Biography.

Early life.

Wassily Leontief was born on August 5, 1906, in Munich, Germany, the son of Wassily W. Leontief (professor of Economics) and Zlata (German spelling Slata; later Evgenia) Leontief (née Becker). W. Leontief, Sr., belonged to a family of old-believer merchants living in St. Petersburg since 1741. Genya Becker belonged to a wealthy Jewish family from Odessa. At 15 in 1921, Wassily, Jr., entered University of Leningrad in present-day St. Petersburg. He earned his Learned Economist degree (equivalent to Master of Arts) in 1925 at the age of 19.

Opposition in USSR.

Leontief sided with campaigners for academic autonomy, freedom of speech and in support of Pitirim Sorokin. As a consequence, he was detained several times by the Cheka. In 1925, he was allowed to leave the USSR, mostly because the Cheka believed that he was mortally ill with a sarcoma, a diagnosis that later proved false. He continued his studies at the Frederick William University in Munich and, in 1928 earned a Ph.D. degree in economics under the direction of Werner Sombart, writing his dissertation on "The Economy as Circular Flow" (original German title: "Die Wirtschaft als Kreislauf").

Early professional life.

From 1927 to 1930, he worked at the Institute for the World Economy of the University of Kiel. There he researched the derivation of statistical demand and supply curves. In 1929, he traveled to China to assist its ministry of railroads as an advisor.  In 1931, he went to the United States and was employed by the National Bureau of Economic Research.  During World War II, Leontief served as consultant at the U. S. Office of Strategic Services.

Affiliation with Harvard.

Leontief joined Harvard University's department of economics in 1932 and in 1946 became professor of economics there.  In 1949, Leontief used an early computer at Harvard and data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to divide the U.S. economy into 500 sectors. Leontief modeled each sector with a linear equation based on the data and used the computer, the Harvard Mark II, to solve the system, one of the first significant uses of computers for mathematical modeling, along with George W. Snedecor's usage of the Atanasoff–Berry computer.  Leontief set up the Harvard Economic Research Project in 1948 and remained its director until 1973. Starting in 1965, he chaired the Harvard Society of Fellows.

Affiliation with New York University.

In 1975, Leontief joined New York University and founded and directed the Institute for Economic Analysis. He taught graduate and undergraduate classes.

Personal.

In 1932, Leontief married the poet Estelle Marks. Their only child, Svetlana Leontief Alpers, was born in 1936. Estelle wrote a memoir, "Genia and Wassily", of their relations with his parents after they came to the US as émigrés.  As hobbies Leontief enjoyed fly fishing, ballet, and fine wines. He vacationed for years at his farm in West Burke, Vermont, but after moving to New York in the 1970s moved his summer residence to Lakeville, Connecticut.  Leontief died in New York City on Friday, February 5, 1999 at the age of 93.

Major contributions.

Leontief is credited with developing early contributions to input-output analysis and earned the Nobel Prize in Economics for his development of its associated theory. He has also made contributions in other areas of economics, such as international trade where he documented the Leontief paradox. He was also one of the first to establish the composite commodity theorem.  Leontief earned the Nobel Prize in economics for his work on input-output tables. Input-output tables analyze the process by which inputs from one industry produce outputs for consumption or for inputs for another industry. With the input-output table, one can estimate the change in demand for inputs resulting from a change in production of the final good. The analysis assumes that input proportions are fixed; thus the use of input-output analysis is limited to rough approximations rather than prediction. Input-output was novel and inspired large-scale empirical work; in 2010 its iterative method was recognized as an early intellectual precursor to Google's PageRank.  Leontief used input-output analysis to study the characteristics of trade flow between the U.S. and other countries, and found what has been named Leontief's paradox; "this country resorts to foreign trade in order to economize its capital and dispose of its surplus labor, rather than vice versa", i.e., U.S. exports were relatively labor-intensive when compared to U.S. imports. This is the opposite of what one would expect, considering the fact that the U.S.'s comparative advantage was in capital-intensive goods. According to some economists, this paradox has since been explained as due to the fact that when a country produces "more than two goods, the abundance of capital relative to labor does not imply that the capital intensity of its exports should exceed that of imports."  Leontief was also a very strong proponent of the use of quantitative data in the study of economics. Throughout his life Leontief campaigned against "theoretical assumptions and non-observed facts". According to Leontief, too many economists were reluctant to "get their hands dirty" by working with raw empirical facts. To that end, Wassily Leontief did much to make quantitative data more accessible, and more indispensable, to the study of economics.

In honor.

The Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University awards the Leontief Prize in Economics each year in his honor.  Leontief is listed in the Russian-American Chamber of Fame of Congress of Russian Americans, which is dedicated to Russian immigrants who made outstanding contributions to American science or culture.

Wassily Wassilyevich Leontief (; August 5, 1905 – February 5, 1999), was a Russian-American economist known for his research on input-output analysis and how changes in one economic sector may affect other sectors.


Classifications.

There are three types of balsamic vinegar:  There are also many products that contain "Aceto Balsamico di Modena IGP" as an ingredient, such as glazes or other condiments.

"Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena DOP and Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Reggio Emilia DOP".

Only two consortia produce true traditional balsamic vinegar, Modena and neighboring Reggio Emilia. True balsamic vinegar is made from a reduction of pressed Trebbiano and Lambrusco grapes. The resulting thick syrup, called "mosto cotto" in Italian, is subsequently aged for a minimum of 12 years in a battery of several barrels of successively smaller sizes. The casks are made of different woods like chestnut, cherry, oak, mulberry, ash and juniper. True balsamic vinegar is rich, glossy, deep brown in color, and has a complex flavour that balances the natural sweet and sour elements of the cooked grape juice with hints of wood from the casks.  Reggio Emilia designates the different ages of their balsamic vinegar ("Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Reggio Emilia") by label colour. A red label means the vinegar has been aged for at least 12 years, a silver label that the vinegar has aged for at least 18 years, and a gold label designates that the vinegar has aged for 25 years or more.  Modena uses a different system to indicate the age of its balsamic vinegars ("Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena"). A white-coloured cap means the vinegar has aged for at least 12 years and a gold cap bearing the designation "extravecchio" (extra-old) shows the vinegar has aged for 25 years or more.

Balsamic Vinegar of Modena.

These commercial-grade products imitate the traditional product. They are made of as little as 20% grape must (and not necessarily from Modena or Reggio Emilia), with the addition of wine vinegar, colouring, caramel, and sometimes thickeners like guar gum or cornflour to artificially simulate the sweetness and thickness of the aged Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena. IGP status requires a minimum aging period of two months, not necessarily in wooden barrels, rising to three years when labeled as invecchiato (aged). As the manufacturing process is highly industrialized, the output of a medium-sized producer may be hundreds of litres per day. In 2009, the European Commission inserted the Balsamic Vinegar of Modena (Aceto Balsamico di Modena) designation in the register of IGP productions.

"Condimenti" that used the term balsamic.

"Condimento" (dressing) balsamic vinegars may be labeled as "condimento balsamico", "salsa balsamica" or "salsa di mosto cotto". For those products, there is a risk of creating confusion among consumers looking for the original Balsamic Vinegar of Modena PGI, the two different Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena PDO, and Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Reggio Emilia PDO.  'Condimento' balsamic vinegar may be made in any of the following ways:  As there are no official standards or labeling systems to designate "condimento" balsamic vinegar, it can be hard to tell their quality based on the packaging alone.

Traditional processes.

Traditional balsamic vinegar is produced from the juice of just-harvested white grapes (typically, Trebbiano grapes) boiled down to reach a minimum sugar concentration of 30% (brix) or more in the must, which is then fermented with a slow aging process which further concentrates the flavours. The flavour intensifies over the years, with the vinegar being stored in wooden casks, becoming sweet, viscous and very concentrated. During this period, a portion evaporates: it is said that this is the "angels' share", a term also used in the production of bourbon whiskey, scotch whisky, wine, and other alcoholic beverages.  None of the product may be withdrawn until the end of the minimum aging period of 12 years. At the end of the aging period (12, 18, or 25 years) a small portion is drawn from the smallest cask and each cask is then topped up with the contents of the preceding (next larger) cask. Freshly reduced cooked must is added to the largest cask and in every subsequent year the drawing and topping up process is repeated. This process where the product is distributed from the oldest cask and then refilled from the next oldest vintage cask is called solera or "in perpetuum".

Uses.

In Emilia-Romagna, "tradizionale" vinegar is most often served in drops on top of chunks of Parmigiano Reggiano and mortadella as an antipasto. It is also used sparingly to enhance steaks, eggs, or grilled fish, as well as on fresh fruit such as strawberries and pears and on plain crema (custard) gelato. "Tradizionale" vinegar may be sipped from a tiny glass to conclude a meal.  Contemporary chefs use both "Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena PDO" and "Balsamic Vinegar of Modena PGI" sparingly in simple dishes where the balsamic vinegar's complex tastes are highlighted, using it to enhance dishes like scallops or shrimp, or on simple pastas and risottos.

Balsamic vinegar (), occasionally shortened to balsamic, is a very dark, concentrated, and intensely flavoured vinegar originating in Italy, made wholly or partially from grape must. Grape must is freshly crushed grape juice with all the skins, seeds and stems.


Route.

The line, which was standard gauge, ran for some across the High Fens (Hautes Fagnes, Hohes Venn) to the south of Aachen in a roughly southward direction from Eupen via Raeren (the site of the depot), Monschau (Montjoie) and Malmedy to Trois-Ponts, with a eastward branch from Oberweywertz to Bütgenbach and Losheim. At Eupen it connected with the line to Herbesthal where it joined the Brussels-Cologne main line. At Trois-Ponts it connected with the Liège-Luxembourg line.

History.

The line was built to carry coal and iron. The section of the line from Aachen to Monschau was opened on 30 June 1885. The section from Raeren to Eupen was opened on 3 August 1887. The link to Walheim was opened on 21 December 1889.  On 18 May 1940 Adolf Hitler ordered that the area be re-annexed by the German Reich and the Vennbahn was returned to service as a wholly German line on 2 June 1940. However, after the defeat of Germany in 1945, the pre-war situation was re-instated.

Operation.

In latter years, until the end of 2001, the Vennbahn line operated tourist services, some of which were steam-hauled. These were withdrawn for want of funds to maintain the line. Part of the track between Kalterherberg and Sourbrodt is now used by railbikes.  It was reported in 2008 that, with the Vennbahn no longer operational, Belgium might have to return the land the line runs along on to Germany, which would result in the reunification of the exclaves with German territory. However, the foreign ministries of Germany and Belgium have since confirmed that the trackbed, even though disused, will stay as Belgian territory and that the German exclaves will therefore remain.  By December 4, 2007, the dismantling of the now disused line had started; by September 2008, the track had been completely removed between Trois-Ponts and Sourbrodt.

Enclaves and exclaves.

Former Vennbahn enclaves:

The Vennbahn (, "Fen Railway") is a former railway line that was built partly across what was then German territory by the Prussian state railways. It is now entirely in Belgium, because the trackbed of the line, as well as the stations and other installations, were made provisional Belgian territory in 1919 (permanent in 1922) under an article of the Treaty of Versailles.


History.

Until 1918 the area was called "Sachsenberg" (local dialect: "Sasko Kympa") meaning Saxon Hill, and was a small western suburb of the town of Teschen (Polish: "Cieszyn", Czech: "Těšín") in the Duchy of Teschen, within Cieszyn Silesia of Austria-Hungary.  Following the fall of Austria-Hungary, Czech and Polish local governments were established. Both of them claimed that the whole of Cieszyn Silesia belonged to Czechoslovakia or Poland respectively. To calm down the friction which developed, the local governments concluded an interim agreement on division of the area running along ethnic lines. The division line imposed by the interim agreement was seen as unacceptable by the central Czechoslovak government, mainly because the crucial railway connecting the Czech lands with eastern Slovakia was controlled by Poland, and access to that railway was vital for Czechoslovakia at that time. Despite the division being only interim, Poland decided to organize elections to the Sejm (Polish parliament) in the area. Czechoslovakia claimed that no sovereign rule should be executed in the disputed area before a final solution was found, and requested that the polls not be held in the area.  The Czechoslovak request was rejected by Poland and Czechoslovakia attacked the Polish part of the region on 23 January 1919 and forced Poland, which was at that time at war also with the West Ukrainian National Republic, to withdraw from the larger part of the area. After a ceasefire, both sides agreed to hold a plebiscite, which never took place, as the atmosphere in the region remained heated and turned violent. The entire area was divided by the decision of the Spa Conference from July 1920, thus in practice creating a Zaolzie area, leaving a sizable Polish minority on the Czech side and dividing the town of Cieszyn between the two states. The town Český Těšín was then the center of Český Těšín District, existing in the years 1920–1938 and 1945–1960.  In 1938, following the Munich Agreement allowing the German annexation of the Sudetenland as signed by the United Kingdom and France in accordance with their policy of appeasement, Poland coerced Czechoslovakia to surrender the region of Zaolzie (including Český Těšín), by issuing an ultimatum to that effect on 30 September, which was accepted by Czechoslovakia on 1 October. Following negotiations with Czech authorities, who were given an additional 24 hours to evacuate the area, Polish troops and authorities entered it on 2 October 1938, and the territory was annexed by Poland as "Cieszyn Zachodni" (West Cieszyn). After the German invasion of Poland in 1939, the entire territory was annexed by Nazi Germany. During World War II it was a part of Nazi Germany. In 1941, Nazi Germany established the camp Stalag VIII-D here. After the war, the 1920 borders were restored.

Population.

In 1849, the western part of Teschen was home to only 14.9% of the town's total population: in 1880 24% and in 1910 33.4%.  Teschen was known for its national and cultural diversity, consisting mostly of German, Polish, Jewish and Czech communities.  There was also a small but lively Hungarian community in the town, mostly officers and administrative workers.  According to the Austrian census of 1910, Teschen had 22,489 inhabitants, 21,550 of whom had permanent residence there. The census asked people for their native language, 13,254 (61.5%) were German-speaking, 6,832 (31.7%) were Polish-speaking and 1,437 (6.6%) were Czech-speaking. The most populous religious groups were Roman Catholics with 15,138 (67.3%) followed by Protestants with 5,174 (23%) and the Jews with 2,112 (9.4%).  In 1938, there was a sizeable Jewish minority in the town, about 1,500 in Cieszyn and 1,300 in Český Těšín. Nearly all of them were killed by Nazi Germany in concentration camps. Most of the synagogues were destroyed. Today, only one synagogue still stands in the town, used as a Polish cultural centre. The Jewish cemetery in Český Těšín is abandoned. The sizeable German community fled, or were expelled, to Germany after the war. There are no Jewish or German communities left in the town today.

The town today.

Today the Poles comprise a minority in Český Těšín, as 16.1% of the town's population, although the number of people with Polish heritage is considerably higher. The town is an important cultural and educational center of the Polish minority in Zaolzie. The number of Poles is however decreasing as a result of continuing assimilation. Although a border town, there is no longer any real ethnic tension between Czechs and Poles. Alongside several Czech primary schools and one gymnasium the town has both a Polish primary school and a gymnasium. Těšín Theatre has Czech and Polish ensembles, where plays are presented in both the Czech and Polish languages. Together with ensembles in Vilnius and Lviv it is one of the few theatres outside Poland which has a professional Polish ensemble. The town is a centre of commerce, including the paper industry.

Places of worship.

The diversity of the town is not only ethnic, but also religious. Many Christian denominations are present in the town. In the past a large Jewish community lived there. According to the 2001 census there are 14,860 believers in the town (56.2% of the population), out of whom 8,916 (60%) are Roman Catholics, 737 (5%) Czech Brethren, 356 (2.4%) Jehovah's Witnesses, and 1,709 (11.5%) others, mainly Lutherans.  The oldest sacral building in the town is the Empire style chapel from 1848, located near the cemetery. The Neo-Gothic Catholic Sacred Heart of Jesus Church was built in 1894 by Viennese architect Ludwig Satzky. After the division of the town of Teschen in 1920, there were no Lutheran churches in Český Těšín. In 1927 the local German population built a Lutheran church in the town, and in 1932 the second Lutheran church was built. The church of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren was constructed in 1929. There is also a Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses, prayer house of the Apostolic Church and several other prayer houses in the town.  There were four synagogues or Jewish prayer houses in Český Těšín before World War II. The oldest one had existed since the beginning of the 20th century. It was run by the Schomre Schabos (Guardians of Shabbat) society. In 1928–1929 the society built a new synagogue on Breitegasse Street. It is to date the only synagogue in the town which still stands. Nazis did not destroy it due to its proximity to other residential buildings. In 1967 the building was bought by the Polish Cultural and Educational Union (PZKO). The Maschike Hatora (Upholding the Law) Orthodox society built its own prayer house on the Felix Dahn Street shortly after the Schomre Schabos synagogue began operating. In 1931–1933 a prayer house was built on the Friedrich Schiller Street but was burned down when Nazis entered the town on 1 September 1939.

Český Těšín (; ; ) is a town in the Karviná District, Moravian-Silesian Region of the Czech Republic. The town is commonly known in the region as just Těšín (). It lies on the west bank of the Olza river, in the heart of the historical region of Cieszyn Silesia. Until the 1920 division of the region between Poland and Czechoslovakia it was just a western suburb of the town of Teschen, which after the division fell to Poland as Cieszyn. The combined population of the Czech and Polish parts of the city is around 60,000 (25,000 in Těšín, 35,000 in Cieszyn).


Causes.

Since the 1340s, Yuan dynasty experienced problems. The Yellow River flooded constantly, and other natural disasters also occurred. At the same time the Yuan dynasty required considerable military expenditure to maintain its vast empire.  The Black Death also contributed to the birth of the movement. Other groups or religious sects made an effort to undermine the power of the last Yuan rulers; these religious movements often warned of impending doom. Decline of agriculture, plague and cold weather hit China, spurring the armed rebellion. In Hebei, 9 out of 10 were killed by the Black Death when Toghon Temür was enthroned in 1333. Two out of three people in China had died of the plague by 1351.

Rebellions.

The Red Turban Army (紅巾軍) was originally started by Guo Zixing (郭子興) and other followers of the White Lotus to resist the Mongols. The name "Red Turban" was used because of their tradition of using red banners and wearing red turbans to distinguish themselves.  These rebellions began on a sporadic basis, first on the coast of Zhejiang when Fang Guozhen and his men assaulted a group of Yuan officials. After that, the White Lotus led by Han Shantong north of the Yellow River became the centre of anti-Mongol sentiment. Red Turban armies in Liaodong invaded Goryeo in 1359 and 1360, briefly occupying Pyongyang (1359) and Kaesong (1360), but were eventually defeated both times.  In 1351 the society plotted an armed rebellion, but it was disclosed and Han Shantong was arrested and executed by the Yuan government. After his death, Liu Futong (劉福通), a prominent member of the White Lotus, assisted Han's son, Han Lin'er (韓林兒), in succeeding his father and establishing the Red Turban Army. After that, several other Chinese rebels in the south of the Yangtze revolted under the name of the Southern Red Turbans. Among the key leaders of the Southern Red Turbans were Xu Shouhui and Chen Youliang. The rebellion was also supported by the leadership of Peng Yingyu (彭瑩玉; 1338) and Zou Pusheng (鄒普勝; 1351).

Conclusion.

One of the more significant Red Turban leaders was Zhu Yuanzhang. At first, he followed Guo Zixing, and in fact married Guo's adopted daughter. After Guo's death, Zhu was seen as his successor and took over Guo's army. Zhu Yuanzhang came from Fengyang and his band of followers such as Xu Da, Chang Yuchun, Tang He, Lan Yu and Mu Ying were known as the "Fengyang mafia" later becoming nobles in the Ming dynasty.  Between 1356 and 1367 Zhu began a series of military campaigns seeking to defeat his opponents in the Red Turbans. At first he nominally supported Han Lin'er to stabilize his northern frontier. Then he defeated rivals Chen Youliang, Zhang Shicheng and Fang Guozhen one by one. After rising to dominance, he drowned Han Lin'er. Calling to overthrow the Mongols and restore the Chinese, Zhu gained popular support.  In 1368 Zhu Yuanzhang proclaimed himself emperor in Yingtian, historically known as the Hongwu Emperor of the Ming dynasty. The next year the Ming army captured Dadu, and the rule of the Mongol Yuan dynasty was officially over. China was once again under the Chinese rule.  Historical records commonly portray the Red Turban Army as dealing with captive Yuan officials and soldiers with considerable violence. In his work on violence in rural China, William T. Rowe writes:  Following the victory, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered mass relocations across China. People from Shanxi w:zh:洪洞大槐树 were deported into other provinces in northern China including Hebei, Henan and Shandong which had been devastated by plague and famine. Zhu Yuanzhang moved people from Shandong, Guangdong, Hebei, Shanxi and Lake Taihu to settle in his hometown of Fengyang, around 500,000 people in 1367. Guizhou and Yunnan were colonized by soldiers from Anhui, Suzhou and Shanghai from Nanjing numbering 100,000. Sichuan was resettled by people from Hubei and Hunan, Hubei and Hunan were resettled by people from Jiangxi and Henan, Shandong, Beijing, Hezhou and Chuzhou were resettled by people from Shanxi and western Zhejiang while northern Henan and Hebei was resettled by people from Shanxi. The migration has been remembered in legends and novels. Fengyang was resettled by people from southern China and Jiangnan.  In the early Ming dynasty, the population in North and Central China was declining due to wars. In order to increase the population and start the economic recovery of these war-torn areas, the Ming government organized many large-scale forced mass migration to the area. People were moved from Shanxi province, which had been less affected by the wars, to the war-torn, less-populated area of North and Central China. The people were ordered to move to a location near "the tree" (大槐树), and prepare themselves for the family migration. The Shanxi Xiao family were part of this group of "immigrants under the tree" (在大槐树下集中移民), which were moved to the modern provinces of Henan, Shandong, Hebei, Beijing, Tianjin, Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Anhui, Jiangsu, Hubei, Hunan, Guangxi, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Shanxi and other places. Today, the Xiao family still has memorial tablets dedicated to their ancestors among the "immigrants under the tree" at the fourth cabinet of the memorial hall at the "large tree roots memorial garden" (大槐树寻根祭祖园祭祖堂四号供橱).

External links.

The Red Turban Rebellions () were uprisings against the Yuan dynasty between 1351 and 1368, eventually leading to the overthrow of Mongol rule in China.


History.

According to Confucian text, the discovery of silk production dates to about 2700 BC, although archaeological records point to silk cultivation as early as the Yangshao period (5000–3000 BC). In 1977, a piece of ceramic created 5400–5500 years ago and designed to look like a silkworm was discovered in Nancun, Hebei, providing the earliest known evidence of sericulture. Also, by careful analysis of archaeological silk fibre found on Indus Civilization sites dating back to 2450–2000 BC, it is believed that silk was being used over a wide region of South Asia. By about the first half of the 1st century AD, it had reached ancient Khotan, by a series of interactions along the Silk Road. By AD 140, the practice had been established in India. In the 6th century AD, the smuggling of silkworm eggs into the Byzantine Empire led to its establishment in the Mediterranean, remaining a monopoly in the Byzantine Empire for centuries (Byzantine silk). In 1147, during the Second Crusade, Roger II of Sicily (1095–1154) attacked Corinth and Thebes, two important centres of Byzantine silk production, capturing the weavers and their equipment and establishing his own silkworks in Palermo and Calabria, eventually spreading the industry to Western Europe.

Production.

The silkworms are fed with mulberry leaves, and after the fourth moult, they climb a twig placed near them and spin their silken cocoons. The silk is a continuous filament comprising fibroin protein, secreted from two salivary glands in the head of each worm, and a gum called sericin, which cements the filaments. The sericin is removed by placing the cocoons in hot water, which frees the silk filaments and readies them for reeling. This is known as the degumming process. The immersion in hot water also kills the silkmoth pupa.  Single filaments are combined to form thread, which is drawn under tension through several guides and wound onto reels. The threads may be plied to form yarn. After drying, the raw silk is packed according to quality.

Stages of production.

The stages of production are as follows:  Mahatma Gandhi was critical of silk production based on the Ahimsa philosophy "not to hurt any living thing". He also promoted "Ahimsa silk", made without boiling the pupa to procure the silk and wild silk made from the cocoons of wild and semiwild silkmoths. The Human League also criticised sericulture in their early single "Being Boiled". In the early 21st century, the organisation PETA has also campaigned against silk.

Sericulture, or silk farming, is the cultivation of silkworms to produce silk. Although there are several commercial species of silkworms, "Bombyx mori" (the caterpillar of the domestic silkmoth) is the most widely used and intensively studied silkworm. Silk was believed to have first been produced in China as early as the Neolithic Period. Sericulture has become an important cottage industry in countries such as Brazil, China, France, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, and Russia. Today, China and India are the two main producers, with more than 60% of the world's annual production.


Early life.

Born in Polizzi Generosa, Sicily, Rampolla was the son of Ignazio Rampolla, Count of Tindaro, and of his wife, Orsola Errante.  Rampolla entered the Vatican Seminary in 1856, and in 1861 continued his education at the Collegio Capranica and the Pontifical Gregorian University. Having displayed a considerable knowledge in Oriental affairs, he was sent to the Pontifical Academy of Ecclesiastical Nobles as preparation for service in the Roman Curia.  In 1866 Rampolla was ordained a priest. He obtained a doctorate "in utroque iure" (Canon Law and Civil Law) in 1870. In 1874 he was named a Canon of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. In 1875, he was sent to Spain as Auditor of the papal Nunciature. In 1877 he was named Secretary for Oriental Affairs of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. The following year he was named a Protonotary apostolic "de numero participantium", the highest rank of monsignor. In 1880 he was named Secretary of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, the Vatican office which deals with areas of the world in which there is no regularly constituted hierarchy of bishops. Then Rampolla was also appointed Secretary of the Congregation of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, the subsection of the Secretariat of State that deals with the foreign affairs of the Holy See.  On 1 December 1882 Rampolla was appointed titular archbishop of Heraclea in Europa, and on 8 December 1882 was consecrated bishop by Cardinal Edward Henry Howard. This was in preparation for his nomination as Apostolic Nuncio to Spain, which came on 19 December 1882.

Cardinal.

In the consistory of 14 March 1887, Pope Leo XIII created Rampolla del Tindaro a Cardinal-Priest, and on 26 May assigned him the titular church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere. On 2 June he was appointed Secretary of State. In this office, as he had previously in Spain, Rampolla employed Giacomo della Chiesa, the future Benedict XV, as his secretary.  On 21 March 1894, Pope Leo XIII named Cardinal Rampolla Archpriest of Saint Peter's Basilica.  As Secretary of State, Cardinal Rampolla supported the Austrian Christian Social Party, led by Karl Lueger, sometime mayor of Vienna (1897–1910). Lueger entered office over the disapproval of Emperor Franz Joseph through the personal intervention of Leo XIII. Lueger's Christian Social Party was the first Catholic social movement that was both anti-liberal and anti-Semitic. Rampolla began to swing papal policy from support of Austria toward support of France, Austria's enemy. In Italy, he opposed every government that came to office, on the grounds that there was nothing to lose, and perhaps something to gain, especially on the international scene. He fought for the restoration of the pope's control over the former Papal States and fought new penal codes that aimed to criminalize clerical activity. Rampolla expressed his opinion that the French public was obligated to support the French Prime Minister Jules Méline "in his anti-Semitic endeavours" at the height of the Dreyfus Affair.

1903 Conclave.

When Leo XIII died in 1903, it was widely expected that Rampolla would be elected pope. His candidacy gained momentum until the last moment when the Austrian Emperor Francis Joseph I, imposed the veto "jus exclusivae" during the conclave. Cardinal Jan Puzyna de Kosielsko, Prince-Archbishop of Kraków, expressed the veto on behalf of the Austrian emperor. Rampolla was reported to have received enough votes to win.  The Secretary of the Conclave, Archbishop Rafael Merry del Val, reported later that Cardinal Puzyna de Kosielsko came to see him, demanding to announce his veto against Cardinal Rampolla in the name of Franz Joseph. Merry Del Val protested and refused even to accept the document. Rampolla, according to Merry del Val, actually gained votes after the veto. However, Merry del Val later told Ludwig von Pastor that he thought Rampolla was unlikely to win since a majority of the cardinals wanted a more conservative direction following the relatively liberal pontificate of Pope Leo XIII, as did he himself.  The specific reasons for Austria's opposition to Rampolla are unclear. The veto may have been based on the pro-French positions adopted by Rampolla, which were reflected in the policies of Leo XIII. Part of the Holy See's solution involving the French Republic was the attempt to reconcile French Catholics with their nation's republican government via laïcité. This was anathema to the powerful Ultramontanes. Others claimed that Austria was acting, for reasons unspecified, on behalf of Italy's government through the intervention of State Minister, or that Austria was acting on behalf of Germany.  While some prelates formally protested this intrusion after voting had been in progress, the Ultramontanist Cardinals readily recognized the existing legal right of the emperor. Support for Rampolla dissipated, leading to the election of Giuseppe Sarto as Pope Pius X. Abolition of the veto right was one of his first official acts, on 20 January 1904.

Later years.

Pius X chose Rafael Merry del Val to succeed Rampolla as Secretary of State. Rampolla remained Arch-Priest of Saint Peter's. Between 1908 and his death in 1913, Rampolla served as Secretary (then the head) of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In 1912, Pope Pius X appointed Rampolla Archivist and Librarian of the Holy Roman Church as well, a position he held until his death. He continued to be viewed as a likely successor to Pope Pius X in case of the pontiff's death.  Rampolla died suddenly in Rome on 16 December 1913 at age seventy, some months before the pope died in August 1914. He was buried in the Campo Verano Cemetery near the Basilica of San Lorenzo fuori le Mura. His friend and closest collaborator, Giacomo della Chiesa, the future Pope Benedict XV, presided over his funeral ceremonies. On 19 June 1929, twelve days after the Italian Parliament ratified the Lateran Treaty, the body of Cardinal Rampolla was transferred to Santa Cecilia in Trastevere.

Mariano Rampolla del Tindaro (17 August 1843 – 16 December 1913) was an Italian Cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church, and the last man to have his candidacy for papal election vetoed by a Catholic monarch.


Wine.

Beaune is one of the wine communes of the Côte de Beaune subregion of the Burgundy wine region, which bears the name of this town. Although Beaune is lacking a Grand Cru vineyard in the commune, it is the hub of the region's wine business, as most of Burgundy's major négociants are here. Beaune is renowned for its annual charity wine auction on behalf of the Hospices de Beaune.  It is on the "route des Grands Crus" tourist trail among the vineyards. The road runs north from Beaune to Gevrey Chambertin and Nuits-Saint-Georges and south to Nolay, Saisy and Autun.

The Town.

Beaune is the centre for wine industry services (such as tractors and equipment for vat-rooms) as well as a number of wine-related institutes and education facilities. The train station is served by TGV, through Dijon or Lyon.  There is a comprehensive "traditional" shopping area clustered around the central square with a focus on gourmet food, fashion, and wine, while large supermarkets, business parks, etc., are situated on the outskirts of town.  Beaune has a major fine food market on Saturdays, where there are a large number of stall holders supplying a broad selection of products and specialties from Burgundy and the surrounding regions. For example, Bresse chickens, Jura cheeses, small goods, spices, produce of every variety as well as seasonal specialties such as truffles. There is a smaller market on Wednesday, and special-event markets and fetes are held throughout the year.  Although Beaune is not primarily a tourist town but one centred on the wine industry, it nevertheless attracts a large amount of tourism. About five traditional smaller hotels are located within the city walls with around five chain hotels on the outskirts.  Beaune is one of a number of towns in Europe asserting a key role in the "invention of film"; a number of murals and other tourist attractions reflect this.  Technically Beaune is a commune in eastern France, a sub-prefecture of department 21, the Côte-d'Or department, in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region.

Origin, Geography and Climate.

The name "Beaune" derives from the Latinised Gaulish word "Belena", which was the name of a spring around which the settlement was established. That name in turn is derived from "Belen" or "Belenos", a god of fast-flowing water. A Roman fort was built there in the first century A.D. and it was already a prosperous wine-growing region in the 13th century.  The town is served by a small watercourse, the "Bouzaise" (or "Bouzaize") of which the source is in a public park at the north-east boundary.  Beaune has a semi-continental climate with an oceanic tendency. The oceanic influence is seen with frequent rains in each season (though Autumn has the most and Summer has the least) and many weather changes. On the other hand, one sees the semi-continental influence with one of the greatest seasonal temperature differences, characterized by cold winters with frequent snowfall, and hot summers with violent storms. It is this climate which creates the unique environment for which the Côte d'Or is so readily known.

Hospices de Beaune.

Founded in 1442 by Nicolas Rolin, chancellor of the Duke of Burgundy, and his wife, the Hospices are a charity running hospitals and other services for the needy. Following from past donations, they own vineyards in Burgundy.

International relations.

Beaune is twinned with:

Beaune () is the wine capital of Burgundy in the Côte d'Or department in eastern France. It is located between Paris and Geneva.


National ensign.

Under terms of section 183 of Ghana's Merchant Shipping Act of 1963, the civil ensign is a red flag with the national flag in a black-fimbriated canton. In 2003, a new merchant shipping act was enacted, however, and this simply provides that "the National Flag of Ghana" is the proper national colours for Ghanaian ships. No mention is made of other flags or other possible flags.  The naval ensign is a red St. George's Cross on white flag, with the national flag in canton.

Air force ensign and civil air ensign.

The Ghana Air Force has its own ensign that incorporates the flag of Ghana. Civil aviation in Ghana is represented by the national civil air ensign. It is a standard light-blue field with the Ghanaian flag in the canton. It is charged in the fly with either a red, yellow and green roundel (in the case of the military ensign) or black five-pointed star (in the case of the civil ensign). Both have been used since Independence in 1957, and the subsequent founding of the Ghana Air Force in 1959.

History.

The Ghanaian government flag, adopted in 1957, was flown until 1962. Similarly, when the country formed the Union of African States, the flag of the Union was modeled on Bolivia's flag, but with two black stars, representing the nations. In May 1959, a third star was added.  Following the January 1964 constitutional referendum, Ghana adopted a variant of the 1957 tricolour with white in the place of yellow, after the colours of Kwame Nkrumah's ruling and then-sole legal party Convention People's Party, making it similar to the flag of Hungary. The original 1957 flag was reinstated on February 1966 following Nkrumah's overthrow in a "coup d'état".

The national flag of Ghana was designed and adopted in 1957 and was flown until 1962. It was then reinstated in 1966. It consists of the Pan-African colours of red, gold, and green, in horizontal stripes, with a black five-pointed star in the centre of the gold stripe. The Ghanaian flag was the second African flag after the flag of the Ethiopian Empire to feature these colours. The flag's design influenced that of the flag of Guinea-Bissau (1973). The flag of Ghana was designed by Theodosia Okoh (1922–2015).


ASCII STL.

An ASCII STL file begins with the line  where "name" is an optional string (though if "name" is omitted there must still be a space after solid). The file continues with any number of triangles, each represented as follows:  where each "n" or "v" is a floating-point number in sign-mantissa-"e"-sign-exponent format, e.g., "2.648000e-002". The file concludes with  The structure of the format suggests that other possibilities exist (e.g., facets with more than one "loop", or loops with more than three vertices). In practice, however, all facets are simple triangles.  White space (spaces, tabs, newlines) may be used anywhere in the file except within numbers or words. The spaces between "facet" and "normal" and between "outer" and "loop" are required.

Binary STL.

Because ASCII STL files can become very large, a binary version of STL exists. A binary STL file has an 80-character header (which is generally ignored, but should never begin with "solid" because that may lead some software to assume that this is an ASCII STL file). Following the header is a 4-byte little-endian unsigned integer indicating the number of triangular facets in the file. Following that is data describing each triangle in turn. The file simply ends after the last triangle.  Each triangle is described by twelve 32-bit floating-point numbers: three for the normal and then three for the X/Y/Z coordinate of each vertex – just as with the ASCII version of STL. After these follows a 2-byte ("short") unsigned integer that is the "attribute byte count" – in the standard format, this should be zero because most software does not understand anything else.  Floating-point numbers are represented as IEEE floating-point numbers and are assumed to be little-endian, although this is not stated in documentation.

Color in binary STL.

There are at least two non-standard variations on the binary STL format for adding color information:  The red/green/blue ordering within those two bytes is reversed in these two approaches – so while these formats could easily have been compatible, the reversal of the order of the colors means that they are not – and worse still, a generic STL file reader cannot automatically distinguish between them. There is also no way to have facets be selectively transparent because there is no per-facet alpha value – although in the context of current rapid prototyping machinery, this is not important.

The facet normal.

In both ASCII and binary versions of STL, the facet normal should be a unit vector pointing outwards from the solid object. In most software this may be set to (0,0,0), and the software will automatically calculate a normal based on the order of the triangle vertices using the "right-hand rule". Some STL loaders (e.g. the STL plugin for Art of Illusion) check that the normal in the file agrees with the normal they calculate using the right-hand rule and warn the user when it does not. Other software may ignore the facet normal entirely and use only the right-hand rule. Although it is rare to specify a normal that cannot be calculated using the right-hand rule, in order to be entirely portable, a file should both provide the facet normal and order the vertices appropriately. A notable exception is SolidWorks, which uses the normal for shading effects.

Use in 3D printing.

3D printers build objects by solidifying one layer at a time. This requires a series of closed 2D contours that are filled in with solidified material as the layers are fused together. A natural file format for such a machine would be a series of closed polygons corresponding to different Z-values. However, since it is possible to vary the layer thicknesses for a faster though less precise build, it was easier to define the model to be built as a closed polyhedron that can be sliced at the necessary horizontal levels.  The STL file format appears capable of defining a polyhedron with any polygonal facet, but in practice it is only ever used for triangles, which means that much of the syntax of the ASCII protocol is superfluous.  To properly form a 3D volume, the surface represented by any STL files must be closed and connected, where every edge is part of exactly two triangles, and not self-intersecting. Since the STL syntax does not enforce this property, it can be ignored for applications where the closedness does not matter. The closedness only matters insofar as the software that slices the triangles requires it to ensure that the resulting 2D polygons are closed. Sometimes such software can be written to clean up small discrepancies by moving vertices that are close together so that they coincide. The results are not predictable, but it is often sufficient.

Use in other fields.

STL file format is simple and easy to output. Consequently, many computer-aided design systems can output the STL file format. Although the output is simple to produce, some connectivity information is discarded.  Many computer-aided manufacturing systems require triangulated models. STL format is not the most memory- and computationally efficient method for transferring this data, but STL is often used to import the triangulated geometry into the CAM system. The format is commonly available, so the CAM system will use it. In order to use the data, the CAM system may have to reconstruct the connectivity.  STL can also be used for interchanging data between CAD/CAM systems and computational environments such as Mathematica.

Representation of curved surfaces.

It is not possible to use triangles to perfectly represent curved surfaces. To compensate, users often save enormous STL files to reduce the inaccuracy. Native formats of 3D design software files use mathematical surfaces to preserve detail losslessly in small files.

History.

STL was invented by the Albert Consulting Group for 3D Systems in 1987. The format was developed for 3D Systems' first commercial 3D printers. Since its initial release, the format remained relatively unchanged for 22 years. In 2009, an update to the format, dubbed STL 2.0, was proposed.

STL (an abbreviation of "stereolithography") is a file format native to the stereolithography CAD software created by 3D Systems. STL has several backronyms such as "Standard Triangle Language" and "Standard Tessellation Language". This file format is supported by many other software packages; it is widely used for rapid prototyping, 3D printing and computer-aided manufacturing. STL files describe only the surface geometry of a three-dimensional object without any representation of color, texture or other common CAD model attributes. The STL format specifies both ASCII and binary representations. Binary files are more common, since they are more compact.


Complexes of porphyrins.

Porphyrins are the conjugate acids of ligands that bind metals to form complexes. The metal ion usually has a charge of 2+ or 3+. A schematic equation for these syntheses is shown: A porphyrin without a metal-ion in its cavity is a "free base". Some iron-containing porphyrins are called hemes. Heme-containing proteins, or "hemoproteins", are found extensively in nature. Hemoglobin and myoglobin are two O-binding proteins that contain iron porphyrins. Various cytochromes are also hemoproteins.

Related species.

A benzoporphyrin is a porphyrin with a benzene ring fused to one of the pyrrole units. e.g. verteporfin is a benzoporphyrin derivative.  Several other heterocycles are related to porphyrins. These include corrins, chlorins, bacteriochlorophylls, and corphins. Chlorins (2,3-dihydroporphyrin) are more reduced, contain more hydrogen than porphyrins, i.e. one pyrrole has been converted to a pyrroline. This structure occurs in chlorophylls. Replacement of two of the four pyrrolic subunits with pyrrolinic subunits results in either a bacteriochlorin (as found in some photosynthetic bacteria) or an isobacteriochlorin, depending on the relative positions of the reduced rings. Some porphyrin derivatives follow Hückel's rule, but most do not.

Natural formation.

A geoporphyrin, also known as a petroporphyrin, is a porphyrin of geologic origin. They can occur in crude oil, oil shale, coal, or sedimentary rocks. Abelsonite is possibly the only geoporphyrin mineral, as it is rare for porphyrins to occur in isolation and form crystals.

Synthesis.

Biosynthesis.

In non-photosynthetic eukaryotes such as animals, insects, fungi, and protozoa, as well as the α-proteobacteria group of bacteria, the committed step for porphyrin biosynthesis is the formation of δ-aminolevulinic acid (δ-ALA, 5-ALA or dALA) by the reaction of the amino acid glycine with succinyl-CoA from the citric acid cycle. In plants, algae, bacteria (except for the α-proteobacteria group) and archaea, it is produced from glutamic acid via glutamyl-tRNA and glutamate-1-semialdehyde. The enzymes involved in this pathway are glutamyl-tRNA synthetase, glutamyl-tRNA reductase, and glutamate-1-semialdehyde 2,1-aminomutase. This pathway is known as the C5 or Beale pathway.  Two molecules of dALA are then combined by porphobilinogen synthase to give porphobilinogen (PBG), which contains a pyrrole ring. Four PBGs are then combined through deamination into hydroxymethyl bilane (HMB), which is hydrolysed to form the circular tetrapyrrole uroporphyrinogen III. This molecule undergoes a number of further modifications. Intermediates are used in different species to form particular substances, but, in humans, the main end-product protoporphyrin IX is combined with iron to form heme. Bile pigments are the breakdown products of heme.  The following scheme summarizes the biosynthesis of porphyrins, with references by EC number and the OMIM database. The porphyria associated with the deficiency of each enzyme is also shown:

Laboratory synthesis.

One of the most common syntheses for porphyrins is the Rothemund reaction, first reported in 1936, which is also the basis for more recent methods described by Adler and Longo. The general scheme is a condensation and oxidation process starting with pyrrole and an aldehyde.

Applications.

The main role of porphyrins is their support of aerobic life.

Photodynamic therapy.

Porphyrins have been evaluated in the context of photodynamic therapy (PDT) since they strongly absorb light, which is then converted to energy and heat in the illuminated areas. This technique has been applied in macular degeneration using verteporfin.  PDT is considered a noninvasive cancer treatment, involving the interaction between light of a determined frequency, a photo-sensitizer, and oxygen. This interaction produces the formation of a highly reactive oxygen species (ROS), usually singlet oxygen, as well as superoxide anion, free hydroxyl radical, or hydrogen peroxide. These high reactive oxygen species react with susceptible cellular organic biomolecules such as; lipids, aromatic amino acids, and nucleic acid heterocyclic bases, to produce oxidative radicals that damage the cell, possibly inducing apoptosis or even necrosis.  Bacteria have been shown to produce porphyrins endogenously as byproducts in heme biosynthesis, and these can be used in phototherapy to treat bacterial infections, such as acne.

Organic geochemistry.

The field of organic geochemistry, the study of the impacts and processes that organisms have had on the Earth, had its origins in the isolation of porphyrins from petroleum. This finding helped establish the biological origins of petroleum. Petroleum is sometimes "fingerprinted" by analysis of trace amounts of nickel and vanadyl porphyrins.  Chlorophyll is a magnesium porphyrin, and heme is an iron porphyrin, but neither porphyrin is present in petroleum. On the other hand, nickel and vanadyl porphyrins could be related to catalytic molecules from bacteria that feed primordial hydrocarbons.

Toxicology.

Heme biosynthesis is used as biomarker in environmental toxicology studies. While excess production of porphyrins indicate organochlorine exposure, lead inhibits ALA dehydratase enzyme.

Potential applications.

Biomimetic catalysis.

Although not commercialized, metalloporphyrin complexes are widely studied as catalysts for the oxidation of organic compounds. Particularly popular for such laboratory research are complexes of "meso"-tetraphenylporphyrin and octaethylporphyrin. Complexes with Mn, Fe, and Co catalyze a variety of reactions of potential interest in organic synthesis. Some complexes emulate the action of various heme enzymes such as cytochrome P450, lignin peroxidase. Metalloporphyrins are also studied as catalysts for water splitting, with the purpose of generating molecular hydrogen and oxygen for fuel cells.

Molecular electronics and sensors.

Porphyrin-based compounds are of interest as possible components of molecular electronics and photonics. Synthetic porphyrin dyes have been incorporated in prototype dye-sensitized solar cells.  Metalloporphyrins have been investigated as sensors.  Phthalocyanines, which are structurally related to porphyrins, are used in commerce as dyes and catalysts, but porphyrins are not.

Supramolecular chemistry.

Porphyrins are often used to construct structures in supramolecular chemistry. These systems take advantage of the Lewis acidity of the metal, typically zinc. An example of a host–guest complex that was constructed from a macrocycle composed of four porphyrins. A guest-free base porphyrin is bound to the center by coordination with its four-pyridine substituents.

Porphyrins ( ) are a group of heterocyclic macrocycle organic compounds, composed of four modified pyrrole subunits interconnected at their α carbon atoms via methine bridges (=CH−). The parent of porphyrin is porphine, a rare chemical compound of exclusively theoretical interest. Substituted porphines are called porphyrins. With a total of 26 π-electrons, of which 18 π-electrons form a planar, continuous cycle, the porphyrin ring structure is often described as aromatic. One result of the large conjugated system is that porphyrins typically absorb strongly in the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum, i.e. they are deeply colored. The name "porphyrin" derives from the Greek word πορφύρα ("porphyra"), meaning "purple".


History.

In 1965, the Benettons opened their first store in Belluno and three years after in Paris. The company's core business consists of clothing brands United Colors of Benetton and Sisley.  Benetton was an iconic brand in the 1980s and 1990s but has since struggled to regain this position. In 2000, it ranked 75th in Interbrand's ranking of best global brands, however, by 2002, it had dropped out of the list.  In 2012, Benetton Group was delisted from the stock exchange and is now a fully owned subsidiary of the Benetton family company Edizione holding.  In 2017, the group posted a loss of €180 million. Prompted by the heavy losses, Luciano Benetton, who was then 83 years old, returned from retirement as Executive Chairman for the brand.  Revival efforts also included appointing Jean-Charles de Castelbajac as artistic director and re-appointing photographer Oliviero Toscani. As of 2020, United Colors of Benetton has 1,500 employees and uses 25,000 workers through subcontractors.

Marketing.

Benetton is known for its sports sponsorships, and for its "United Colors" advertising campaign. In 1982, Benetton hired Oliviero Toscani as creative director, which led to a change in advertising focus towards raising awareness for various issues worldwide. In 1984, Toscani photographed the first multiracial ad for the brand.  In 1989, Toscani refocused Benetton's advertising strategy under the "United Colors of Benetton" campaign. The campaign's graphic, billboard-sized ads depicted a variety of shocking subjects, including the deathbed scene of a man (AIDS activist David Kirby) dying from AIDS. Another ad featured a bloodied, unwashed newborn baby with umbilical cord still attached. The newborn ad prompted roughly 650 complaints to the British Advertising Standards Authority, which noted in its 1991 annual report that the Benetton baby ad "attracted more complaints than we have ever previously known." A third ad included a black stallion copulating with a white mare, while an fourth advert showed a light-skinned girl with blond hair hugging a dark-skinned boy whose hair was shaped into devil horns.  In 2000, Benetton was included in the reference publication "Guinness World Records" for the "Most Controversial Campaign."  In November 2011, Benetton created the UNHATE Foundation, launching a worldwide communication campaign described as an invitation to leaders and citizens of the world to combat the "culture of hatred." Benetton claimed the campaign was created to serve as its corporate social responsibility strategy. The UNHATE poster series uses altered images of political and religious leaders, such as then-President of the United States Barack Obama and Hugo Chávez, then President of Venezuela, kissing each other. Following Vatican protests, Benetton removed an ad purportedly showing Pope Benedict XVI kissing Ahmed Mohamed el Tayeb, the imam of Egypt's Al Azhar mosque.  Benetton won the Press Grand Prix at the 2012 Cannes Ad festival for its Unhate campaign.  In November 2017, Benetton launched a campaign in collaboration with Devbhumi, a company owned by rural women from India's remote Uttarakhand region. The initiative claims to empower more than 6,000 rural women artisans in India.  In 2019, Benetton Group announced it will be hosting one of the four days of talks and presentations which makes up the 88th annual International Wool Textile Organisation (IWTO) congress.

Sport and sponsorship.

Benetton Group entered Formula One as a sponsor of Tyrrell in, then Alfa Romeo in ; this arrangement was extended to both Alfa and Toleman in. Benetton Formula Ltd. was formed at the end of 1985 when the Toleman and Spirit teams were sold to the Benetton family. The team saw its greatest success under Flavio Briatore, who managed the team from to. Michael Schumacher won his first Drivers' Championships with the team in and, and the team won their only Constructors' title in 1995. From, the team raced under an Italian licence although it continued to be based, like Toleman, in Oxfordshire in England. The team was bought by Renault for US$120 million in and was rebranded Renault F1 in 2002.  In 1979, Benetton first sponsored their (then amateur) local rugby team, A.S. Rugby Treviso. Benetton Rugby has since become a major force in Italian rugby, with 11 league titles and supplying many players to the national team. Benetton Group has also sponsored Treviso Basket (1982–2012) and Sisley Volley (1987–2012).

Criticisms.

Benetton has faced criticism from Mapuche organizations over its purchase of traditional Mapuche lands in Patagonia. The Curiñanco-Nahuelquir family was evicted from their land in 2002 following Benetton's claim to it, but the land was restored in 2007. The company have published a position statement regarding the Mapuche in Patagonia.  Benetton aroused suspicion when they considered using RFID tracking chips on clothes to monitor inventory. A boycott site alleges the tracking chips "can be read from a distance and used to monitor the people wearing them." Issues of consumer privacy were raised and the plan was shelved. Benetton's position on RFID technology is also available on their website.  PETA launched a boycott campaign against Benetton for buying wool from farmers who practiced mulesing. Benetton has since agreed to buy nonmulesed wool and has further urged the wool industry to adopt the PETA and Australian Wool Growers Association agreement to end mulesing. Benetton's position statement on the mulesing controversy is available on their website.

Building collapse at Savar.

On 24 April 2013, the eight-storey "Rana Plaza" commercial building collapsed outside Dhaka that housed one of the factories where Benetton makes its clothing. At least 1,130 people died. Benetton first denied reports linking production of their clothing at the factory, but clothes and documents linked to Benetton were discovered at the disaster site. Of the 29 brands identified as having sourced products from the Rana Plaza factories, only nine attended meetings held in November 2013 to agree a proposal on compensation to the victims. Several companies refused to sign including Walmart, Carrefour, Bonmarché, Mango, Auchan and Kik. The agreement was signed by Primark, Loblaw, Bonmarche and El Corte Ingles. A year after the collapse, Benetton faced international protests after failing to pay any compensation to the Rana Plaza Donors Trust Fund. Protests included shutting down Benetton's flagship Oxford Street store in London.  In April 2015, Benetton Group announced that it has doubled compensation for Rana Plaza victims recommended by independent assessors (PWC AND WRAP) and applied the principles of the Accord on Fire and Building Safety to global suppliers. Benetton's engagement for Bangladesh is available on their website.

Benetton Group S.r.l. is a global fashion brand based in Ponzano Veneto, Italy founded in 1965. Benetton Group has a network of about 5,000 stores worldwide. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Benetton family's holding company Edizione.


Geography.

Vladimir Oblast borders Moscow, Yaroslavl, Ivanovo, Ryazan, and Nizhny Novgorod Oblasts. The oblast is situated in the center of the East European Plain. The Klyazma and the Oka are the most important rivers. There are approximately three hundred lakes. The oblast is situated in a zone of mixed forests.

Fauna.

The oblast's fauna currently includes more than fifty species of mammals (some examples including elk, wild boar, roe deer, red and sika deer, lynx, wolf, squirrel, rabbit, marten, fox, weasel, badger and other fur-bearing animals), five species of reptiles, and ten species of amphibians. The semiaquatic Russian desman is listed in the Russian Red Book of endangered species. The region is inhabited by 216 species of birds, among which are the capercaillie, black grouse, grouse, partridge, woodcock, goose, duck, etc. The lesser white-fronted goose is listed in the Red Book.  Hunting season runs from October to February with the following license and permit restrictions:  Bodies of water in the region are rich in numerous species (about 40) of fresh-water fish (e.g. eel, roach, pike, perch, bream, rudd, and sturgeon in the Klyazma River), which support ice fishing in winter. Additionally, the oblast has several hunting farms.

Hydrography.

The total expanse of the oblast's surface waters is 32.9 hectares.  The region has hundreds of rivers with a total length of more than 8.6 million kilometers—there are 560 rivers and streams throughout the oblast. The Klyazma River flows into the Oka River on the south-eastern edge of the oblast's border with the Nizhny Novgorod Region. The Klyazma River's major tributaries in the Vladimir Region are the Sherna (with the Molokcha flowing into it), the Kirzhach (with its own tributaries being the Big and Small Kirzhach), the Peksha, the Koloksha, the Nerl, the Sudogda, the Uvod, the Lukh and the Suvorosch. Tributaries of the Oka within Vladimir oblast are the Gus, Unzha, and Ushna rivers. The Dubna River, a tributary of the Volga River, originates near the town of Alexandrov. The Oka River is navigable throughout the region (157 km). The rivers in the region are characterized by their flat currents, broad valleys and meandering channels. Water levels are characterized by their high spring tides, low water periods over summer-autumn with occasional flooding during heavy rains, and stable/low levels throughout the winter.  There are about three hundred lakes covering an area of five thousand hectares. Most of them are small and undrained and many are overgrown with a peat layer. The origin of the lakes varies. Numerous oxbow lakes are scattered along the river valleys. The largest of them are Lake Urvanovskoe (12 km long) and Lake Visha (length about 10 km). In the Meshchera Lowlands and in the northwest of the oblast are lakes of ancient alluvial valleys: Isikhry, Svyatoe and others. Lakes of karst origin, located in the lower reaches of the Klyazma and in the center of Vyaznikovsky District (a northeastern district in the oblast), have highly mineralized water and are associated with underground watercourses. The largest and deepest of them is Lake Kshchara. In the districts of Alexandrov and Yuryev-Polsky glacial lakes are small in size.  The main masses of wetlands in the region (total area of 37.4 thousand hectares ) occur in Meshchera and Balakhna (in the northeast of the oblast) lowlands.

History.

The territory of modern Vladimir Oblast has been populated since ancient times. The oldest known traces of human settlement date to the Upper Paleolithic. A settlement of Homo Sapiens dating back to 25,000 BCE was discovered in the area of Sungir. The region of Vladimir were inhabited by different people like Slavs, Tatars, Finno-Ugrics and Balts. The East Slavic tribe of the Buzhans originated in the Vladimir region. Archaeological excavations of Volga Finn settlements document also the Finno-Ugric roots of this land. Merya, Muromian, and Meshchera inhabited territory of the region during this period.  Since the 10th century CE, Slavic colonization of the area began in Murom and Suzdal. The current territory of Vladimir Oblast became part of the Old Russian state. In the 11th century, the region became part of the Rostov-Suzdal principality and in the 12th century the Vladimir-Suzdal principality. In the early 12th century, Vladimir emerged as did Yaropolch-Zalessky. The Vladimir region rapidly developed in the mid-12th century during the rule of Yuri Dolgorukiy and Andrey Bogolyubsky. New townships arose--Yuriev-Polsky, Gorokhovets, Starodub-on-the-Klyazma, Mstislavl—along with the princely residences Kideksha and Bogolyubovo. The visibility of historical monuments preserves cities reminiscent of medieval Russian history and detailed documents about the history of the last hundred years records the peak of the cultural development of these places (Vladimirskaya guberniya, Vladimir Highway).  Most, if not all, of modern Vladimir, during the Soviet period, seems to have been part of Ivanovo Oblast until it became a separate Federal Subject in 1944.

Politics.

During the Soviet period, the high authority in the oblast was shared between three persons: The first secretary of the Vladimir CPSU Committee (who in reality had the biggest authority), the chairman of the oblast Soviet (legislative power), and the Chairman of the oblast Executive Committee (executive power). Since 1991, CPSU lost all the power, and the head of the Oblast administration, and eventually the governor was appointed/elected alongside elected regional parliament.  The Charter of Vladimir Oblast is the fundamental law of the region. The Legislative Assembly of Vladimir Oblast is the province's standing legislative (representative) body. The Legislative Assembly exercises its authority by passing laws, resolutions, and other legal acts and by supervising the implementation and observance of the laws and other legal acts passed by it. The highest executive body is the Oblast Government, which includes territorial executive bodies such as district administrations, committees, and commissions that facilitate development and run the day to day matters of the province. The Oblast administration supports the activities of the Governor who is the highest official and acts as guarantor of the observance of the oblast Charter in accordance with the Constitution of Russia.

Economy and transportation.

The largest companies in the region include the local branches of Mondelez International (revenues of $ million in 2017) and Ferrero SpA ($ million), Treyd Servis (baby food manufacturer, $ million), Starodvorskiye Kolbasy (sausage producer, $ million).  The Gusevskoye peat narrow gauge railway for hauling peat operates in the Gus-Khrustalny District.

Demographics.

Population: 1,443,693 (2010 Census);  2009 - 1.46 | 2010 - 1.46 | 2011 - 1.50 | 2012 - 1.62 | 2013 - 1.59 | 2014 - 1.64 | 2015 - 1.73 | 2016 - 1.72(e)  Ethnic composition (2010):

Religion.

According to a 2012 survey 42.3% of the population of Vladimir Oblast adheres to the Russian Orthodox Church, 5.1% are unaffiliated Christians, 1.2% are Orthodox Christian believers who don't belong to the church or belong to other (non-Russian) Orthodox churches, and 0.5% of the population are adherents of the Slavic native faith (Rodnovery). In addition, 32% of the population declares to be "spiritual but not religious", 13.9% is atheist, and 4.8% follows other religions or did not give an answer to the question.

Vladimir Oblast (, "Vladimirskaya oblast") is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Its administrative center is the city of Vladimir, which is located east of Moscow. As of the 2010 Census, the oblast's population was 1,443,693.


Motivation.

Mines and factories.

Suppose that we have a collection of "n" mines mining iron ore, and a collection of "n" factories which use the iron ore that the mines produce. Suppose for the sake of argument that these mines and factories form two disjoint subsets "M" and "F" of the Euclidean plane R. Suppose also that we have a "cost function" "c" : R × R → [0, ∞), so that "c"("x", "y") is the cost of transporting one shipment of iron from "x" to "y". For simplicity, we ignore the time taken to do the transporting. We also assume that each mine can supply only one factory (no splitting of shipments) and that each factory requires precisely one shipment to be in operation (factories cannot work at half- or double-capacity). Having made the above assumptions, a "transport plan" is a bijection "T" : "M" → "F". In other words, each mine "m" ∈ "M" supplies precisely one factory "T"("m") ∈ "F" and each factory is supplied by precisely one mine. We wish to find the "optimal transport plan", the plan "T" whose "total cost"  is the least of all possible transport plans from "M" to "F". This motivating special case of the transportation problem is an instance of the assignment problem. More specifically, it is equivalent to finding a minimum weight matching in a bipartite graph.

Moving books: the importance of the cost function.

The following simple example illustrates the importance of the cost function in determining the optimal transport plan. Suppose that we have "n" books of equal width on a shelf (the real line), arranged in a single contiguous block. We wish to rearrange them into another contiguous block, but shifted one book-width to the right. Two obvious candidates for the optimal transport plan present themselves: If the cost function is proportional to Euclidean distance ("c"("x", "y") = α|"x" − "y"|) then these two candidates are "both" optimal. If, on the other hand, we choose the strictly convex cost function proportional to the square of Euclidean distance ("c"("x", "y") = α|"x" − "y"|), then the "many small moves" option becomes the unique minimizer.

Hitchcock problem.

The following transportation problem formulation is credited to F. L. Hitchcock: This challenge in logistics was taken up by D. R. Fulkerson and in the book "Flows in Networks" (1962) written with L. R. Ford Jr..  Tjalling Koopmans is also credited with formulations of transport economics and allocation of resources.

Abstract formulation of the problem.

Monge and Kantorovich formulations.

The transportation problem as it is stated in modern or more technical literature looks somewhat different because of the development of Riemannian geometry and measure theory. The mines-factories example, simple as it is, is a useful reference point when thinking of the abstract case. In this setting, we allow the possibility that we may not wish to keep all mines and factories open for business, and allow mines to supply more than one factory, and factories to accept iron from more than one mine.  Let "X" and "Y" be two separable metric spaces such that any probability measure on "X" (or "Y") is a Radon measure (i.e. they are Radon spaces). Let "c" : "X" × "Y" → [0, ∞] be a Borel-measurable function. Given probability measures μ on "X" and ν on "Y", Monge's formulation of the optimal transportation problem is to find a transport map "T" : "X" → "Y" that realizes the infimum  where "T"(μ) denotes the push forward of μ by "T". A map "T" that attains this infimum ("i.e." makes it a minimum instead of an infimum) is called an "optimal transport map".  Monge's formulation of the optimal transportation problem can be ill-posed, because sometimes there is no "T" satisfying "T"(μ) = ν: this happens, for example, when μ is a Dirac measure but ν is not.  We can improve on this by adopting Kantorovich's formulation of the optimal transportation problem, which is to find a probability measure γ on "X" × "Y" that attains the infimum  where Γ(μ, ν) denotes the collection of all probability measures on "X" × "Y" with marginals μ on "X" and ν on "Y". It can be shown that a minimizer for this problem always exists when the cost function "c" is lower semi-continuous and Γ("μ", "ν") is a tight collection of measures (which is guaranteed for Radon spaces "X" and "Y"). (Compare this formulation with the definition of the Wasserstein metric "W" on the space of probability measures.) A gradient descent formulation for the solution of the Monge–Kantorovich problem was given by Sigurd Angenent, Steven Haker, and Allen Tannenbaum.

Duality formula.

The minimum of the Kantorovich problem is equal to  where the supremum runs over all pairs of bounded and continuous functions formula_10 and formula_11 such that

Solution of the problem.

Optimal transportation on the real line.

For formula_13, let formula_14 denote the collection of probability measures on formula_15 that have finite "formula_16"-th moment. Let formula_17 and let formula_18, where formula_19 is a convex function.  The proof of this solution appears in.

Separable Hilbert spaces.

Let "formula_26" be a separable Hilbert space. Let formula_27 denote the collection of probability measures on "formula_26" such that have finite formula_16-th moment; let formula_30 denote those elements formula_31 that are Gaussian regular: if formula_32 is any strictly positive Gaussian measure on formula_26 and formula_34, then formula_35 also.  Let formula_36, formula_37, formula_38 for formula_39. Then the Kantorovich problem has a unique solution formula_40, and this solution is induced by an optimal transport map: i.e., there exists a Borel map formula_41 such that  Moreover, if formula_43 has bounded support, then  for formula_20-almost all "formula_46" for some locally Lipschitz, "c"-concave and maximal Kantorovich potential formula_47. (Here formula_48 denotes the Gateaux derivative of formula_47.)

Applications.

The Monge–Kantorovich optimal transport has found applications in wide range in different fields. Among them are:

In mathematics and economics, transportation theory or transport theory is a name given to the study of optimal transportation and allocation of resources. The problem was formalized by the French mathematician Gaspard Monge in 1781.


Characteristics.

The technical solution itself was unique in its time and brought several innovations and even patents. About twenty different proposals have been made. Finally won in 1984 the variant of futuristic, subtle but stable, three column structure.  The structure of the tower is unconventional, based on a triangle whose corners go up in steel columns, consisting of three tubes with a double steel wall, filled with concrete. They support nine 'pods' and three decks for transmitting equipment. One of the three pillars extends considerably higher than the others, and this provides both the necessary height for some antennas, along with the structure's rocket and gantry appearance. In its time it was a unique technology, which authors have patented.  The tower stands 216 metres (709 feet) high, altitude of the observatory is 93 m, the hotel room altitude is 70 m, restaurants altitude is 66 m, with a capacity of 180 people. Three elevators transport passengers at a speed of 4 m/s.  Three of the pods, positioned directly beneath the decks at the top of the tower, are used for equipment related to the tower's primary function and are inaccessible to the public. The remaining six pods are open to visitors, providing a panoramic view of Prague and the surrounding area. The lower three, approximately half-way up the length of the pillars at 63 metres (207 feet), house a recently refurbished restaurant and café bar.  Construction of the tower cost $19 million. It weighs 11,800 tons and is also used as a meteorological observatory. It is a member of the World Federation of Great Towers.

Reputation.

Like many examples of communist-era architecture in Central and Eastern Europe, the TV tower used to be generally resented by the local inhabitants. It also received a spate of nicknames, mostly alluding to its rocket-like shape, like "Baikonur", after the Soviet cosmodrome or some more political, like "Jakeš's finger" ("Jakešův prst"), after the Secretary General of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. In 2009, Australian website Virtualtourist.com called Žižkov TV Tower the second ugliest building in the world, behind the Morris A. Mechanic Theatre in Baltimore. On the other hand, the crawling Babies (together with the statue Piss by the same author) were published by The Guardian in 2007 as the greatest attraction of Prague. Recently, the tower's reputation among Czechs has improved. Today the tower attracts visitors with its technological innovations and view over the city skyline.  Although official criticism during the time of its construction was impossible, the tower was lambasted unofficially for its'megalomania', its 'jarring' effect on the Prague skyline and for destroying part of a centuries-old Old Jewish cemetery in Žižkov situated at the tower's foundations. Burials in the cemetery ended up in 1890. In 1960 the place was converted to Mahler's park. One quarter of the cemetery was preserved, but three quarters of the cemetery tombstones were tumbled and covered with a thick layer of soil. However, the tower's foundation was simply dug up through the layer of the cemetery, tombstones were crushed by heavy equipment and the bones were carried away to landfill.

Last changes.

David Černý sculptures.

In 2000, ten fiberglass sculptures by Czech artist David Černý called "Miminka" (Babies), crawling up and down were temporarily attached to the tower's pillars. The sculptures were admired by many and were returned in 2001 as a permanent installation. Another three Babies, made from bronze, can be found in Prague's Kampa Park.  For cleaning and structural checks, these Babies were removed from the tower in the fall of 2017. After examination of the condition of the sculptures was made a decision to replace them with identical duplicates. In March 2019 were installed the duplicates of the "Babies" on their original positions. The original Babies were returned to David Černý.

Restaurant.

The restaurant 'Oblaca' features a range of international and regional cuisine. Bar prepares various high-quality mixed drinks.

Illumination.

Since 2006, to mark the 125th anniversary of the elevation of Žižkov into a city and the 15th anniversary of the commissioning of the transmitter, the transmitter is illuminated in different colors every evening, usually in the colors of the state tricolor.

České Radiokomunikace TOWER Datacenter.

After switching to digital TV broadcasting and removing the old analogue broadcast equipment, the owner decided to use the free space for a new colocation datacenter with capacity for 64 racks.

Luxury Room.

On 13 February 2013 a luxury one room hotel was added to the tower. The room sits upstairs from the reopened restaurant and a spiral staircase provides private access. Inside the room is a large bed and a free standing bathtub from where the guest can view the city.

The Žižkov Television Tower () is a unique transmitter tower built in Prague between 1985 and 1992. Designed by the architect Václav Aulický and the structural engineer Jiří Kozák, it stands high above the city's traditional skyline from its position on top of a hill in the district of Žižkov, from which it takes its name. The tower is an example of high-tech architecture.


Life.

Angela Hitler was born in Braunau, Austria-Hungary, the second child of Alois Hitler Sr. and his second wife, Franziska Matzelsberger. Her mother died the following year. She and her brother Alois Hitler, Jr. were brought up by their father and his third wife Klara Pölzl. Her half-brother, Adolf Hitler, was born six years after her, and they grew very close. She is the only one of his siblings mentioned in "Mein Kampf".  Angela's father died in 1903 and her stepmother died in 1907, leaving a small inheritance. On 14 September 1903, she married Leo Raubal (11 June 1879 – 10 August 1910), a junior tax inspector, and gave birth to a son, Leo on 12 October 1906. On 4 June 1908, Angela gave birth to Geli and in 1910 to a second daughter, Elfriede (Elfriede Maria Hochegger, 10 January 1910 – 24 September 1993). Her husband died in 1910.

Widow.

She moved to Vienna after World War I. Walter Langer's wartime report "The Mind of Adolf Hitler", an OSS profile of the Hitler family, paints a positive picture of Angela at this period, describing her as "rather a decent and industrious person". It says she became manager of Mensa Academia Judaica, a boarding house for Jewish students, where she once defended those in her care against anti-Semitic rioters. According to Langer: "Some of our informants knew her during this time and report that in the student riots Angela defended the Jewish students from attack and on several occasions beat the Aryan students away from the steps of the dining hall with a club. She is a rather large, strong peasant type of person who is well able to take an active part."  Angela had heard nothing from Adolf for a decade when he re-established contact with her in 1919. In 1924, Adolf was confined in Landsberg; Angela made the trip from Vienna to visit him. In 1928, she and Geli moved to the Haus Wachenfeld at Obersalzberg near Berchtesgaden, where she became his housekeeper and was later put in charge of the household at Hitler's expanded retreat. Geli committed suicide in 1931.  Angela continued to work for her half-brother after Geli's death, but she strongly disapproved of Hitler's relationship with Eva Braun. She eventually left Berchtesgaden as a result and moved to Dresden.

Remarriage.

On 18 February 1936, she married architect Professor Martin Hammitzsch (22 May 1878 – 12 May 1945), who designed the Yenidze cigarette factory in Dresden, and who later became the Director of the State School of Building Construction in Dresden.  On 26 June 1936, the couple returned to Passau. When they visited the house at the Inn river, where Angela had lived as a child, they left an entry at the visitors' book, and the local newspaper reported.  Hitler apparently disapproved of the marriage, and referred to his half-sister as "Frau Hammitzsch". It seems, however, that Hitler re-established contact with her during World War II, because Angela remained his intermediary to the rest of the family with whom he did not want contact. In 1941, she sold her memoirs of her years with Hitler to the Eher-Verlag, which brought her 20,000 Reichsmark.  In spring 1945, after the destruction of Dresden in the massive bomb attack of February 13-14, Adolf Hitler moved Angela to Berchtesgaden to avoid her being captured by the Soviets. He also lent her and his younger sister Paula over 100,000 Reichsmark. In Hitler's Last Will and Testament, he guaranteed Angela a pension of 1,000 Reichsmark monthly. It is uncertain if she ever received any payments. Her second husband committed suicide shortly after the final defeat of Germany.

Post war.

Adolf apparently had a low opinion of the intelligence of both his sisters, calling them "stupid geese". Nevertheless, she spoke very highly of him, even after the war, and claimed that neither her brother nor she herself had known anything about the Holocaust. Angela Hitler died of a stroke on 30 October 1949 in the city of Hanover, Germany.

Family.

Her son, Leo, had a son – Peter (b. 1931), a retired engineer who lives in Linz, Austria. Angela's daughter Elfriede married German lawyer Ernst Hochegger on 27 June 1937 in Düsseldorf; they had a son, Heiner Hochegger (born in January 1945).

Film portrayals.

She is played by Helene Thimig in the movie "The Hitler Gang" (1944). In the miniseries "" (2003), she is portrayed by Julie-Ann Hassett.  In the French comedy "L'as des as" (1982), Angela Hitler is portrayed as the caretaker of Hitler's Obersalzberg residence. She is played in drag by Günter Meisner, the same actor who plays Hitler.

Angela Franziska Johanna Hammitzsch (née Hitler; 28 July 1883 – 30 October 1949) was the elder half-sister of Adolf Hitler. By her first husband, Leo Raubal Sr., she was the mother of Geli Raubal.


Plot summary.

In this story, an artist, named Niggle, lives in a society that does not value art. Working only to please himself, he paints a canvas of a great Tree with a forest in the distance. He invests each and every leaf of his tree with obsessive attention to detail, making every leaf uniquely beautiful. Niggle ends up discarding all his other artworks, or tacks them onto the main canvas, which becomes a single vast embodiment of his vision.  However, there are many mundane chores and duties that prevent Niggle from giving his work the attention it deserves, so it remains incomplete and is not fully realised.  At the back of his head, Niggle knows that he has a great trip looming, and he must pack and prepare his bags.  Also, Niggle's next door neighbour, a gardener named Parish, frequently drops by asking for various forms of help. Parish is lame and has a sick wife and genuinely needs help. Niggle, having a good heart, takes time out to help—but he is also reluctant because he would rather work on his painting. Niggle has other pressing work duties as well that require his attention. Then Niggle himself catches a chill doing errands for Parish in the rain.  Eventually, Niggle is forced to take his trip, and cannot get out of it. He has not prepared, and as a result ends up in a kind of institution, in which he must perform menial labour each day. Back at the home to which he cannot return, Niggle's painting is abandoned, used to patch a damaged roof, and all but destroyed (except for the one perfect leaf of the story's title, which is placed in the local museum).  In time, Niggle is paroled from the institution, and he is sent to a place "for a little gentle treatment". He discovers that this new place is the country of the Tree and Forest of his great painting. This place is the true realisation of his vision, not the flawed and incomplete version in his painting.  Niggle is reunited with his old neighbour, Parish, who now proves his worth as a gardener, and together they make the Tree and Forest even more beautiful. Finally, Niggle journeys farther and deeper into the Forest, and beyond into the great Mountains that he only faintly glimpsed in his painting.  Long after both Niggle and Parish have taken their journeys, the lovely place that they created together becomes a destination for many travelers to visit before their final voyage into the Mountains, and it earns the name "Niggle's Parish".

Analysis.

One religious reading of "Leaf by Niggle" could lead to the conclusion that the allegory of "Leaf by Niggle" is life, death, purgatory and paradise. Niggle is not prepared for his unavoidable trip, as humans often are not prepared for death. His time in the institution and subsequent discovery of his Tree represent purgatory and heaven.  But "Leaf by Niggle" can also be interpreted as an illustration of Tolkien's religious philosophy of creation and sub-creation. In this philosophy, true creation is the exclusive province of God, and those who aspire to creation can only make echoes (good) or mockeries (evil) of truth. The sub-creation of works that echo the true creations of God is one way that mortals honour God.  This philosophy is evident in Tolkien's other works, especially "The Silmarillion"—one Vala, Morgoth, creates the Orc race as a foul mockery of the elf. Another Vala, Aulë, creates the Dwarf race as an act of subcreation that honoured Eru Ilúvatar (the analog of God in Tolkien's writings), and which Eru accepted and made real, just as Niggle's Tree was made real.  Niggle's yearnings after truth and beauty (God's creations) are echoed in his great painting; after death, Niggle is rewarded with the realisation (the making-real) of his yearning. Or, if you prefer, Niggle's Tree always existed; he simply echoed it in his art. From a metanarrative viewpoint, Tolkien's Arda is itself a subcreation designed to honour the true stories of the real world. Thus, the Middle-earth legendarium, despite its lack of overt religious elements, can be interpreted as a profoundly religious work.  An autobiographical interpretation places Tolkien himself as Niggle—in mundane matters as well as spiritual ones. Tolkien was compulsive in his writing, his revision, his desire for perfection in form and in the "reality" of his invented world, its languages, its chronologies, its existence. Like Niggle, Tolkien came to abandon other projects or graft them onto his "Tree", Middle-earth. Like Niggle, Tolkien faced many chores and duties that kept him from the work he loved; and like Niggle, Tolkien was a horrible procrastinator.  Tolkien himself might have disagreed with an allegorical interpretation. He wrote, in Letter 131 of "The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien", "I dislike Allegory". In specific reference to Niggle, he wrote in Letter 241, "It is not really or properly an 'allegory' so much as'mythical'." On the other hand, in Letter 153 he said, "I tried to show allegorically how [subcreation] might come to be taken up into Creation in some plane in my 'purgatorial' story "Leaf by Niggle"."

"Leaf by Niggle" is a short story written by J. R. R. Tolkien in 1938–39 and first published in the "Dublin Review" in January 1945. It can be found, most notably, in Tolkien's book titled "Tree and Leaf", and in other places (including the collections "The Tolkien Reader", "Poems & Stories", "A Tolkien Miscellany", and "Tales from the Perilous Realm"). This is notable because the book, consisting of a seminal essay called "On Fairy-Stories" and "Leaf by Niggle", offers the underlying philosophy (Creation and Sub-Creation, see below) of much of Tolkien's fantastical writings.


Early career and Jasta 11.

Richthofen was born on 27 September 1894. He and his brothers, Manfred and Bolko, hunted wild boar, elk, birds, and deer.  Like his brother Manfred, Lothar began the war as a cavalry officer with the 4th Dragoon Regiment. He had remained in the public Gymnasium (high school), he was enrolled in compulsory military training at the Kriegsschule in Danzig (Gdansk, Poland) when war began. On his own initiative Lothar returned to his unit. Lothar was nearly cut down by sniper fire while on patrol. In mid-October 1914, while stationed at Attigny, he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class for valour. It was the only consolation that Lothar received during his cavalry service. The following month, his regiment was transferred to the Eastern Front.  In February 1915 Manfred "rescued" his brother Lothar from the boredom of training new troops in Luben and encouraged him to also transfer to the "Fliegertruppe".  Richthofen joined the German Army Air Service ("Luftstreitkräfte") in late 1915. He served from January 1916 as an observer with "Jasta" 23, sometimes observing for Otto Creutzmann and saw action during the Battle of Verdun. He won the Iron Cross 1st Class in December and then began training as a pilot. His first posting as a pilot was to his brother's "Jasta 11" on 6 March 1917. An impulsive and aggressive pilot, unlike his coolly calculating brother Manfred, Lothar's first victory claim followed on 28 March for an FE 2b of No. 25 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps. The German high command appreciated the propaganda value of two Richthofens fighting together to defeat the enemy in the air.  Taking part in the period of German dominance called Bloody April by the British, Lothar had won 15 more victories by the beginning of May. When his brother went on leave, Lothar von Richthofen assumed command of the squadron.

Albert Ball.

During the first week of May 1917, Lothar von Richthofen scored three more victories. On the evening of 7 May near Douai, he led a flight of 5 Albatros D.III's from "Jasta 11" that encountered 11 S.E.5s from the "elite" No. 56 Squadron RFC, including the top English ace of the time, Captain Albert Ball, as well as a SPAD S.VII from No. 19 Squadron, and a Sopwith Triplane of No 8 (Naval) Squadron. In a running battle in deteriorating visibility in the middle of a thunderstorm over Bourlon Wood, both sides became scattered. Richthofen engaged in single combat with the British Triplane. At about the same time, Ball was seen by fellow 56 Squadron pilot Cyril Crowe chasing a red Albatros into a thundercloud. Ball lost control of his plane and crashed fatally. Though forced to land his damaged aircraft, Richthofen escaped injury. The British Sopwith Triplane involved in the action returned to base undamaged.  Richthofen posted a claim for shooting down the Sopwith Triplane. However, the propaganda value of Ball's death under the guns of a German pilot was obvious, and the German High Command awarded a victory over Ball to Lothar. The fallacy of the award was readily apparent. The idea that an experienced pilot such as Richthofen would confuse a triplane with a biplane was ludicrous. "Leutnant" Hailer, a German pilot on the ground who witnessed the crash and was the first German at the crash scene saw no battle damage to Ball's plane. The doctor who autopsied Ball reported massive injuries to Ball from the crash, but no bullet wounds. Nevertheless, the official line was that Lothar von Richthofen shot down Albert Ball. Later research suggests that Ball became disoriented by vertigo, accidentally entering an inverted dive which choked his plane's carburettor and stopped the engine, causing him to crash.

Pour le Mérite.

Richthofen raised his total to 24 by 13 May, when, after shooting down a BE.2, he was wounded in the hip by anti-aircraft fire and crash-landed; his injuries kept him out of combat for five months. On 14 May he was awarded the Pour le Mérite, and he resumed command of Jasta 11 in September 1917. In early 1918 he suffered a severe ear infection and was hospitalised in Berlin.  Returning to his unit in February, he claimed 3 Bristol Fighter F2.Bs on 11 and 12 March, before he was again forced down on 13 March by a Sopwith Camel flown by Captain Augustus Orlebar of No. 73 Squadron. Nursing his crippled Fokker Dr1 Triplane into a landing, Richthofen clipped a high-tension wire and crashed heavily, suffering serious head injuries. He was still recovering when he learned of his brother's death.  Lothar returned to service with Jasta 11 in July 1918. He scored his final victory (a DH-9a) on 12 August 1918, flying a Fokker D.VII. The next day he was again wounded in action against Sopwith Camels, probably by Captain Field E. Kindley of the 148th Aero Squadron USAS.. Lothar may also have been forced down by Canadian RAF pilot William Stephenson, later known as the World War II spymaster code-named "Intrepid". Lothar was promoted to Oberleutnant, and saw no further combat before the war ended in November.  Considering the amount of time Lothar von Richthofen spent on the front and in hospitals, he was one of the most combat efficient and prolific flying aces of the war, perhaps even more so than his brother Manfred. Of his total of 40 confirmed victories, Lothar scored 33 in just three months: 15 in April 1917, 8 in May 1917, and 10 in August 1918.

Post war.

With the return of peace, Lothar von Richthofen worked briefly on a farm before accepting an industrial position. He married Countess Doris von Keyserlingk in Cammerau in June 1919, fathering a son, Wolf-Manfred (1922–2010) and a daughter, Carmen Viola (1920–1971), before the marriage was dissolved. He then became a commercial pilot, carrying passengers and mail between Berlin and Hamburg.

Death.

On July 4, 1922 Richthofen died in a crash of his LVG C VI at Hamburg due to an engine failure. Also on board were actress Fern Andra and her director. Both Bluen and Andra survived, Andra spending a year recovering from her injuries.  Lothar von Richthofen was interred next to his father at the Garrison Cemetery in Schweidnitz, but the cemetery was levelled by the Poles when the city was transferred to Poland after World War II. Today the area is a football field, although von Richthofen's headstone still exists.  A plaque to Lothar's memory is next to his brother Manfred von Richthofen's grave on the Südfriedhof in Wiesbaden.

Orders and Medals.

Prussia / German Empire  Other German States  Other Central Powers  Prussian / Imperial German Badges

Baron Lothar Siegfried von Richthofen ("Lothar Siegfried Freiherr von Richthofen" in German; 27 September 1894 – 4 July 1922) was a German First World War fighter ace credited with 40 victories. He was a younger brother of top-scoring ace Manfred von Richthofen (the "Red Baron") and a distant cousin of Luftwaffe Field Marshal Wolfram von Richthofen.