at Auschwitz.  Both women were put in the gas chambers that day. Gertrud could have survived, but refused to leave her mother. Adler was to lose his mother and father and sixteen members of his family to the Holocaust.  On October 28, 1944, Adler was deported to Niederoschel, a subdivision of Buchenwald, and in 1945, to Langenstein, another subdivision of Buchenwald. On April 13, 1945 he was free. From July and December of that year he was near Prague, helping Przemysl Pitter to care for children who had survived the war, both Jewish and non-Jewish.  From October 1945 until February 1947, Adler worked in the Jewish Museum in Prague, where he devoted himself chiefly to the building up of the archives about the times of persecution and the Theresienstadt camp. At this time he was also involved in accumulating the documents from the camp, possibly with the intention of bringing them to Palestine. Although some material was brought to Jerusalem, for the most part this project was not completed.  In June 1946 he lost his Сzechoslovakian citizenship because of his German mother tongue. To escape the impending Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia, Adler fled to London in February 1947, where he married a close friend from Prague, the sculptor Bettina Gross, with whom he fathered his only child Jeremy Adler.  He then became a freelance writer and scholar and went on to author 26 books on history, sociology and philosophy as well as poetry, and including several autobiographical works, notably nonfiction and fictional works on the Holocaust. Writing in the "Financial Times", Simon Schama says that Adler's work deserves a place beside other twentieth century witnesses of the concentration camps such as Primo Levi and Solzhenitsyn.  Adler's first major work was the study of the ghetto Theresienstadt, "Theresienstadt 1941-1945. Das Antlitz einer Zwangsgemeinschaft" (Theresienstadt 1941-1945. The Face of an Enforced Community), first published in 1955 and in an enlarged edition in 1960. The book was an international success. As the first scholarly monograph devoted to a single camp it became one of the foundational works of Holocaust Studies. It is still the most detailed account of any single concentration camp. Adler's first fiction novel was "Panorama" (1968). Another novel was "The Journey", described as "Holocaust modernism" in a 2009 review in the New York Times. Three of Adler's novels, "The Journey", "Panorama" and "The Wall", have been translated into English by Peter Filkins. An english translation of his monograph about Theresienstadt was published in 2017.

Prizes.

He received the Leo Baeck Prize in 1958, the Prix Charles Veillon in 1969 for Panorama; the Buber-Rosenzweig-Medal in 1974 and an honorary Ph.D. from the Pedagogical University of Berlin in 1980. Adler died in London, England in 1988.

Hans Günther Adler (July 2, 1910, in Prague – August 21, 1988, in London), was a German language poet, novelist, scholar, and Holocaust survivor.


Early life and education.

Mikati was born on 24 November 1955 and hails from a prominent Sunni Muslim family based in Tripoli. He graduated from the American University of Beirut in 1980 with a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree. He also attended a summer school program held at Harvard and the French business school INSEAD.

Business career.

Mikati co-founded the telecommunications company Investcom with his brother Taha in 1982. He sold the company in June 2006 to South Africa's MTN Group for $5.5 billion. In April 2015, "Forbes" estimated his net worth at $3.3 billion, making him the richest man in Lebanon.

Political career.

After being appointed Minister of Public Works and Transport on 4 December 1998, Mikati was elected to the Lebanese parliament from his hometown of Tripoli in 2000, outpolling Omar Karami, who was elected from the same multimember constituency. As a parliamentarian, Mikati retained his cabinet position and developed a reputation as a moderately pro-Syrian politician with a normal relationship with Syrian president Bashar Assad. Later Mikati was made transportation minister and became an ally of then Lebanese president Emile Lahoud, supporting the extension of his term in 2004.  He was a perennial candidate for Lebanon's prime ministry since 2000, finally taking the office upon the resignation of Omar Karami on 13 April 2005. Mikati acted as a caretaker premier. He is the leader of the solidarity bloc, which has had two seats in the Lebanese parliament since 2004. He also created the centrist movement and ideology in Lebanon and the Arab world, for which he has held many international conferences in Lebanon. In the general elections of 2009, Mikati won again a seat from Tripoli, being a member of the centrist groups in the Lebanese parliament.

First premiership.

During negotiations to form a government, Mikati emerged as a consensus candidate.

Second premiership.

On 24 January 2011, the March 8 alliance, specifically Hezbollah, Michel Aoun and Walid Jumblatt, nominated Mikati to become prime minister. Mikati succeeded Saad Hariri, whose government was brought down by the resignation of ten of the alliance's ministers and one presidential appointee on 12 January 2011, resulting from the collapse of the Saudi-Syrian initiative to reach a compromise on the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. On 25 January, 68 members of the parliament of Lebanon voted in favor of nominating Mikati for Prime Minister. President of Lebanon Michel Suleiman then invited Mikati to head a new Lebanese government. The process of government formation lasted for five months due to serious disagreements between leaders. On 13 June 2011, Mikati became the Prime Minister of Lebanon for the second time.  On 13 June, Mikati announced the formation of the government and stated that it would begin by "liberating land that remains under the occupation of the Israeli enemy". On 22 March 2013, Mikati resigned from office, due to "intensifying pressure between the pro-Assad and anti-Assad camps" and the Lebanese president accepted his resignation on 23 March 2013. On 6 April 2013, Tammam Salam was tasked to form a new government.

Najib Azmi Mikati (; born 24 November 1955) is a Lebanese politician, and billionaire businessman, who served twice as the Prime Minister of Lebanon. From April 2005 to July 2005 he was Prime Minister of Lebanon in a caretaker government. On 25 January 2011, he was nominated to serve as Prime Minister by a majority of the votes in the parliamentary consultations following the 12 January fall of the Lebanese government of November 2009. The government was formed on 13 June 2011, after many delays. On 22 March 2013, Mikati submitted his resignation from office, which Lebanese president Michel Suleiman accepted on 23 March 2013.


Background.

Cujo's name was based on the alias of Willie Wolfe, one of the men responsible for orchestrating Patty Hearst's kidnapping and indoctrination into the Symbionese Liberation Army. Stephen King discusses "Cujo" in "", referring to it as a novel he "barely remembers writing at all." King wrote the book while he was on a cocaine binge. King goes on to say he likes the book and wishes he could remember enjoying the good parts as he put them on the page.  According to King, the novel was partly inspired by his trip to a mechanic during the spring of 1977. In a 2006 interview with "The Paris Review", King describes how issues with his motorcycle led him to visit an auto shop on the northern outskirts of Bridgton, Maine. He claims his motorcycle died when he arrived at the shop, and moments after, a Saint Bernard emerged from the garage, growling at him and eventually lunging for his hand. Although the mechanic stopped the dog from harming King by hitting the dog's hindquarters with a wrench, King was still startled by the encounter. This incident, as well as a story published in a Portland, Maine, newspaper about a young child who was killed by a Saint Bernard, provided inspiration for the novel. King also owned a dysfunctional Ford Pinto at the time, which is the same car model the novel's protagonist, Donna Trenton, drives to the auto garage where she encounters the rabid Cujo.

Plot.

The story takes place in the setting for many King stories: the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine. Revolving around two local families, the narrative is interspersed with vignettes from the seemingly mundane lives of various other residents. There are no chapter headings, but breaks between passages indicate when the narration switches to a different perspective.  The middle-class Trentons have recently moved to Castle Rock from New York City, bringing with them their four-year-old son, Tad. Vic Trenton discovers his wife, Donna, has recently had an affair with a tennis player named Steve Kemp. In the midst of this household tension, Vic's advertising agency, Ad Worx, is failing due to a scandal over a cereal called Red Razberry Zingers. Vic, and his business partner Roger Breakstone, are forced to travel out of town, leaving Tad and Donna at home alone.  The blue-collar Cambers, meanwhile, are longtime residents of Castle Rock. Joe is a mechanic who dominates and abuses his wife, Charity, and their ten-year-old son, Brett. Charity wins a $5,000 lottery prize and uses the proceeds to trick Joe into allowing her to take Brett on a trip to visit Charity's sister, Holly, in Connecticut. Joe acquiesces and secretly plans to use the time to take a pleasure trip to Boston with his friend and alcoholic retired vet neighbor, Gary Pervier.  While the Cambers are getting ready for their respective trips, their dog Cujo, a large good-natured Saint Bernard, chases a wild rabbit in the fields around their house and inserts his head in the entrance to a small limestone cave. A bat bites him on the nose and infects him with rabies. Charity and Brett leave town, and while they're gone, Cujo kills Gary Pervier, and eventually Joe Camber as well.  Donna, home alone with Tad, takes their failing Ford Pinto to the Cambers' for repairs. The car breaks down in Camber's dooryard, and as Donna attempts to find Joe, Cujo appears and attacks her. She climbs back in the car as Cujo starts to attack. Donna and Tad are trapped in their vehicle, the interior of which becomes increasingly hot in the summer sun. During one escape attempt, Donna is bitten in the stomach and leg, but manages to survive and escape back into the car. She plans to run for the house but abandons the idea because she fears the door will be locked and that she will be subsequently killed by Cujo, leaving her son alone.  Vic returns to Castle Rock after several failed attempts to contact Donna and learns from the police that Steve Kemp, the man with whom Donna was having an affair, is suspected of ransacking his home and possibly kidnapping Donna and Tad. To explore all leads, the state police send Castle Rock Sheriff George Bannerman out to the Cambers' house, but Cujo attacks and kills him. Donna, after witnessing the attack and realizing Tad is in danger of dying of dehydration, battles Cujo and kills him. Vic arrives on the scene with the authorities soon after, but Tad has already died from dehydration and heatstroke. Donna is rushed to the hospital, and Cujo's head is removed for a biopsy to check for rabies prior to the cremation of his remains.  The novel ends several months later with both the Trenton and Camber families trying to move on with their lives. Donna has completed her treatment for rabies and her marriage to Vic has survived. Charity gives Brett a new, vaccinated puppy named Willie. A postscript reminds the reader that Cujo was a good dog who always tried to keep his owners happy, but the ravage of rabies drove him to violence.

Critical reception.

Upon its initial release in 1981, the novel earned and maintained a high position on bestseller lists in the United States. Some critics have criticized the novel for its dismal ending. The 1983 film adaptation of the novel featured a more optimistic conclusion.

Cujo () is a 1981 psychological horror novel by American writer Stephen King about a rabid Saint Bernard. The novel won the British Fantasy Award in 1982 and was made into a film in 1983.


Input and output assumptions.

In the most general case, the input to counting sort consists of a collection of items, each of which has a non-negative integer key whose maximum value is at most. In some descriptions of counting sort, the input to be sorted is assumed to be more simply a sequence of integers itself, but this simplification does not accommodate many applications of counting sort. For instance, when used as a subroutine in radix sort, the keys for each call to counting sort are individual digits of larger item keys; it would not suffice to return only a sorted list of the key digits, separated from the items.  In applications such as in radix sort, a bound on the maximum key value will be known in advance, and can be assumed to be part of the input to the algorithm. However, if the value of is not already known then it may be computed, as a first step, by an additional loop over the data to determine the maximum key value that actually occurs within the data.  The output is an array of the items, in order by their keys. Because of the application to radix sorting, it is important for counting sort to be a stable sort: if two items have the same key as each other, they should have the same relative position in the output as they did in the input.

The algorithm.

In pseudocode, the algorithm may be expressed as:  Here codice_1 is the input array to be sorted, codice_2 returns the numeric key of each item in the input array, codice_3 is an auxiliary array used first to store the numbers of items with each key, and then (after the second loop) to store the positions where items with each key should be placed, codice_4 is the maximum value of the non-negative key values and codice_5 is the sorted output array.  In summary, the algorithm loops over the items in the first loop, computing a histogram of the number of times each key occurs within the input collection. After that, it then performs a prefix sum computation on codice_3 to determine, for each key, the position range where the items having that key should be placed in; i.e. items of key formula_1 should be placed starting in position codice_7. This is done through the second loop. Finally, it loops over the items again in the third loop, moving each item into its sorted position in the output array. The relative order of items with equal keys is preserved here; i.e., this is a.

Complexity analysis.

Because the algorithm uses only simple for loops, without recursion or subroutine calls, it is straightforward to analyze. The initialization of the count array, and the second for loop which performs a prefix sum on the count array, each iterate at most times and therefore take time. The other two for loops, and the initialization of the output array, each take time. Therefore, the time for the whole algorithm is the sum of the times for these steps,.  Because it uses arrays of length and, the total space usage of the algorithm is also. For problem instances in which the maximum key value is significantly smaller than the number of items, counting sort can be highly space-efficient, as the only storage it uses other than its input and output arrays is the Count array which uses space.

Variant algorithms.

If each item to be sorted is itself an integer, and used as key as well, then the second and third loops of counting sort can be combined; in the second loop, instead of computing the position where items with key codice_8 should be placed in the output, simply append codice_9 copies of the number codice_8 to the output.  This algorithm may also be used to eliminate duplicate keys, by replacing the codice_11 array with a bit vector that stores a codice_12 for a key that is present in the input and a codice_13 for a key that is not present. If additionally the items are the integer keys themselves, both second and third loops can be omitted entirely and the bit vector will itself serve as output, representing the values as offsets of the non-codice_13 entries, added to the range's lowest value. Thus the keys are sorted and the duplicates are eliminated in this variant just by being placed into the bit array.  For data in which the maximum key size is significantly smaller than the number of data items, counting sort may be parallelized by splitting the input into subarrays of approximately equal size, processing each subarray in parallel to generate a separate count array for each subarray, and then merging the count arrays. When used as part of a parallel radix sort algorithm, the key size (base of the radix representation) should be chosen to match the size of the split subarrays. The simplicity of the counting sort algorithm and its use of the easily parallelizable prefix sum primitive also make it usable in more fine-grained parallel algorithms.  As described, counting sort is not an in-place algorithm; even disregarding the count array, it needs separate input and output arrays. It is possible to modify the algorithm so that it places the items into sorted order within the same array that was given to it as the input, using only the count array as auxiliary storage; however, the modified in-place version of counting sort is not stable.

History.

Although radix sorting itself dates back far longer, counting sort, and its application to radix sorting, were both invented by Harold H. Seward in 1954.

In computer science, counting sort is an algorithm for sorting a collection of objects according to keys that are small integers; that is, it is an integer sorting algorithm. It operates by counting the number of objects that have each distinct key value, and using arithmetic on those counts to determine the positions of each key value in the output sequence. Its running time is linear in the number of items and the difference between the maximum and minimum key values, so it is only suitable for direct use in situations where the variation in keys is not significantly greater than the number of items. However, it is often used as a subroutine in another sorting algorithm, radix sort, that can handle larger keys more efficiently.


Early life.

Born at Pyritz (present-day Pyrzyce), Pomerania, he was apprenticed to a saddler in Stettin, but was able to secure admission to Pädagogium in Halle, and associated himself with the Janike Institute in Berlin.  The Netherlands Missionary Society sent him to Java in 1826, where he learned Chinese. Gutzlaff left the society in 1828, and went first to Singapore, then to Bangkok with Jacob Tomlin of the London Missionary Society, where he worked on a translation of the Bible into Thai. He made a brief trip to Singapore in December 1829, where he married a single English missionary, Maria Newell. The two returned to Bangkok in February 1830 where they worked on a dictionary of Cambodian and Lao. Before the work was completed, however, Maria died in childbirth, leaving a considerable inheritance. Gützlaff married again, this time to Mary Wanstall, in 1834. The second Mrs. Gützlaff ran a school and a home for the blind in Macau.

China.

In Macau, and later in Hong Kong, Gützlaff worked on a Chinese translation of the Bible, published a Chinese-language magazine, "Eastern Western Monthly Magazine", and wrote Chinese-language books on practical subjects. In 1834 he published "Journal of Three Voyages along the Coast of China in 1831, 1832 and 1833". Along the way he handed out tracts which had been prepared by another pioneer missionary to China, Robert Morrison. In late 1833, he acted as naturalist George Bennett's Cantonese interpreter on his visit to Canton.  In 1840, a group of four people (Walter Henry Medhurst, Charles Gutzlaff, Elijah Coleman Bridgman, and John Robert Morrison) cooperated to translate the Bible into Chinese. The translation of the Hebrew part was done mostly by Gutzlaff, with the exception that the Pentateuch and the book of Joshua were done by the group collectively. This translation, completed in 1847, is well-known due to its adoption by the revolutionary peasant leader Hong Xiuquan of the Taipingtianguo movement (Taiping Rebellion) as some of the reputed early doctrines of the organization. This Bible translation was a version (in High Wen-li, ) correct and faithful to the original.  In the 1830s, Gützlaff was persuaded by William Jardine of Jardine, Matheson & Co. to interpret for their ships' captains during coastal smuggling of opium, with the assurance that this would allow him to gather more converts. He was interpreter to the British Plenipotentiary in negotiations during the First Opium War of 1839–42, then magistrate at Ningpo and Chusan. He was appointed the first assistant Chinese Secretary of the new colony of Hong Kong in 1842 and was promoted to Chinese Secretary in August of the following year. In response to the Chinese government's unwillingness to allow foreigners into the interior, he founded a school for "native missionaries" in 1844 and trained nearly fifty Chinese during its first four years.  It was observed by a visitor to Hong Kong in 1848 that Gützlaff had turned his back on being a missionary and become a corpulent figure enjoying a large civil service salary.  Gützlaff's second wife, Mary, died in 1849 in Singapore, and was buried there.  Unfortunately, Gützlaff's ideas outran his administrative ability. He wound up being victimized by his own native missionaries. They reported back to him glowing accounts of conversions and New Testaments sold. While some of Gützlaff's native missionaries were genuine converts, others were opium addicts who never traveled to the places they claimed. Eager for easy money, they simply made up conversion reports and took the New Testaments which Gützlaff provided and sold them back to the printer who resold them to Gutzlaff. The scandal erupted while Gützlaff was in Europe on a fundraising tour. Gützlaff married a third time, to Dorothy Gabriel, while in England in 1850.  Shattered by the exposure of the fraud, Gützlaff died in Hong Kong in 1851, leaving a £30,000 fortune. He was buried in Hong Kong Cemetery.

Legacy.

The Chinese Evangelization Society which he formed lived on to send out Hudson Taylor who founded the successful China Inland Mission. Taylor called Gützlaff the grandfather of the China Inland Mission.

Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in China.

On 29November 1834, Gutzlaff became a member of the newly formed "Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in China". The committee members represented a wide section of the business and missionary community in Canton: James Matheson (Chairman), David Olyphant, William Wetmore, James Innes, Thomas Fox, Elijah Coleman Bridgman, and John Robert Morrison. John Francis Davis, at that time chief superintendent of British trade in China, was made an honorary member.  Gutzlaff Street in Hong Kong was named after him.

Influences.

Gützlaff's writing influenced both Dr. Livingstone and Karl Marx. David Livingstone read Gützlaff's "Appeal to the Churches of Britain and America on Behalf of China" and decided to become a medical missionary. Unfortunately, it was 1840, and the outbreak of the First Opium War made China too dangerous for foreigners. So the London Missionary Society sent him to Africa, where (in 1871) Henry Morton Stanley would find him working hard in Ujiji, Tanzania.  While Gützlaff was fundraising in Europe in 1850, Karl Marx went to hear him speak in London. He also read Gützlaff's many writings, which became sources for Karl Marx' articles on China for the London Times and the New York Daily Tribune in the 1840s and 1850s, all of which are anti-imperialist and anti-religion.

Karl Friedrich August Gützlaff (8 July 1803 – 9 August 1851), anglicised as Charles Gutzlaff, was a German Lutheran missionary to the Far East, notable as one of the first Protestant missionaries in Bangkok, Thailand (1828) and in Korea (1832). He was also the first Lutheran missionary to China. He was a magistrate in Ningpo and Chusan and the second Chinese Secretary of the British administration in Hong Kong.


Career.

Albrecht Unsöld was born in Bolheim, Württemberg, Germany. After school attendance in Heidenheim, Unsöld studied physics at the University of Tübingen and the University of Munich. At Munich, he studied under Arnold Sommerfeld, and was granted his doctorate in 1927. As a Fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation, he was an assistant in Potsdam and worked at the Mount Wilson Observatory in Pasadena, California. He then completed his Habilitation in Munich in 1929. In 1930, he was an assistant at the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the University of Hamburg. In September 1932, Unsöld became Ordinarius Professor and Director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics (and Observatory) at the University of Kiel – a position he held until his emeritus status was granted in 1973, after which he remained scientifically active for 15 years.  While a student at Munich, Unsöld was one of many of a long line of students who helped Sommerfeld explore and advance atomic theory. Unsöld's theorem states that the square of the total electron wavefunction for a filled or half-filled sub-shell is spherically symmetric. Thus, like atoms containing a half-filled or filled s orbital ("l" = 0), atoms of the second period with 3 or 6 p ("l" = 1) electrons are spherically shaped. Likewise, so are atoms of the third period in which there are 5 or 10 d ("l" = 2) electrons. Hence, spherical atoms are those of the 1st, 2nd, 7th, 12th, 15th and 18th columns of the periodic table.  At Kiel, Unsöld made an intensive study of the effects of abundances, radiation damping, Doppler shifts, electric fields, and collisions on the formation and shape of spectral lines in stellar atmospheres. His analysis of the B0 star Tau Scorpii, obtained on his 1939 visit to Yerkes and McDonald Observatories, provided the first detailed analysis of a star other than the Sun, and he was able to determine the physics and composition of the star’s atmosphere.  From 1947 to 1948, Unsöld was President of the Astronomische Gesellschaft.  Unsöld edited the "Zeitschrift für Astrophysik" until it was merged with other European journals into "Astronomy and Astrophysics". He was also the author of many books, and his book "Physik der Sternatmosphären mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Sonne" was a bible for quantitative stellar spectroscopy and related fields, with special emphasis on the Sun.

Albrecht Otto Johannes Unsöld (20 April 1905 – 23 September 1995) was a German astrophysicist known for his contributions to spectroscopic analysis of stellar atmospheres.


Biography.

Early life and priesthood.

Capovilla was born in Pontelongo in 1915 as the son of Rodolfo Capovilla and Letizia Callegaro. He had one sister: Lia. He was baptized in Pontelongo. His father later died in 1922 and this in turn led Capovilla to move to Mestre in 1929 following a period of precariousness and wandering.  Capovilla studied at the Patriarchal Seminary of Venice and was later ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Venice on 23 May 1940 by Cardinal Piazza, the Patriarch of Venice. He was made the capitular master of ceremonies in the Basilica of Saint Mark and also served as a catechist in middle schools. During World War II, Capovilla served in military aviation and later went on to become a Sunday preacher at Radio Venezia from 1945 to 1953. He was also made the director of the diocesan weekly La Voce di San Marco in 1949.  He formed a close friendship with Cardinal Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (later Pope John XXIII) when the cardinal was the Patriarch of Venice. He commenced his service under Roncalli on 15 March 1953. He claimed, however, to have never called himself Roncalli's friend, but considered him his bishop, his father and his patriarch. He remained at Roncalli's side as papal secretary after Roncalli's election to the papacy in 1958 until his death in 1963.  Capovilla served as Roncalli's conclavist at the conclave of 1958 that saw the latter's election. He was confirmed as the new pope's secretary on the night of the election and was made a Domestic Prelate of His Holiness on 12 December 1958. After the death of John XXIII in 1963, Pope Paul VI appointed him as a prelate di anticamera and expert to the Second Vatican Council.

Episcopate and cardinalate.

Capovilla was appointed bishop of the Archdiocese of Chieti-Vasto on 26 June 1967 and consecrated on 16 July 1967 by Pope Paul VI. The co-consecrators were Augusto Gianfranceshi and Jacques-Paul Martin. He chose as his motto the one used by Pope John XXIII. On 23 September 1971 he was appointed prelate to the Loreto Prelature and the Titular archbishop of Mesembria. His resignation from his position in Loreto was accepted on 10 December 1988.  On 12 January 2014 Pope Francis announced that Capovilla would be elevated to the College of Cardinals on 22 February 2014. Capovilla said it was a "sign of attention to all those thousands of priests around the world who have spent their lives in silence, in poverty, in obedience, happy to serve God and our humble people, who need, as Pope Francis continually says, tenderness, friendship, respect and love."  Capovilla received a dispensation and did not attend the consistory where he was named cardinal. He said: "I'm not strong enough and I feel uncomfortable at the thought of meeting so many people." He was named Cardinal-Priest of "Santa Maria in Trastevere". Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, bestowed the biretta and cardinal's ring upon Capovilla on 1 March.  He died in Bergamo on 26 May 2016. For his entire cardinalate, he was the oldest living Cardinal.  In 1964, he published a memoir, "The Heart and Mind of John XXIII: His Secretary's Intimate Recollection" (published by Hawthorn Books). As of 2013, he resided in Sotto il Monte Giovanni XXIII, about northeast of Milan.

Loris Francesco Capovilla (14 October 1915 – 26 May 2016) was an Italian Roman Catholic prelate and a cardinal. At his death, he was the oldest living Roman Catholic bishop from Italy and the fourth oldest in the world. At the time of his elevation to the rank of cardinal in 2014, he was the oldest member of the College of Cardinals.


History.

Almost nothing is known of the social organization or religious beliefs of the people who erected the menhirs. There is not even any trace of these people's language; however we do know that they buried their dead and had the skills to grow cereal, farm and make pottery, stone tools and jewelry. Identifying their uses remains speculative. Until recently, menhirs were associated with the Beaker people, who inhabited Europe during the European late Neolithic and early Bronze Age—later third millennium BC, c. 2800–1800 BC. However, recent research into the age of megaliths in Brittany strongly suggests a far older origin, perhaps back to six to seven thousand years ago.  Many menhirs are engraved with megalithic art. This often turned them into anthropomorphic stelae, although images of objects such as stone axes, ploughs, shepherd crooks and yokes were common. With the exception of the stone axe, none of these motifs are definite, and the name used to describe them is largely for convenience. Some menhirs were broken up and incorporated into later passage graves, where they had new megalithic art carved with little regard for the previous pictures. It is not known if this re-use was deliberate or if the passage grave builders just saw menhirs as a convenient source of stone (Le Roux 1992).  During the Middle Ages, standing stones were believed to have been built by the giants who lived before the biblical flood. Many of the megaliths were destroyed or defaced by early Christians; it is estimated that some 50,000 megaliths once stood in Northern Europe, where almost 10,000 now remain.  Four menhirs and nearly 1,000 small and big dolmens were found in India at the Pothamala hills at the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border by a group of researchers in Kerala.

A menhir (from Brittonic languages: "maen" or "men", "stone" and "hir" or "hîr", "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large man-made upright stone, typically dating from the European middle Bronze Age. They can be found solely as monoliths, or as part of a group of similar stones. Menhirs' size can vary considerably, but they are generally uneven and squared, often tapering towards the top.


Name.

The Danish–Swedish Farmdog became a recognized breed in Denmark and Sweden in 1987. At that time, the two countries got together and agreed on the name of the breed, and also on the breed standard written by judge and breeder Lars Adeheimer, Sweden and judge Ole Staunskjaer, Denmark. The DSF was used as a farm dog for many hundreds of years, and before becoming a recognized breed it was known under the local name "Skrabba", "Skåneterrier", "råttehund", "rat dog").

Appearance.

The FCI standard says that a DSF should be 30–39 cm of height with a compact body. The relation between withers height and body length should be 9 to 10. The head is rather small and triangular with a well-emphasized stop. The coat is hard, short and smooth in texture, with white as a dominating colour, with one or several patches of different colour combination. The tail could be long, half bobtail or bobtail.

Temperament.

The Danish–Swedish Farmdog is a very friendly, easygoing breed. Not only does it work on farms as a rat exterminator and watch dog, but it is also a companion to adults, and is known to befriend and play with the children of the household.  The Danish–Swedish Farmdog is unlike a terrier – even though it is often mistaken as one – it is very mild and gentle in temper. Unlike the high-strung nature of the terrier, the milder nature of the DSF allows it to do its job, as well as be calm and affectionate when unoccupied. This makes it an ideal house dog.  The DSF is a not a high energy dog, but loves having a job. The breed is new to the US, and can only now start to be seen in sports such as flyball and dog agility. The DSF is also known for its excellent mousing skills and can perform sports such as going to ground and earthdog. They are also very speedy and quick, and love all types of lure coursing.  In 2010, the breed club, Danish-Swedish Farmdogs USA, made application to AKC-FSS for recognition of the breed. In January 2011, the American Kennel Club (AKC) added the breed to its Foundation Stock Service. The Danish-Swedish Farmdog is now eligible to compete in various AKC companion events such as obedience, agility, rally and more. In November 2011, the AKC announced that as of July 2012, FSS breeds would be eligible for Open Conformation shows.

Danish–Swedish farmdog () is a breed of dog that has its origin in Denmark and southern Sweden, but has become popular all over Scandinavia. It is an old native breed which has historically lived on farms in the eastern part of Denmark and southernmost part of Sweden (i.e. on both sides of The Sound, the narrow strait that separates the Danish island of Zealand from the southern tip of the Scandinavian peninsula), serving as a guard dog, rat catcher and hunting dog. The breed's soft and gentle temperament also makes them excellent companion dogs. There are some indications that the breed originates from the pinscher breeds and the British white hunting terriers.


History.

Fürstenberg was a county of the Holy Roman Empire in Swabia, present-day southern Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The county emerged when count Egino IV of Urach by marriage inherited large parts of the Duchy of Zähringen upon the death of Duke Berthold V in 1218, and was originally called the county of Freiburg. Egino's grandson Count Henry started naming himself after his residence at Fürstenberg Castle around 1250. The county was partitioned in 1284 between itself and the lower county of Dillingen, and then again in 1408 between Fürstenberg-Fürstenberg and Fürstenberg-Wolfach. Over the centuries, the various counts and Princes expanded their territories to include the Landgraviate of Baar, the Lordships of Gundelfingen, Hausen, Heiligenberg, Höwen, and Meßkirch, and the Landgraviate of Stühlingen in Germany; as well as estates around Křivoklát Castle (), Bohemia, Tavíkovice Castle (German: "Taikowitz") in Moravia, and from 1733 Lány Palace in Bohemia.  In 1607, Count Frederick IV of Fürstenberg-Heiligenberg acquired the fief of Weitra in Lower Austria by marriage. The House of Fürstenberg held Weitra until the Revolutions of 1848. The members of the Fürstenberg-Weitra cadet branch built a Renaissance castle on medieval foundations.  In 1664, Count Hermann Egon of Fürstenberg-Heiligenberg and his brothers, the bishops Franz Egon of Strasbourg and Cardinal William Egon of Furstenberg, became Princes of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1667, the county of Fürstenberg-Heiligenberg was formally raised to a principality and received a vote in the Imperial Diet. After the Fürstenberg-Heiligenberg branch of the family became extinct in 1716, the counts Froben Ferdinand of Fürstenberg-Messkirch and Joseph Wilhelm Ernst of Fürstenberg-Stühlingen became princes of the Holy Roman Empire.  In 1744, various Fürstenberg territories were reunified to the Principality of Fürstenberg-Fürstenberg, as all lines except one had become extinct. Between 1664 and 1716 the residence had been Heiligenberg. The residences of the two partial principalities between 1716 and 1723 were Stühlingen and Meßkirch. In 1723 Prince Joseph of Fürstenberg-Stühlingen built his new residence at Donaueschingen, being more centrally located, which remained the residence of the united principality after the Meßkirch branch of the family had become extinct.  The Rheinbundakte of 1806 dissolved Fürstenberg. Most of its territory was given to the Grand Duchy of Baden; smaller parts were given to the Kingdom of Württemberg, the principality of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen and the Kingdom of Bavaria.  The princely family is still today residing at Donaueschingen, Heiligenberg and Weitra.

Princes of the Stühlingen branch.

First prince.

The first "Fürst zu Fürstenberg" of the Fürstenberg-Stühlingen branch, which was mainly residing in Bohemia, Joseph Wilhelm Ernst, was born 12 January 1699. He was the second son of Prosper Ferdinand, Count of Fürstenberg-Stühlingen, killed at the Landau on 21 November 1704 during the War of the Spanish Succession, and his wife Sophia, Countess of Königsegg-Rothenfels (1674–1727). On 2 February 1716, Joseph Wilhelm Ernst was raised to princely status, after the princely Heiligenberg branch had become extinct. He married in 1723 countess Maria Anna of Waldstein and Wartenberg (22 February 1707–12 November 1756). After her death in 1756, he married in 1761 to Maria Anna countess von der Wahl (born 22 September 173621 March 1808). He died in Vienna, 29 April 1762.  There was no issue from his second marriage. From his first marriage, he had eight children: Ferdinand, 3rd Prince of Thurn and Taxis (17041773)

Second prince.

Joseph Wenzel Johann Nepomuk was the first son of the first prince. He was born in Prague, Prague 2 March 1728, and died at Donaueschingen 2 June 1783; he married 21 July 1748 to the Countess (Gräfin) Maria Josepha von Waldburg und Trauchburg (30 March 1731 7 May 1782).  They had seven children:

Third prince.

The death in infancy of the eldest son of the second prince placed Joseph Maria Benedikt Karl in the line of direct inheritance as the second son of Joseph Wenzel Johann Nepomuk. He married in Hechingen 1778 to the Princess Maria Antonia von Hohenzollern-Hechingen (10 November 1760 25 July 1797). He died at Donaueschingen on 24 June 1796 without issue. The title passed to the next eldest sons of the second prince. Both of those boys, Karl Alexander and Karl Egon Marie had died in infancy and childhood, respectively (1761 and 1771).

Fourth prince.

Karl Joachim Aloys Franz de Paula, became the fourth Fürst zu Fürstenberg, He married in 1796 the Landgravina Karoline Sophie zu Fürstenberg (20 August 1777, 25 February 1846). Their shared ancestor was Prosper Ferdinand, Count Fürstenberg, who had been killed at Landau in 1704. Karl Joachim Aloys died in 1803 without issue. There were no more surviving males of the first prince's eldest son. The title passed to the line of the second son.

Title moves to cadet (junior) branch.

Karl Borromäus Egon, the second son of the first prince, died in 1788. He had married in 1750 countess Maria Josepha von Sternberg (1735 1803). They had three sons:  Karl Aloys zu Fürstenberg married his cousin Princess Elisabetha Alexandrina von Thurn und Taxis (30 November 1767 21 July 1822) in Prague. They had five children:  On 25 March 1799, Karl Aloys was killed at the Battle of Stockach. His nephew died in December 1799. Consequently, when his cousin, Karl Joachim Aloys Franz de Paula, died, his own son, Karl Egon, became the fifth Prince ("Fürst").

Fürstenberg is the name of a Swabian noble house in Germany, based primarily in what is today southern Baden-Württemberg near the source of the Danube river.


Education.

De Winne graduated in 1979 from the Royal School of Cadets in Lier. In 1984, he graduated from the Royal Military Academy with the degree of Master of Sciences in Engineering (Polytechnics).

Military career.

De Winne followed the elementary flying school of the Belgian Air Component at Goetsenhoven. After graduating he flew Dassault Mirage 5 airplanes for the Air Force until he was attached to SAGEM in Paris to work on the safety of the Mirage. In 1991, De Winne completed the Staff Course at the Defence College in Brussels with the highest distinction. In 1992, De Winne received his degree as test pilot from the British Empire Test Pilots' School in Boscombe Down, receiving the "McKenna Trophy" as well.  From December 1992, Major of Royal Belgian Air Component De Winne operated as a test pilot for the Belgian Air Force. From January 1994 until April 1995, he was responsible for flight safety of the "1st Fighter Wing" operating from Beauvechain. From April 1995 to July 1996, he was attached as senior test pilot to the European Participating Air Forces at Edwards Air Force Base in California where he worked on the mid-life update of the F16 aircraft, focusing on radar testing. From 1996 to August 1998, he was senior test pilot in the Belgian Air Force, responsible for all test programmes and for all pilot-vehicle interfaces for future aircraft/software updates.  On 12 February 1997 De Winne encountered engine problems while flying in an F-16 Fighting Falcon over densely populated area near Leeuwarden. After the onboard computer failed, De Winne was faced with the choice of crashing in the IJsselmeer or of ejecting over densely populated area. However, De Winne was able to land his crippled plane at a Dutch Air Base, a feat which earned him the "Joe Bill Dryden Semper Viper Award", the first non-American ever to get this award.  In August 1998, De Winne became commander of the 349 Squadron operating from Kleine Brogel. During the NATO Operation Allied Force in the Balkans, De Winne commanded the Dutch-Belgian "Deployable Air Task Force". He completed 17 combat sorties. For his achievement during this operation, the Dutch government awarded him the degree of Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau.  De Winne has collected over 2.300 flying hours in Mirage, F-16, Tornado and Jaguar. He also serves as the Chairman of the Belgian Armed Forces Flying Personnel Association.  He currently holds the rank of Brigadier-General.

Astronaut career.

In October 1998, Frank De Winne was selected as an astronaut candidate by the European Space Agency. In January 2000, he joined the European Astronaut Corps, whose homebase is the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany. He provided technical support for the X38 Crew Return Vehicle project division within the Directorate of Manned Spaceflight and Microgravity, located at the European Space Research and Technology Centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. In August 2001, De Winne took up training at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Center near Moscow, Russia. Training included elements of Basic Training for the International Space Station as well as training as a Soyuz flight engineer.  De Winne's first spaceflight (30 October - 10 November 2002) was a trip as a flight engineer to the International Space Station in 2002, traveling to the station aboard Soyuz TMA-1 and returning aboard Soyuz TM-34. During his time in space, De Winne carried out successfully a programme of 23 experiments in the fields of life and physical sciences and education.  He was the back-up crew member for Léopold Eyharts of ISS Expedition 16.  On 20 September 2007 ESA announced that De Winne would take part in a six-month mission aboard the International Space Station in 2009. On 21 November 2008, NASA announced changes to the Expedition schedule, with De Winne becoming Commander of Expedition 21. On 27 May 2009 De Winne launched aboard Soyuz TMA-15, becoming the first astronaut from the European Space Agency to command a space mission.

Personal.

De Winne is married to Lena Clarke De Winne. He has three children from a previous marriage. He enjoys football, small PC applications and gastronomy. De Winne appeared on screen during the concerts of rock band U2 on their 360° Tour (and on their "U2360° at the Rose Bowl" concert video) in pre-recorded segments from the International Space Station, reciting lines from the band's songs "Your Blue Room" and "In a Little While".

Frank, Viscount De Winne (born 25 April 1961, in Ledeberg, Belgium) is a Belgian Air Component officer and an ESA astronaut. He is Belgium's second person in space (after Dirk Frimout). He was the first ESA astronaut to command a space mission when he served as commander of ISS Expedition 21. ESA astronaut de Winne serves currently as Head of the European Astronaut Centre of the European Space Agency in Cologne/Germany (Köln).


Career.

Early years.

Born in Spoltore, province of Pescara, Di Luca began his professional career in 1998 in the Riso Scotti team. He showed talent by winning the under-23 version of the Giro D'Italia. His first pro win was in 1999, when, moving to Cantina Tollo-Alexia Alluminio, he won the first stage of the Giro d'Abruzzo. He remained in the team taking wins in 2001 such as the fourth stage of the Giro d'Italia and the Giro di Lombardia. Then, he transferred to Saeco-Longoni Sport.  During his time at Saeco-Longoni he lost the Vuelta al País Vasco on the last stage, a mountain time trial in which Andreas Klöden took the lead and the win. Combined with injuries and lack of confidence of the team directors, his performance suffered. In 2004 Italian officials investigated Di Luca for doping. Cyclingnews.com said: "Di Luca was recorded in several phone conversations with Eddy Mazzoleni in which he allegedly talked about doping products, the investigation led to Di Luca's non-participation in the 2004 Tour de France."

2005.

In 2005, Di Luca switched to, with Mario Cipollini, Dario Cioni, Stefano Garzelli and Magnus Bäckstedt. He led the team for the spring classics. His first victory came in the first stage of the UCI ProTour race Vuelta al País Vasco, which he won overall after defeating Aitor Osa in the final time trial. He won the Amstel Gold Race and La Flèche Wallonne, taking the ProTour leader's white jersey.  Di Luca was seen as suited to races lasting only a few days. His success in the 2005 Giro d'Italia came as a surprise. Here he won two stages and finished fourth. He finished fifth in the Tour de Pologne. With a fourth in the 2005 Züri-Metzgete, he became 2005 UCI ProTour champion.

2006.

Di Luca was forced to retire from the 2006 Tour de France, due to a urinary infection. He recovered to compete in the 2006 Vuelta a España, winning the fifth stage and holding the lead (ceding it to Janez Brajkovič). Di Luca's performances in the classics, the Giro, and other races, were a letdown from the triumphs of 2005.

2007.

Di Luca won Milano–Torino in March and Liège–Bastogne–Liège in April. He took stages 4 and 12 en route to the victory in the 2007 Giro d'Italia. After the Giro, it was revealed that Di Luca had unspecified low hormone levels. Italian authorities are determining if they are a consequence of racing at a high level for three weeks or some kind of masking agent. On 28 September, Di Luca withdrew from the UCI road championship calling his treatment "a scandal" after doping allegations.  Di Luca was leading the 2007 UCI ProTour when he was suspended before the final race, the Giro di Lombardia, due to alleged involvement in the Oil for Drugs case, for which he was suspended for three months through the close season.

2008–2009.

In 2008, Di Luca had a quiet year as his new team,, were not invited to many races. In 2009, they received a wildcard entry to the Giro d'Italia and Di Luca won the fourth stage. He then came second on the fifth stage, gaining the pink jersey as race leader, and extended his lead by winning the tenth stage. He lost time on the two time trial stages and finished second overall, winning the points classification.  On 22 July 2009, it was announced that Di Luca had tested positive for CERA on 20 and 28 May 2009, during the Giro d'Italia. He was provisionally suspended with immediate effect by the UCI. He had been targeted for testing using information from his biological passport's blood profile, previous test results and his race schedule. On 8 August, his positive tests were confirmed. On 1 February 2010, the Italian Olympic committee (CONI) suspended him for two years (effective as of 22 July 2009) for the Giro doping incident. Di Luca must also pay a fine, as well as the costs incurred in both the analysis and counter-analysis of his Giro samples: Di Luca indicated his intention to contest the decision.

2010–2011.

On 15 October 2010, CONI announced that Di Luca's ban had been reduced to nine months and seven days, allowing Di Luca to return as of that very day (though the season was nearly over). This was due to his reported cooperation with investigators, detailing doping methods. CONI also announced the reduction of Di Luca's fine, from €280,000 to €106,400, but the UCI contends that he will still have to pay the full amount based on when his doping incident occurred. His results from the 2009 Giro were stricken from the record.  In the 2011 season, he competed for, and his performances were somewhat mitigated since he held no victories. His notable results were fourth of the Giro d'Italia's 6th stage and fourth in the Tour de Suisse's first stage.  After the season, Di Luca signed a contract for the 2012 season with.

2013.

In April 2013, Di Luca signed for the team, who were subsequently awarded a wildcard place to race in the Giro d'Italia. On 24 May, while Di Luca was riding in the Giro, the UCI announced that he had had an adverse finding in an out-of-competition doping test at his home on 29 April. Di Luca was fired by his team who instructed him to leave the race by his own means. He was banned for life by CONI on 5 December. He also had his results stripped from 29 April and ordered to pay a total of €37,985 in fines and costs.

Career achievements.

Grand Tour general classification results timeline.

DNF=Did not finish DSQ=Disqualified

Danilo Di Luca (born 2 January 1976) is a former Italian professional road racing cyclist, best known for winning the 2007 Giro d'Italia, but also for several positive doping tests, the last of which resulting in a lifetime ban from the sport.


History.

The SPS was designed by a team led by John Adams, director-general of what was then known as Laboratory II. Originally specified as a 300 GeV accelerator, the SPS was actually built to be capable of 400 GeV, an operating energy it achieved on the official commissioning date of 17 June 1976. However, by that time, this energy had been exceeded by Fermilab, which reached an energy of 500 GeV on 14 May of that year.  The SPS has been used to accelerate protons and antiprotons, electrons and positrons (for use as the injector for the Large Electron–Positron Collider (LEP)), and heavy ions.  From 1981 to 1991, the SPS operated as a hadron (more precisely, proton–antiproton) collider (as such it was called SpS), when its beams provided the data for the UA1 and UA2 experiments, which resulted in the discovery of the W and Z bosons. These discoveries and a new technique for cooling particles led to a Nobel Prize for Carlo Rubbia and Simon van der Meer in 1984.  From 2006 to 2012, the SPS was used by the CNGS experiment to produce a neutrino stream to be detected at the Gran Sasso laboratory in Italy, 730 km from CERN.

Current operations.

The SPS is now used as the final injector for high-intensity proton beams for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which began preliminary operation on 10 September 2008, for which it accelerates protons from 26 GeV to 450 GeV. The LHC itself then accelerates them to several teraelectronvolts (TeV).  Operation as injector still allows continuation of the ongoing fixed-target research program, where the SPS is used to provide 400 GeV proton beams for a number of active fixed-target experiments, notably COMPASS, NA61/SHINE and NA62.  The SPS has served, and continues to be used as a test bench for new concepts in accelerator physics. In 1999 it served as an observatory for the electron cloud phenomenon. In 2003, SPS was the first machine where the Hamiltonian resonance driving terms were directly measured. And in 2004, experiments to cancel the detrimental effects of beam encounters (like those in the LHC) were carried out.  The SPS RF cavities operate at a center frequency of 200.2 MHz.

Major discoveries.

Major scientific discoveries made by experiments that operated at the SPS include the following.

Upgrade for High Luminosity LHC.

The Large Hadron Collider will require an upgrade to considerably increase its luminosity during the 2020s. This would require upgrades to the entire linac/pre-injector/injector chain, including the SPS. The SPS will need to be able to handle a much higher intensity beam. One improvement considered in the past was increasing the extraction energy to 1 TeV. However, the extraction energy will be kept at 450 GeV while other systems are upgraded. The acceleration system will be modified to handle the higher voltages needed to accelerate a higher intensity beam. The beam dumping system will also be upgraded so it can accept a higher intensity beam without sustaining significant damage.

The Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) is a particle accelerator of the synchrotron type at CERN. It is housed in a circular tunnel, in circumference, straddling the border of France and Switzerland near Geneva, Switzerland.


Gameplay.

LFS features input support for steering wheels, mice, keyboards, joysticks, and gamepads. It supports output to 2D and 3D including virtual reality goggles like Oculus Rift.  Races can either be set to end at a certain number of laps, or be set to run for a certain length of time, as seen in endurance racing. There is support for refueling and tire changes in pit stops and mid-race adjustment of pit strategy. Pit lane speed limits of 80 km/h (50 mph) are enforced by penalties similar to those seen in real motorsport, including drive-through, stop and go, or time penalties. Starting grids can be determined at random, from the finishing positions in the previous race, or from the results in a qualifying period before the race.  A training mode is included to help drivers acquaint themselves with driving skills and the handling characteristics of each car. The lessons cover subjects such as cornering, throttle and brake control, and negotiating opponents. To pass each lesson, the lesson must be completed within a certain set of objectives. They are arranged as in sets, one for each car and ordered from slow to fast. Each lesson must be completed before advancing to the next, however, completing them is not necessary to unlock cars, as all are available in any other mode from the beginning.

Simulation.

Among other things, the physics engine simulates tires, the suspension, aerodynamics, the drivetrain, several gearbox types, clutch overheating, car body damage, and engine damage. The tire model features dynamic wear, dynamic dirt, flat spots, hot spots and tire wall deformation.  The simulator supports 3D devices, including 3D TVs, headsets, projectors, the HTC Vive, and Oculus Rift (both DK1 and DK2, from version 0.6F and 0.6G).

Cars.

The S2 release offers a total of 20 different vehicles. They range from beginner-friendly models to cars more suited for players with more experience. There is a broad power spectrum, ranging from under 100 hp to over 700 hp. The cars range from fictional sports cars, GT DTM-like race cars and former JGTC series cars to road legal hatchbacks.  While LFS' car selection mainly includes fictional cars, it also has five real officially licensed cars:

Tracks.

LFS has seven different fictional track areas, including one loosely based on eastern central London, one based on Jamaican surroundings and one near Kyoto, Japan. Each one of them has several different configurations and each of those can be also driven in reversed configuration. The simulator also contains a laser-scanned version of Rockingham Motor Speedway as part of the S3 license. Additionally, users can create their own custom layouts using cones and other objects with the in-game autocross editor; the two car park environments in the game are useful for creating such layouts.

Releases.

The game is intended to be released in three parts, S1 (Stage 1), S2, and S3. Each stage will feature improvements in many areas, such as physics model, graphics and sound. Technical improvements introduced in each new stage become available for previous stages as well, with the main difference between stages being additional cars and tracks, as well as the maximum number of players connected to a server.  A fully working, commercial, alpha version of Stage 2 was released on June 24, 2005. Stage 3 was launched on 19 December 2015, and the latest patch (0.6T) was released in July 2018. Some backward compatibility exists; an S3 license holder may also be able to access servers for S2, S1 or demo servers.

Competition.

LFS was used in Intel Racing Tour, a competition arranged in Germany in 2007 with a brand new BMW Z4 (E85) car as the main prize for the winner. Thanks to Intel Racing Tour, the BMW Sauber F1.06 was added to the game in an update.  LFS is also related to V1 Championship which was launched in 2008 and shown on TV in the United Kingdom. V1 Championship is a competition arranged by a company called V1 Championship Limited whose aim is to discover a new British racing driver talent. LFS was used as a part of the driver selection process in addition to physical and psychological tests before testing in real cars. If successful in V1 Championship, the contender would acquire a seat in a racing team and would have required to fully commit to have a career in motorsport.  Thanks to this co-operation with V1 Championship, LFS acquired a license to use the Formula BMW car and to help at modelling it to the game. An opportunity to add Rockingham Motor Speedway to LFS came through a contact from V1 Championship, and the track has been announced to be part of the S3 content. However, the track was not playable until game version 0.6K, released in December 2015.

Future development.

LFS was used by Turtle Entertainment and Volkswagen to showcase the new Scirocco in Leipzig Games Convention in 2008. A competition using LFS was held and the prize was a real Scirocco car. The Scirocco release for "Live for Speed" had been scheduled for December 19, 2008, however it has been delayed indefinitely due to unexpected fatal flaws in the latest patch and with the Scirocco itself, forcing the LFS team to remake the suspension system and tire physics.

LFSWorld.

LFS integrates with LFSWorld.net, a real-time comprehensive statistics website and database with an online skin support. Each racer's online race statistics are collected including per-lap personal bests, lap counts, distances traveled, and the amount of fuel burnt. Users can view other racers' stats and download their hotlaps as well. Also included is a database of community formed teams. Additionally, there is an official world record lap time chart, where racers can upload hotlaps, which exists per track and car. Users may also upload custom car skins to the website, from where the skins then are automatically downloaded as needed in-game to other players.

Reception.

Critical reception.

The original "Live for Speed" was a nominee for "PC Gamer US"s 2003 "Best Racing Game" award, which ultimately went to "NASCAR Racing 2003 Season". A writer for the magazine called "Live for Speed" evidence that "accurate driving physics and fun, accessible racing action can co-exist in the same game".  PC Gameworld's 2003 review of Live for Speed S1 by Walter Hurdle scored 89% and said: "A very strong simulation that offers fun and a high level of realism."  Justin Kranzl of "APC" magazine called the S1 release "the best PC racing simulator ever".  "Pelit" magazine's 2004 review of LFS' S1 release by Mika Äärilä scored 92/100 and said: "Saloon cars and meticulous simulation. Absolute cream of the crop."  Bytesector.com's 2005 review of S2 release said: "Nothing short of going to a track actually compares to the experience. Live for Speed is, by far, the most intense and demanding game I've ever played."

Awards.

In 2005, "AutoSimSport" magazine gave LFS their "Best simulation" award and Blackhole Motorsports website readers voted to give LFS the following awards:

Live for Speed (LFS) is a racing simulator developed by a three-person team comprising Scawen Roberts, Eric Bailey, and Victor van Vlaardingen. The main focus is to provide a realistic racing experience for the online multiplayer game and to allow single player races against AI cars. Users can set personal bests which can then be uploaded to LFSWorld in hotlap mode, and take driving lessons in 'training' mode.


Life.

Bernard was born in 797, the illegitimate son of King Pepin of Italy, himself the son of the Emperor Charlemagne. In 810, Pepin died from an illness contracted at the siege of Venice. Despite being illegitimate, his grandfather allowed Bernard to inherit Italy. Bernard married a woman named Cunigunde, but the year of their marriage, and her origins, are obscure. Some sources refer to her as "of Laon". They had one son, Pepin, Count of Vermandois, who was born in 817.  In 817, Louis the Pious drew the "Ordinatio Imperii", detailing the future of the Frankish Empire. Under this, the bulk of the Frankish territory went to Louis' eldest son, Lothair; Bernard received no further territory, and although his Kingship of Italy was confirmed, he would be a vassal of Lothair, as he had been to Louis and to Charles. Certain of his counselors, including Count Eggideo, and his chamberlain Reginhard, persuaded Bernard that arrangement threatened his position. Other names were Reginhar, the last being the grandson of a Thuringian rebel against Charlemagne, and Hardrad. Anshelm, Bishop of Milan and Theodulf, Bishop of Orléans, were also accused of being involved: there is no evidence either to support or contradict this in the case of Theodulf, whilst the case for Anshelm is murkier.  Prior to this, Bernard's relationship with his uncle appears to have been cooperative. Bernard's main complaint was the notion of his being a vassal of Lothair. In practical terms, his actual position had not been altered at all by the terms of the decree, and he could safely have continued to rule under such a system. Nonetheless, "partly true" reports came to Louis the Pious that his nephew was planning to set up an 'unlawful' – i.e. independent – regime in Italy.  Louis the Pious reacted swiftly to the plot, marching south to Chalon. Bernard and his associates were taken by surprise; Bernard travelled to Chalon in an attempt to negotiate terms, but he and the ringleaders were forced to surrender to Louis, who had them taken to Aix-la-Chapelle where they were tried and condemned to death. Louis'mercifully' commuted their sentences to blinding, which would neutralize Bernard as a threat without actually killing him; however, the process of blinding (carried out by means of pressing a red-hot stiletto to the eyeballs) proved so traumatic that Bernard died in agony two days after the procedure was carried out. At the same time, Louis also had his half-brothers Drogo, Hugh and Theoderic tonsured and confined to monasteries, to prevent other Carolingian offshoots challenging the main line. He also treated those guilty or suspected of conspiring with Bernard harshly: Theodulf of Orleans was imprisoned, and died soon afterwards; the lay conspirators were blinded, the clerics deposed and imprisoned; all lost lands and honours.  A text called "The Vision of the Poor woman of Laon" criticizes Louis for Bernard's death.

Legacy.

His Kingdom of Italy was reabsorbed into the Frankish empire, and soon after bestowed upon Louis' eldest son Lothair. In 822, Louis made a display of public penance at Attigny, where he confessed before all the court to having sinfully slain his nephew; he also welcomed his half-brothers back into his favour. These actions possibly stemmed from guilt over his part in Bernard's death. It has been argued by some historians that his behaviour left him open to clerical domination, and reduced his prestige and respect amongst the Frankish nobility. Others, however, point out that Bernard's plot had been a serious threat to the stability of the kingdom, and the reaction no less a threat; Louis' display of penance, then, "was a well-judged gesture to restore harmony and re-establish his authority."

Bernard (797 – 17 April 818 ) was the King of the Lombards from 810 to 818. He plotted against his uncle, Emperor Louis the Pious, when the latter's "Ordinatio Imperii" made Bernard a vassal of his cousin Lothair. When his plot was discovered, Louis had him blinded, a procedure which killed him.