Introduction.

Statistical data collection is concerned with the planning of studies, especially with the design of randomized experiments and with the planning of surveys using random sampling. The initial analysis of the data often follows the study protocol specified prior to the study being conducted. The data from a study can also be analyzed to consider secondary hypotheses inspired by the initial results, or to suggest new studies. A secondary analysis of the data from a planned study uses tools from data analysis, and the process of doing this is mathematical statistics.  Data analysis is divided into:  While the tools of data analysis work best on data from randomized studies, they are also applied to other kinds of data. For example, from natural experiments and observational studies, in which case the inference is dependent on the model chosen by the statistician, and so subjective.

Topics.

The following are some of the important topics in mathematical statistics:

Probability distributions.

A probability distribution is a function that assigns a probability to each measurable subset of the possible outcomes of a random experiment, survey, or procedure of statistical inference. Examples are found in experiments whose sample space is non-numerical, where the distribution would be a categorical distribution; experiments whose sample space is encoded by discrete random variables, where the distribution can be specified by a probability mass function; and experiments with sample spaces encoded by continuous random variables, where the distribution can be specified by a probability density function. More complex experiments, such as those involving stochastic processes defined in continuous time, may demand the use of more general probability measures.  A probability distribution can either be univariate or multivariate. A univariate distribution gives the probabilities of a single random variable taking on various alternative values; a multivariate distribution (a joint probability distribution) gives the probabilities of a random vector—a set of two or more random variables—taking on various combinations of values. Important and commonly encountered univariate probability distributions include the binomial distribution, the hypergeometric distribution, and the normal distribution. The multivariate normal distribution is a commonly encountered multivariate distribution.

Statistical inference.

Statistical inference is the process of drawing conclusions from data that are subject to random variation, for example, observational errors or sampling variation. Initial requirements of such a system of procedures for inference and induction are that the system should produce reasonable answers when applied to well-defined situations and that it should be general enough to be applied across a range of situations. Inferential statistics are used to test hypotheses and make estimations using sample data. Whereas descriptive statistics describe a sample, inferential statistics infer predictions about a larger population that the sample represents.  The outcome of statistical inference may be an answer to the question "what should be done next?", where this might be a decision about making further experiments or surveys, or about drawing a conclusion before implementing some organizational or governmental policy. For the most part, statistical inference makes propositions about populations, using data drawn from the population of interest via some form of random sampling. More generally, data about a random process is obtained from its observed behavior during a finite period of time. Given a parameter or hypothesis about which one wishes to make inference, statistical inference most often uses:

Regression.

In statistics, regression analysis is a statistical process for estimating the relationships among variables. It includes many ways for modeling and analyzing several variables, when the focus is on the relationship between a dependent variable and one or more independent variables. More specifically, regression analysis helps one understand how the typical value of the dependent variable (or 'criterion variable') changes when any one of the independent variables is varied, while the other independent variables are held fixed. Most commonly, regression analysis estimates the conditional expectation of the dependent variable given the independent variables – that is, the average value of the dependent variable when the independent variables are fixed. Less commonly, the focus is on a quantile, or other location parameter of the conditional distribution of the dependent variable given the independent variables. In all cases, the estimation target is a function of the independent variables called the regression function. In regression analysis, it is also of interest to characterize the variation of the dependent variable around the regression function which can be described by a probability distribution.  Many techniques for carrying out regression analysis have been developed. Familiar methods, such as linear regression, are parametric, in that the regression function is defined in terms of a finite number of unknown parameters that are estimated from the data (e.g. using ordinary least squares). Nonparametric regression refers to techniques that allow the regression function to lie in a specified set of functions, which may be infinite-dimensional.

Nonparametric statistics.

Nonparametric statistics are values calculated from data in a way that is not based on parameterized families of probability distributions. They include both descriptive and inferential statistics. The typical parameters are the mean, variance, etc. Unlike parametric statistics, nonparametric statistics make no assumptions about the probability distributions of the variables being assessed.  Non-parametric methods are widely used for studying populations that take on a ranked order (such as movie reviews receiving one to four stars). The use of non-parametric methods may be necessary when data have a ranking but no clear numerical interpretation, such as when assessing preferences. In terms of levels of measurement, non-parametric methods result in "ordinal" data.  As non-parametric methods make fewer assumptions, their applicability is much wider than the corresponding parametric methods. In particular, they may be applied in situations where less is known about the application in question. Also, due to the reliance on fewer assumptions, non-parametric methods are more robust.  Another justification for the use of non-parametric methods is simplicity. In certain cases, even when the use of parametric methods is justified, non-parametric methods may be easier to use. Due both to this simplicity and to their greater robustness, non-parametric methods are seen by some statisticians as leaving less room for improper use and misunderstanding.

Statistics, mathematics, and mathematical statistics.

Mathematical statistics is a key subset of the discipline of statistics. Statistical theorists study and improve statistical procedures with mathematics, and statistical research often raises mathematical questions. Statistical theory relies on probability and decision theory.  Mathematicians and statisticians like Gauss, Laplace, and C. S. Peirce used decision theory with probability distributions and loss functions (or utility functions). The decision-theoretic approach to statistical inference was reinvigorated by Abraham Wald and his successors, and makes extensive use of scientific computing, analysis, and optimization; for the design of experiments, statisticians use algebra and combinatorics.

Mathematical statistics is the application of probability theory, a branch of mathematics, to statistics, as opposed to techniques for collecting statistical data. Specific mathematical techniques which are used for this include mathematical analysis, linear algebra, stochastic analysis, differential equations, and measure theory.


Design and development.

Design of the Ki-84 commenced in early 1942 to meet an Imperial Japanese Army Air Service requirement for a replacement to Nakajima's own, earlier Ki-43 fighter, then just entering service. The specification recognized the need to combine the maneuverability of the Ki-43 with performance to match the best western fighters, and heavy firepower. The Ki-84 first flew in March 1943 and deliveries from Nakajima's Ota factory commenced in April 1943. Although the design was itself solid, growing difficulties in securing skilled pilots, proper fuel and construction materials, and adequate manufacture often prevented the aircraft from reaching its full potential in the field.  The design of the Ki-84 addressed the most common complaints about the popular and highly maneuverable Ki-43: insufficient firepower, poor defensive armor, and lack of climbing speed. The Ki-84 was a cantilever low-wing monoplane of all-metal construction, except for the fabric-covered control surfaces. It had retractable tailwheel landing gear. Armament comprised two fuselage-mounted, synchronized 12.7 mm (.50 in) machine guns — these proved challenging to synchronize properly with the "Hayate's" four-blade propeller — and two wing-mounted 20 mm cannon, a considerable improvement over the two 12.7 mm (.50 in) machine guns used in the Ki-43 "Hayabusa". Defensive armor offered "Hayate" pilots better protection than the unsealed wing tanks and light-alloy airframe of the Ki-43. In addition, the Ki-84 used a 65 mm (2.56 in) armor-glass canopy, 13 mm (.51 in) of head and back armor, and multiple bulkheads in the fuselage, which protected both the methanol-water tank (used to increase the effectiveness of the supercharger) and the centrally located fuel tank.  It was the Nakajima firm's own-designed 35.8 litre displacement, Ha-45 "Homare" ("Praise or Honor") air-cooled eighteen-cylinder radial engine, first accepted for military use in 1941, that gave the "Hayate" its high speed and prowess in combat. Derived from the Nakajima Homare engines common to many Japanese aircraft, the "Hayate" used the "Homare 21" direct-injection version of the engine, using water injection to aid the supercharger in giving the Ki-84 a rated 1,491 kW (2,000 hp) at takeoff. This combination theoretically gave it a climb rate and top speed roughly competitive with the top Allied fighters. Initial "Hayate" testing at Tachikawa in early summer 1943 saw test pilot Lieutenant Funabashi reach a maximum level airspeed of 624 km/h (387 mph) in the second prototype. After the war a captured late-production example was tested in the US and achieved a speed of 680 km/h (422 mph) using 92 octane AvGas, plus methanol injection.  The complicated direct-injection engine was a compact design (only 3 cm/11⁄4 inches larger in diameter than the Ki-43's 27.9 L 14-cylinder Nakajima Sakae radial) that required a great deal of care in construction and maintenance and it became increasingly difficult to maintain the type's designed performance as the Allies advanced toward the Japanese homeland. To compound reliability problems, the Allied submarine blockade prevented delivery of crucial components, such as the landing gear. Many landing gear units were compromised by the poor-quality heat treatment of late-war Japanese steel. As a result, many "Hayates" suffered strut collapses on landing. Further damage was caused by inadequately trained late war pilots, who sometimes found it difficult to transition to the relatively "hot" Ki-84 from the comparatively docile Ki-43, which had a significantly lower landing speed.

Operational service.

The first major operational involvement was during the battle of Leyte at the end of 1944, and from that moment until the end of the Pacific war the Ki-84 was deployed wherever the action was intense. The 22nd Sentai re-equipped with production Hayates. Though it lacked sufficient high-altitude performance, it performed well at medium and low levels. Seeing action against the USAAF 14th Air Force, it quickly gained a reputation as a combat aircraft to be reckoned with. Fighter-bomber models also entered service. On April 15, 1945, 11 Hayates attacked US airfields on Okinawa, destroying many aircraft on the ground.  In the final year of the war the Ki-84, the Ki-100 (essentially a radial-engined version of the inline-powered Kawasaki Ki-61) and Kawanishi's N1K2-J were the three Japanese fighters best suited to combat the newer Allied fighters.

Camouflage and markings.

The Ki-84 is known to have appeared in three Japanese Ministry of Munitions sanctioned camouflage schemes;  Type N: The entire airframe was left in its original natural metal. Because of the different grades of alloy used for various panels, the overall finish soon weathered or oxidized to a pale metallic grey, with variations in shade and texture, depending on the grade of duralumin used for each area of skin. A black "anti-glare" panel was painted on the top forward fuselage and engine cowling (see photo of 73 "Hiko-Sentai" aircraft).  Type B: Irregular blotches or stripes of dark green on the basic natural metal scheme. This was applied once the aircraft reached its operational base. On occasion the edges of national (hinomaru) and Sentai markings were accidentally covered.  Type S: Three variations were seen on Ki-84s; "S1" – Dark green upper surfaces, with light gray/green lower surfaces. "S2" – The light gray/green on the lower surfaces was replaced by a pale blue/gray. These colors were often applied on an unprimed airframe; because of this and the poor adhesion of Japanese paints in the later years of the war this scheme often weathered quickly, with large patches of natural metal being visible (see photo of 85 "Hiko-Sentai" Ki-84 on a Korean base). "S10" – The upper surfaces were left in a red/brown primer with the under surfaces in natural metal. The black anti-glare panel was optional.  Other schemes were applied, particularly by the "Shinbu-Tai" "Special Attack" units. For example, a Ki-84 of 57 "Shinbu-Tai", flown by Corporal Takano, had very dark brown-green upper surfaces (some sources state black), with a large red "arrow" outlined in white painted along the entire length of the fuselage and engine cowling. White Kana characters "hitt-chin" (be sure to sink) were painted above the arrow on the rear fuselage. The under surfaces were light gray.  Factory applied markings included six "hinomaru" (national insignia), outlined with a 75 mm (2.95 in) white border on camouflaged aircraft, on either side of the rear fuselage and on the upper and lower outer wings. Yellow/orange identification strips were applied to the leading edges of wings, extending from the roots to 1⁄3 of the wingspan.

Production.

Not included:

Operators.

Wartime  Post-war

Surviving aircraft.

After the war a number of aircraft were tested by the allied forces, two at the Allied Technical Air Intelligence Unit - South-West Pacific Area (ATAIU-SWPA) as S10 and S17 and a further two in the United States as FE-301 and FE-302 (Later T2-301 and T2-302).  One example captured at Clark Field during 1945, serial number 1446, was transported aboard the USS "Long Island" aircraft carrier to the United States. In 1952 it was sold off as surplus to Edward Maloney, owner of the Ontario Air Museum (Planes of Fame Air Museum) and restored to flying condition before being returned to Japan for display at the Arashiyama Museum in Kyoto in 1973. With unsupervised access allowed to the aircraft, parts were stolen from the Ki-84, and coupled with the years of neglect it could no longer fly. Following the museum's closure in 1991, the aircraft was transferred to the Tokko Heiwa Kinen-kan Museum, Kagoshima Prefecture, where it still is displayed to this day. It is the only surviving Ki-84.

The Nakajima is a single-seat fighter flown by the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service in the last two years of World War II. The Allied reporting name was "Frank"; the Japanese Army designation was. The Ki-84 is generally considered the best Japanese fighter to operate in large numbers during the conflict. The aircraft boasted high speeds and excellent maneuverability with an armament (up to two 30 mm and two 20 mm cannon) that gave it formidable firepower. The Ki-84's performance matched that of any single-engine Allied fighter it faced, and its operational ceiling enabled it to intercept high-flying B-29 Superfortress bombers. Pilots and crews in the field learned to take care with the plane's high-maintenance Nakajima Homare engine and a landing gear prone to buckling. The difficulties of Japan's situation late in the war took a toll on the aircraft's field performance as manufacturing defects multiplied, quality fuel proved difficult to procure and experienced pilots grew scarce. Nevertheless, a well-maintained Ki-84 was Japan's fastest fighter. A total of 3,514 aircraft were built.


Life.

His parents, the two prominent poets Nikolay Gumilyov and Anna Akhmatova, divorced when Lev was 7 years old, and his father was executed when Lev was just 9. Lev spent most of his youth, from 1938 until 1956, in Soviet labor camps. He was arrested by the NKVD in 1935 and released, but rearrested again and sentenced to five years in 1938. After serving the time, he joined the Red Army and took part in the Battle of Berlin of 1945. However, he was arrested again in 1949 and sentenced to ten years in prison camps. Aiming to secure his release, Akhmatova published a dithyramb to Joseph Stalin, which did not help to release Lev, although it possibly prevented her own imprisonment. The Soviet secret police had already prepared an order for her arrest, but Stalin decided not to sign it. Relations between Lev and his mother became strained, as he blamed her for not helping him enough. She described her feelings about the arrest of Lev and the period of political repressions in "Requiem" (published in 1963).  After Stalin's death in 1953, Gumilyov joined the Hermitage Museum, whose director, Mikhail Artamonov, he would come to appreciate as his mentor. Under Artamonov's guidance, he became interested in Khazar studies and in steppe peoples in general. In the 1950s and 1960s he participated in several expeditions to the Volga Delta and to the North Caucasus. He proposed an archeological site for Samandar as well as the theory of the Caspian transgression in collaboration with geologist Alexander Alyoksin as one of the reasons for Khazar decline. In 1960 he started delivering lectures at Leningrad University. Two years later, he defended his doctoral thesis on ancient Turks. From the 1960s he worked in the Geography Institute, where he would defend another doctoral thesis, this time in geography.  Although the official Soviet authorities rejected his ideas and banned most of his monographs from publication, Gumilyov came to attract much publicity, especially in the Perestroika years of 1985-1991. As an indication of his popularity, the Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev ordered the L.N.Gumilyov Eurasian National University (Евразийский Национальный университет имени Л. Н. Гумилёва, founded in 1996) to be erected just opposite his own palace on the central square of the new Kazakh capital, Astana.

Ideas.

Gumilyov attempted to explain the waves of nomadic migration that rocked the great steppe of Eurasia for centuries by geographical factors such as annual vacillations in solar radiation, which determine the area of grasslands that could be used for grazing livestock. According to this idea, when the steppe areas shrank drastically, the nomads of Central Asia began moving to the fertile pastures of Europe or China.  To describe the genesis and evolution of ethnic groups, Gumilyov introduced the concept of "passionarity", meaning the level of activity to expand typical for an ethnic group, and especially for their leaders, at the given moment of time. He argued that every ethnic group passes through the same stages of birth, development, climax, inertia, convolution, and memorial. It is during the "acmatic" phases, when the national passionarity reaches its maximum heat, that the great conquests are made. Gumilyov described the current state of Europe as deep inertia, or "introduction to obscuration", to use his own words. The passionarity of the Arabic world, on the other hand, is still high, according to him.  Drawing inspiration from the works of Konstantin Leontyev and Nikolay Danilevsky, Gumilyov regarded Russians as a "super-ethnos" which is kindred to Turkic-Mongol peoples of the Eurasian steppe. Those periods when Russia has been said to conflict with the steppe peoples, Gumilyov reinterpreted as the periods of consolidation of Russian power with that of steppe in order to oppose destructive influences from Catholic Europe, that posed a potential threat to integrity of the Russian ethnic group.  In accordance with his pan-Asiatic theories, he supported the national movements of Tatars, Kazakhs, and other Turkic peoples, in addition to those of the Mongolians and other East Asians. Unsurprisingly, Gumilyov's teachings have enjoyed immense popularity in Central Asian countries. In Kazan, for example, a monument to him was opened in August 2005.

Criticism.

Several researchers, such as Vadim Rossman, John Klier, Victor Yasmann, Victor Schnirelmann, and Mikhail Tripolsky describe Gumilyov's views as antisemitic. According to these authors, Gumilyov did not extend this ethnological ecumenism to the medieval Jews, whom he regarded as a parasitic, international urban class that had dominated the Khazars and subjected the early East Slavs to the "Khazar Yoke". This last phrase he adapted from the traditional term "Tatar Yoke" for the Mongol domination of medieval Russia, a term Gumilyov rejected for he did not regard the Mongol conquest as a necessarily negative event. In particular, he asserted that the Radhanites had been instrumental in the exploitation of East Slavic people and had exerted undue influence on the sociopolitical and economic landscape of the early Middle Ages. Gumilyov maintained that the Jewish culture was by nature mercantile and existed outside and in opposition to its environment. According to this view, Jews share a specific way of thinking, and this is associated with the moral norms of Judaism. According to Gumilev, the medieval Jews also did not bear arms themselves, but waged wars by proxies or mercenaries.

Lev Nikolayevich Gumilyov (; 1 October 1912, St. Petersburg – 15 June 1992, St. Petersburg) was a Soviet historian, ethnologist, anthropologist and translator from Persian. He had a reputation for his highly non-orthodox theories of ethnogenesis and historiosophy. He was exponent of eurasianism.


Plot.

At the Central Park Zoo, Marty the zebra celebrates his tenth birthday but has grown bored with his daily routine and longs to experience the wild. Marty's best friend is Alex the lion, who enjoys showing off for the public and his celebrity status as "the king of New York". Alex attempts to cheer Marty up, but Marty, still unsatisfied, learns that the zoo's penguins—Skipper, Kowalski, Rico, and Private—are trying to escape, and follows them out. Alex, Melman the giraffe, and Gloria the hippopotamus pursue Marty and attempt to convince him to return. The four, along with the penguins and two chimpanzees named Mason and Phil, converge at Grand Central Station where the authorities sedate them using tranquilizer guns. Under pressure from anti-captivity activists, the zoo is forced to ship the escaped animals by sea to a Kenyan wildlife preserve. During their travels, the penguins escape and take over the ship, intent on taking it to Antarctica. Their antics on the bridge cause the crates containing Alex, Marty, Melman, and Gloria to fall overboard and wash ashore on Madagascar.  Initially believing themselves to be at the San Diego Zoo, the animals come across a pack of lemurs led by King Julien XIII. The predatory fossa attack the lemurs, but are scared off by Alex's fearsome appearance. Alex blames Marty for the group's predicament and attempts to signal for help to get back to civilization. Marty finds the wild to be exactly what he was looking for, and Gloria and Melman soon join him in enjoying the island. Alex eventually comes around, but without the raw steaks he was provided at the zoo, hunger sets in and his prey drive begins to show. King Julien has the lemurs befriend the zoo animals in the hope that Alex's presence will keep the fossa at bay, despite his adviser Maurice's warnings about Alex's predatory nature. When Alex loses control and attacks Marty, Julien realizes that he is a threat and banishes him to the predator side of the island, where the fossa live. Seeing what has happened to Alex, and how dangerous the wild can be, Marty begins to regret his decision to leave the zoo.  The penguins, having been to Antarctica and found it inhospitable, land the ship at Madagascar. Seeing the chance to return Alex to New York, Marty crosses over to the predator side and attempts to convince the grizzled, starving Alex to return, but Alex refuses out of fear that he will attack Marty again. The fossa attack Marty, and though Gloria, Melman, and the penguins come to the rescue, they are outnumbered. Alex overcomes his predatory instincts, rescues his friends, and scares the fossa away from the lemur territory forever. The lemurs regain their respect for Alex, and the penguins satisfy his hunger by feeding him sushi. As the lemurs throw a farewell celebration for the foursome, the penguins decide not to break the news that the ship has run out of fuel.

Production.

In 1998, DreamWorks and PDI had started development on an animated film titled "Rockumentary" without being formally announced as a parody of The Beatles in a most likely animated mockumentary of their rise and fall to fame, which featured a Beatles-esque penguin rock band. The idea was scrapped, but after production on "Madagascar" started, director Eric Darnell decided to revive the penguins, but make them a commando unit instead of a rock band.

Home media.

"Madagascar" was released on DVD and VHS on November 15, 2005 by DreamWorks Home Entertainment. The DVD included a short animated film "The Madagascar Penguins in a Christmas Caper", and a music video "I Like to Move It," featuring characters from the film dancing to the song. A Blu-ray version of the film was released on September 23, 2008.

Reception.

Box office.

The film was a commercial success. On its opening weekend, the film grossed $47,224,594 with a $11,431 average from 4,131 theaters making it the number 3 movie of that weekend behind "" and "The Longest Yard". However, the film managed to claim the top position in the U.S. box office the following week with a gross of $28,110,235. In the United States, the film eventually grossed $193,595,521, and in foreign areas grossed $339,085,150 with a summative worldwide gross of $532,680,671. As of April 2019, the film is DreamWorks Animation's ninth highest-grossing film in the United States behind "Shrek 2", "Shrek the Third", "Shrek", "Shrek Forever After", "How to Train Your Dragon", "", "Kung Fu Panda", and "Monsters vs. Aliens".

Critical reception.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film received a 54% approval rating based on 191 reviews, with an average rating of 6.07/10. The consensus reads: "Though its story is problematic in spots and its humor is hit-or-miss for the adult crowd, "Madagascar" boasts impressive visuals and enough spunky charm to keep children entertained." On Metacritic, the film has a 57% approval rating based on 36 reviews falling under the "Mixed or Average" category.

Awards.

The film has won three awards and several nominations.  In 2008, the American Film Institute nominated this film for its Top 10 Animation Films list.

Soundtrack.

Madagascar is the soundtrack to the 2005 DreamWorks film of the same name. It was released by Geffen Records on May 24, 2005.

Sequels and spin-offs.

A sequel titled "" was released on November 7, 2008, and picked up right where the first one left off, with the same voice cast. A second sequel, "", was released on June 8, 2012. A short film called "The Madagascar Penguins in a Christmas Caper" was released with the "Madagascar" DVD, and was theatrically released with "" in the United States. A 2009 spinoff series, "The Penguins of Madagascar", premiered in March 2009 on Nickelodeon. It is the first Nicktoon to be produced by both Nickelodeon and DreamWorks. "Merry Madagascar", a holiday special featuring characters from the film series, premiered on November 17, 2009 on NBC. "Madly Madagascar", a Valentine's Day special featuring characters from the film series, was released on DVD on January 29, 2013. A spin-off film starring the Penguins was released on November 26, 2014, another spin-off series featuring the Lemur King Julien was released on December 19, 2014, on Netflix, and a third sequel, "Madagascar 4", was set for release on May 18, 2018, but it was removed from its schedule due to the studio's restructuring.

Madagascar is a 2005 American computer-animated comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by DreamWorks Pictures. It was directed by Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath from a screenplay by Mark Burton, Billy Frolick, Darnell, and McGrath, and features an ensemble cast, consisting of Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett Smith, Sacha Baron Cohen, Cedric the Entertainer, Andy Richter, Tom McGrath, Chris Miller, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Christopher Knights, Conrad Vernon, Eric Darnell, David P. Smith, Elisa Gabrielli, Bob Saget, David Cowgill, and Stephen Apostolina.


Education and early career.

Vuia was born to Romanian parents Simion Popescu and Ana Vuia living in Surducul-Mic, a village in the Banat region, Austro-Hungarian Empire, today in Romania; the place is now called Traian Vuia. After graduating from high school in Lugoj, in 1892, he enrolled in the School of Mechanics at the Polytechnic University of Budapest where he received his engineering diploma. He then joined the Faculty of Law in Budapest, Hungary, where he earned a PhD in law in May 1901 with the thesis "Military and Industry, State and Contract regime".  He returned to Lugoj, where he studied the problem of human flight and designed his first flying machine, which he called the "airplane-car". He attempted to build the machine, but due to financial constraints decided to go to Paris in July 1902, hoping to find someone interested in financing his project, possibly balloon enthusiasts. He met with considerable skepticism from people who believed that a heavier-than-air machine could not fly. He then visited Victor Tatin, the well-known theoretician and experimenter who had built an aircraft model which flew in 1879. Tatin was interested in the project, but doubted that Vuia had a suitable engine or that his aircraft would be stable. Vuia then presented his plan to the Académie des Sciences in Paris on February 16, 1903, but was rejected with the comment, "The problem of flight with a machine which weighs more than air can not be solved and it is only a dream."  Undeterred, Vuia applied for a French patent on May 15, 1903, and obtained patent No. 332106 for his design. He began to build his first flying machine in the winter of 1902–03. Overcoming more financial difficulties, he also started construction of an engine of his own design for which he was granted various patents, the first in 1904.

Flying experiments.

By December 1905 Vuia had finished construction of his first airplane, the "Vuia I". This was a high-wing monoplane constructed entirely of steel tubing. The basic framework consisted of a pair of triangular frames, the lower members forming the sides of the rectangular chassis which bore four pneumatic-tyred wheels, the front pair steerable. The wing was mounted on the apices of these frames and resembled those of Otto Lilienthal's gliders, with a number of curved steel tubes radiating outwards from centres at the apex of each of the side frames, braced by wires attached to a pair of kingposts, and covered in varnished linen. Pitch control was achieved by varying the angle of attack of the wing. A trapezoidal rudder was mounted behind and below the wing. It was powered by a carbonic acid gas engine driving a single tractor propeller. The 25 hp engine had to be adapted by Vuia himself as a suitable engine was not available. Liquid carbon dioxide was vaporized in a Serpollet boiler and fed to a Serpollet engine. The fuel supply was enough for a running time of about five minutes at full power. The aircraft was constructed for Vuia by the Parisian engineering company of Hockenjos and Schmitt. Vuia chose a site in Montesson, near Paris, for testing. At first he used the machine without the wings mounted so he could gather experience controlling it on the ground. The wings were put on in March and on March 18, 1906, it lifted off briefly. After accelerating for about, the aircraft left the ground and travelled through the air at a height of about for a distance of about, but then the engine cut out and it came down. Caught by the wind it was damaged against a tree. On August 9 a longer hop of at a height of about 2.5 m (8 ft) was made, ending in a heavy landing which damaged the propeller.  In August 1906 he modified the aircraft, reducing the camber of the wing and adding an elevator. In this form it is sometimes called the Vuia I-bis. The British aviation historian Charles Harvard Gibbs-Smith described this aircraft as "the first man-carrying monoplane of basically modern configuration", yet "unsuccessful" because it was incapable of sustained flight.  The French journal "L'Aérophile" emphasized that Vuia's machine had the capability to take off from a flat surface, without assistance such as an incline, rails, or catapult. At the time Europe was aware of the efforts of the Wright brothers who on December 17, 1903, had flown their "Wright Flyer" from level ground using a dolly undercarriage running on a guide rail, though few yet recognised the achievement. The Wrights had made sustained and controlled flights in a complete circuit by September 1904.  The main characteristics of the Vuia I: In 1907 Vuia built the Vuia II, using an Antoinette internal combustion engine. This aircraft had the same basic configuration as the Vuia I-bis, but was both smaller and lighter, with a total weight (including pilot) of and a wingspan of. Vuia succeeded in making a brief powered hop on July 5, travelling, but damaging the aircraft and suffering slight injuries on landing. No further attempts were made to fly the aircraft.  Charles Dollfus, former curator of the Air Museum in Paris, wrote that aviation pioneer Alberto Santos Dumont's use of wheels on his aircraft was influenced by Dumont's having seen Vuia's flight attempts.

Documentation.

Vuia reportedly made his first powered hop on March 18, 1906, in the presence of his mechanic and two close friends. Accounts of this test, published at the time, and of his later airborne tests, till August 19, 1906, are based on letters he wrote to "L'Aérophile", the official journal of the Aéro Club of France. Vuia made the first known public demonstration of his airplane on October 8, 1906, when he became airborne for four meters, witnessed by Ernest Archdeacon and Édouard Surcouf. Another journal of the period, "Flight", credited him with a five-meter hop on October 8, 1906, as the earliest entry in a list of his tests shown in a table of "the performances which have been made by the most prominent aviators of the last few years".

Later career.

Between 1918 and 1921 Vuia built two experimental helicopters on the Juvisy and Issy-les-Moulineaux aerodromes.  He is buried at the Bellu cemetery in Bucharest, Romania.

Legacy.

Another invention by Vuia was a steam generator with internal combustion that generates very high pressure – more than 100 atm (10 MPa) – that is still used today in thermal power stations. Traian Vuia and one of his partners, Emmanuel Yvonneau, patented several types of gas generators.  On May 27, 1946, Vuia was named an Honorary Member of the Romanian Academy.  His birthplace, Bujoru, in Timiș was renamed Traian Vuia after his death.  Timişoara International Airport Traian Vuia (TSR), Romania's third largest airport, carries his name.

Traian Vuia or Trajan Vuia (; August 17, 1872 – September 3, 1950) was a Romanian inventor and aviation pioneer who designed, built and tested the first tractor monoplane. He was the first to demonstrate that a flying machine could rise into the air by running on wheels on an ordinary road. He is credited with a powered hop of made on March 18, 1906, and he later claimed a powered hop of. Though unsuccessful in sustained flight, Vuia's invention influenced Louis Blériot in designing monoplanes. Later, Vuia also designed helicopters.


Life.

Maurice de Vlaminck was born on Rue Pierre Lescot in Paris. His father Edmond Julien was Flemish and taught violin and his mother Joséphine Caroline Grillet came from Lorraine and taught piano. His father taught him to play the violin. He began painting in his late teens. In 1893, he studied with a painter named Henri Rigalon on the. In 1894 he married Suzanne Berly. The turning point in his life was a chance meeting on the train to Paris towards the end of his stint in the army. Vlaminck, then 23, met an aspiring artist, André Derain, with whom he struck up a lifelong friendship. When Vlaminck completed his army service in 1900, the two rented a studio together, the Maison Levanneur, which now houses the Cneai, for a year before Derain left to do his own military service. In 1902 and 1903 he wrote several mildly pornographic novels illustrated by Derain. He painted during the day and earned his livelihood by giving violin lessons and performing with musical bands at night.  Vlaminck participated in the controversial 1905 Salon d'Automne exhibition. After viewing the boldly colored canvases of Vlaminck, Henri Matisse, André Derain, Albert Marquet, Kees van Dongen, Charles Camoin, and Jean Puy, the art critic Louis Vauxcelles disparaged the painters as ""fauves"" (wild beasts), thus giving their movement the name by which it became known, Fauvism.  In 1911, Vlaminck traveled to London and painted by the Thames. In 1913, he painted again with Derain in Marseille and Martigues. In World War I he was stationed in Paris, and began writing poetry. Eventually he settled in Rueil-la-Gadelière, a small village south-west of Paris. He married his second wife, Berthe Combes, with whom he had two daughters. From 1925 he traveled throughout France, but continued to paint primarily along the Seine, near Paris. Resentful that Fauvism had been overtaken by Cubism as an art movement Vlaminck blamed Picasso "for dragging French painting into a wretched dead end and state of confusion". During the Second World War Vlaminck visited Germany and on his return published a tirade against Picasso and Cubism in the periodical "Comoedia" in June 1942. A gifted story teller, Vlaminck wrote many autobiographies, which were somewhat marred either by vagueness or lack of absolute truthfulness.  Vlaminck died in Rueil-la-Gadelière on 11 October 1958.

Artistic career.

Two of Vlaminck's groundbreaking paintings, "Sur le zinc" (At the Bar) and "L'homme a la pipe" (Man Smoking a Pipe) were painted in 1900.  For the next few years Vlaminck lived in or near Chatou (the inspiration for his painting "houses at Chatou"), painting and exhibiting alongside Derain, Matisse, and other Fauvist painters. At this time his exuberant paint application and vibrant use of colour displayed the influence of Vincent van Gogh. "Sur le zinc" called to mind the work of Toulouse-Lautrec and his portrayals of prostitutes and solitary drinkers, but does not attempt to probe the sitter's psychology—a break with the century-old European tradition of individualized portraiture. According to art critic Souren Melikian, it is "the impersonal cartoon of a type." In his landscape paintings, his approach was similar. He ignored the details, with the landscape becoming a vehicle through which he could express mood through violent colour and brushwork. An example is "Sous bois", painted in 1904. The following year, he began to experiment with "deconstruction," turning the physical world into dabs and streaks of colour that convey a sense of motion. His paintings "Le Pont de Chatou" (The Chatou Bridge), "Les Ramasseurs de pommes de terre" (The Potato Pickers), "La Seine a Chatou" (The River Seine at Chatou) and "Le Verger" (The Orchard) exemplify this trend.

Artistic influences.

Vlaminck's compositions show familiarity with the Impressionists, several of whom had painted in the same area in the 1870s and 1880s. After visiting a Van Gogh exhibit, he declared that he "loved Van Gogh that day more than my own father". From 1908 his palette grew more monochromatic, and the predominant influence was that of Cézanne. His later work displayed a dark palette, punctuated by heavy strokes of contrasting white paint.  Some of his works are held at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Maurice de Vlaminck (4 April 1876 – 11 October 1958) was a French painter. Along with André Derain and Henri Matisse he is considered one of the principal figures in the Fauve movement, a group of modern artists who from 1904 to 1908 were united in their use of intense colour. Vlaminck was one of the Fauves at the controversial Salon d'Automne exhibition of 1905.


Biography.

Kataklysm was formed in Montreal, Quebec in September 1991. At the beginning of their career, they were known for their fast and technical brand of death metal, known as the "Northern Hyperblast". Nuclear Blast Records soon took notice of the band in 1992 after noticing the band's debut demo "The Death Gate Cycle of Reincarnation", which gained significant praise from the underground metal scene. In 1994, Kataklysm signed to Nuclear Blast and released their first EP "The Mystical Gate of Reincarnation", followed by their debut album Sorcery in 1995. This was followed in 1996 by their second full length album "Temple of Knowledge", which they accompanied with their first music video for the album's track, "The Awakener". Following the release of this album however, founding member and lead vocalist Sylvain Houde departed from the band. This, as Houde himself confessed, was due to the emotional effects surrounding the end of his romantic relationship. Subsequently, the band's bassist Maurizio Iacono replaced Houde as vocalist, ceding his duties as bassist to Stephane Barbe. The band's musical direction shifted from being primarily spearheaded by Houde to both Iacono and founding guitarist JF Dagenais instead.  In 1998, the band released their third studio album "Victims of this Fallen World", (Iacono's first as vocalist) which has been noted as incorporating a more groove-oriented and melodic musical style of death metal. The following album "The Prophecy (Stigmata of the Immaculate)" released in 2000 consolidated this style, lessening the chaotic nature of their work thus far and incorporating greater influences from thrash metal. The band's 2001 album "" added further melody to the band's approach to death metal and the band continued to gain attention and positive critical reception. In the following year, the band released "Shadows & Dust", which has been viewed by critics as one of the band's most successful releases because of the overwhelmingly positive reception the band received and the increase in sales compared to the band's prior releases, being the first album to chart in countries such as Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and featured one of the band's most recognisable tracks: "In Shadows & Dust".  Two years later, in 2004, the band released "Serenity in Fire". The album was notable for the absence of drummer Max Duhamel, Kataklysm's drummer, being temporarily replaced by Martin Maurais, due to injury. The album was again positively received and featured two of the band's best known tracks: "As I Slither" and "The Ambassador of Pain". Duhamel eventually recovered and played on the band's eighth studio album, released in 2006, titled "In the Arms of Devastation". The album was a considerable success, with sales exceeding 50,000 units and saw the band's highest charting entries thus far. The band's following album, Prevail, continued to display the band's growing popularity, with sales again exceeding the 50,000 mark. The album's single "Taking the World by Storm" also became the band's most highly viewed track on YouTube, with over three million views.  The band released their 11th studio album "Waiting for the End to Come" on October 29, 2013, followed by their twelfth album "Of Ghosts and Gods" in July 31, 2015, both to high praise. The band's thirteenth studio album, "Meditations", was released in June 2018. The album gained their first album to chart on the Billboard Top 100 charts, positioning at #61, alongside being their highest charting album in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and the band's native Canada.

Influences.

Members of Kataklysm have cited major influences as Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax, Pantera, Sepultura, Exhorder, Testament, Death, At the Gates, Napalm Death, Obituary, Cannibal Corpse, Kreator, Exodus, Fear Factory, Carcass and Entombed.

Members.

Current members Former members Timeline

Kataklysm is a Canadian death metal band. They have released thirteen studio albums, one EP and two DVDs as of 2018. Kataklysm won their first Juno Award (Canadian equivalent of the Grammy) for best album of the year in the "heavy metal" category for their 2015 album "Of Ghosts & Gods".The band's albums have charted throughout the world, including the Billboard Top 100 in the United States.


Functions of prices.

In a free-enterprise exchange economy characterized by private ownership of the means of production, prices serve five functions:

Price and value.

The paradox of value was observed and debated by classical economists. Adam Smith described what is now called the "diamond – water paradox": diamonds command a higher price than water, yet water is essential for life and diamonds are merely ornamentation. Use value was supposed to give some measure of usefulness, later refined as marginal benefit while exchange value was the measure of how much one good was in terms of another, namely what is now called relative price.

Negative oil price.

In April 2020, for the first time in history, because of global health/economic crisis situation, price of (futures contract for) West Texas Intermediate benchmark crude oil turned negative, with a barrel of oil at -$37.63 a barrel, a one-day drop of $55.90, or 306%, according to Dow Jones Market Data. "Negative prices means someone with a long position in oil would have to pay someone to take that oil off of their hands. Why would they do that? The main reason is a fear that if forced to take delivery of crude on the expiration of the May oil contract, there would be nowhere to put it as a glut of crude fills up available storage."  In a sense the price is still positive, just the direction of payment reverses, i.e. in this case you are paid to take some goods.  This is very unusual, while negative interest rates are similar.

Austrian School theory.

One solution offered to the paradox of value is through the theory of marginal utility proposed by Carl Menger, one of the founders of the Austrian School of economics.  As William Barber put it, human volition, the human subject, was "brought to the centre of the stage" by marginalist economics, as a bargaining tool. Neoclassical economists sought to clarify choices open to producers and consumers in market situations, and thus "fears that cleavages in the economic structure might be unbridgeable could be suppressed".  Without denying the applicability of the Austrian theory of value as "subjective" only, within certain contexts of price behavior, the Polish economist Oskar Lange felt it was necessary to attempt a serious "integration" of the insights of classical political economy with neo-classical economics. This would then result in a much more realistic theory of price and of real behavior in response to prices. Marginalist theory lacked anything like a theory of the social framework of real market functioning, and criticism sparked off by the capital controversy initiated by Piero Sraffa revealed that most of the foundational tenets of the marginalist theory of value either reduced to tautologies, or that the theory was true only if counter-factual conditions applied.  One insight often ignored in the debates about price theory is something that businessmen are keenly aware of: in different markets, prices may not function according to the same principles except in some very abstract (and therefore not very useful) sense. From the classical political economists to Michal Kalecki it was known that prices for industrial goods behaved differently from prices for agricultural goods, but this idea could be extended further to other broad classes of goods and services.

Price as productive human labour time.

Marxists assert that value derives from the volume of socially necessary labour time exerted in the creation of an object. This value does not relate to price in a simple manner, and the difficulty of the conversion of the mass of values into the actual prices is known as the transformation problem. However, many recent Marxists deny that any problem exists. Marx was not concerned with proving that prices derive from values. In fact, he admonished the other classical political economists (like Ricardo and Smith) for trying to make this proof. Rather, for Marx, price equals the cost of production (capital-cost and labor-costs) plus the average rate of profit. So if the average rate of profit (return on capital investment) is 22% then prices would reflect cost-of-production plus 22%. The perception that there is a transformation problem in Marx stems from the injection of Walrasian equilibrium theory into Marxism where there is no such thing as equilibrium.

Confusion between prices and costs of production.

Price is commonly confused with the notion of cost of production, as in "I paid a high cost for buying my new plasma television"; but technically these are different concepts. Price is what a buyer pays to acquire products from a seller. Cost of production concerns the seller's expenses (e.g., manufacturing expense) in producing the product being exchanged with a buyer. For marketing organizations seeking to make a profit, the hope is that price will exceed cost of production so that the organization can see financial gain from the transaction.  Finally, while pricing is a topic central to a company's profitability, pricing decisions are not limited to for-profit companies. The behavior of non-profit organizations, such as charities, educational institutions and industry trade groups, also involve setting prices. For instance, charities seeking to raise money may set different "target" levels for donations that reward donors with increases in status (e.g., name in newsletter), gifts or other benefits; likewise educational and cultural nonprofits often price seats for events in theatres, auditoriums and stadiums. Furthermore, while nonprofit organizations may not earn a "profit", by definition, it is the case that many nonprofits may desire to maximize "net revenue"—total revenue less total cost—for various programs and activities, such as selling seats to theatrical and cultural performances.

Price point.

The price of an item is also called the "price point", especially where it refers to stores that set a limited number of price points. For example, Dollar General is a general store or "five and dime" store that sets price points only at even amounts, such as exactly one, two, three, five, or ten dollars (among others). Other stores will have a policy of setting most of their prices ending in 99 cents or pence. Other stores (such as dollar stores, pound stores, euro stores, 100-yen stores, and so forth) only have a single price point ($1, £1, €1, ¥100), though in some cases this price may purchase more than one of some very small items.

Market price.

In economics, market price is the economic price for which a good or service is offered in the marketplace. It is of interest mainly in the study of microeconomics. Market value and market price are equal only under conditions of market efficiency, equilibrium, and rational expectations.  On restaurant menus, "market price" (often abbreviated to "m.p." or "mp") is written instead of a specific price, meaning "price of dish depends on market price of ingredients, and price is available upon request", and is particularly used for seafood, notably lobsters and oysters.

Other terms.

Basic price is the price a seller gets after removing any taxes paid by a buyer and adding any subsidy the seller gets for selling.  Producer price is the amount the producer gets from a buyer for a unit of a good or service produced as output minus any tax, it excludes any transport charges invoiced separately by the producer.  Price optimization is the use of mathematical techniques by a company to determine how customers will respond to different prices for its products and services through different channels.

A price is the (usually not negative) quantity of payment or compensation given by one party to another in return for one unit of goods or services. A price is influenced by both production costs and demand for the product. A price may be determined by a monopolist or may be imposed on the firm by market conditions.


History.

Known in ancient times as Dertona, the city was probably the oldest colony under Roman rule in the westernmost section of the Valley of the Po, on the road leading from Genua (Genoa) to Placentia (Piacenza). The city was founded c. 123–118 BC at the junction of the great roads; the Via Postumia and the Via Aemilia Scauri which merged to become the Via Julia Augusta. The site made Dertona an important military station under the Romans. Strabo speaks of it as one of the most considerable towns in this part of Italy, and from Pliny wrote that it was a Roman colony. Velleius mentions it among those founded under the Republic, it appears to have been recolonised under Augustus, from whence we find it bearing in inscriptions the title of "Julia Dertona". The assassin of Caesar, Brutus, encamped at Dertona on his march in pursuit of Mark Antony, after the Battle of Mutina, and it was one of the places where a body of troops was usually stationed during the later ages of the empire.  A bishopric was founded at Tortona early, but its first bishops are purely legendary, like Saint Marcianus of Tortona, called the first bishop of Piedmont and a disciple of Barnabas, the companion of Paul. Until the 9th century, the city was under the rule of its bishop; in 1090 it became a free commune with the name of Terdona. In 1133 the diocese was separated from the archbishopric of Milan to the new archdiocese of Genoa ("CE" "Lombardy").  In 1155 Frederick Barbarossa besieged, captured and leveled Tortona to the ground, leaving not one stone upon another.  During the Middle Ages, Tortona was a faithful ally of the Guelphs and was destroyed several times. From 1260 to 1347 the city was dominated by a series of different Italian noble families and adventurers like Facino Cane, who in the unsettled affairs of Lombardy had assembled a string of lordships and great wealth which he bequeathed to his wife, Beatrice, and arranged with his friends that a marriage should be effected between her and Filippo Maria Visconti. According to Machiavelli "By this union Filippo became powerful, and reacquired Milan and the whole of Lombardy. By way of being grateful for these numerous favors, as princes commonly are, he accused Beatrice of adultery and caused her to be put to death". In this way, in 1347, Tortona was decisively incorporated into the territories of the Duchy of Milan, under which remained until 1735. Then following the vicissitudes of the War of the Polish Succession, the city was occupied by the King of Sardinia, and "count of Tortona" was added to the titles of the House of Savoy.

Colli Tortonesi.

Tortona is the capital of an area known as Colli Tortonesi, which stretches from the town to the border with Liguria. The area is known for the variety and of its products and for the intensive wine production, including Barbera, Dolcetto, Moscato and Timorasso, the autochthonous wine of the region which traces its origin back to the 14th century. Truffles are another important fruit of this land and the Colli Tortonesi is the only place in Piedmont to have three varieties of truffle: White truffle, Black Truffle and scorzone.

People.

People born in Tortona, or with close links to the town, include:

Sources.

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Tortona (;, ) is a "comune" of Piemonte, in the Province of Alessandria, Italy. Tortona is sited on the right bank of the Scrivia between the plain of Marengo and the foothills of the Ligurian Apennines.


History of the breed.

As its name implies, the Jersey was bred on the British Channel Island of Jersey. It apparently descended from cattle stock brought over from the nearby Norman mainland, and was first recorded as a separate breed around 1700.  The breed was isolated from outside influence for over 200 years, from 1789 to 2008.  Before 1789, cows would be given as dowry for inter-island marriages between Jersey and Guernsey. This was, however, not widespread.  In 1789, imports of foreign cattle into Jersey were forbidden by law to maintain the purity of the breed, although exports of cattle and semen have been important economic resources for the island. The restriction on the import of cattle was initially introduced to prevent a collapse in the export price. The United Kingdom levied no import duty on cattle imported from Jersey. Cattle were being shipped from France to Jersey and then shipped onward to England to circumvent the tariff on French cattle. The increase in the supply of cattle, sometimes of inferior quality, was bringing the price down and damaging the reputation of Jersey cattle. The import ban stabilised the price and enabled a more scientifically controlled programme of breeding to be undertaken.  Sir John Le Couteur studied selective breeding and became a Fellow of the Royal Society; his work led to the establishment of the Royal Jersey Agricultural and Horticultural Society in 1833. At that time, the breed displayed greater variation than it does today, with white, dark brown, and mulberry beasts. However, since the honey-brown cows sold best, the breed was developed accordingly. In 1860, 1,138 cows were exported via England, the average price being £16 per head. By 1910, over 1,000 head were exported annually to the United States alone. It is now the fastest-growing dairy breed in the world.  On 1866, at the annual general meeting of the Royal Jersey Agricultural and Horticultural Society, H.G. Shepard noted in his history that "it was resolved – on the motion of Col. Le Couteur, that the Hon. Secretary be hereby invited to open and to carry on a "herd book" in which the pedigree of bulls, cows, and heifers shall be entered for reference to all the members of the Society." In 1869 for the first time, prizes were awarded at the society's shows for herd book stock cattle.  The States of Jersey took a census of stock in 1866, and Jersey then supported 12,037 head of cattle, of which 611 were bulls.  In July 2008, the States of Jersey took the historic step of ending the ban on imports, and allowing the import of bull semen from any breed of cattle, although only semen that is genetically pure enables the resultant progeny to be entered in the Jersey Herd Book. For many decades, each of the 12 parishes in Jersey would hold cattle shows in the spring, summer, and autumn, followed in turn by the main shows held by the Royal Jersey Agricultural and Horticultural Society, where the best of the parish shows would compete. The colour of the rosette secured by a prize-winning cow was said to determine its export value. Today, the RJAHS holds two shows a year, where usually five or six of the remaining 23 herds compete against each other for the top prizes. A Jersey cattle show is also held in Jersey, by the West Show Association.  In February 2010, semen from an impure breed Jersey bull had been imported into the island despite strict laws and checks, and 100 cows had been impregnated with the semen. Their offspring will not be recorded in the Jersey Herd Book.  Jersey cattle were exported to the United States from about 1850. A breed society, the American Jersey Cattle Club, was formed in 1868. In the USA, a distinction is sometimes made between the "American Jersey", which is comparatively coarse and large and has been selectively bred mainly for milk yield, and the original or "Island" type; the latter may also be called "Miniature Jersey".

Characteristics.

The Jersey cow ranges from only. Factors contributing to the popularity of the breed has been their greater economy of production, due to:  Jerseys occur in all shades of brown, from light tan to almost black. They are frequently fawn in colour. All purebred Jerseys have a lighter band around their muzzles, a dark switch (long hair on the end of the tail), and black hooves, although in recent years, colour regulations have been relaxed to allow a broadening of the gene pool.  The cows are calm and docile; bulls may be unpredictable or aggressive.  Jersey cattle have a greater tendency towards postparturient hypocalcaemia (or "milk fever") in dams, and tend to have frail calves that require more attentive management in cold weather than other dairy breeds due to their smaller body size (which results in an increased surface area-to-mass ratio, increasing heat loss).

The Jersey is a British breed of small dairy cattle from Jersey, in the British Channel Islands. It is one of three Channel Island cattle breeds, the others being the Alderney – now extinct – and the Guernsey. It is highly productive – cows may give over 10 times their own weight in milk per lactation; the milk is high in butterfat and has a characteristic yellowish tinge.


Description.

Cow vetch is in the family Fabaceae and similar to a pea in growth habit with climbing stems growing to 150 cm long, perennial, sending out noose-like branched tendrils from the tips of its leaves when it contacts another plant and securely fastens itself. This can cause "strangling" of smaller plants. An individual plant may reach a length (or height) of 2 m with a white taproot, which may extend up to 1 m. The leaves are 3–8 cm long, pinnate, with 8–12 pairs of leaflets, each leaflet 5–10 mm long.  The plant is fast-growing and flowers prolifically, sending out 10 to 40 flowered one-sided racemes cascading pea-flower shaped purple to violet flowers from the leaf axil during its late spring to late summer flowering period. The flowers are mostly visited by bumblebees; when the flowers drop off and tiny bright green seed pods 10–20 mm long, start to form. Cow vetch is very similar to hairy vetch ("Vicia villosa"), but is distinguished from the latter by its smooth stem. The seed pods are 2 cm long and contain 6 to 8 seeds. They resemble those of a very small pea. The tiny seeds within are ripe when the pods have turned black. Unripened seeds are swollen and have a green tint to them, but they unswell when they become ripe. The seed pods vary from light brown to dark brown with black spots.

Distribution.

"Vicia cracca" is native to Europe and Asia, and has been introduced to large areas of North America.

Habitat.

Recorded as very frequent on waste ground as an introduced species occurring casually. In hedges and waste places.

Cultivation and uses.

Cow vetch is widely used as a forage crop for cattle, and is beneficial to other plants because, like other leguminous plants, it enriches the soil in which it grows by its nitrogen-fixing properties. Cow vetch is also much appreciated by bees and butterflies as a source of nectar. The plant may also be used to curb erosion.  Owners of pet birds such as budgerigars often use cow vetch as a nutritious food; the birds are especially fond of the seeds but may also eat the foliage.  Its utility as a cover crop and source of green manure has encouraged the introduction and naturalisation of cow vetch far beyond its native range. In North America the plant is naturalised from southern Canada to upstate South Carolina; it is considered an invasive weed in some areas and its sale may be regulated.  Cow vetch can be a potentially detrimental species in areas where it is not native. The vetch may crowd out native plants, especially in areas of disturbed soil where the vetch may dominate before other plants have a chance to take hold. This is especially a concern in prairie and other natural habitat restoration or land reclamation projects in North America.

Vicia cracca (tufted vetch, cow vetch, bird vetch, blue vetch, boreal vetch), is a species of vetch native to Europe and Asia. It occurs on other continents as an introduced species, including North America, where it is a common weed. It often occurs in disturbed habitats, including old fields and roadside ditches.


Origins.

The set of beliefs ascribed to the Free Spirits is first to be found in a text called the "Compilatio de novo spiritu" put together by Albert the Great in the 1270s, concerning a group of persons investigated in the Swabian Ries area of Germany. The themes which occur in these documents, and which would emerge again in subsequent investigations, included:  During the late thirteenth century, such concerns increasingly became applied to the various unregulated religious groups such as beguines and beghards, who had greatly increased in number in the preceding decades. Concerns over such sentiments then began to occur elsewhere, especially during the 1300s, and especially in Italy. Partly motivated by such concerns, in 1308 Pope Clement V summoned a general council, which met at Vienne from October 1311 to May 1312. In particular, it had to engage with the report from the Paris inquisition (1308–1310) into the beguine Marguerite Porete’s "The Mirror of Simple Souls" (Porete’s writing, which had become well read through France, had been condemned in 1310 as heresy, and Porete had been burned at the stake). It was the Council of Vienne which first associated these various beliefs with the idea of the 'Free Spirit'.

Fourteenth and fifteenth century.

During subsequent centuries, there was great fear of the Heresy of the Free Spirit, and many individuals and groups were accused of it. In particular, beguine and beghard groups came under suspicion.  John of Dirpheim, Bishop of Strasbourg from 1306 to 1328, was a particularly fervent opponent of heresy. Another person accused, by Bishop John's colleague Henry of Virneburg, Bishop of Cologne, was Meister Eckhart, a German Dominican, who lived during the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. In 1326, Eckhart was charged by the Pope for teaching heresy. He rigorously denied and defended against that charge until he disappeared from public life. Eckhart may have been familiar with the work of Marguerite Porete through his proximity to theologians involved in her trial, such as Berengar of Landora and William of Poitiers. More broadly, as a result of his prominence and through the statements of his used in the bull "In agro Dominico" he came to be recognised by the later mystical tradition as the "father" of the Free Spirit. This is seen particularly in the writings of Jan van Ruusbroec and his followers.  During the late fourteenth century, western Germany became a particularly important area for pursuing the heresy. An example of one person executed is the wandering preacher Nicholas of Basel, who was executed sometime between 1393 and 1397. Another known case was the execution of Löffler, who admitted adherence to the movement, in Bern. False beliefs about the annihilation of the will were virulently attacked by the late fourteenth century Theologia Deutsch.  In the early fifteenth century, Jean Gerson accused Jan van Ruusbroec of misdescribing the nature of union with God in a way that placed him in the company of the 'Free Spirit' heretics.  By the early fifteenth century, the Catholic Church in Germany viewed heresy as a serious threat. It became a leading topic for discussion at the Council of Basel in 1431. Johannes Nider, a Dominican reformer who attended the council, became concerned that beliefs of the Free Spirit heresy, and other heresies, were mixed with elements of witchcraft. In his 1434 work, "Formicarius", Nider combined the Free Spirit heresy with witchcraft in his condemnation of false teachings. "Formicarius" also became a model for "Malleus maleficarum", a later work by Heinrich Kramer in 1486. By the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, the Church's efforts to eradicate heresy and witchcraft resulted in heresy trials and the parallel civil authorities conducting witch burnings.

Similarities to other Christian beliefs.

Fears over sets of beliefs similar to the Heresy of the Free Spirit have recurred at various points in Christian history. Fears over esotericism and antinomianism, such as were detected in the Heresy of the Free Spirit, may be detected in the early Church's response to Gnosticism. Fears of suspect forms of prayer were particularly apparent in reactions to the fourth and fifth century Messalianism.  What was perhaps novel in the fears of the Heresy of the Free Spirit was the fear of the notion of personal annihilation. This was a new idea to the mystical tradition, but was also seen as the root of many of the other dangers that were perceived in mystics in the late medieval period.  Similarities may also be detected with seventeenth-century quietism.

The Brethren of the Free Spirit were adherents of a loose set of beliefs deemed heretical by the Catholic Church but held (or at least believed to be held) by some Christians, especially in the Low Countries, Germany, France, Bohemia and northern Italy between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. The movement was first identified in the late thirteenth century. It was not a single movement or school of thought, and it caused great unease among Church leaders at the time. Adherents were also called Free Spirits.


Biography.

Born in Naples, Alfonso was the eldest child of Ferdinand I of Naples by his first wife, Isabella of Clermont. In 1463, when Alfonso was fifteen, his maternal great uncle Giovanni Antonio del Balzo Orsini, Prince of Taranto, died, and he obtained some lands from the inheritance. When his mother died in 1465, he succeeded to her feudal claims, including the title King of Jerusalem.  Alfonso's education was at his father's humanist court. His tutor between 1468 and 1475 was the humanist Giovanni Pontano, whose "De principe" describes the proper virtues and manner of life becoming to a prince; the work took the form of letter of advice to the twenty-year old Alfonso, then Duke of Calabria, in 1468. Pontano dedicated a further treatise on courage, "De fortitudine", to Alfonso in 1481, after his victory over the Ottoman invasion of Otranto, and remained close as his personal secretary until Alfonso's abdication.  As a condottiero, Alfonso fought in the most important wars of the age, such the war following the Pazzi Conspiracy (1478–1480) and the War of Ferrara (1482–1484). Alfonso had shown himself a skilled and determined soldier, helping his father in the suppression of the conspiracy of the barons (1485) and in the defense of the Kingdom's territory against the Papal claims.  When his father died, the kingdom's finances were exhausted and the invasion of King Charles VIII of France was imminent; Charles, (instigated by Lodovico Sforza, who wished to stir up trouble to allow him to seize power in Milan), had decided to reassert the Angevin claim Naples. Charles invaded Italy in September 1494. Alfonso managed to regain the support of Pope Alexander VI, who invited Charles to devote his effort against the Turks instead. Alfonso was crowned on 8 May 1494 by the papal legate Juan de Borja Lanzol de Romaní, el mayor.  Charles, however, did not relent; by early 1495 Charles was approaching Naples, after having defeated Florence and the Neapolitan fleet under Alfonso's brother Frederick at Porto Venere. Alfonso, terrified by a series of portents, as well as unusual dreams, abdicated in favour of his son, Ferdinand II. He then fled to a Sicilian monastery. He died in Messina later that year.

Renaissance culture.

Alfonso participated in the brilliant Renaissance culture that surrounded his father's court. His lasting contribution to European culture was the example set at his villas of "La Duchesca" and especially "Poggio Reale" just outside Naples, which so captivated Charles VIII of France during his brief sojourn at Naples during February–June 1495, that he was inspired to emulation of the "earthly paradise" he encountered.  Poggio Reale, which Giorgio Vasari said was designed by Giuliano da Maiano and which was laid out in the 1480s, has utterly disappeared and no extensive description has survived. Decades later, Vasari reported, "At Poggio Reale [Giuliano da Maiano] laid out the architecture of that palazzo, always considered a most beautiful thing; and to fresco it he brought there Pietro del Donzello, a Florentine, and Polito his brother who was considered in that time a good master, who painted the whole palazzo, inside and out, with the history of the said king." There are no archives to connect Giuliano or his brother Benedetto with the project; for documentation only a section and plan, reproduced with apologies for its inaccuracy, by Sebastiano Serlio. Serlio's reproduction seems to show an idealized plan, identical on all four sides, ranged around a court with a double arcading.  It is clear that the Aragonese court at Naples introduced the Moorish garden traditions of Valencia, with its shaded avenues and baths, sophisticated hydraulics that powered splendid waterworks, formal tanks, fishponds and fountains, as a luxurious and secluded setting for court life, and combined them with Roman features: Alfonso's Poggio Reale was built around three sides of an arcaded courtyard with tiers of seating round a sunken centre that could be flooded for water spectacles; on the fourth side it opened onto a garden that framed a spectacular view of Vesuvius.  It was all unlike anything experienced by the French king, who retreated from Italy, loaded with tapestries and works of art, and filled with building and gardening ambitions, but he would die young only three years later.

Marriage and children.

Alfonso's wife was Ippolita Maria Sforza, whom he married on 10 October 1465 in Milan. His mistress, by whom he also had children, was Trogia Gazzela.  He had three children with Ippolita: And two with Trogia :

In popular culture.

Alfonso II of Naples is portrayed by Augustus Prew in the Showtime series "The Borgias", although he is portrayed as much younger and flamboyant than his historical counterpart was in the 1490s. Sancia of Aragon is portrayed as his half-sister rather than his daughter. In the European series "Borgia" written by Tom Fontana, where he is played by Raimund Wallisch, his portrayal is historical more accurate in terms of his age and Sancia being his daughter. In "Da Vinci's Demons" he is played by Kieran Bew and is depicted as a sadistic warlord, bitterly jealous of Lorenzo the Magnificent.

Alfonso II (4 November 1448 – 18 December 1495) was Duke of Calabria and ruled as King of Naples from 25 January 1494 to 23 January 1495. He was a soldier and a patron of Renaissance architecture and the arts.


History.

Gaspard de Chabrol, prefect of Paris, proposed building a canal from the river Ourcq, 100 km northeast of Paris, to supply the city with fresh water to support a growing population and help avoid diseases such as dysentery and cholera, while also supplying fountains and allowing the streets to be cleaned. Construction of the canal was ordered by Napoleon I in 1802 and construction took place until 1825, funded by a new tax on wine.  The canal was also used to supply Paris with grain, building materials and other goods, carried on canal boats. Two ports were created on the canal in Paris to unload the boats: Port de l'Arsenal and the Bassin de la Villette.  By the 1960s, traffic had dwindled to a trickle and the canal narrowly escaped being filled in and paved over for a highway.

Route.

The entrance to the canal from the vast terminal basin (Bassin de la Villette) of the Canal de l'Ourcq is at a double lock near the Place de Stalingrad. Continuing towards the river Seine, the canal is bordered by the Quai de Valmy on the right bank and the Quai de Jemmapes on the left, passing through three more double staircase locks before disappearing under the three successive "voûtes" (tunnels) – du Temple, Richard-Lenoir and Bastille – to emerge in the Port de l'Arsenal, the principal port for boats visiting and residing in Paris.

Tourism.

Today, the canal is a popular destination for Parisians and tourists. Some take cruises on the canal in passenger boats. Others watch the barges and other boats navigate the series of locks and pass under the attractive cast-iron footbridges. There are many popular restaurants and bars along the open part of the canal, which is also popular with students.

Métro stations.

The canal can be accessed from the following Paris Métro stations: Stalingrad, République, Goncourt, (Paris Métro) Jacques Bonsergent, Jaurès.

In popular culture.

Art The canal inspired painters such as Alfred Sisley (1839-1899). In the present day, many intricate works of graffiti are visible along the canal, and there is a large multimedia art space on its banks at the former municipal undertakers building at 104 rue d'Aubervilliers ('104').  Film and television  Music

The Canal Saint-Martin is a 4.6 km (2.86 mi) long canal in Paris, connecting the Canal de l'Ourcq to the river Seine. Over nearly half its length (2069 m), between the Rue du Faubourg du Temple and the Place de la Bastille, it was covered, in the mid-19th century, to create wide boulevards and public spaces on the surface. The canal is drained and cleaned every 10–15 years, and it is always a source of fascination for Parisians to discover curiosities and even some treasures among the hundreds of tonnes of discarded objects.


Interest rates carry trade / Maturity transformation.

For instance, the traditional revenue stream from commercial banks is to borrow cheap (at the low overnight rate, i.e., the rate at which they pay depositors) and lend expensive (at the long-term rate, which is usually higher than the short-term rate).  This works with an upward-sloping yield curve, but it loses money if the curve becomes inverted. Many investment banks, such as Bear Stearns, have failed because they borrowed cheap short-term money to fund higher interest bearing long-term positions. When the long-term positions default, or the short-term interest rate rises too high (or there are simply no lenders), the bank cannot meet its short-term liabilities and goes under.

Currency.

The currency carry trade is an uncovered interest arbitrage. The term carry trade, without further modification, refers to currency carry trade: investors borrow low-yielding currencies and lend (invest in) high-yielding currencies. It is thought to correlate with global financial and exchange rate stability and retracts in use during global liquidity shortages, but the carry trade is often blamed for rapid currency value collapse and appreciation.  A risk in carry trading is that foreign exchange rates may change in such a way that the investor would have to pay back more expensive currency with less valuable currency. In theory, according to uncovered interest rate parity, carry trades should not yield a predictable profit because the difference in interest rates between two countries should equal the rate at which investors expect the low-interest-rate currency to rise against the high-interest-rate one. However, carry trades weaken the currency that is borrowed, because investors sell the borrowed money by converting it to other currencies.  By early year 2007, it was estimated that some US$1 trillion may have been staked on the yen carry trade. Since the mid-1990s, the Bank of Japan has set Japanese interest rates at very low levels making it profitable to borrow Japanese yen to fund activities in other currencies. These activities include subprime lending in the USA, and funding of emerging markets, especially BRIC countries and resource rich countries. The trade largely collapsed in 2008 particularly in regard to the yen.  The European Central Bank extended its quantitative easing programme in December 2015. Accommodative ECB monetary policy made low-yielding EUR an often used funding currency for investment in risk assets. The EUR was gaining in times of market stress (such as falls in China stocks in January 2016), although it was not a traditional safe-haven currency.  Most research on carry trade profitability was done using a large sample size of currencies. However, small retail traders have access to limited currency pairs, which are mostly composed of the major G20 currencies, and experience reductions in yields after factoring in various costs and spreads.

Known risks.

The 2008–2011 Icelandic financial crisis has among its origins the undisciplined use of the carry trade. Particular attention has been focused on the use of Euro denominated loans to purchase homes and other assets within Iceland. Most of these loans defaulted when the relative value of the Icelandic currency depreciated dramatically, causing loan payment to be unaffordable.  The US dollar and the Japanese yen have been the currencies most heavily used in carry trade transactions since the 1990s. There is some substantial mathematical evidence in macroeconomics that larger economies have more immunity to the disruptive aspects of the carry trade mainly due to the sheer quantity of their existing currency compared to the limited amount used for FOREX carry trades, but the collapse of the carry trade in 2008 is often blamed within Japan for a rapid appreciation of the yen. As a currency appreciates, there is pressure to cover any debts in that currency by converting foreign assets into that currency. This cycle can have an accelerating effect on currency valuation changes. When a large swing occurs, this can cause a carry reversal. The timing of the carry reversal in 2008 contributed substantially to the credit crunch which caused the 2008 global financial crisis, though relative size of impact of the carry trade with other factors is debatable. A similar rapid appreciation of the US dollar occurred at the same time, and the carry trade is rarely discussed as a factor for this appreciation.

The carry of an asset is the return obtained from holding it (if positive), or the cost of holding it (if negative) (see also Cost of carry).


Life and career.

Early life.

He was born in Prague. An early influence on his later artistic development was a puppet theatre he was given for Christmas as a child. He studied at the College of Applied Arts in Prague and later in the Department of Puppetry at the Prague Academy of Performing Arts, where he befriended Juraj Herz. He contributed to Emil Radok's film "Johanes doctor Faust" in 1958 and then began working for Prague's Semafor Theatre where he founded the Theatre of Masks. He then moved on to the Laterna Magika multimedia theatre, where he renewed his association with Radok.

As a filmmaker.

This theatrical experience is reflected in Švankmajer's first film "The Last Trick", which was released in 1964. Under the influence of theoretician Vratislav Effenberger, Švankmajer moved from the mannerism of his early work to classic surrealism, first manifested in his film "The Garden" (1968), and joined the Czechoslovak Surrealist Group.  Švankmajer has gained a reputation over several decades for his distinctive use of stop-motion technique, and his ability to make surreal, nightmarish, and yet somehow funny pictures. Švankmajer's trademarks include very exaggerated sounds, often creating a very strange effect in all eating scenes. He often uses fast-motion sequences when people walk or interact. His movies often involve inanimate objects being brought to "life" through stop motion. Many of his films also include clay objects in stop motion, otherwise known as claymation. Food is a common subject and medium. Švankmajer also uses pixilation in many of his films, including Food (1992) and Conspirators of Pleasure (1996).  Stop-motion features in most of his work, though his feature films have included much more live action sequences than animation.  Many of his movies, like the short film "Down to the Cellar", are made from a child's perspective, while at the same time often having a truly disturbing and even aggressive nature. In 1972 the communist authorities banned him from making films, and many of his later films were suppressed. He was almost unknown in the West until the early 1980s. Writing in The New York Times, Andrew Johnston praised Švankmajer's artistry, stating "while his films are rife with cultural and scientific allusions, his unusual imagery possesses an accessibility that feels anchored in the shared language of the subconscious, making his films equally rewarding to the culturally hyperliterate and to those who simply enjoy visual stimulation." Among his best known works are the feature films "Alice" (1988), "Faust" (1994), "Conspirators of Pleasure" (1996), "Little Otik" (2000) and "Lunacy" (2005), a surreal comic horror based on two works of Edgar Allan Poe and the life of Marquis de Sade. The two stories by Poe, "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" and "The Premature Burial", provide "Lunacy" its thematic focus, whereas the life of Marquis de Sade provides the film's blasphemy. His short film "Dimensions of Dialogue" (1982) was selected by Terry Gilliam as one of the ten best animated films of all time. His films have been called "as emotionally haunting as Kafka's stories." In 2010 he released "Surviving Life", a live-action and cutout animation story about a married man who meets another woman in his dreams.  His most recent release is called "Insects" ("Hmyz"). It had a projected budget of 40 million CZK, which was partially funded through an Indiegogo campaign which reached more than double its goal, and was released in January 2018. The film is based on the play "Pictures from the Insects' Life" by Josef and Karel Čapek, which Švankmajer describes as following: ""From the Life of Insects" is a misanthropic play. My screenplay only extends this misanthropy, as man is more like an insect and this civilisation is more like an anthill. One should also remember the message in Kafka’s "Metamorphosis"."  In 2000, Švankmajer received Lifetime Achievement Award at the World Festival of Animated Film - Animafest Zagreb.  On 27 July 2013 he received the Innovation & Creativity Prize by Circolino dei Films, an independent Italian cultural organization.  On 10 July 2014, he received the 2014 FIAF Award during a special ceremony of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.  On 27 September 2018, he received the Raymond Roussel Society Medal in recognition of his extraordinary contribution: an inspiring, unique and universal work.  He was married to Eva Švankmajerová, an internationally known surrealist painter, ceramicist, and writer until her death in October 2005. Švankmajerová collaborated on several of her husband's movies, including "Alice", "Faust", and "Otesánek". They had two children, Veronika (b. 1963) and Václav (b. 1975, an animator).

Jan Švankmajer (; born 4 September 1934) is a Czech retired filmmaker and artist whose work spans several media. He is a self-labeled surrealist known for his animations and features, which have greatly influenced other artists such as Terry Gilliam, the Brothers Quay, and many others.


Subspecies.

There are four subspecies of "Pinus contorta", and one of them is sometimes considered to have two varieties. The subspecies are sometimes treated at the rank of variety.

Description.

Depending on subspecies, "Pinus contorta" grows as an evergreen shrub or tree. The shrub form is krummholz and is approximately high. The thin and narrow-crowned tree is high and can achieve up to in diameter at chest height. The "murrayana" subspecies is the tallest. The crown is rounded and the top of the tree is flattened. In dense forests, the tree has a slim, conical crown. The formation of twin trees is common in some populations in British Columbia. The elastic branches stand upright or overhang and are difficult to break. The branches are covered with short shoots that are easy to remove.  The species name is "contorta" because of the twisted, bent pines found at coastal areas and the tree's twisted needles. "Pinus contorta" is occasionally known under several English names: black pine, scrub pine, and coast pine. "P. contorta" subsp. "latifolia" will hybridise with the closely related jack pine ("Pinus banksiana").

Needles and buds.

The egg-shaped growth buds are reddish-brown and between long. They are short pointed, slightly rotated, and very resinous. Spring growth starts in beginning of April and the annual growth is completed by early July. The dark and mostly shiny needles are pointed and long and wide. The needle edge is weak to clearly serrated. The needles are in pairs on short shoots and rotated about the shoots' longitudinal axes. In Alberta above, 1 to 5 needles occur per short shoot. A population with a high proportion of three-needled short shoots occurs in the Yukon. Needles live an average of four to six years, with a maximum of 13 years.

Cones.

The cones are long. The cones have prickles on the scales.  Many populations of the Rocky Mountain subspecies, "P. contorta" subsp. "latifolia", have serotinous cones. This means that the cones are closed and must be exposed to high temperatures, such as from forest fires, in order to open and release their seeds. The variation in their serotiny has been correlated with wildfires and mountain pine beetle attacks. The cones of the coastal Pacific subspecies, "P. contorta" subsp. "contorta", are typically non-serotinous, and those of the inland Pacific subspecies, "P. contorta" subsp. "murrayana", are completely non-serotinous.

Ecology.

"Pinus contorta" is a fire-dependent species, requiring wildfires to maintain healthy populations of diverse ages. The bark of the lodgepole pine is fairly thin, minimizing the tree's defense to fire; however, the heat of fire opens the cones to release the seeds. This allows the species to regenerate and maintain its place in the forest habitat. One plant community in which "Pinus contorta" is found is the closed-cone pine forest of coastal California.  Excessive wildfire prevention disrupts the fire ecology. The stands are usually so densely populated that the trees self-thin, or out-compete each other, leaving dead trees standing. These become a dry ladder fuel that can accelerate the fire to the crown of living trees. When the fire reaches the crowns of the trees, it can jump from tree to tree and becomes relatively unstoppable.  The natural fire regime for this species is primarily driven by climate. The fires occur most often after years of drought. "Pinus contorta" occurs from the upper montane to the subalpine region. These types of forests experience a lot of moisture in the form of snow in the winter due to their altitude. The density of the tree stand also inhibits the establishment of an understory. With all of that being said, the likelihood of a surface fire occurring is rare. Thus, infrequent but severe fires dominate this species.  An example of the climate that plays a huge role in the fire regime of "Pinus contorta" is quite complex. There are three different oscillations that play a major role in droughts. These are the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) and El Nino (ENSO). A combination of these oscillations being in effect (+) or not in effect (-) have a global effect on the water available to these forests. So when the AMO +, ENSO – and PDO –, there is going to be a drought and likely a severe subalpine fire. "Suillus tomentosus", a fungus, produces specialized structures called tuberculate ectomycorrhizae with the roots of lodgepole pine ("Pinus contorta" var. "latifolia"). These structures have been shown to be the location of concentrations of nitrogen-fixing bacteria which contribute a significant amount of nitrogen to tree growth and allow the pines to colonize nutrient-poor sites.

Threats.

This species is attacked by blue stain fungus ("Grosmannia clavigera"), distributed by the mountain pine beetle from its mouth.  A study released in 2011 concluded that "Pinus contorta" could experience significant reductions in distribution due to climate change by the late 21st century.

Uses.

Construction.

Tree plantations of "Pinus contorta" have been planted extensively in Norway, Sweden and UK for forestry, such as timber uses.

Medicinal.

The indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest and of California used different parts of the plant internally and externally as a traditional medicine for various ailments.

Cultivation.

"Pinus contorta" is cultivated as an ornamental tree by the horticulture industry. Plant nurseries grow "Pinus contorta" subsp. "contorta" and "Pinus contorta" subsp. "murrayana" for use in traditional and wildlife gardens, and as smaller selections of the native plant for natural landscaping. The Shore pine's (ssp. "contorta") smaller varieties and cultivars are also used in container gardening, including as large bonsai specimens.  Cultivars of this species include:  The cultivar "Chief Joseph" has gained the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit.

Emblem.

Lodgepole pine is the Provincial tree of Alberta, Canada.

Invasive species.

"Pinus contorta" is a serious invasive species of wilding conifer in New Zealand, along with several other western North American pine species. It is listed on the National Pest Plant Accord and is prohibited from sale, commercial propagation, and distribution.

Pinus contorta, with the common names lodgepole pine and shore pine, and also known as twisted pine, and contorta pine, is a common tree in western North America. It is common near the ocean shore and in dry montane forests to the subalpine, but is rare in lowland rain forests. Like all pines (member species of the genus "Pinus"), it is an evergreen conifer.