Development.

In 1934, the German Army High Command (OKH) commissioned Krupp of Essen to design a gun to destroy the forts of the French Maginot Line that were nearing completion. The gun's shells had to punch through seven metres of reinforced concrete or one full metre of steel armour plate, from beyond the range of French artillery. Krupp engineer Erich Müller calculated that the task would require a weapon with a calibre of around 80 cm, firing a projectile weighing 7 tonnes from a barrel 30 metres long. The weapon would have a weight of over 1000 tonnes. The size and weight meant that to be at all movable it would need to be supported on twin sets of railway tracks. In common with smaller railway guns, the only barrel movement on the mount itself would be elevation, traverse being managed by moving the weapon along a curved section of railway line. Krupp prepared plans for calibres of 70 cm, 80 cm, 85 cm, and 1 m.  Nothing further happened until March 1936 when, during a visit to Essen, Adolf Hitler inquired as to the giant guns' feasibility. No definite commitment was given by Hitler, but design work began on an 80 cm model. The resulting plans were completed in early 1937 and approved. Fabrication of the first gun started in mid-1937. Technical complications in the forging of such massive pieces of steel made it apparent that the original completion date of early 1940 could not be met.  Krupp built a test model in late 1939 and sent it to the Hillersleben proving ground for testing. Penetration was tested on this occasion. Firing at high elevation, the 7.1 tonne shell was able to penetrate the specified seven metres of concrete and the one metre armour plate. When the tests were completed in mid-1940 the complex carriage was further developed. Alfried Krupp, after whose father the gun was named, personally hosted Hitler at the Rügenwalde Proving Ground during the formal acceptance trials of the Gustav Gun in early 1941.  Two guns were ordered. The first round was test-fired from the commissioned gun barrel on 10 September 1941 from a makeshift gun carriage at Hillersleben. In November 1941, the barrel was taken to, now Darłowo, Poland, where eight further firing tests were carried out using the 7,100 kilogram armour-piercing (AP) shell out to a range of 37,210 metres.  In combat, the gun was mounted on a specially designed chassis, supported by eight bogies on two parallel railway tracks. Each of the bogies had 5 axles, giving a total of 40 axles (80 wheels). Krupp christened the gun "Schwerer Gustav" (Heavy Gustav) after the senior director of the firm, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach.  The gun could fire a heavy concrete-piercing shell and a lighter high-explosive shell. An extremely-long-range rocket projectile was also planned with a range of 150 km, that would require the barrel being extended to 84 metres.  In keeping with the tradition of the Krupp company, no payment was asked for the first gun. They charged seven million Reichsmark (approximately 24 million USD in 2015) for the second gun, "Dora", named after the senior engineer's wife.

History.

Schwerer Gustav.

In February 1942, Heavy Artillery Unit (E) 672 reorganised and went on the march, and "Schwerer Gustav" began its long ride to Crimea. The train carrying the gun was of 25 cars, a total length of 1.5 kilometres (0.9 mi). The gun reached the Perekop Isthmus in early March 1942, where it was held until early April. The Germans built a special railway spur line to the Simferopol-Sevastopol railway north of the target. At the end of the spur, they built four semi-circular tracks especially for the Gustav to traverse. Outer tracks were required for the cranes that assembled Gustav.  The siege of Sevastopol was the gun's first combat test. 4,000 men and five weeks were needed to get the gun in firing position; 500 men were needed to fire it. Installation began in early May, and by the 5th of June the gun was ready to fire. The following targets were engaged:  By the end of the siege on 4 July the city of Sevastopol lay in ruins, and 30,000 tons of artillery ammunition had been fired. Gustav had fired 48 rounds and worn out its original barrel, which had already fired around 250 rounds during testing and development. The gun was fitted with the spare barrel and the original was sent back to Krupp's factory in Essen for relining.  The gun was then dismantled and moved to the northern part of the eastern front, where an attack was planned on Leningrad. The gun was placed 30 km (18.6 mi) from the city near the railway station of Taytsy. The gun was fully operational when the attack was cancelled. The gun then spent the winter of 1942/43 near Leningrad.

Dora.

Dora was the second gun produced. It was deployed briefly against Stalingrad, where the gun arrived at its emplacement to the west of the city sometime in mid-August 1942. It was ready to fire on 13 September. It was withdrawn when Soviet forces threatened to encircle the German forces. When the Germans began their long retreat they took "Dora" with them.

Langer Gustav.

The Langer Gustav was a long cannon with 52 centimetre (20.5 in) calibre and a 43-metre barrel. It was intended to fire super-long-range rocket projectiles weighing 680 kilograms to a range of 190 kilometres (118 mi). This gave it the range to hit London from Calais, France. It was never completed after being damaged during construction by one of the many RAF bombing raids on Essen.

Landkreuzer P. 1500 Monster Project.

The Monster was to be a 1,500 tonne mobile, self-propelled platform for an 80-cm K (E) gun, along with two 15 cm sFH 18 heavy howitzers, and multiple MG 151 autocannons normally used on combat aircraft. It was deemed impractical, and in 1943 was canceled by Albert Speer. It never left the drawing board and no progress was made. It would have surpassed the Panzer VIII Maus (heaviest tank ever built) and the Landkreuzer P. 1000 Ratte (never built) in weight and size.

Postwar whereabouts.

On 14 April 1945, one day before the arrival of US troops, Schwerer Gustav was destroyed to prevent its capture. On 22 April 1945, its ruins were discovered in a forest north of Auerbach and about southwest of Chemnitz. In summer 1945 Schwerer Gustav was studied by Soviet specialists and in autumn of the same year was transferred to Merseburg, where the Soviets were gathering German military material. Thereafter, the trail of the gun was lost. In March 1945, "Dora" was transferred to Grafenwöhr and was blown up there on 19 April 1945. The debris was discovered by American troops sometime after the discovery of "Schwerer Gustav's" ruins. The debris was scrapped in the 1950s.  Part of the third (52 centimetre) gun was found after the war in the Krupp production facilities in Essen.  The world's largest "Dora ensemble" is located in the Military History Museum of the Bundeswehr in Dresden.

Schwerer Gustav (English: "Heavy Gustaf") was a German railway gun. It was developed in the late 1930s by Krupp in Rügenwalde as siege artillery for the explicit purpose of destroying the main forts of the French Maginot Line, the strongest fortifications in existence at the time. The fully assembled gun weighed nearly, and could fire shells weighing to a range of. The gun was designed in preparation for the Battle of France, but was not ready for action when the battle began, and in any case the Wehrmacht's Blitzkrieg offensive through Belgium rapidly outflanked and isolated the Maginot Line's static defenses, eventually forcing the French to surrender and making their destruction unnecessary. Gustav was later deployed in the Soviet Union during the Battle of Sevastopol, part of Operation Barbarossa, where, among other things, it destroyed a munitions depot located roughly below ground level. The gun was moved to Leningrad, and may have been intended to be used in the Warsaw Uprising like other German heavy siege pieces, but the rebellion was crushed before it could be prepared to fire. Gustav was destroyed by the Germans near the end of the war in 1945 to avoid capture by the Soviet Red Army.


Philosophical Investigations.

In his work "Philosophical Investigations" (1953), Ludwig Wittgenstein regularly referred to the concept of language-games. Wittgenstein rejected the idea that language is somehow separate and corresponding to reality, and he argued that concepts do not need clarity for meaning. Wittgenstein used the term "language-game" to designate forms of language simpler than the entirety of a language itself, "consisting of language and the actions into which it is woven" (PI 7) and connected by family resemblance ("Familienähnlichkeit"). The concept was intended "to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or a form of life," (PI 23) which gives language its meaning.  Wittgenstein develops this discussion of games into the key notion of a "language-game". Wittgenstein introduces the term using simple examples, but intends it to be used for the many ways in which we use language. The central component of language games is that they are uses of language, and language is used in multifarious ways. For example, in one language-game, a word might be used to stand for (or refer to) an object, but in another the same word might be used for giving orders, or for asking questions, and so on. The famous example is the meaning of the word "game". We speak of various kinds of games: board games, betting games, sports, "war games". These are all different uses of the word "games". Wittgenstein also gives the example of "Water!", which can be used as an exclamation, an order, a request, or an answer to a question. The meaning of the word depends on the language-game within which it is being used. Another way Wittgenstein puts the point is that the word "water" has no meaning apart from its use within a language-game. One might use the word as an order to have someone else bring you a glass of water. But it can also be used to warn someone that the water has been poisoned. One might even use the word as code by members of a secret society.  Wittgenstein does not limit the application of his concept of language games to word-meaning. He also applies it to sentence-meaning. For example, the sentence "Moses did not exist" (§79) can mean various things. Wittgenstein argues that independently of use the sentence does not yet'say' anything. It is'meaningless' in the sense of not being significant for a particular purpose. It only acquires significance if we fix it within some context of use. Thus, it fails to say anything because the sentence as such does not yet determine some particular use. The sentence is only meaningful when it is used to say something. For instance, it can be used so as to say that no person or historical figure fits the set of descriptions attributed to the person that goes by the name of "Moses". But it can also mean that the leader of the Israelites was not called Moses. Or that there cannot have been anyone who accomplished all that the Bible relates of Moses, etc. What the sentence means thus depends on its context of use.  The term ‘language-game’ is used to refer to:  These meanings are not separated from each other by sharp boundaries, but blend into one another (as suggested by the idea of family resemblance). The concept is based on the following analogy: The rules of language are analogous to the rules of games; thus saying something in a language is analogous to making a move in a game. The analogy between a language and a game demonstrates that words have meaning depending on the uses made of them in the various and multiform activities of human life. (The concept is not meant to suggest that there is anything trivial about language, or that language is "just a game".)

Examples.

The classic example of a language-game is the so-called "builder's language" introduced in §2 of the "Philosophical Investigations": Later "this" and "there" are added (with functions analogous to the function these words have in natural language), and "a, b, c, d" as numerals. An example of its use: builder A says "d — slab — there" and points, and builder B counts four slabs, "a, b, c, d..." and moves them to the place pointed to by A. The builder's language is an activity into which is woven something we would recognize as language, but in a simpler form. This language-game resembles the simple forms of language taught to children, and Wittgenstein asks that we conceive of it as "a complete primitive language" for a tribe of builders.

A language-game () is a philosophical concept developed by Ludwig Wittgenstein, referring to simple examples of language use and the actions into which the language is woven. Wittgenstein argued that a word or even a sentence has meaning only as a result of the “rule” of the “game” being played. Depending on the context, for example, the utterance “Water!” could be an order, the answer to a question, or some other form of communication.


Applications.

Ion exchange is widely used in the food and beverage industry, hydrometallurgy, metals finishing, chemical, petrochemical, pharmaceutical technology, sugar and sweetener production, ground- and potable-water treatment, nuclear, softening, industrial water treatment, semiconductor, power, and many other industries.  A typical example of application is preparation of high-purity water for power engineering, electronic and nuclear industries; i.e. polymeric or mineralic insoluble ion exchangers are widely used for water softening, water purification, water decontamination, etc.  Ion exchange is a method widely used in household (laundry detergents and water filters) to produce soft water. This is accomplished by exchanging calcium Ca and magnesium Mg cations against Na or H cations (see water softening). Another application for ion exchange in domestic water treatment is the removal of nitrate and natural organic matter.  Industrial and analytical ion-exchange chromatography is another area to be mentioned. Ion-exchange chromatography is a chromatographical method that is widely used for chemical analysis and separation of ions. For example, in biochemistry it is widely used to separate charged molecules such as proteins. An important area of the application is extraction and purification of biologically produced substances such as proteins (amino acids) and DNA/RNA.  Ion-exchange processes are used to separate and purify metals, including separating uranium from plutonium and the other actinides, including thorium, neptunium, and americium. This process is also used to separate the lanthanides, such as lanthanum, cerium, neodymium, praseodymium, europium, and ytterbium, from each other. The separation of neodymium and praseodymium was a particularly difficult one, and those were formerly thought to be just one element didymium - but that is an alloy of the two.  There are two series of rare-earth metals, the lanthanides and the actinides, both of whose families all have very similar chemical and physical properties. Using methods developed by Frank Spedding in the 1940s, ion exchange processes were formerly the only practical way to separate them in large quantities, until the development of the "solvent extraction" techniques that can be scaled up enormously..  A very important case of ion-exchange is the PUREX process (Plutonium-URanium Extraction Process), which is used to separate the plutonium-239 and the uranium from americium, curium, neptunium, the radioactive fission products that come from nuclear reactors. Thus the waste products can be separated out for disposal. Next, the plutonium and uranium are available for making nuclear-energy materials, such as new reactor fuel and nuclear weapons.  The ion-exchange process is also used to separate other sets of very similar chemical elements, such as zirconium and hafnium, which is also very important for the nuclear industry. Physically, zirconium is practically transparent to free neutrons, used in building nuclear reactors, but hafnium is a very strong absorber of neutrons, used in reactor control rods. Thus, ion-exchange is used in nuclear reprocessing and the treatment of radioactive waste.  Ion-exchange resins in the form of thin membranes are also used in chloralkali process, fuel cells, and vanadium redox batteries. Ion exchange can also be used to remove hardness from water by exchanging calcium and magnesium ions for sodium ions in an ion-exchange column. Liquid-phase (aqueous) ion-exchange desalination has been demonstrated. In this technique anions and cations in salt water are exchanged for carbonate anions and calcium cations respectively using electrophoresis. Calcium and carbonate ions then react to form calcium carbonate, which then precipitates, leaving behind fresh water. The desalination occurs at ambient temperature and pressure and requires no membranes or solid ion exchangers. The theoretical energy efficiency of this method is on par with electrodialysis and reverse osmosis.

Regenerating wasted water.

Most ion-exchange systems contain containers of ion-exchange resin that are operated on a cyclic basis.  During the filtration process, water flows through the resin container until the resin is considered exhausted. That happens only when water leaving the exchanger contains more than the maximal desired concentration of the ions being removed. Resin is then regenerated by sequentially backwashing the resin bed to remove accumulated solids, flushing removed ions from the resin with a concentrated solution of replacement ions, and rinsing the flushing solution from the resin. Production of backwash, flushing, and rinsing wastewater during regeneration of ion-exchange media limits the usefulness of ion exchange for wastewater treatment.  Water softeners are usually regenerated with brine containing 10% sodium chloride. Aside from the soluble chloride salts of divalent cations removed from the softened water, softener regeneration wastewater contains the unused 50 – 70% of the sodium chloride regeneration flushing brine required to reverse ion-exchange resin equilibria. Deionizing resin regeneration with sulfuric acid and sodium hydroxide is approximately 20–40% efficient. Neutralized deionizer regeneration wastewater contains all of the removed ions plus 2.5–5 times their equivalent concentration as sodium sulfate.

External links.

This method is also named as permutit (or)

Ion exchange usually describes a processes of purification of aqueous solutions using solid polymeric ion exchange resin. More precisely, the term encompasses a large variety of processes where ions are exchanged between two electrolytes. Aside from its use to purify drinking water, the technique is widely applied for purification and separation of a variety of industrially and medicinally important chemicals. Although the term usually refers to applications of synthetic (man-made) resins, many materials, in particular soil.


Molecular structure and bonding.

Gaseous SO is a trigonal planar molecule of D symmetry, as predicted by VSEPR theory. SO belongs to the D point group.  In terms of electron-counting formalism, the sulfur atom has an oxidation state of +6 and a formal charge of 0. The Lewis structure consists of an S=O double bond and two S–O dative bonds without utilizing d-orbitals.  The electrical dipole moment of gaseous sulfur trioxide is zero. This is a consequence of the 120° angle between the S-O bonds.

Chemical reactions.

SO is the anhydride of HSO. Thus, the following reaction occurs:  The reaction occurs both rapidly and exothermically, too violently to be used in large-scale manufacturing. At or above 340 °C, sulfuric acid, sulfur trioxide, and water coexist in significant equilibrium concentrations.  Sulfur trioxide also oxidizes sulfur dichloride to yield the useful reagent, thionyl chloride.  SO is a strong Lewis acid readily forming crystalline complexes with pyridine, dioxane, and trimethylamine. These adducts can be used as sulfonating agents.

Preparation.

In the atmosphere.

The direct oxidation of sulfur dioxide to sulfur trioxide in air: does take place, but at 298 K has a ΔG = -141.6 kJ and ΔS = -187.9 J/K, so the reaction proceeds very slowly.

In the laboratory.

Sulfur trioxide can be prepared in the laboratory by the two-stage pyrolysis of sodium bisulfate. Sodium pyrosulfate is an intermediate product:  In contrast, KHSO does not undergo the same reaction.

In industry.

Industrially SO is made by the contact process. Sulfur dioxide, which in turn is produced by the burning of sulfur or iron pyrite (a sulfide ore of iron). After being purified by electrostatic precipitation, the SO is then oxidised by atmospheric oxygen at between 400 and 600 °C over a catalyst. A typical catalyst consists of vanadium pentoxide (VO) activated with potassium oxide KO on kieselguhr or silica support. Platinum also works very well but is too expensive and is poisoned (rendered ineffective) much more easily by impurities.  The majority of sulfur trioxide made in this way is converted into sulfuric acid not by the direct addition of water, with which it forms a fine mist, but by absorption in concentrated sulfuric acid and dilution with water of the produced oleum. It was once produced industrially by heating calcium sulfate with silica.

Applications.

Sulfur trioxide is an essential reagent in sulfonation reactions. These processes afford detergents, dyes, and pharmaceuticals. Sulfur trioxide is generated in situ from sulfuric acid or is used as a solution in the acid.

Structure of solid SO.

The nature of solid SO is complex because structural changes are caused by traces of water.  Upon condensation of the gas, absolutely pure SO condenses into a trimer, which is often called "γ"-SO. This molecular form is a colorless solid with a melting point of 16.8 °C. It adopts a cyclic structure described as [S(=O)("μ"-O)].  If SO is condensed above 27 °C, then "α"-SO forms, which has a melting point of 62.3 °C. "α"-SO is fibrous in appearance. Structurally, it is the polymer [S(=O)("μ"-O)]. Each end of the polymer is terminated with OH groups. "β"-SO, like the alpha form, is fibrous but of different molecular weight, consisting of an hydroxyl-capped polymer, but melts at 32.5 °C. Both the gamma and the beta forms are metastable, eventually converting to the stable alpha form if left standing for sufficient time. This conversion is caused by traces of water.  Relative vapor pressures of solid SO are alpha < beta < gamma at identical temperatures, indicative of their relative molecular weights. Liquid sulfur trioxide has a vapor pressure consistent with the gamma form. Thus heating a crystal of "α"-SO to its melting point results in a sudden increase in vapor pressure, which can be forceful enough to shatter a glass vessel in which it is heated. This effect is known as the "alpha explosion".  SO is aggressively hygroscopic. The heat of hydration is sufficient that mixtures of SO and wood or cotton can ignite. In such cases, SO dehydrates these carbohydrates.

Safety.

Along with being a strong oxidizing agent, sulfur trioxide will cause serious burns on both inhalation and ingestion because it is highly corrosive and hygroscopic in nature. SO should be handled with extreme care as it reacts violently with water and produces highly corrosive sulfuric acid. It should also be kept away from organic material due to the strong dehydrating nature of sulfur trioxide and its ability to react violently with such materials.

Sulfur trioxide (alternative spelling sulphur trioxide) is the chemical compound with the formula SO, with a relatively narrow liquid range. In the gaseous form, this species is a significant pollutant, being the primary agent in acid rain.


Design and development.

Following World War II, the Soviet Union prioritized developing a long-range strategic bomber capable of delivering atomic weapons. Their first aircraft was the Tupolev Tu-4, a reverse-engineered version of the American B-29 Superfortress. The Tu-4 was only ever a stop-gap solution, as unlike the American strategic bomber force that could operate from bases in allied countries close to the USSR, it lacked the range to reach the continental United States, and experiences in the Korean War demonstrated piston engine bombers were extremely vulnerable to jet fighter interception. With the advancement of Western jet bombers like the B-47 Stratojet and Vickers Valiant, Vladimir Mikhailovich Myasishchev was directed to construct a "Strategicheskiy Dahlniy Bombardirovshchik" (SDB/Strategic Long-range Bomber) in spring 1951. The first M-4 (Bison-A) prototype flew on 20 January 1953, and was handed over to state acceptance trials in March 1954, with production beginning later that year. It entered service in 1955, with 34 being built including two prototypes.  The M-4 was made mostly of aircraft aluminum alloys with some steel and magnesium components. It had wings swept at 35-degrees and powered initially by four Mikulin AM-3A engines with a maximum thrust of 85.8 kN (8,750 kgp; 19,290 lbf), but later upgraded to RD-3M-500 turbojets with a maximum thrust of 93.2 kN (9,500 kgp; 20,940 lbf). There were 18 bladder fuel tanks in the fuselage and wings, providing a total fuel capacity of 123,600 liters (32,610 US gallons); this gave the aircraft a range of, although this fell short of the range initially specified. It had a payload of 24 tonnes (26.4 tons) in various configurations. Defensive armament consisted of six AM-23 23 mm cannons with a rate of fire of 1,250 rpm each in a manned twin tail turret with 400 rounds per gun and two twin remote controlled turrets in the top and bottom fuselage with 300 rounds per gun each. The aircraft had a crew of eight: a navigator/bombardier in the nose; pilot and copilot in the cockpit; radar operator/navigator, flight engineer/gunner, radio operator/gunner, and dorsal turret gunner in a compartment behind the cockpit; and a tail gunner.

3M.

While the M-4 had less range than the Tupolev Tu-95, it had greater speed and payload, sufficient advantages to continue improving on the design. In 1954, approval was granted for a redesign of the M-4, which flew on 27 March 1956 and began state trials in early 1958. The 3M "Bison-B" was powered by four Dobrynin RD-7 turbojets, which had the same thrust as the RD-3M but were 25% more fuel efficient; a nose inflight refueling probe was also added to further increase range. The center fuselage was considerably redesigned to reduce weight and improve aerodynamics, and the wings were updated with a wider span and area. 74 Bison-Bs would be built.

Tanker.

From the outset when the M-4's range shortfall became apparent, Myasishchev began investigating inflight refueling. In 1955, the second production aircraft was modified to a hose-&-drogue tanker configuration and the first production aircraft was fitted with an IFR probe above the nose, with two more converted for trials the following year. From the late 1950s, the M-4 fleet was converted to the tanker configuration through the fit of a hose-drum unit (HDU) and fuel tanks in the bomb bay and removal of all defensive armament. Similar conversions were performed to the 3M fleet in the 1970s and 1980s, the 3MS-1 "Bison-B" becoming the "3MS-2" tanker and the 3MN-1 becoming the "3MN-2" tanker.

Operational history.

The M-4 was first displayed to the public in Red Square, on May Day, 1954. The aircraft was a surprise to the United States, which had not known that the Soviets had built a jet bomber. However, it soon became clear that the bomber had an insufficient range to attack the United States and still return to the Soviet Union. Only a few of the original production M-4s were actually put into service. To remedy this problem, the Myasishchev design bureau introduced the 3M, known to the West as the 'Bison-B', which was considerably more powerful than the previous version. This new model first flew in 1955. Among other things, two of the five original gun barbettes were removed to lighten the aircraft.  In July 1955 American observers saw 28 Bisons in two groups during a Soviet air show. The United States government believed that the bomber was in mass production, and the Central Intelligence Agency estimated that 800 would be available by 1960. The display was a hoax; the first group of ten repeated the flyby with eight more. The classified estimates led, however, to American politicians warning of a "bomber gap".  This time, it was not the Soviet Air Force (VVS) that wanted the 3M, but rather Naval Aviation (AV-MF). Though it could still not bomb Washington, D.C., the 3M had a sufficient range to fulfill the need for a long-range maritime patrol aircraft. In 1959, the 3M broke numerous world records for payload to height, including to and to.  However, it was thought by the West (and would continue to be thought until 1961) that the 3M was the original M-4, meaning that the capability of the M-4 was vastly overestimated by Western intelligence agencies.  In the early 1960s, the 'Bison-C', with a specialized search radar, was introduced. By this time, many of the original M-4s had been converted to M-4-2 fuel tankers for aerial refueling. Later, 3Ms were converted to 3MS-2 and 3MN-2 tankers as well.  Neither the M-4 nor the 3M ever saw combat, and none were ever converted for low-altitude attack, as many American B-52s were, nor were any ever exported to the Soviet Union's allies.  Production of the Bison aircraft stopped in 1963, by which time 93 of them had been built. The last aircraft, an M-4-2 fuel tanker, was withdrawn from service in 1994.  The three VM-T heavy lift aircraft were converted from 3MN-2 tankers, with very large loads carried piggy-back above the fuselage. The single vertical fin/rudder was replaced with two large rectangular fin/rudders at the tips of the horizontal stabilizers to improve control due to the turbulence caused by the cargo pod.  With the withdrawal of the Myasishchev bombers and tankers the vast majority of the retired airframes were broken up under the terms of the relevant arms limitation treaty.

Aircraft on display.

Four aircraft are known to survive:

The Myasishchev M-4 "Molot" (), USAF/DoD reporting name "Type 37", NATO reporting name Bison) was a four-engined strategic bomber designed by Myasishchev and manufactured by the Soviet Union in the 1950s to provide a Long Range Aviation bomber capable of attacking targets in North America.


Biography.

Tomasi was born in Palermo to Giulio Maria Tomasi, Prince of Lampedusa, Duke of Palma di Montechiaro, Baron of Torretta, and Grandee of Spain (1868–1934), and Beatrice Mastrogiovanni Tasca Filangieri di Cutò (1870–1946). He became an only child after the death (from diphtheria) in 1897 of his sister Stefania. He was very close to his mother, a strong personality who influenced him a great deal, especially because his father was rather cold and detached. As a child, he studied in their grand house in Palermo with a tutor (including the subjects of literature and English), with his mother (who taught him French), and with a grandmother who read him the novels of Emilio Salgari. In the little theater of the house in Santa Margherita di Belice, where he spent long vacations, he first saw a performance of "Hamlet", performed by a company of travelling players. His cousin was Fulco di Verdura.  Beginning in 1911, he attended the "liceo classico" in Rome and later in Palermo. He moved definitively to Rome in 1915 and enrolled in the faculty of jurisprudence. However, that year he was drafted into the army, fought in the lost battle of Caporetto, and was taken prisoner by the Austro-Hungarian Army. He was held in a POW camp in Hungary, but succeeded in escaping and returning to Italy. After being mustered out of the army as a lieutenant, he returned to Sicily, alternately resting there and travelling with his mother, and continuing his studies of foreign literature. It was during this time that he first drafted in his mind the ideas for his future novel "The Leopard". Originally his plan was to have the entire novel occur over the course of one day, similar to the famous modernist novel by James Joyce, "Ulysses".  In 1932 in Riga he married the daughter of Alice Barbi, Alexandra von Wolff-Stomersee (1894–1982), nicknamed "Licy", a Baltic German noblewoman and a student of psychoanalysis. The marriage ceremony was celebrated in the Orthodox church of the Annunciation of Our Most Holy Lady Church, Riga. They first lived with Tomasi's mother in Palermo, but soon the incompatibility between the two women drove Licy back to Riga.  In 1934 Tomasi di Lampedusa's father died, and he inherited his princely title. He was briefly called back to arms in 1940, but, as owner of a hereditary agricultural estate, was soon sent back home to take care of its affairs. He and his mother ultimately took refuge in Capo d'Orlando, where he was reunited with Licy. They survived the war, but their palace in Palermo did not.  After his mother died in 1946, Tomasi returned to live with his wife in Palermo. In 1953 he began to spend time with a group of young intellectuals, one of whom was Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi, a cousin, with whom he developed such a close relationship that, the following year, he legally adopted him.  Tomasi di Lampedusa was often the guest of his cousin, the poet Lucio Piccolo, with whom he travelled in 1954 to San Pellegrino Terme to attend a literary awards ceremony, where he met, among others, Eugenio Montale and Maria Bellonci. It is said that it was upon returning from this trip that he commenced writing "Il Gattopardo" ("The Leopard"), which was finished in 1956. During his life, the novel was rejected by the two publishers to whom Tomasi submitted it.  In 1957 Tomasi di Lampedusa was diagnosed with lung cancer; he died on July 26 in Rome. Following a requiem in the Basilica del Sacro Cuore di Gesù in Rome, he was buried in the Capuchin cemetery of Palermo. His novel was published the year after his death. had sent it to the writer Giorgio Bassani, who brought it to the attention of the Feltrinelli publishing house. "Il Gattopardo" was quickly recognized as a great work of Italian literature. In 1959 Tomasi di Lampedusa was posthumously awarded the prestigious Strega Prize for the novel.

Works.

"Il Gattopardo" follows the family of its title character, Sicilian nobleman Don Fabrizio Corbera, Prince of Salina, through the events of the Risorgimento. Perhaps the most memorable line in the book is spoken by Don Fabrizio's nephew, Tancredi, urging unsuccessfully that Don Fabrizio abandon his allegiance to the disintegrating Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and ally himself with Giuseppe Garibaldi and the House of Savoy: "Unless we ourselves take a hand now, they'll foist a republic on us. If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change."  The title is rendered in English as "The Leopard", but the Italian word "gattopardo" refers to the American ocelot or to the African serval. "Il gattopardo" may be a reference to a wildcat that was hunted to extinction in Italy in the mid-19th century – just as Don Fabrizio was dryly contemplating the indolence and decline of the Sicilian aristocracy.  In 1963 "Il Gattopardo" was made into a film, directed by Luchino Visconti and starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, and Claudia Cardinale; it won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.  Tomasi also wrote some lesser-known works: "I racconti" ("Stories", first published 1961), including the novella "The Professor and the Siren", "Le lezioni su Stendhal" ("Lessons on Stendhal", privately published in 1959, published in book form in 1977), and "Invito alle lettere francesi del Cinquecento" ("Introduction to sixteenth-century French literature", first published 1970). In 2010, a collection of his letters were published in English as "Letters from London and Europe". His perceptive commentaries on English and other foreign literatures make up a greater part of his works by volume than does his fiction.

Dedication.

The main-belt asteroid 14846 Lampedusa is named after him.

Biographical film.

On the occasion of the 14th edition of the Rome Film Festival, the docufilm "Die Geburt des Leoparden", directed by Luigi Falorni, was screened. A journey to discover the life of the last Prince of Lampedusa told by the voices and testimonies of loved ones.

Biographical novel.

In 2019 Canadian novelist Steven Price published a novelized biography of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa entitled Lampedusa.

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (; December 23, 1896 – July 26, 1957) was an Italian writer and the last Prince of Lampedusa. He is most famous for his only novel, "Il Gattopardo" (first published posthumously in 1958), which is set in his native Sicily during the "Risorgimento". A taciturn and solitary man, he spent a great deal of his time reading and meditating, and used to say of himself, "I was a boy who liked solitude, who preferred the company of things to that of people."


History.

G proteins were discovered when Alfred G. Gilman and Martin Rodbell investigated stimulation of cells by adrenaline. They found that when adrenaline binds to a receptor, the receptor does not stimulate enzymes (inside the cell) directly. Instead, the receptor stimulates a G protein, which then stimulates an enzyme. An example is adenylate cyclase, which produces the second messenger cyclic AMP. For this discovery, they won the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.  Nobel prizes have been awarded for many aspects of signaling by G proteins and GPCRs. These include receptor antagonists, neurotransmitters, neurotransmitter reuptake, G protein-coupled receptors, G proteins, second messengers, the enzymes that trigger protein phosphorylation in response to cAMP, and consequent metabolic processes such as glycogenolysis.  Prominent examples include (in chronological order of awarding):

Function.

G proteins are important signal transducing molecules in cells. "Malfunction of GPCR [G Protein-Coupled Receptor] signaling pathways are involved in many diseases, such as diabetes, blindness, allergies, depression, cardiovascular defects, and certain forms of cancer. It is estimated that about 30% of the modern drugs' cellular targets are GPCRs." The human genome encodes roughly 800 G protein-coupled receptors, which detect photons of light, hormones, growth factors, drugs, and other endogenous ligands. Approximately 150 of the GPCRs found in the human genome still have unknown functions.  Whereas G proteins are activated by G protein-coupled receptors, they are inactivated by RGS proteins (for "Regulator of G protein signalling"). Receptors stimulate GTP binding (turning the G protein on). RGS proteins stimulate GTP hydrolysis (creating GDP, thus turning the G protein off).

Diversity.

All eukaryotes use G proteins for signaling and has evolved a large diversity of G proteins. For instance, humans encode 18 different G proteins, 5 G proteins, and 12 G proteins.

Signaling.

G protein can refer to two distinct families of proteins. Heterotrimeric G proteins, sometimes referred to as the "large" G proteins, are activated by G protein-coupled receptors and are made up of alpha (α), beta (β), and gamma (γ) subunits. ""Small" G proteins" (20-25kDa) belong to the Ras superfamily of small GTPases. These proteins are homologous to the alpha (α) subunit found in heterotrimers, but are in fact monomeric, consisting of only a single unit. However, like their larger relatives, they also bind GTP and GDP and are involved in signal transduction.

Heterotrimeric.

Different types of heterotrimeric G proteins share a common mechanism. They are activated in response to a conformational change in the GPCR, exchanging GDP for GTP, and dissociating in order to activate other proteins in a particular signal transduction pathway. The specific mechanisms, however, differ between protein types.

Common mechanism.

Receptor-activated G proteins are bound to the inner surface of the cell membrane. They consist of the G and the tightly associated G subunits. There are many classes of G subunits: Gα (G stimulatory), Gα (G inhibitory), Gα (G other), Gα, and Gα are some examples. They behave differently in the recognition of the effector molecule, but share a similar mechanism of activation.

Activation.

When a ligand activates the G protein-coupled receptor, it induces a conformational change in the receptor that allows the receptor to function as a guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF) that exchanges GDP for GTP – thus turning the GPCR "on". The GTP (or GDP) is bound to the G subunit in the traditional view of heterotrimeric GPCR activation. This exchange triggers the dissociation of the G subunit (which is bound to GTP) from the G dimer and the receptor as a whole. However, models which suggest molecular rearrangement, reorganization, and pre-complexing of effector molecules are beginning to be accepted. Both G-GTP and G can then activate different "signaling cascades" (or "second messenger pathways") and effector proteins, while the receptor is able to activate the next G protein.

Termination.

The G subunit will eventually hydrolyze the attached GTP to GDP by its inherent enzymatic activity, allowing it to re-associate with G and starting a new cycle. A group of proteins called Regulator of G protein signalling (RGSs), act as GTPase-activating proteins (GAPs), are specific for G subunits. These proteins accelerate the hydrolysis of GTP to GDP, thus terminating the transduced signal. In some cases, the effector "itself" may possess intrinsic GAP activity, which then can help deactivate the pathway. This is true in the case of phospholipase C-beta, which possesses GAP activity within its C-terminal region. This is an alternate form of regulation for the G subunit. Such G GAPs do not have catalytic residues (specific amino acid sequences) to activate the G protein. They work instead by lowering the required activation energy for the reaction to take place.

Specific mechanisms.

G.

G activates the cAMP-dependent pathway by stimulating the production of cyclic AMP (cAMP) from ATP. This is accomplished by direct stimulation of the membrane-associated enzyme adenylate cyclase. cAMP can then act as a second messenger that goes on to interact with and activate protein kinase A (PKA). PKA can phosphorylate a myriad downstream targets.  The cAMP-dependent pathway is used as a signal transduction pathway for many hormones including:

G.

G inhibits the production of cAMP from ATP. eg. somatostatin, prostaglandins

G.

G stimulates the membrane-bound phospholipase C beta, which then cleaves PIP (a minor membrane phosphoinositol) into two second messengers, IP3 and diacylglycerol (DAG). The Inositol Phospholipid Dependent Pathway is used as a signal transduction pathway for many hormones including:

Small GTPases.

Small GTPases, also known as small G-proteins, bind GTP and GDP likewise, and are involved in signal transduction. These proteins are homologous to the alpha (α) subunit found in heterotrimers, but exist as monomers. They are small (20-kDa to 25-kDa) proteins that bind to guanosine triphosphate (GTP). This family of proteins is homologous to the Ras GTPases and is also called the Ras superfamily GTPases.

Lipidation.

In order to associate with the inner leaflet of the plasma membrane, many G proteins and small GTPases are lipidated, that is, covalently modified with lipid extensions. They may be myristolated, palmitoylated or prenylated.

G proteins, also known as guanine nucleotide-binding proteins, are a family of proteins that act as molecular switches inside cells, and are involved in transmitting signals from a variety of stimuli outside a cell to its interior. Their activity is regulated by factors that control their ability to bind to and hydrolyze guanosine triphosphate (GTP) to guanosine diphosphate (GDP). When they are bound to GTP, they are 'on', and, when they are bound to GDP, they are 'off'. G proteins belong to the larger group of enzymes called GTPases.


Early life.

Al-Idrisi was born into the large Hammudid family of North Africa and Al-Andalus, which claimed descent from the Idrisids of Morocco and ultimately the prophet Muhammad.  Al-Idrisi was born in the city of Ceuta, at the time controlled by the Almoravids but now a part of Spain, where his great-grandfather had been forced to settle after the fall of Hammudid Málaga to the Zirids of Granada. He spent much of his early life travelling through North Africa and Al-Andalus (Muslim Spain of the times) and seems to have acquired detailed information on both regions. He visited Anatolia when he was barely 16. He studied in Córdoba.  His travels took him to many parts of Europe including Portugal, the Pyrenees, the French Atlantic coast, Hungary, and Jórvík (now known as York).

Tabula Rogeriana.

Because of conflict and instability in Al-Andalus al-Idrisi joined contemporaries such as Abu al-Salt in Sicily, where the Normans had overthrown Arabs formerly loyal to the Fatimids.  Al-Idrisi incorporated the knowledge of Africa, the Indian Ocean and the Far East gathered by Islamic merchants and explorers and recorded on Islamic maps with the information brought by the Norman voyagers to create the most accurate map of the world in pre-modern times, which served as a concrete illustration of his "Kitab nuzhat al-mushtaq", (Latin: "Opus Geographicum"), which may be translated "A Diversion for the Man Longing to Travel to Far-Off Places".  The Tabula Rogeriana was drawn by al-Idrisi in 1154 for the Norman King Roger II of Sicily, after a stay of eighteen years at his court, where he worked on the commentaries and illustrations of the map. The map, with legends written in Arabic, while showing the Eurasian continent in its entirety, only shows the northern part of the African continent and lacks details of the Horn of Africa and Southeast Asia.  For Roger it was inscribed on a massive disc of solid silver, two metres in diameter.  On the geographical work of al-Idrisi, S.P. Scott wrote in 1904:  Al-Idrisi inspired Islamic geographers such as Ibn Battuta, Ibn Khaldun and Piri Reis. His map also inspired Christopher Columbus and Vasco Da Gama.

Description of islands in the North Sea.

Al-Idrisi in his famous "Tabula Rogeriana" mentioned "Irlandah-al-Kabirah" (Great Ireland). According to him, "from the extremity of Iceland to that of Great Ireland," the sailing time was "one day." Although historians note that both al-Idrisi and the Norse tend to understate distances, the only location this reference is thought to have possibly pointed to, must likely have been in Greenland.

Description of Chinese trade.

Al-Idrisi mentioned that Chinese junks carried leather, swords, iron and silk. He mentions the glassware of the city of Hangzhou and labels Quanzhou's silk as the best. In his records of Chinese trade, al-Idrisi also wrote about the Silla Dynasty (one of Korea's historical Dynasties, and a major trade partner to China at the time), and was one of the first Arabs to do so. Al-Idrisi's references to Silla led other Arab merchants to seek Silla and its trade, and contributed to many Arabs' perception of Silla as the ideal East-Asian country.

Nuzhat al-Mushtaq.

As well as the maps, al-Idrisi produced a compendium of geographical information with the title "Kitab nuzhat al-mushtaq fi'khtiraq al-'afaq". The title has been translated as "The book of pleasant journeys into faraway lands" or "The pleasure of him who longs to cross the horizons". It has been preserved in nine manuscripts, seven of which contain maps.  The translated title of this work (in the "pleasure of him..." form) attracted favourable comment from the team selecting lists of names for features expected to be discovered by the New Horizons probe reconnoitring the Pluto system. The Al-Idrisi Montes is a geographical feature in that system named after him.  In the introduction, al-Idrisi mentions two sources for geographical coordinates: Claudius Ptolemy and "an astronomer" that must be Ishaq ibn al-Hasan al-Zayyat; and states that he has cross-checked oral reports from different informers to see if geographical coordinates were consistent.

Publication and translation.

An abridged version of the Arabic text was published in Rome in 1592 with title: "De geographia universali or Kitāb Nuzhat al-mushtāq fī dhikr al-amṣār wa-al-aqṭār wa-al-buldān wa-al-juzur wa-al-madā’ in wa-al-āfāq" which in English would be "Recreation of the desirer in the account of cities, regions, countries, islands, towns, and distant lands". This was one of the first Arabic books ever printed. The first translation from the original Arabic was into Latin. The Maronite's Gabriel Sionita and Joannes Hesronita translated an abridged version of the text which was published in Paris in 1619 with the title of "Geographia nubiensis". Not until the middle of the 19th century was a complete translation of the Arabic text published. This was a translation into French by Pierre Amédée Jaubert. More recently sections of the text have been translated for particular regions. Beginning in 1970 a critical edition of the complete Arabic text was published.

Andalusian-American contact.

Al-Idrisi's geographical text, "Nuzhat al-Mushtaq", is often cited by proponents of pre-Columbian Andalusian-Americas contact theories. In this text, al-Idrisi wrote the following on the Atlantic Ocean:  This translation by Professor Muhammad Hamidullah is however questionable, since it reports, after having reached an area of "sticky and stinking waters", the "Mugharrarin" (also translated as "the adventurers") moved back and first reached an uninhabited island where they found "a huge quantity of sheep the meat of which was bitter and uneatable" and, then, "continued southward" and reached the above reported island where they were soon surrounded by barques and brought to "a village whose inhabitants were often fair-haired with long and flaxen hair and the women of a rare beauty". Among the villagers, one spoke Arabic and asked them where they came from. Then the king of the village ordered them to bring them back to the continent where they were surprised to be welcomed by Berbers.  Apart from the marvellous and fanciful reports of this history, the most probable interpretation is that the "Mugharrarin" reached the Sargasso Sea, a part of the ocean covered by seaweed, which is very close to Bermuda yet one thousand miles away from the American mainland. Then while coming back, they may have landed either on the Azores, or on Madeira or even on the westernmost Canary Island, El Hierro (because of the sheep). Last, the story with the inhabited island might have occurred either on Tenerife or on Gran Canaria, where the "Mugharrarin" presumably met members of the Guanche tribe. This would explain why some of them could speak Arabic (some sporadic contacts had been maintained between the Canary Islands and Morocco) and why they were quickly deported to Morocco where they were welcomed by Berbers. Yet, the story reported by Idrisi is an indisputable account of a certain knowledge of the Atlantic Ocean by Andalusians and Moroccans.  Furthermore, al-Idrisi writes an account of eight "Mugharrarin" all from the same family who set sail from Lisbon ("Achbona") in the first half of that century and navigated in the seaweed rich seas beyond the Azores.  Idrisi describes an island of cormorants with which has been tentatively identified as Corvo, Cape Verde but on weak grounds.

Abu Abdullah Muhammad al-Idrisi al-Qurtubi al-Hasani as-Sabti, or simply al-Idrisi (; ; 1100 – 1165), was an Arab Muslim geographer, cartographer and egyptologist who for some time lived in Palermo, Sicily at the court of King Roger II. Muhammed al-Idrisi was born in Ceuta then belonging to the Almoravids. He created the Tabula Rogeriana, one of the most advanced medieval world maps, used by explorers like Christopher Columbus and Vasco Da Gama for their discoveries and voyages.


Common names.

Common names include:  The name arborvitae is particularly used in the horticultural trade in the United States. It is Latin for "tree of life" - due to the supposed medicinal properties of the sap, bark, and twigs. Despite its common names, it is not a true cedar in the genus "Cedrus", nor is it related to the Australian white cedar, "Melia azedarach".

Description.

Unlike the closely related western red-cedar ("Thuja plicata"), northern white-cedar is only a small or medium-sized tree, growing to a height of tall with a trunk diameter, exceptionally to tall and diameter. The tree is often stunted or prostrate in less favorable locations. The bark is red-brown, furrowed and peels in narrow, longitudinal strips.  Northern white-cedar has fan-like branches and scaly leaves. The foliage forms in flat sprays with scale-like leaves long.  The seed cones are slender, yellow-green, ripening to brown, long and broad, with 6-8 overlapping scales. They contain about 8 seeds each. The branches may take root if the tree falls.

Distribution.

Northern white-cedar is native to an area in the southern part of eastern Canada and the adjacent part of the northern United States. It extends from southeastern Manitoba east throughout the Great Lakes region and into Ontario, Québec, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. There are isolated populations in west-central Manitoba, and to the south in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Ohio, and Illinois and in the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. In Canada, its range reaches the Arctic treeline and the southern tip of Hudson Bay. It grows mainly in places with cooler summers, with an average temperature of in July, and a shorter growing season, from 90 to 180 days.

Ecology.

Northern white-cedar grows naturally in wet forests, being particularly abundant in coniferous swamps where other larger and faster-growing trees cannot compete successfully. It also occurs on other sites with reduced tree competition, such as cliffs. Although not currently listed as endangered, wild white-cedar populations are threatened in many areas by high deer numbers; deer find the soft evergreen foliage a very attractive winter food, and strip it rapidly. The largest known specimen is tall and diameter, on South Manitou Island within Leelanau County, Michigan.  Northern white-cedar can be a very long-lived tree in certain conditions, with notably old specimens growing on cliffs where they are inaccessible to deer and wildfire; the oldest known living specimen is just over 1,100 years old, but a dead specimen with over 1,650 growth rings has been found. Despite their age, these very old trees are small and stunted due to the difficult growing conditions. The Witch Tree, a "T. occidentalis" growing out of a cliff face on Lake Superior in Minnesota, was described by the French explorer Sieur de la Verendrye as being a mature tree in 1731; it is still alive today. White-cedar specimens found growing on cliff faces in southern Ontario are the oldest trees in Eastern North America and all of Canada, growing to ages in excess of 1,653 years.

Uses.

White-cedar is a tree with important uses in traditional Ojibwe culture. Honored with the name "Nookomis Giizhik" ("Grandmother Cedar"), the tree is the subject of sacred legends and is considered a gift to humanity for its myriad uses, among them crafts, construction, and medicine. It is one of the four plants of the Ojibwe medicine wheel, associated with the north. White-cedar foliage is rich in Vitamin C and is believed to be the annedda which cured the scurvy of Jacques Cartier and his party in the winter of 1535–1536. Due to the presence of the neurotoxic compound thujone, internal use can be harmful if used for prolonged periods or while pregnant.  Northern white-cedar is commercially used for rustic fencing and posts, lumber, poles, shingles and in the construction of log cabins. White-cedar is the preferred wood for the structural elements, such as ribs and planking, of birchbark canoes and the planking of wooden canoes.  The essential oil within the plant has been used for cleansers, disinfectants, hair preparations, insecticides, liniment, room sprays, and soft soaps. There are some reports that the Ojibwa made a soup from the inner bark of the soft twigs. Others have used the twigs to make teas to relieve constipation and headache.  In the 19th century, "T. occidentalis" extract was in common use as an externally applied tincture or ointment for the treatment of warts, ringworm, and thrush. "An injection of the tincture into venereal warts is said to cause them to disappear."  Strips of clear, northern white-cedar wood were used to make the original Au Sable river boats, formerly known as the "pickup trucks of the Au Sable". The light, rot resistant wood was preferred but is now commonly replaced by marine grade plywood. Since the plywood is available in lengths of 8 feet, the modern boats are slightly shorter than the older boats which were around 25 feet long.

Cultivation.

Northern white-cedar, often under the name arborvitae, is widely used as an ornamental tree, particularly for screens and hedges, in gardens, parks and cemeteries. Over 300 cultivars exist, showing great variation in colour, shape and size, with some of the more common ones being: 'Degroot's Spire', 'Ellwangeriana', 'Hetz Wintergreen', 'Lutea', 'Rheingold', 'Smaragd' (a.k.a. 'Emerald Green'), 'Techny', and 'Wareana'. It was introduced into Europe as early as 1540.  The following cultivars have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit:-

Thuja occidentalis, also known as northern white-cedar, eastern white cedar, or eastern arborvitae, is an evergreen coniferous tree, in the cypress family Cupressaceae, which is native to eastern Canada and much of the north, central and upper Northeastern United States, but widely cultivated as an ornamental plant. The species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in 1753, and the binomial name remains current.


Plot.

In the 25th century — more precisely, in the year 2484 — people live in a peaceful world. Thus, mankind is horrified when CML (Central Brain of Mankind), the main supercomputer managing the fate of humankind and Earth, announces an upcoming disaster. It has spotted a huge space object on a collision course with Earth. The impact is unavoidable, and the prediction is that a significant part of the Earth will be destroyed.  But there is hope. Professor Filip, biographer of the greatest physicist ever, Adam Bernau, offers a plan to save mankind — a time travel to the past. Adam Bernau was a genius mathematician and physicist of the 20th and 21st centuries, and winner of the Nobel prize. In his memoirs, Bernau stated that in his childhood he wrote down in his notebook a short formula that would allow the moving of whole continents, worlds and planets. This can save the Earth.  Professor Filip selects a four-member team for the trip, and their expedition begins. The expedition plans to spend just a few hours in the past to save the formula from being burned by a fire in Adam Bernau's home, but something goes wrong, and they are forced to spend several weeks. In the end they realize that the so-called formula was just a juvenile imagination of Adam Bernau and they return to the future, taking with them the old Mr Drchlík, who has helped them much in the past. Mr Drchlík notices the Central Brain standing asymmetric and fixes this with a wooden wedge, and suddenly the Central Brain realizes an error in its calculation. The whole expedition had been moot.

Reception.

The series has been released in several other European countries, including Hungary, Yugoslavia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Spain.

Miscellaneous.

The soundtrack of the series was released in 1984 on LP Supraphon 1113 3473H, which also included the soundtrack of "Létající Čestmír" (1984), also composed by Karel Svoboda, a series with the German title "Der fliegende Ferdinand" (The Flying Ferdinand). The soundtrack was re-issued on CD by Czechoslovak Universal in 2004.  Gadgets and costumes were designed by Theodor Pištěk, later Oscar winner.  The widow of a real professor named Filip sued the creators of the series for alleged profanation of her husband's name. She won, and the main character had to be renamed Professor Richard. This hurt the quality of the sound in the Czech version in the whole series. In the German versions the name was changed to "Philip" to avoid changing the dubbing.

Návštěvníci ("The Visitors") is a Czechoslovak sci-fi TV series filmed between 1981 and 1983 by Czech director Jindřich Polák. The 15 parts were co-produced with television-companies of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany at that time), Switzerland and France. As an additional 16th part for Germany a "Making of" was produced under the title "Besuch bei den Besuchern" (Visiting the Visitors). In West Germany the series got the title "Die Besucher" (The Visitors), in the German Democratic Republic and Australia it was called Expedition Adam 84.


Description.

It is a medium to large deciduous shrub or small tree growing to 5–12 m tall, with dark brown branches and greenish twigs. The leaves are opposite, 4–10 cm long and 2–4 cm broad, with an ovate to oblong shape and an entire margin. The flowers are small (5–10 mm in diameter), with four yellow petals, produced in clusters of 10–25 together in the late winter (between February and March in the UK), well before the leaves appear. The fruit is an oblong red drupe 2 cm long and 1.5 cm in diameter, containing a single seed.

Uses.

Fruit.

The fruits when ripe on the plant bear a resemblance to coffee berries, and ripen in mid- to late summer. The fruit is edible, as used in Eastern Europe, UK, and British Columbia, Canada, but the unripe fruit is astringent. When ripe, the fruit is dark ruby red or a bright yellow. It has an acidic flavor which is best described as a mixture of cranberry and sour cherry; it is mainly used for making jam, makes an excellent sauce similar to cranberry sauce when pitted, and then boiled with sugar and orange, but also can be eaten dried.  In Azerbaijan and Armenia, the fruit is used for distilling vodka, in Austria and German Alps is used for distilling, in Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina it is distilled into rakia. In Turkey and Iran, it is eaten with salt as a snack in summer, and traditionally drunk in a cold drink called "kızılcık şerbeti". Cultivars selected for fruit production in Ukraine have fruit up to four centimetres long. It is eaten in Eastern Europe in many ways including as a traditional medicine.  The fruit of "C. mas" (together with the fruit of "C. officinalis") has a long history of use in traditional Chinese medicine in which it is known as "", and used to retain the jing.

Flowers.

The species is also grown as an ornamental plant for its late winter yellow flowers, which open earlier than those of "Forsythia". While "Cornus mas" flowers are not as large and vibrant as those of the "Forsythia", the entire plant can be used for a similar effect in the landscape.

Wood.

The wood of "C. mas" is extremely dense and, unlike the wood of most other woody plant species, sinks in water. This density makes it valuable for crafting into tool handles, parts for machines, etc.  "Cornus mas" was used from the seventh century BC onward by Greek craftsmen to construct spears, javelins and bows, the craftsmen considering it far superior to any other wood. The wood's association with weaponry was so well known that the Greek name for it was used as a synonym for "spear" in poetry during the fourth and third centuries BC.  In Italy, the "mazzarella", "uncino" or "bastone", the stick carried by the "butteri" or mounted herdsmen of the Maremma region, is traditionally made of cornel-wood, there called "crognolo" or "grugnale", dialect forms of.

Name.

"Cornus mas", "male" cornel, was named so to distinguish it from the true dogberry, the "female" cornel, "Cornus sanguinea", and so it appears in John Gerard's "Herbal":

Garden history.

The shrub was not native to the British Isles. William Turner had only heard of the plant in 1548, but by 1551 he had heard of one at Hampton Court Palace. Gerard said it was to be found in the gardens "of such as love rare and dainty plants".  The appreciation of the early acid-yellow flowers is largely a 20th-century development.

Cultivars.

The following cultivars have gained the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit (confirmed 2017):

Cornus mas, the Cornelian cherry, European cornel or Cornelian cherry dogwood, is a species of flowering plant in the dogwood family Cornaceae, native to Southern Europe and Southwestern Asia.


Examples and nomenclature.

Carboxylic acids are commonly identified by their trivial names. They often have the suffix "-ic acid". IUPAC-recommended names also exist; in this system, carboxylic acids have an "-oic acid" suffix. For example, butyric acid (CHCOH) is butanoic acid by IUPAC guidelines. For nomenclature of complex molecules containing a carboxylic acid, the carboxyl can be considered position one of the parent chain even if there are other substituents, such as 3-chloropropanoic acid. Alternately, it can be named as a "carboxy" or "carboxylic acid" substituent on another parent structure, such as 2-carboxyfuran.  The carboxylate anion (R–COO or RCO) of a carboxylic acid is usually named with the suffix "-ate", in keeping with the general pattern of "-ic acid" and "-ate" for a conjugate acid and its conjugate base, respectively. For example, the conjugate base of acetic acid is acetate.

Physical properties.

Solubility.

Carboxylic acids are polar. Because they are both hydrogen-bond acceptors (the carbonyl –C=O) and hydrogen-bond donors (the hydroxyl –OH), they also participate in hydrogen bonding. Together, the hydroxyl and carbonyl group form the functional group carboxyl. Carboxylic acids usually exist as dimers in nonpolar media due to their tendency to "self-associate". Smaller carboxylic acids (1 to 5 carbons) are soluble in water, whereas higher carboxylic acids have limited solubility due to the increasing hydrophobic nature of the alkyl chain. These longer chain acids tend to be soluble in less-polar solvents such as ethers and alcohols. Aqueous sodium hydroxide and carboxylic acids, even hydrophobic ones, react to yield water-soluble sodium salts. For example, enathic acid has a low solubility in water (0.2 g/L), but its sodium salt is very soluble in water.

Boiling points.

Carboxylic acids tend to have higher boiling points than water, because of their greater surface areas and their tendency to form stabilised dimers through hydrogen bonds. For boiling to occur, either the dimer bonds must be broken or the entire dimer arrangement must be vaporised, increasing the enthalpy of vaporization requirements significantly.

Acidity.

Carboxylic acids are Brønsted–Lowry acids because they are proton (H) donors. They are the most common type of organic acid.  Carboxylic acids are typically weak acids, meaning that they only partially dissociate into HO cations and RCOO anions in neutral aqueous solution. For example, at room temperature, in a 1-molar solution of acetic acid, only 0.4% of the acid are dissociated. Electron-withdrawing substituents, such as -CF group, give stronger acids (the pKa of formic acid is 3.75 whereas trifluoroacetic acid, with a trifluoromethyl substituent, has a pK of 0.23). Electron-donating substituents give weaker acids (the pK of formic acid is 3.75 whereas acetic acid, with a methyl substituent, has a pK of 4.76)  Deprotonation of carboxylic acids gives carboxylate anions; these are resonance stabilized, because the negative charge is delocalized over the two oxygen atoms, increasing the stability of the anion. Each of the carbon–oxygen bonds in the carboxylate anion has a partial double-bond character. The carbonyl carbon's partial positive charge is also weakened by the -/ negative charges on the 2 oxygen atoms.

Odour.

Carboxylic acids often have strong sour odours. Esters of carboxylic acids tend to have pleasant odours, and many are used in perfume.

Characterization.

Carboxylic acids are readily identified as such by infrared spectroscopy. They exhibit a sharp band associated with vibration of the C–O vibration bond ("ν") between 1680 and 1725 cm. A characteristic "ν" band appears as a broad peak in the 2500 to 3000 cm region. By H NMR spectrometry, the hydroxyl hydrogen appears in the 10–13 ppm region, although it is often either broadened or not observed owing to exchange with traces of water.

Occurrence and applications.

Many carboxylic acids are produced industrially on a large scale. They are also frequently found in nature. Esters of fatty acids are the main components of lipids and polyamides of aminocarboxylic acids are the main components of proteins.  Carboxylic acids are used in the production of polymers, pharmaceuticals, solvents, and food additives. Industrially important carboxylic acids include acetic acid (component of vinegar, precursor to solvents and coatings), acrylic and methacrylic acids (precursors to polymers, adhesives), adipic acid (polymers), citric acid (a flavor and preservative in food and beverages), ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (chelating agent), fatty acids (coatings), maleic acid (polymers), propionic acid (food preservative), terephthalic acid (polymers). Important carboxylate salts are soaps.

Synthesis.

Industrial routes.

In general, industrial routes to carboxylic acids differ from those used on a smaller scale because they require specialized equipment.

Laboratory methods.

Preparative methods for small scale reactions for research or for production of fine chemicals often employ expensive consumable reagents.

Less-common reactions.

Many reactions produce carboxylic acids but are used only in specific cases or are mainly of academic interest.

Reactions.

The most widely practiced reactions convert carboxylic acids into esters, amides, carboxylate salts, acid chlorides, and alcohols. Carboxylic acids react with bases to form carboxylate salts, in which the hydrogen of the hydroxyl (–OH) group is replaced with a metal cation. For example, acetic acid found in vinegar reacts with sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) to form sodium acetate, carbon dioxide, and water:  Carboxylic acids also react with alcohols to give esters. This process is widely used, e.g. in the production of polyesters. Likewise, carboxylic acids are converted into amides, but this conversion typically does not occur by direct reaction of the carboxylic acid and the amine. Instead esters are typical precursors to amides. The conversion of amino acids into peptides is a significant biochemical process that requires ATP.  The hydroxyl group on carboxylic acids may be replaced with a chlorine atom using thionyl chloride to give acyl chlorides. In nature, carboxylic acids are converted to thioesters.

Reduction.

Like esters, most of carboxylic acid can be reduced to alcohols by hydrogenation or using hydride or alkyl transferring agents (since they will deprotonate the acids instead without transfer) such as lithium aluminium hydride or Grignard reagents (organolithium compounds).  "N","N"-Dimethyl(chloromethylene)ammonium chloride (ClHC=N(CH)Cl) is a highly chemoselective agent for carboxylic acid reduction. It selectively activates the carboxylic acid to give the carboxymethyleneammonium salt, which can be reduced by a mild reductant like lithium tris("t"-butoxy)aluminum hydride to afford an aldehyde in a one pot procedure. This procedure is known to tolerate reactive carbonyl functionalities such as ketone as well as moderately reactive ester, olefin, nitrile, and halide moieties.

Carboxyl radical.

The carboxyl radical, •COOH, only exists briefly. The acid dissociation constant of COOH has been measured using electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy. The carboxyl group tends to dimerise to form oxalic acid.

A carboxylic acid is an organic compound that contains a carboxyl group (C(=O)OH) attached to an R-group. The general formula of a carboxylic acid is R–COOH, with R referring to the alkyl group. Carboxylic acids occur widely. Important examples include the amino acids and fatty acids. Deprotonation of a carboxylic acid gives a carboxylate anion.


Life.

Wisława Szymborska was born on 2 July 1923 in Prowent, Poland (now part of Kórnik, Poland), the second daughter of Wincenty Szymborski and Anna (née Rottermund) Szymborska. Her father was at that time the steward of Count Władysław Zamoyski, a Polish patriot and charitable patron. After the death of Count Zamoyski in 1924, her family moved to Toruń, and in 1931 to Kraków, where she lived and worked until her death in early 2012.  When World War II broke out in 1939, she continued her education in underground classes. From 1943, she worked as a railroad employee and managed to avoid being deported to Germany as a forced labourer. It was during this time that her career as an artist began with illustrations for an English-language textbook. She also began writing stories and occasional poems. Beginning in 1945, she began studying Polish literature before switching to sociology at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. There she soon became involved in the local writing scene, and met and was influenced by Czesław Miłosz. In March 1945, she published her first poem "Szukam słowa" ("Looking for words") in the daily newspaper, "Dziennik Polski". Her poems continued to be published in various newspapers and periodicals for a number of years. In 1948, she quit her studies without a degree, due to her poor financial circumstances; the same year, she married poet Adam Włodek, whom she divorced in 1954 (they remained close until Włodek's death in 1986). Their union was childless. Around the time of her marriage she was working as a secretary for an educational biweekly magazine as well as an illustrator. Her first book was to be published in 1949, but did not pass censorship as it "did not meet socialist requirements".  However, Szymborska adhered to the People's Republic of Poland's (PRL) official ideology early in her career, signing an infamous political petition from 8 February 1953, condemning Polish priests accused of treason in a show trial. Her early work supported socialist themes, as seen in her debut collection "Dlatego żyjemy" ("That is what we are living for"), containing the poems "Lenin" and "Młodzieży budującej Nową Hutę" ("For the Youth who are building Nowa Huta"), about the construction of a Stalinist industrial town near Kraków. She became a member of the ruling Polish United Workers' Party.  Although initially close to the official party line, as the Polish Communist Party shifted from the Stalinist communists to "national" communists, Szymborska grew estranged from socialist ideology and renounced her earlier political work. Although she did not officially leave the Communist party until 1966, she began to establish contacts with dissidents. As early as 1957, she befriended Jerzy Giedroyc, the editor of the influential Paris-based émigré journal "Kultura", to which she also contributed. In 1964, she opposed a Communist-backed protest to "The Times" against independent intellectuals, demanding freedom of speech instead.  In 1953, Szymborska joined the staff of the literary review magazine "Życie Literackie" ("Literary Life"), where she continued to work until 1981 and from 1968 ran her own book review column, called "Lektury Nadobowiązkowe". Many of her essays from this period were later published in book form. From 1981–83, she was an editor of the Kraków-based monthly periodical, "NaGlos" ("OutLoud"). In the 1980s, she intensified her oppositional activities, contributing to the samizdat periodical "Arka" under the pseudonym "Stańczykówna", as well as to the Paris-based "Kultura". In the early 1990s, with her poem published in "Gazeta Wyborcza", she supported the vote of no-confidence in the first non-Communist government; thereby bringing former Communists back to power. The final collection published while Szymborska was still alive, "Dwukropek", was chosen as the best book of 2006 by readers of Poland's "Gazeta Wyborcza". She also translated French literature into Polish, in particular Baroque poetry and the works of Agrippa d'Aubigné. In Germany, Szymborska was associated with her translator Karl Dedecius, who did much to popularize her works there.

Death and last works.

Surrounded by friends and relatives, Szymborska died peacefully of lung cancer in her sleep at home in Kraków in 2012, aged 88. Szymborska was working on new poetry at the time of her death, though was unable to arrange her final poems for publication in the way she would have wanted. Her last poetry was published later in 2012. In 2013, the Wisława Szymborska Award was established in honour of her literary legacy.

Themes.

Szymborska frequently employed literary devices such as ironic precision, paradox, contradiction and understatement, to illuminate philosophical themes and obsessions. Many of her poems feature war and terrorism. She wrote from unusual points of view, such as a cat in the newly empty apartment of its dead owner. Her reputation rests on a relatively small body of work, fewer than 350 poems. When asked why she had published so few poems, she said: "I have a trash can in my home".

Pop culture.

Szymborska's poem "Nothing Twice" turned into a song by composer Andrzej Munkowski performed by Łucja Prus in 1965 makes her poetry known in Poland, rock singer Kora cover of "Nothing Twice" was a hit in 1994.  The poem "Love At First Sight" was used in the film "Turn Left, Turn Right", starring Takeshi Kaneshiro and Gigi Leung.  "", a film directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski, was inspired by Szymborska's poem, "Love At First Sight".  In her last years Szymborska collaborated with Polish jazz trumpeter Tomasz Stańko who dedicated his record "Wisława" (ECM, 2013) to her memory - taking inspiration for the compositions from their collaboration and her poetry.  Her poem "People on the Bridge" was made into a film created by Beata Pozniak. It was shown around the globe and at a film festival in New Delhi as an award it was screened additionally 36 times in 18 cities in India.

Maria Wisława Anna Szymborska (; 2 July 1923 – 1 February 2012) was a Polish poet, essayist, translator and recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Prowent, which has since become part of Kórnik, she later resided in Kraków until the end of her life. In Poland, Szymborska's books have reached sales rivaling prominent prose authors: although she once remarked in a poem, "Some Like Poetry" ("Niektórzy lubią poezję"), that no more than two out of a thousand people care for the art.


Description.

A NAS unit is a computer connected to a network that provides only file-based data storage services to other devices on the network. Although it may technically be possible to run other software on a NAS unit, it is usually not designed to be a general-purpose server. For example, NAS units usually do not have a keyboard or display, and are controlled and configured over the network, often using a browser.  A full-featured operating system is not needed on a NAS device, so often a stripped-down operating system is used. For example, FreeNAS or NAS4Free, both open source NAS solutions designed for commodity PC hardware, are implemented as a stripped-down version of FreeBSD.  NAS systems contain one or more hard disk drives, often arranged into logical, redundant storage containers or RAID.  NAS uses file-based protocols such as NFS (popular on UNIX systems), SMB (Server Message Block) (used with MS Windows systems), AFP (used with Apple Macintosh computers), or NCP (used with OES and Novell NetWare). NAS units rarely limit clients to a single protocol.

Versus DAS.

The key difference between direct-attached storage (DAS) and NAS is that DAS is simply an extension to an existing server and is not necessarily networked. NAS is designed as an easy and self-contained solution for sharing files over the network.  Both DAS and NAS can potentially increase availability of data by using RAID or clustering.  When both are served over the network, NAS could have better performance than DAS, because the NAS device can be tuned precisely for file serving which is less likely to happen on a server responsible for other processing. Both NAS and DAS can have various amount of cache memory, which greatly affects performance. When comparing use of NAS with use of local (non-networked) DAS, the performance of NAS depends mainly on the speed of and congestion on the network.  NAS is generally not as customizable in terms of hardware (CPU, memory, storage components) or software (extensions, plug-ins, additional protocols) as a general-purpose server supplied with DAS.

Versus SAN.

NAS provides both storage and a file system. This is often contrasted with SAN (storage area network), which provides only block-based storage and leaves file system concerns on the "client" side. SAN protocols include Fibre Channel, iSCSI, ATA over Ethernet (AoE) and HyperSCSI.  One way to loosely conceptualize the difference between a NAS and a SAN is that NAS appears to the client OS (operating system) as a file server (the client can map network drives to shares on that server) whereas a disk available through a SAN still appears to the client OS as a disk, visible in disk and volume management utilities (along with client's local disks), and available to be formatted with a file system and mounted.  Despite their differences, SAN and NAS are not mutually exclusive and may be combined as a SAN-NAS hybrid, offering both file-level protocols (NAS) and block-level protocols (SAN) from the same system. An example of this is Openfiler, a free software product running on Linux-based systems. A shared disk file system can also be run on top of a SAN to provide filesystem services.

History.

In the early 1980s, the "Newcastle Connection" by Brian Randell and his colleagues at Newcastle University demonstrated and developed remote file access across a set of UNIX machines. Novell's NetWare server operating system and NCP protocol was released in 1983. Following the Newcastle Connection, Sun Microsystems' 1984 release of NFS allowed network servers to share their storage space with networked clients. 3Com and Microsoft would develop the LAN Manager software and protocol to further this new market. 3Com's 3Server and 3+Share software was the first purpose-built server (including proprietary hardware, software, and multiple disks) for open systems servers.  Inspired by the success of file servers from Novell, IBM, and Sun, several firms developed dedicated file servers. While 3Com was among the first firms to build a dedicated NAS for desktop operating systems, Auspex Systems was one of the first to develop a dedicated NFS server for use in the UNIX market. A group of Auspex engineers split away in the early 1990s to create the integrated NetApp filer, which supported both the Windows SMB and the UNIX NFS protocols and had superior scalability and ease of deployment. This started the market for proprietary NAS devices now led by NetApp and EMC Celerra.  Starting in the early 2000s, a series of startups emerged offering alternative solutions to single filer solutions in the form of clustered NAS Spinnaker Networks (acquired by NetApp in February 2004), Exanet (acquired by Dell in February 2010), Gluster (acquired by RedHat in 2011), ONStor (acquired by LSI in 2009), IBRIX (acquired by HP), Isilon (acquired by EMC November 2010), PolyServe (acquired by HP in 2007), and Panasas, to name a few.  In 2009, NAS vendors (notably CTERA Networks and Netgear) began to introduce online backup solutions integrated in their NAS appliances, for online disaster recovery.

Implementation.

The way manufacturers make NAS devices can be classified into three types:

Uses.

NAS is useful for more than just general centralized storage provided to client computers in environments with large amounts of data. NAS can enable simpler and lower cost systems such as load-balancing and fault-tolerant email and web server systems by providing storage services. The potential emerging market for NAS is the consumer market where there is a large amount of multi-media data. Such consumer market appliances are now commonly available. Unlike their rackmounted counterparts, they are generally packaged in smaller form factors. The price of NAS appliances has fallen sharply in recent years, offering flexible network-based storage to the home consumer market for little more than the cost of a regular USB or FireWire external hard disk. Many of these home consumer devices are built around ARM, PowerPC or MIPS processors running an embedded Linux operating system.

Examples.

Open-source server implementations.

Open-source NAS-oriented distributions of Linux and FreeBSD are available. These are designed to be easy to set up on commodity PC hardware, and are typically configured using a web browser.  They can run from a virtual machine, Live CD, bootable USB flash drive (Live USB), or from one of the mounted hard drives. They run Samba (an SMB daemon), NFS daemon, and FTP daemons which are freely available for those operating systems.

Clustered NAS.

A clustered NAS is a NAS that is using a distributed file system running simultaneously on multiple servers. The key difference between a clustered and traditional NAS is the ability to distribute (e.g. stripe) data and metadata across the cluster nodes or storage devices. Clustered NAS, like a traditional one, still provides unified access to the files from any of the cluster nodes, unrelated to the actual location of the data.

Network-attached storage (NAS) is a file-level (as opposed to block-level) computer data storage server connected to a computer network providing data access to a heterogeneous group of clients. NAS is specialized for serving files either by its hardware, software, or configuration. It is often manufactured as a computer appliance a purpose-built specialized computer. NAS systems are networked appliances that contain one or more storage drives, often arranged into logical, redundant storage containers or RAID. Network-attached storage removes the responsibility of file serving from other servers on the network. They typically provide access to files using network file sharing protocols such as NFS, SMB, or AFP. From the mid-1990s, NAS devices began gaining popularity as a convenient method of sharing files among multiple computers. Potential benefits of dedicated network-attached storage, compared to general-purpose servers also serving files, include faster data access, easier administration, and simple configuration.


Life.

Zbigniew Preisner was born in Bielsko-Biała, and studied history and philosophy in Kraków. Never having received formal music lessons, he taught himself music by listening and transcribing parts from records. His compositional style represents a distinctively sparse form of tonal neo-Romanticism. Paganini and Jean Sibelius are acknowledged influences.

Career.

Preisner is best known for the music composed for the films directed by fellow Pole Krzysztof Kieślowski. His "Song for the Unification of Europe", based on the Greek text of 1 Corinthians 13, is attributed to a character in Kieślowski's "" and plays a dominating role in the story. His music for "" includes a setting of Polish and French versions of a poem by Wisława Szymborska, a Polish Nobel Prize-winning poet.  After working with Kieślowski on "", Preisner was hired by the producer Francis Ford Coppola to write the score for "The Secret Garden", directed by Polish director Agnieszka Holland. Although Preisner is most closely associated with Kieślowski, he has collaborated with several other directors, winning a César in 1996 for his work on Jean Becker's "Élisa". He has won a number of other awards, including another César in 1994 for "", and the Silver Bear from the 47th Berlin International Film Festival 1997 for "The Island on Bird Street". He was nominated for Golden Globe awards for his scores for (1993) and At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1991).  In 1998, "Requiem for My Friend", Preisner's first large scale work not written for film, premiered. It was originally intended as a narrative work to be written by Krzysztof Piesiewicz and directed by Kieślowski, but it became a memorial to Kieślowski after the director's death. The "Lacrimosa" from this Requiem appears in Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life". The "Dies Irae" from this Requiem appears in the film "La Grande Bellezza", directed by Paolo Sorrentino and in the second season of the television series "The Crown".  Preisner composed the theme music for the "People's Century", a monumental 26-part documentary made jointly in 1994 by the BBC television network in United Kingdom and the PBS television network in the United States. He has also worked with director Thomas Vinterberg on the 2003 film "It's All About Love". He provided orchestration for David Gilmour's 2006 album "On An Island" as well as additional orchestrations for the show at Gdańsk shipyards at which he also conducted the Baltic Philharmonic Orchestra, this was documented on the album "Live in Gdańsk" (2008). "Silence, Night and Dreams" is Zbigniew Preisner's new recording project, a large-scale work for orchestra, choir and soloists, based on texts from the Book of Job. The premier recording, was released in 2007 with the lead singer of Madredeus, Teresa Salgueiro and boy soprano Thomas Cully from Libera.

Van den Budenmayer.

Van den Budenmayer is a fictitious 18th-century Dutch composer created by Preisner and director Krzysztof Kieślowski for attributions in screenplays. Preisner said Van den Budenmayer is a pseudonym he and Kieślowski invented "because we both loved the Netherlands". Music "by" the Dutch composer plays a role in three Kieślowski films. The first is "Dekalog" (1988). The second is "" (1993) in which a theme from his "musique funebres" is quoted in the "Song for the Unification of Europe". Its E minor soprano solo is prefigured in the earlier film "The Double Life of Veronique" (1991), where circumstances in the story prevent the solo from finishing. The third is "" (1994).

Zbigniew Preisner (; born 20 May 1955 as Zbigniew Antoni Kowalski) is a Polish film score composer, best known for his work with film director Krzysztof Kieślowski.


Early life.

Constantine Monomachos was the son of Theodosios Monomachos, an important bureaucrat under Basil II and Constantine VIII. At some point, Theodosios had been suspected of conspiracy and his son's career suffered accordingly. Constantine's position improved after he married his second wife, a niece of Emperor Romanos III Argyros. Catching the eye of Empress Zoë, Zoë was exiled to Mytilene on the island of Lesbos by her second husband, Michael IV. The death of Michael IV and the overthrow of Michael V in 1042 led to Constantine being recalled from his place of exile and appointed as a judge in Greece. However, prior to commencing his appointment, Constantine was summoned to Constantinople, where the fragile working relationship between Michael V's successors, the empresses Zoë and Theodora, was breaking down. After two months of increasing acrimony between the two, Zoë decided to search for a new husband, thereby hoping to prevent her sister from increasing her popularity and authority.  After her first preference displayed contempt for the empress and her second died under mysterious circumstances, Zoë remembered the handsome and urbane Constantine. The pair were married on 11 June 1042, without the participation of Patriarch Alexius I of Constantinople, who refused to officiate over a third marriage (for both spouses). On the following day, Constantine was formally proclaimed emperor together with Zoë and her sister Theodora.

Reign.

Constantine continued the purge instituted by Zoë and Theodora, removing the relatives of Michael V from the court. The new emperor was pleasure-loving and prone to violent outbursts on suspicion of conspiracy. He was heavily influenced by his mistress Maria Skleraina, a relative of his second wife, and Maria's family. Constantine had another mistress, a certain "Alan princess", probably Irene, daughter of the Georgian Bagratid prince Demetrius. In August 1042, the emperor relieved General George Maniakes from his command in Italy, and Maniakes rebelled, declaring himself emperor in September. He transferred his troops into the Balkans and was about to defeat Constantine's army in battle, when he was wounded and died on the field, ending the crisis in 1043.  Immediately after the victory, Constantine was attacked by a fleet from Kievan Rus'; it is "incontrovertible that a Rus' detachment took part in the Maniakes rebellion". They too were defeated, with the help of Greek fire. Constantine married his relative Anastasia to the future Prince Vsevolod I of Kiev, the son of his opponent Yaroslav I the Wise. Constantine's family name "Monomachos" ("one who fights alone") was inherited by Vsevolod and Anastasia's son, Vladimir II Monomakh.  Constantine IX's preferential treatment of Maria Skleraina in the early part of his reign led to rumors that she was planning to murder Zoë and Theodora. This led to a popular uprising by the citizens of Constantinople in 1044, which came dangerously close to actually harming Constantine who was participating in a religious procession along the streets of Constantinople. The mob was only quieted by the appearance at a balcony of Zoë and Theodora, who reassured the people that they were not in any danger of assassination.  In 1045 Constantine annexed the Armenian kingdom of Ani, but this expansion merely exposed the empire to new enemies. In 1046 the Byzantines came into contact for the first time with the Seljuk Turks. They met in battle in Armenia in 1048 and settled a truce the following year. Even if the Seljuk rulers were willing to abide by the treaty, their unruly Turcoman allies showed much less restraint. The Byzantine forces would suffer a cataclysmic defeat at the battle of Manzikert in 1071. Constantine began persecuting the Armenian Church, trying to force it into union with the Orthodox Church. In 1046, he refounded the University of Constantinople by creating the Departments of Law and Philosophy. In 1047 Constantine was faced by the rebellion of his nephew Leo Tornikios, who gathered supporters in Adrianople and was proclaimed emperor by the army. Tornikios was forced to retreat, failed in another siege, and was captured during his flight. The revolt had weakened Byzantine defenses in the Balkans, and in 1048 the area was raided by the Pechenegs, who continued to plunder it for the next five years. The emperor's efforts to contain the enemy through diplomacy merely exacerbated the situation, as rival Pecheneg leaders clashed on Byzantine ground, and Pecheneg settlers were allowed to live in compact settlement in the Balkans, making it difficult to suppress their rebellion.  Constantine seems to have taken recourse to the "pronoia" system, a sort of Byzantine feudal contract in which tracts of land (or the tax revenue from it) were granted to particular individuals in exchange for contributing to and maintaining military forces. Constantine could be wasteful with the imperial treasury. On one occasion he is said to have sent an Arab leader 500,000 gold coins, over two tons of gold. In 1054 the centuries-old differences between the Greek and Roman churches led to their final separation. Legates from Pope Leo IX excommunicated the Patriarch of Constantinople Michael Keroularios when Keroularios would not agree to adopt western church practices, and in return Keroularios excommunicated the legates. This sabotaged Constantine's attempts to ally with the Pope against the Normans, who had taken advantage of the disappearance of Maniakes to take over Southern Italy.  Constantine tried to intervene, but he fell ill and died on 11 January of the following year. He was persuaded by his councillors, chiefly the "logothetes tou dromou" John, to ignore the rights of the elderly Theodora, daughter of Constantine VIII, and to pass the throne to the "doux" of Bulgaria, Nikephoros Proteuon. However, Theodora was recalled from her retirement and named empress.

Architecture and art.

The literary circle at the court of Constantine IX included the philosopher and historian Michael Psellos, whose "Chronographia" records the history of Constantine's reign. Psellos left a physical description of Constantine in his "Chronographia": he was ""ruddy as the sun, but all his breast, and down to his feet... [were] colored the purest white all over, with exquisite accuracy. When he was in his prime, before his limbs lost their virility, anyone who cared to look at him closely would surely have likened his head to the sun in its glory, so radiant was it, and his hair to the rays of the sun, while in the rest of his body he would have seen the purest and most translucent crystal.""  Immediately upon ascending to the throne in 1042, Constantine IX set about restoring the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which had been substantially destroyed in 1009 by Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah. Permitted by a treaty between al-Hakim's son Ali az-Zahir and Byzantine Emperor Romanos III, it was Constantine IX who finally funded the reconstruction of the Church and other Christian establishments in the Holy Land.

Constantine IX Monomachos, Latinized as Constantine IX Monomachus (; c. 1000 – 11 January 1055), reigned as Byzantine emperor from 11 June 1042 to 11 January 1055. He had been chosen by the Empress Zoë as a husband and co-emperor in 1042, although he had been exiled for conspiring against her previous husband, Emperor Michael IV the Paphlagonian. They ruled together until Zoë died in 1050.