Adolescence and maturity.

Although the specimen is largely considered male due to the shape of the pelvis, the sex is ultimately indeterminate due to its prepubescent age. Estimates of the age at death depend on whether the maturity stage of the teeth or skeleton is used, and whether that maturity is compared to that of modern humans or to chimpanzees. A key factor is that, while modern humans have a marked adolescent growth spurt, chimpanzees do not. While initial research assumed a modern human type of growth, more recent evidence from other fossils suggests this was less present in early "Homo". This affects the estimation of both the age and the likely stature of the specimen as a fully grown adult.  Alan Walker and Richard Leakey in 1993 estimated the boy to have been about 11–12 years old based on known rates of bone maturity. Walker and Leakey (1993) said that dental dating often gives a younger age than a person's actual age.  Christopher Dean (M. C. Dean) of University College London, in a "Nova" special, estimated that the Turkana Boy was 8 years old at death.  Ronda Graves and colleagues in 2010 concluded that he would "have grown an additional five to 14 cm before reaching adulthood" and that "if, at death, he was eight to ten years of age, [he would have been] tall, and growing faster than a modern human but slower than a chimpanzee. According to this scenario, KNM-WT 15000 would have attained an adult stature ranging between and." Moreover, that "according to our preferred models of growth and development, [his] growth in stature [would have been] completed by 12 years of age (4 years after death), so that the majority of growth has already occurred".

Morphology.

The specimen comprises 108 bones, making it the most complete early human skeleton discovered. The skeleton is about tall. In adulthood, Turkana Boy might have reached tall and massed. The pelvis is narrower than in "Homo sapiens", which is most likely for more efficient upright walking. This further indicates a fully terrestrial bipedalism, which is unlike older hominin species that show a combined feature of bipedalism and tree climbing. The Boy was relatively tall, which increased his body surface area that would enhance heat dissipation and prevent heat stress under the hot sun.  The overall KNM-WT 15000 skeleton still had features (such as a low sloping forehead, strong brow ridges, and the absence of a chin) not seen in "H. sapiens". However, there are significant defining characters, such as bigger brain size (880 cc). The arms and legs are slightly longer indicating effective bipedality. The nose is projecting like those of humans rather than the open flat nose seen in apes. Body hair may also have been thinner (most likely naked) and possibly with increased sweat glands to hasten cooling. The skin also was most probably much darker with abundant melanin, as it was necessary to cope with the direct tropical sun rays in the African savannah.

Vocal capabilities.

The fossil skeleton and other fossil evidence, such as Acheulean stone tools, prompt the majority of scientists to conclude that "Homo ergaster" and "Homo erectus" – unlike their more primitive ancestors – became efficient hunters. The social structure would probably have become more complex with a larger brain volume; the Broca's area of the brain allows speech and is noted by a slight slant on the cranium. Turkana Boy's thoracic vertebrae are narrower than in "Homo sapiens". This would have allowed him less motor control over the thoracic muscles that are used in modern humans to modify respiration to enable the sequencing upon single exhalations of complex vocalisations.

Disease.

It was suspected that Turkana Boy suffered from a congenital disorder, either of dwarfism or scoliosis. This was because the rib bones appeared asymmetrical to the spine and the reason was attributed to skeletal dysplasia. However, in 2013, a study showed that when the rib bones were carefully rearranged, they became symmetrical against the spine, and that an unusual structure of the vertebrae was characteristic of the early hominins. However, the fossil definitely showed lumbar disc herniation, an injury implicated with the specimen's death. The specimen also had a diseased mandible.

Turkana Boy, also called Nariokotome Boy, is the name given to fossil KNM-WT 15000, a nearly complete skeleton of a "Homo ergaster" (alternatively referred to as African "Homo erectus") youth who lived at c. 1.5 to 1.6 million years ago. This specimen is the most complete early human skeleton ever found. It was discovered in 1984 by Kamoya Kimeu on the bank of the Nariokotome River near Lake Turkana in Kenya.


Plot.

A dysfunctional and sometimes violent romance happens between Mathieu (Fernando Rey), a middle-aged, wealthy Frenchman, and a young, impoverished, and beautiful flamenco dancer from Seville, Conchita, played by Carole Bouquet and Ángela Molina. The two actresses each appear unpredictably in separate scenes, and differ not only physically, but temperamentally as well.  Most of the film is a flashback recalled by Mathieu. The movie opens with Mathieu travelling by train from Seville to Paris. He is trying to distance himself from his young girlfriend Conchita. As Mathieu's train is ready to depart, he finds that a bruised and bandaged Conchita is pursuing him. From the train he pours a bucket of water over her head. He believes this will deter her, but she sneaks aboard.  Mathieu's fellow compartment passengers witness his rude act. These include a mother and her young daughter, a judge who is coincidentally a friend of Mathieu's cousin, and a psychologist who is a dwarf. They inquire about his motivation for such an act, and he then explains the history of his tumultuous relationship with Conchita. The story is set against a backdrop of terrorist bombings and shootings by left-wing groups.  Conchita, who claims to be 18 but looks older, has vowed to remain a virgin until marriage. She tantalizes Mathieu with sexual promises, but never allows him to satisfy his sexual desire. At one point she goes to bed with him wearing a tightly laced canvas corset, which he cannot untie, making it impossible to have sexual intercourse. Conchita's antics cause the couple to break up and reunite repeatedly, each time frustrating and confusing Mathieu.  Eventually, Mathieu finds Conchita dancing nude for tourists in a Seville nightclub. At first he becomes enraged. Later, however, he forgives her and buys her a house. In a climactic scene, soon after moving into the house, Conchita refuses to let Mathieu in at the gate, tells him that she hates him, and that kissing and touching him make her sick. Then, to prove her independence, she appears to initiate sexual intercourse with a young man in plain view of Mathieu, although he walks away without witnessing the act. Later that night he is held up at gunpoint as his car is hijacked.  After this, Conchita attempts to reconcile with Mathieu, insisting that the sex was fake and that her "lover" is in reality a homosexual friend. However, during her explanation, Mathieu beats her (she then says "Now I'm sure you love me"), causing her bandaged and bruised state seen earlier in the film.  Just as the fellow train passengers seem satisfied with this story, Conchita reappears from hiding and dumps a bucket of water on Mathieu. However, the couple apparently reconcile yet again when the train reaches its destination. After leaving the train, they walk arm in arm, enjoying the streets of Madrid.  Later in a mall in Paris, loudspeakers announce that a strange alliance of extremist groups intends to sow chaos and confusion in society through terrorist attacks. The announcement adds that several right-wing groups plan to counter-attack. As the couple continues their walk, they pass a seamstress in a shop window mending a bloody nightgown. They begin arguing just as a bomb explodes, apparently claiming their lives.

Casting.

"That Obscure Object of Desire" is most notable for its use of two actresses, Carole Bouquet and Ángela Molina, in the single role of Conchita; the actresses switch roles in alternate scenes and sometimes even in the middle of scenes. In his autobiography, "My Last Sigh" (1983), Buñuel explains (pp. 46–47) the decision to use two actresses to play Conchita:  The book does not identify the actress who had caused the "tempestuous argument," though Buñuel makes it clear (p. 250) that she was neither Carole Bouquet nor Angela Molina.  In "Luis Buñuel: The Complete Films" (2005), editors Bill Krohn and Paul Duncan identify the actress as Maria Schneider, writing (pp. 177–78) the following in regard to the idea of using two actresses to play Conchita:  Specifically regarding Buñuel's employment of two actresses to play a single character, most critics were charmed, as exemplified by then New York Times film critic Vincent Canby's review, "Conchita is so changeable that Buñuel has cast two lovely new actresses to play her—Carole Bouquet, who looks a little like a young Rita Hayworth, as the coolly enigmatic Conchita, and Angela Molina as the earthy, flamenco-dancing Conchita [...] the Conchita who goes into the bathroom to change, changes not only her clothes. Miss Bouquet goes in but Miss Molina comes out. [...] Miss Bouquet and Miss Molina are enchanting — I don't think Buñuel has ever before been so successful with neophyte actresses."  Other films that employ two or more actors to perform a single character include Todd Solondz's "Palindromes", wherein eight different actors of different ages, races, and genders play a 13-year-old girl named Aviva during the course of the film; Terry Gilliam's "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus", where similarly a production issue - in this case the death of Heath Ledger during production - led to Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law stepping in to play his character's 'imaginary world' scenes; and Canadian filmmaker B. P. Paquette's "Perspective", wherein each of the three lead actors continually rotate the three characters they play, not only within the same scene, but sometimes during the same dialogue exchange.  Also of note is Spanish actor Fernando Rey who frequently worked with Buñuel in his later years. He plays Mathieu, but his voice is dubbed by the French actor Michel Piccoli.

Responses.

The film was not financially successful, but it became a critical favorite, garnering Best Foreign Language Film nominations at both the Golden Globe Awards and the Academy Awards (where it was also nominated for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium) but failing to win at either. The critics associations were slightly more generous, with the National Board of Review and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association both giving it the Best Foreign Language Film awards in 1977. Luis Buñuel won Best Director at the National Board of Review and National Society of Film Critics awards. He was also nominated at the French César Awards.  Many contemporary critics have declared the film a masterpiece. The film holds a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 8.96/10 among 29 critics. The site's consensus reads: ""That Obscure Object of Desire" is a frequently unsettling treatise on the quixotic nature of lust and love". In the British Film Institute's 2012 "Sight & Sound" poll, three critics and two directors ranked it one of the ten greatest films ever made.

That Obscure Object of Desire (; ) is a 1977 comedy-drama film directed by Luis Buñuel, based on the 1898 novel "The Woman and the Puppet" by Pierre Louÿs. It was Buñuel's final directorial effort before his death in July 1983. Set in Spain and France against the backdrop of a terrorist insurgency, the film conveys the story told through a series of flashbacks by an aging Frenchman, Mathieu (played by Fernando Rey), who recounts falling in love with a beautiful young Spanish woman, Conchita (played interchangeably by two actresses, Carole Bouquet and Ángela Molina), who repeatedly frustrates his romantic and sexual desires.


Early life.

August was born at Alcsút, Kingdom of Hungary. On 15 November 1893, in Munich, he married Princess Augusta Maria Louise of Bavaria (1877–1964), daughter of Prince Leopold of Bavaria (1846–1930) and his wife Archduchess Gisela of Austria (1856–1932).  Archduke Joseph August became thus from 1893 "grandson-in-law" to Emperor Francis Joseph. His wife's mother, Archduchess Gisela, was the eldest surviving daughter of Austrian Emperor Francis Joseph and Empress Elisabeth ("Sisi"). The young couple's children were born in their great-grandfather's lifetime.  They had six children:  Joseph August began his military career in 1890 when he was commissioned into the 1st Infantry Regiment as a Leutnant. He was soon promoted to Oberleutnant and was transferred to 72nd Infantry Regiment in 1893. He was transferred to Dragoon Regiment #6 in 1894 and then transferred to the 1st Honvéd Hussars by the Kaiser and promoted to the rank of Major. He took command of this regiment in 1904 and then went on to command 79th Honvéd infantry brigade in 1908 then finally the 31st infantry division at Budapest in 1911.

World War I.

August was highly decorated before World War I broke out. Some of his awards include The Bronze Military Merit Medal, Grand Cross of the Order of Saint Joseph, The Marianer Cross of the Deutscher Ritterorden, The Order of the Black Eagle, The 1st Class of the Order of the Red Eagle, The Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, the Grand Cross of the Order of Charles III, and the Grand Cross of the Order of Saints Cyril and Methodius.  In 1914 he was involved in combat in the Galician theatre and took command of the VII Corps and was involved in fighting in the Carpathian Mountains. After Italy became involved in the war he was transferred to the Carinthian border and involved in fighting the Isonzo army. August remained on this front until the 9th battle of the Isonzo in 1916 a period in which once again he was highly decorated. August was highly liked by his troops, especially those of Hungarian nationality.  In November 1916, August was put in command of the Heeresfront fighting against Russian and Romanian forces. In January 1918 he was put in command of the 6th Army in the Southern theatre and that July took over the South Tyrolean Army Group, which was the 10th and 11th Armies. Finally, on 26 October 1918, he was sent to the Balkan theatre to take command of the Heeresgruppe Kövess, which had lost Serbia, Albania and Montenegro by then. He was the last person to be appointed a "Feldmarschall" (Field Marshal) of the Austro-Hungarian Army on 24 October 1918, as an attempt by his cousin, Emperor Karl, to calm Hungarian nationalists.

Post war.

On 27 October 1918 Emperor Karl made August the "Homo Regius" of Hungary, but August asked to be released from his oath of allegiance from the Kaiser. He then began negotiations and appointed Graf János Hadik to build a new national government. However the Aster Revolution broke out on 31 October 1918, deterring his plans. In November, the socialist Hungarian Democratic Republic was proclaimed, only to be replaced a few months later by the communist Hungarian Soviet Republic. This revolution was to fail: the popular August survived unharmed, and on 7 August became head of state of Hungary once again, officially as regent "(Reichsverweser)" for Karl. He appointed István Friedrich as Prime Minister. When it became apparent that the Allies would not recognize a Habsburg as Hungary's head of state, the archduke was forced to resign on 23 August 1919. In 1920 the Archduke became the first knight of the Hungarian Order of Vitéz, in 1927 he became a member of the newly established House of Lords. He later became an honorary member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and was its president from 1936-1944. He fled Hungary for the United States in 1944 but later returned to Germany. He died in 1962 at Rain near Straubing.  His eldest son Archduke Joseph Francis of Austria had predeceased him, dying in 1957.  Thus Joseph August's main heir was his eldest grandson Archduke Joseph Árpád of Austria (1933-2017), the eldest son of Joseph Francis and his wife Princess Anna of Saxony. Joseph Árpád married Princess Maria of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg, and had children in Joseph August's lifetime. His surviving eldest son is Archduke Joseph Karl (born 1960).  Joseph August's granddaughter Archduchess Ilona of Austria (b. 1927) married George Alexander, Duke of Mecklenburg. Her son George Borwin, Duke of Mecklenburg is the current head of the House of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.

Archduke Joseph August Viktor Klemens Maria of Austria, Prince of Hungary and Bohemia (9 August 1872 – 6 July 1962) was a "Feldmarschall" (Field Marshal) of the Austro-Hungarian Army and for a short period head of state of Hungary. He was a member of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, the eldest son of Archduke Joseph Karl of Austria (1833–1905) and his wife Princess Clotilde of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1846–1927). Joseph August's grandfather had been Palatine Joseph of Hungary (1776–1847), Palatine and Viceroy of Hungary, a younger son of Emperor Leopold II.


Toponymy.

The first part of the name of the province of Languedoc-Roussillon comes from the French ("language of "). In southern France, the word for "yes" was the Occitan language word. Prior to the 16th century, the central area of France was referred to as, there the word for "yes" was in Old French, later becoming. These old place names referred to the areas where Occitan and Old French were spoken. The Edict of Villers-Cotterets made French the official national language in 1539. Roussillon was the name of the medieval County of Roussillon.

Geography.

The region is made up of the following historical provinces:  Llívia is a town of Cerdanya, province of Girona, Catalonia, Spain, that forms a Spanish exclave surrounded by French territory (department of Pyrénées-Orientales).

Politics.

At the regional elections in March 2004, the socialist mayor of Montpellier Georges Frêche, defeated its center-right president. Since then, Georges Frêche has embarked on a complete overhaul of the region and its institutions. The flag of the region, which displayed the cross of Languedoc as well as the Flag of Roussillon (the "Senyera"), was changed for a new flag with no reference to the old provinces, except in terms of the colors (red and yellow), which are the colors of both Languedoc and all the territories from the former Crown of Aragon.  Georges Frêche also wanted to change the name of the region, wishing to erase its duality (Languedoc vs. Roussillon) and strengthen its unity. Thus, he wanted to rename the region "Septimanie" (Septimania). Septimania was the name created by the Romans at the end of the Roman Empire for the coastal area corresponding quite well to present day Languedoc-Roussillon (including Roussillon, but not including Gévaudan), and used in the early Middle Ages for the area. This name, however, has not been in use since the 9th century, and it sounded quite odd to French people. Strong opposition of the population led to Georges Frêche giving up on his idea. He declared that he still believed in it but could not go ahead without a mandate.  Catalan nationalists in Roussillon would like the Pyrénées-Orientales department to secede from Languedoc-Roussillon and become a region in its own right, under the proposed name of "Catalunya Nord" (Northern Catalonia), as part of the Països Catalans (Catalan Countries), a new country. This idea has minimal popular support.  On the other hand, there are some who would like to merge the Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées regions, thus reunifying the old province of Languedoc, and creating a large region. It seems probable that Georges Frêche, with his idea of a "Septimanie" region, would not support such plans, although political leaders in Béziers, Narbonne, and especially Nîmes, would probably support such a merger, hostile as they are to Montpellier, which was chosen as the capital of Languedoc-Roussillon instead of their own city, and which they accuse of hegemony.

Culture.

Language.

Prior to the 20th century, Occitan was the language spoken in Languedoc, and Catalan was the language spoken in Roussillon. Both have been under pressure from French. In 2004, research conducted by the Government of Catalonia showed that 65% of adults over the age of 15 in Roussilon could understand Catalan whereas 37% stated they were able to speak it.  In recent years there have been attempts at reviving of both languages, including Catalan-medium schooling through the La Bressola schools.

Literature.

Occitan literature – still sometimes called Provençal literature – is a body of texts written in Occitan in what is nowadays the South of France. It originated in the poetry of the eleventh- and twelfth- century troubadours, and inspired the rise of vernacular literature throughout medieval Europe.

Music.

Aimeric de Peguilhan, Giraut de Bornelh and Bertran de Born were major influences in troubadour composition, in the High Middle Ages. The troubadour tradition is considered to have originated in the region.  The Romantic music composer Déodat de Séverac was born in the region, and, following his schooling in Paris, returned to the region to compose. He sought to incorporate the music indigenous to the area in his compositions.

Wine.

The Languedoc-Roussillon region is dominated by of vineyards, three times the combined area of the vineyards in Bordeaux and the region has been an important winemaking centre for several centuries. Grapevines are said to have existed in the South of France since the Pliocene period - before the existence of "Homo sapiens". The first vineyards of Gaul developed around two towns: Béziers and Narbonne. The Mediterranean climate and plentiful land with soil ranging from rocky sand to thick clay was very suitable for the production of wine, and it is estimated that one in ten bottles of the world's wine was produced in this region during the 20th century (Robinson 1999:395). Despite this enormous quantity, the area's significance was often overlooked by scholarly publications and commercial journals, largely because very little of the wine being produced was classified under an appellation contrôlée until the 1980s (Joseph 2005:190).  Several entrepreneurs such as Robert Skalli and James Herrick drastically changed the face of the region, planting more commercially viable grape varieties and pushing for new AOC classifications. While the AOC system has origins in the 15th century, the Languedoc-Roussillon has some appellations like the Cabardès which have existed by law only since 1999 (Joseph 2005:190).  The region is the largest contributor to the European Union's glut (dominance of supply over demand) of wine known as the wine lake.  The Languedoc-Roussillon region has adopted a marque to help market its products, in particular, but not limited to, wine. The " 'Sud de France' "("Southern France") marque was adopted in 2006 to help customers abroad not familiar with the Appellation system to recognise those wines that originated in the L-R area, but the marque is also used for other products, including cheeses, olive oils and pies.

Sport.

Languedoc-Roussillon has been a major centre of Rugby league in France since the sport was introduced to the country in the 1930s. The region is also home of the rugby union teams AS Béziers Hérault, RC Narbonne and USA Perpignan.  Montpellier is home to Montpellier HSC, which was founded in 1974 and plays in the Ligue 1, the French top division. It won the French Championship after the 2011/12 season. Home matches are played at the Stade La Mosson, named after the area where it is located, with a capacity of 31,250. It was built in 1998.

Languedoc-Roussillon (; ; ) is a former administrative region of France. On 1 January 2016, it joined with the region of Midi-Pyrénées to become Occitanie. It comprises five departments, and borders the other French regions of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, Rhône-Alpes, Auvergne, Midi-Pyrénées on the one side, and Spain, Andorra and the Mediterranean Sea on the other side. It is the southernmost region of mainland France.


19th century.

Jacques Offenbach was the director of the Théâtre de la Gaîté from 1873 to 1874. His opéra-bouffe-féerie "Le roi Carotte" was first performed here in 1872 and his "opéra-féerie" "Le voyage dans la lune" in 1875. The opera "Le timbre d'argent" by Camille Saint-Saëns was premiered here in 1877, at which time the theatre was briefly known as the Théâtre National Lyrique.

20th century.

Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes danced at the theatre in 1921, 1923, and 1925. The 1921 performances included the ballerina Lydia Lopokova in the title role of Igor Stravinsky's "The Firebird", and the company gave premieres of Prokofiev's "Chout" (17 May 1921) and Stravinsky's "Les noces" (13 June 1923).  Beginning on 15 November 1932 Franz Lehár's "The Land of Smiles" was first performed in France. It was given in a French adaptation by André Mauprey and Jean Marietti with the title "Le pays du sourire". The Dutch tenor Willy Thunis, who did not speak a word of French, sang Sou-Chong. The production received its 1,000th performance on 17 April 1939.  During the Second World War, the theatre was looted during the occupation. The large chandelier installed by Offenbach disappeared, as well the Emperor's golden coach, which had been stored in the service quarters.  After the war Henri Montjoye (né Barbero) took over the theatre, and after his death in 1950, his widow, the soprano Germaine Roger, became the theatre's director. Numerous successes were put on. The 2-act operetta "Andalousie" by Albert Willemetz and with music by had a 12-month run that began on 25 October 1947. The 2-act "Colorado" by Claude Dufresne, billed as an "opérette à grand spectacle" with music by Jacques-Henry Rys and lyrics by, starred the bass Armand Mestral (who alternated with Michel Dens) in the role of Jim Bullit, the tenor Lou Pizzara as Ricardo Diaz, the soprano Claude Chenard as Katharina Sanders, and Maurice Baquet as the little saloon pianist. The show opened on 16 December 1950 and ran for 11 months. It was revived at the theatre beginning on 12 February 1959 with Mestral and Baquet reprising their roles and Bernard Alvi as Ricardo and Andrée Grandjean as Katharina. It later went on tour and received provincial productions up into the 1990s. "Visa pour l'amour", a vehicle for two of Paris's biggest musical comedy stars, the tenor Luis Mariano and the comedian Annie Cordy, was a 2-act "opérette gaie" with music by Lopez and a book by Vincy. It premiered in December 1961 and received around 600 performances.  In the 1970s the "Carré Silvia-Monfort" presented contemporary theatre, and some singers and a circus school, the Cirque Gruss, who offered their spectacles in the facing square, based themselves here for a time, and converted the attic of the theatre into stables for elephants.  In the early 1980s the dome of the main auditorium was threatening to collapse and was reinforced with concrete. In 1989 much of the theatre was demolished and transformed into an amusement park,, by Jean Chalopin. The main auditorium, originally holding 1800, and the orchestra pit, apparently large enough for 60 musicians, were among the parts of the building lost at this time. The venture was a failure and closed in 1991. Manuelle Gautrand, the architect who was in charge of the later restoration of the surviving parts of the theatre as well as the reconstruction and modernization of the demolished interior spaces, described the scene as follows: "The historical foyer and the lobby had been stripped of their original style and had been redecorated with vulgar colors and statues", and the amusement park itself was "an incredible accumulation of monumental sets, combining pieced together dragons, rockets from the 80s, the world of Barbie, treasure hunts among the Incas.... A sort of 'low tech Disneyland' in the centre of Paris".  In December 2003 restoration work began, and in December 2010 La Gaîté Lyrique was re-opened as a digital arts and modern music centre.

In 1862 during Haussmann's modernization of Paris the Théâtre de la Gaîté of the boulevard du Temple was relocated to the rue Papin across from the Square des Arts et Métiers. The new theatre, built in an Italian style to designs of the architects Jacques-Ignace Hittorff and Alphonse Cusin, opened on 3 September.


Gaulish enclosure.

Before its occupation by the Romans, Lutetia lacked proper defenses and was therefore partially demolished at the beginning of the Roman occupation. The first wall of Paris was probably built by the Gauls on the river Seine, although its exact location is unknown. In his "Commentaries on the Gallic War", Julius Caesar wrote: ""Id est oppidum Parisiorum, quod positum est in insula fluminis Sequanae"", indicating that Lutetia (former name of Paris, the town of the tribe of Parisii) was a fortified camp on an island. The relationship between this island and the Île de la Cité has not been demonstrated, and excavations have not uncovered anything earlier than Augustus. This is also unclear due to the discovery in 2003 of the remains of a city on a site now occupied by Nanterre.

Gallo-Roman wall.

Lutetia developed on the left bank of the Seine during Roman times, and to a lesser extent on the Île de la Cité. The right bank was uninhabitable mostly due to marshes. During the first barbarian invasions in 285, the people of Lutetia abandoned the left bank and took refuge on the Île de la Cité and destroyed the bridges. The eastern half of the island was protected by a wall, constructed of rocks collected from the Arènes de Lutèce.

First medieval wall.

Traces of an enclosure at the corner of the rue de l'Arbre-Sec and the rue de Rivoli were discovered in 2009 during excavations made by (INRAP), the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research. This confirmed the probable existence of an enclosure around the centre of Paris on the right bank around the tenth century. This is most likely the result of a Viking siege in 885 and was constructed by either Odo of France, or Robert I of France. The fortification had a 12 by 3 meter wide ditch and was likely to have been supported by a wooden fence.

Wall of Philippe Auguste.

The Wall of Philippe Auguste was built between 1190 and 1213, enclosing 253 hectares on both sides of the river Seine. Many elements were later incorporated into private buildings or into the Wall of Charles V. Paris grew very fast during this period and soon extended from the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève to the roads leading to the abbey of Saint-Denis. A new wall was thus begun in 1190, on the order of Philip Augustus, but paid for by the city. This new wall was eight feet thick, protected by wide and deep ditches, and had five hundred towers.  It ran from the current location of the Pont des Arts, approached the porte Saint-Honoré, opened at the porte Coquillière, reached the porte Saint-Denis, porte Mauconseil, porte Babette, came to rue Vielle-du-Temple, the rue des Francs-Bourgeois, to the porte Baudoyer and the quai des Célestins. On the south side this wall picked up at the Palais de la Tournelle, opened at the porte Saint-Victor, porte Bordet, porte Saint-Jacques, Porte Saint-Michel, porte des Corderliers, near the cour de la Commerce, the porte de Buci, and ended at the Tour de Nesle, the Nesle tower.

Wall of Charles V.

The Wall of Charles V was built from 1356 to 1383, during the reign of Charles V and his son and successor Charles VI. The area enclosed on the right bank increased and included the mansions of the Marais and the Templar enclosure. The area enclosed on the left bank remained the same as with the Wall of Philippe Auguste. The new city limits totaled 439 hectares across the two banks. During the construction of the Wall of Louis XIII, this wall was partly incorporated into the new wall and partly destroyed.

Louis XIII Wall (also known as the "yellow ditches wall").

The Louis XIII Wall was designed by Jacques Lemercier and built between 1633 and 1636. It enlarged the Charles V Wall over the western part of the right bank (now the First and Second Arrondissements).  From 1670 onwards, Louis XIV believed that as a result of his conquests, Paris had been made a secure city. He ordered the wall destroyed and replaced it with the future grands boulevards.

Wall of the Farmers-General.

The Wall of the Farmers-General was built in the years between 1784 and 1791 under the direction of Claude Nicolas Ledoux and at the request of the Ferme Générale. It enclosed 3402 hectares, including the village of Austerlitz which was incorporated into Paris in 1818.  This wall was later replaced by a second belt of boulevards: Charonne, Ménilmontant, Belleville, La Villette, La Chapelle, Clichy, Batignolles, Courcelles, avenue de Wagram and Iena, streets Benjamin Franklin and Alboni, boulevard de Grenelle, Garibaldi, Pasteur, Montparnasse, Edgar Quinet, Raspail, Saint-Jacques, Auguste Blanqui, Vincent Auriol, Bercy and Picpus. Unlike previous walls, the goal of this wall was not to defend Paris, but to force the payment of taxes on goods entering the capital. It was destroyed when Paris was extended up to the Thiers Wall in 1860.

Thiers Wall.

The Thiers Wall was constructed from 1841 to 1844 after a law enacted by Adolphe Thiers. It covered 7802 hectares, along the current-day boulevards des Maréchaux and a glacis extending to the location of today's Boulevard Périphérique. It was demolished between 1919 and 1929.

Walls of Paris ("enceintes de Paris" or "murs de Paris" in French), refers to the city walls that surrounded Paris as it grew from ancient times until the 20th century, built primarily to defend the city. Several successive city walls were built, with the exception of 1670, when Louis XIV ordered the demolition of the Louis XIII Wall, through 1785, when construction began on the Wall of the Farmers-General. The city walls of Paris include:


Early life.

Förschner was born in the town of Dürrenzimmern (today part of Nördlingen), Bavaria on November 4, 1902, and was raised on a farm owned by his family. In 1922, he enlisted in the Reichsheer, and would remain a soldier for the next twelve years. Following his departure from the army in 1934, he became a member of the SS, and was assigned to its military-wing, the "SS-Verfügungstruppe", the organization that would eventually become the Waffen-SS.

SS career.

Between April 1934 and December 1936, Förschner attended the SS training camp at Bad Tölz, and became a member of the Nazi Party in 1937. During the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, he served as an officer with the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking. After being wounded in action and declared medically unfit for combat duty, Förschner was transferred to the SS-Totenkopfverbände, taking over as Schutzhaftlagerführer of the Buchenwald concentration camp in the spring of 1942.  In September 1943, Förschner was given command over the newly built concentration camp of Mittelbau-Dora, which at this time functioned as a sub-camp of the much larger Buchenwald. The purpose of Mittelbau-Dora was to provide slave-laborers from among its inmate population to the nearby V-weapons production facility of Mittelwerk. In addition to his position as commandant at Dora, Förschner was also technically the managing director of Mittelwerk GmbH, the front company created by the German government for V-weapons production. He would hold this post until April 1944, when he was replaced by Georg Rickhey.  Förschner had a contentious relationship with the various Nazi security services (the SD and the Gestapo) that operated in and around Mittelbau-Dora. His leadership was regularly criticized by them as being too "soft" on both the camp's prisoners and personnel. Of particular concern for them was Förschner's practice of selecting prisoner functionaries almost exclusively from among the camp's German-Communist inmates. Förschner's reputation in the Nazi party was badly damaged in November 1944, when many of the prisoner functionaries he had appointed were rounded up by the Gestapo and revealed to have been involved in resistance activities inside the camp, most notably the sabotage of V-weapons during the production process. After it was revealed that Förschner had failed to report a bonus payment of 10,000 Reichmarks he had received from Mittelwerk GmbH, he was dismissed as commander of Mittelbau-Dora in February 1945, and replaced by former Auschwitz commandant Richard Baer.  After being relieved of command at Mittelbau-Dora, Förschner was transferred to Dachau, where he served briefly as commandant of the sub-camp of Kaufering.

Trial and conviction.

In April 1945, Förschner was taken prisoner by the US Army. He was a defendant in the Dachau concentration camp trial, in which he was indicted for war crimes stemming from his tenure at Kaufering. Namely, Förschner was charged with responsibility for the brutal conditions which prevailed in the camp and his role in the management of prisoner executions.  He was convicted by a US military tribunal and sentenced to death, along with 35 other co-defendants, on December 13, 1945. He was hanged in Landsberg prison on May 28, 1946.

Otto Förschner (November 4, 1902 – May 28, 1946) was a German SS commander and a Nazi concentration camp official. He served as commandant of the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp and the Kaufering concentration camp in the Dachau camp system. He was indicted for his crimes, found guilty, and hanged in May 1946.


Characteristics.

The Indian pangolin is a solitary, shy, slow-moving, nocturnal mammal. It is about long from head to tail, the tail usually being long, and weighs. Females are generally smaller than the males and have one pair of mammae. The pangolin possesses a cone-shaped head with small, dark eyes, and a long muzzle with a nose pad similar in color, or darker than, its pinkish-brown skin. It has powerful limbs, tipped with sharp, clawed digits. The pangolin has no teeth, but has strong stomach muscles to aid in digestion. The most noticeable characteristic of the pangolin is its massive, scaled armour, which covers its upper face and its whole body with the exception of the belly and the inside of the legs. These protective scales are rigid and made of keratin. It has 160–200 scales in total, about 40–46% of which are located on the tail. Scales are long, wide, and weigh. The skin and scales make up about one-fourth to one-third of the total body mass of this species.

Distribution and habitat.

The Indian pangolin has been recorded from various forest types, including Sri Lankan rainforest and plains to middle hill levels. The animal can be found in grasslands and secondary forests, and is well adapted to desert regions as it is believed to have a tolerance to dry areas, but prefers more barren, hilly regions. This pangolin species may also sometimes reach high elevations, and has been sighted in Sri Lanka at 1100 meters and in the Nilgiri mountains in India at 2300 meters. It prefers soft and semi-sandy soil conditions suitable for digging burrows.  Pangolin burrows fall into one of two categories: feeding and living burrows. Feeding burrows are smaller than living burrows (though their sizes vary depending on the abundance of prey) and are created more frequently during the spring, when there is a greater availability of prey. Living burrows are wider, deeper, and more circular, and are occupied for a longer time than feeding burrows, as they are mainly used to sleep and rest during the day. After a few months, the pangolin abandons the burrow and digs a new one close to a food source. However, it is not uncommon for the pangolin to shift back to an old burrow.  Unlike its African counterpart, the Indian pangolin does not climb trees, but it does value the presence of trees, herbs, and shrubs in its habitat because it is easier to dig burrows around them. Features that promote an abundance of ants and termites (grasses, bare grounds, bases of trees, shrubs, roots, leaf litter, fallen logs and elephant feces) are often present in pangolin habitats.

Behaviour and ecology.

The Indian pangolin is nocturnal and mostly active intermittently between 17:00 and 05:00 hr. The peak period of activity was observed between 20:00–21:00 hr in captive individuals with some one individual variation.  In Sri Lankan rainforests, it may be more arboreal, using its claws and prehensile tails as supports to readjust fore legs as they climb. It digs burrows in the ground, at depths of 1.5–6 m; these are frequently under large rocks and the entrance is often hidden with soil. When in danger, it rolls up with its tail pressed tightly against face and belly to help protect itself. Longevity of this animal in captivity can exceed 19 years.

Diet.

The Indian pangolin is an almost exclusive insectivore and principally subsists on ants and termites, which it catches with a specially adapted long, sticky tongue. It is specialised to feed on ants and termites, but also forages for beetles and cockroaches. It feeds on the eggs, larvae, and adults of its prey, but eggs are the preferred choice. In the Potohar region of the Punjab province, the majority of its diet was found to consist of two types of ants, "Camponotus confuci" and "Camponotus compressus". Other matter such as plant matter, stones, sand, and clay are consumed as well and in concert with strong stomach muscles aid in breaking down the food in the stomach. The Indian pangolin is nocturnal and uses its well-developed sense of smell to locate ant nests or termite mounds and other food sources. Foraging mostly takes place on the ground but may include arboreal ants, as seen in the rainforest canopy of Sri Lanka. Pangolins tear apart and dig into mounds by using the three centre claws on their forefeet, throwing loose soil backwards with their hind feet. When feeding, the rostral part of the pangolin's tongue is quickly inserted and withdrawn to capture prey. This movement is also used for drinking. Red weaver ants ("Oecophylla smaragdina") with their eggs are best accepted by the Indian pangolins in captivity.

Reproduction.

Few details are known about the breeding behaviour of the Indian pangolin. During the animal's mating period, females and males may share the same burrow and show some diurnal activities. Males have testes in a fold of the skin located in their groin areas. The female's embryo develops in one of the uterine horns. The gestation period lasts 65–70 days; the placenta is diffuse and not deciduate. Usually, a single young is born, but twins have been reported in this species. The young weigh 235–400 g at birth and measure roughly 30 cm. The newborn animals have open eyes, and soft scales with protruding hairs between them. The mother pangolin carries her young on her tail. When the mother and young are disturbed, the young pangolin is held against its mother's belly and protected by the mother's tail.  Successful reproduction by Indian pangolins has been reported from several zoos, including Calcutta Zoo, Oklahoma Zoo, and Nandankanan Zoological Park. Pangolins were found to not show any significant morphological changes during pregnancy. Births in captivity have been reported throughout the year except for May and June. At birth a baby pangolin weighed 235 g and measured 30 cm in total length, including 12.5 cm of tail. A three-day-old Indian pangolin born at Oklahoma Zoo measured 310 mm from tip to tip with a 125 mm tail.

Threats.

The Indian pangolin is threatened by poaching for its meat and scales, which are used and consumed by local people, but are also increasingly traded internationally. Various parts of the pangolin are valued as sources of food and medicine. The scales are used as an aphrodisiac, or made into rings or charms. The skins are used to manufacture leather goods, including boots and shoes. The majority of hunting is carried out by nomads and trained local hunters. Indian pangolin body parts have been trafficked for consumption in China since at least the early 2000s. Pangolins are the most heavily trafficked protected mammals.

Conservation.

The Indian pangolin is listed on CITES Appendix I since January 2017 and is protected in all range countries.

Cultural significance.

Within its range it is variously known as "khawlyaa manjar" (”खवल्या मांजर" in Marathi), "saal khapri" (Chhattisgarhi), "bon-rou" (Assamese: বন-ৰৌ), పొలుశు పంది or నీల చేప (Telugu), "eenampechi" ("ഈനാംപേച്ചി" in Malayalam), "azhungu" or "alangu" ('அலங்கு' in Tamil), "bajrakapta" ('ବଜ୍ରକାପ୍ତା' in Odia), "kaballewa" (Sinhala), and "chippu handi" ("ಚಿಪ್ಪು ಹಂದಿ" in Kannada).

The Indian pangolin ("Manis crassicaudata"), also called thick-tailed pangolin and scaly anteater is a pangolin native to the Indian subcontinent.


Etymology.

The term "trap" has been used in geology since 1785–1795 for such rock formations. It is derived from the Swedish word for stairs ("trappa") and refers to the step-like hills forming the landscape of the region.

Formation.

The source of the Siberian Traps basaltic rock has been attributed to a mantle plume, which rose until it impacted against the bottom of the Earth's crust, producing volcanic eruptions through the Siberian Craton. It has been suggested that, as the Earth's lithospheric plates moved over the mantle plume (the Iceland plume), the plume produced the Siberian Traps in the Permian and Triassic periods, later going on to produce volcanic activity on the floor of the Arctic Ocean in the Jurassic and Cretaceous, and then generating volcanic activity in Iceland. Other plate tectonic causes have also been suggested. Another possible cause may be the impact that formed the Wilkes Land crater in Antarctica, which is estimated to have occurred around the same time and been nearly antipodal to the traps.  The main source of rock in this formation is basalt, but both mafic and felsic rocks are present, so this formation is officially called a Flood Basalt Province. The inclusion of mafic and felsic rock indicates multiple other eruptions that occurred and coincided with the one-million-year-long eruption that created the majority of the basaltic layers. The traps are divided into sections based on their chemical, stratigraphical, and petrographical composition.

Impact on prehistoric life.

One of the major questions is whether the Siberian Traps were directly responsible for the Permian–Triassic mass extinction event that occurred 250 million years ago, or if they were themselves caused by some other, larger event, such as an asteroid impact. A recent hypothesis put forward is that the volcanism triggered the growth of "Methanosarcina", a microbe that then spewed enormous amounts of methane into Earth's atmosphere, ultimately altering the Earth's carbon cycle based on observations such as a significant increase of inorganic carbon reservoirs in marine environments.  This extinction event, also called the Great Dying, affected all life on Earth, and is estimated to have killed about 96% of all species living at the time. Some of the disastrous events that impacted the Earth continued to repeat themselves on Earth five to six million years after the initial extinction occurred. Over time a small portion of the life that survived the extinction was able to repopulate and expand starting with low trophic levels (local communities) until the higher trophic levels (large habitats) were able to be re-established. Calculations of sea water temperature from "δ"O measurements indicate that at the peak of the extinction, the Earth underwent lethally hot global warming, in which equatorial ocean temperatures exceeded. It took roughly eight to nine million years for any diverse ecosystem to be re-established; however, new classes of animals were established after the extinction that did not exist beforehand.  Palaeontological evidence further indicates that the global distribution of tetrapods vanished, with very rare exceptions in the region of Pangaea that is today Utah, between latitudes bounded by approximately 40°S to 30°N. The tetrapod gap of equatorial Pangaea coincides with an end-Permian to Middle Triassic global "coal gap" that indicates the loss of peat swamps. Peat formation, a product of high plant productivity, was reestablished only in the Anisian stage of the Triassic, and even then only in high southern latitudes, although gymnosperm forests appeared earlier (in the Early Spathian), but again only in northern and southern higher latitudes. In equatorial Pangaea, the establishment of conifer-dominated forests was not until the end of the Spathian, and the first coals at these latitudes did not appear until the Carnian, around 15 million years after their end-Permian disappearance. These signals suggest equatorial temperatures exceeded their thermal tolerance for many marine vertebrates at least during two thermal maxima, whereas terrestrial equatorial temperatures were sufficiently severe to suppress plant and animal abundance during most of the Early Triassic.

Dating.

The volcanism that occurred in the Siberian Traps resulted in copious amounts of magma being ejected from the Earth's crust—leaving permanent traces of rock from the same time period of the mass extinction that is able to be examined today. More specifically, zircon is found in some of the volcanic rocks. To further the accuracy of the age of the zircon, several varying aged pieces of zircon were organized into a timeline based on when they crystallized. The CA-TIMS technique, a chemical abrasion age-dating technique that eliminates variability in accuracy due to lead depletion in zircon over time, was then used to accurately determine the age of the zircons found in the Siberian Traps. Eliminating the variability due to lead, the CA-TIMS age-dating technique allowed uranium within the zircon to be the centre focus in linking the volcanism in the Siberian Traps that resulted in high amounts of magmatic material with the Permian–Triassic mass extinction.  To further the connection between the Permian–Triassic extinction event, other disastrous events occurred around the same time period, such as sea level changes, meteor impacts and volcanism. Specifically focusing on volcanism, rock samples from the Siberian Traps and other southern regions were obtained and compared. Basalts and gabbro samples from several southern regions close to and from the Siberian Traps were dated based on argon isotope 40 and argon isotope 39 age-dating methods. Feldspar and biotite was specifically used to focus on the samples age and duration of the presence magma from the volcanic event in the Siberian Traps. The majority of the basalt and gabbro samples dated to 250 million years ago, covered a surface area of five million square kilometres on the Siberian Traps and occurred within a short period of time with rapid rock solidification/cooling. Studies confirmed that samples of gabbro and basalt from the same time period of the Permian–Triassic event from the other southern regions also matched the age of samples within the Siberian Traps. This confirms the assumption of the linkage between the age of volcanic rocks within the Siberian Traps, along with rock samples from other southern regions to the Permian–Triassic mass extinction event.

Mineral deposits.

The giant Norilsk-Talnakh nickel–copper–palladium deposit formed within the magma conduits in the most complete part of the Siberian Traps. It has been linked to the Permian–Triassic extinction event, which occurred approximately 251.4 million years ago, based on large amounts of nickel and other elements found in rock beds that were laid down after the extinction occurred. The method used to correlate the extinction event with the surplus amount of nickel located in the Siberian Traps, is by comparing the timeline of the magmatism within the traps and the timeline of the extinction itself. Before the linkage between magmatism and the extinction event was discovered, it was hypothesized that the mass extinction and volcanism occurred at the same time due to the linkages in rock composition.

The Siberian Traps (, ) is a large region of volcanic rock, known as a large igneous province, in Siberia, Russia. The massive eruptive event that formed the traps is one of the largest known volcanic events in the last years.


Early life, philosophy and imprisonment.

Chernyi was born Pavel Dimitrievich Turchaninov () to an army colonel father. A "déclassé intellectual" whom anarchist historian Paul Avrich compares with Volin, Chernyi advocated a Nietzschean overthrow of the values of bourgeois Russian society, and rejected the voluntary communes of anarcho-communist Peter Kropotkin as a threat to the freedom of the individual. Chernyi advocated the "free association of independent individuals" in a book titled "Associational Anarchism" and published in 1907. Scholars including Avrich and Allan Antliff have interpreted this vision of society to have been greatly influenced by the individualist anarchists Max Stirner, and Benjamin Tucker. Subsequent to the book's publication, Chernyi was imprisoned in Siberia under the Russian Czarist regime for his revolutionary activities.

Return to Moscow and opposition to the Bolsheviks.

On his return from Siberia in 1917, Chernyi enjoyed great popularity among Moscow workers as a lecturer, and was at this time one of Russia's leading individualist anarchists and one of anarchism's main ideologues. He was the Secretary and leading theorist of the Moscow Federation of Anarchist Groups, which was formed in March 1917 after the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II and was primarily concerned with disseminating propaganda to Moscow's poorer classes.  A personal acquaintance of Lev Kamenev and other leading Bolsheviks, Chernyi denounced the nascent Russian Soviet Republic at a rally on March 5, 1918, declaring that for anarchists, the socialist state was as much an enemy as its bourgeois predecessor and promising to "paralyze the governmental mechanism". A vociferous advocate of seizing private homes, Chernyi agitated against the state in the pages of "Anarkhiia", the anarchist weekly newspaper, proposing increasingly detailed means of decentralized production and "complete absence of internal power structures". In the spring of 1918, the anarchist groups within the Moscow Federation formed armed detachments in reaction to the growing repression of all resistance and free expression. These were the Black Guards, precursors to the anarchist Black Army which fought the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War. On the night of April 11, the Cheka (Soviet secret police) raided a building occupied by the Moscow Federation, with the official aim of arresting and charging "robber bands" in the anarchist ranks. They were met with armed resistance by the Black Guards and in the ensuing battle, approximately forty anarchists were killed or wounded and about five hundred were imprisoned.

Arrest and execution.

Having helped establish an underground group in 1918, Chernyi joined another group called the Underground Anarchists the following year. The organization, which had been founded by Kazimir Kovalevich and Piotr Sobalev, published two issues of an incendiary broadsheet denouncing the Communist dictatorship as the worst tyranny in human history. On September 25, 1919, together with a number of leftist social revolutionaries, the Underground Anarchists bombed the headquarters of the Moscow Committee of the Communist Party during a plenary meeting. Twelve Communists were killed and fifty-five others were wounded, including eminent Bolshevik theorist and "Pravda" editor Nikolai Bukharin. Chernyi was detained along with Fanya Baron on a counterfeiting charge. In August 1921, the Moscow "Izvestia" published an official report announcing that ten "anarchist bandits", among them Chernyi, had been shot without hearing or trial. However, historian of anarchism Paul Avrich contends that Chernyi was executed in September of that year rather than August. Although he was not personally involved in the bombing of the Communist Party headquarters, Chernyi was, because of his association with the Underground Anarchists, a likely candidate for a frameup. The Communists refused to turn over his body to his family for burial, and rumors persisted that he had in fact died of torture.

Lev Chernyi (; died September 21, 1921) was a Russian individualist anarchist theorist, activist and poet, and a leading figure of the Third Russian Revolution. In 1917, Chernyi was released from his political imprisonment by the Imperial Russian regime, and swiftly became one of the leading figures in Russian anarchism. After strongly denouncing the new Bolshevik government in various anarchist publications and joining several underground resistance movements, Chernyi was arrested by the Cheka on a charge of counterfeiting and in 1921 was executed without trial.


Taxonomy.

In the past, this species has included the closely related Palawan pangolin ("M. culionensis"), as both are in the subgenus "Paramanis". It is closely related to the Chinese pangolin, although the Malayan species is larger, lighter in colour, and has shorter fore claws.

Description.

The skin of the Sunda pangolin's feet is granular, although pads are found on its front feet. It has thick and powerful claws to dig into the soils in search of ant nests or to tear into termite mounds. The Sunda pangolin has poor eyesight, but a highly developed sense of smell. Lacking teeth, its long, sticky tongue serves to collect ants and termites. Its body is covered by rows of scales and fibrous hair. The head-body length of this pangolin can measure 40–65 cm, tail length is 35–56 cm, and its weight is up to 10 kg. Males are larger than females.

Behaviour and ecology.

Pangolins give birth annually to one or two offspring. They breed in the autumn, and females give birth in the winter burrow. Den preference has been known to shift at this time to favor mature forest tree hollows. Presumably, these hollows offer more fortification and stability for the decreased mobility that comes with birthing and caring for young. The amount of time the mother will spend at any one of these dens will increase during parental care periods. Parental care is given for about three months. In these three months, the range of the mother Pangolin drastically decreases as she travels and forages with her offspring. Only a few weeks before the offspring becomes fully independent, the mother and her young can display brief spikes in diurnal activity. Pangolins are sometimes found in pairs, but normally they are solitary, nocturnal, and behave timidly. They protect their soft underparts by rolling into balls when they feel threatened. They are strong diggers and make burrows lined with vegetation for insulation near termite mounds and ant nests.  Sunda pangolins have low immunity, making them sensitive to fluctuations in temperature.  The Sunda pangolin's main predators are humans, tigers, and the clouded leopard.

Conservation.

Pangolins as a genus are among the most heavily poached and exploited protected animals. Like other pangolin species, the Sunda pangolin is hunted for its skin, scales, and meat, used in clothing manufacture and traditional medicine. Scales are made into rings as charms against rheumatic fever, and meat is eaten by indigenous peoples. Despite enjoying protected status almost everywhere in its range, illegal international trade, largely driven by Chinese buyers, has led to rapidly decreasing population numbers. The Sunda pangolin is currently considered to be critically endangered.  As of 2016, all pangolin species, including the Sunda pangolin, are listed by CITES in its Appendix I, which prohibits international trade in wild-caught specimens or their body parts.

Potential zoonosis.

A metagenomic study published in 2019 previously revealed that SARS-CoV, the strain of the virus that causes SARS, was the most widely distributed coronavirus among a sample of Sunda pangolins. On 7 February 2020, it was announced that researchers from Guangzhou had discovered a pangolin sample with a viral nucleic acid sequence "99% identical" to SARS-CoV-2. When released, the results clarified that "the receptor-binding domain of the S protein of the newly discovered Pangolin-CoV is virtually identical to that of 2019-nCoV, with one amino acid difference." Pangolins are protected under Chinese law, but their poaching and trading for use in traditional Chinese medicine remains common.  Microbiologists and geneticists in Texas have independently found evidence of reassortment in coronaviruses suggesting involvement of pangolins in the origin of SARS-CoV-2. However, pangolin coronaviruses found to date only share at most 92% of their whole genomes with SARS-CoV-2, making them less similar than RaTG13 to SARS-CoV-2. This is insufficient to prove pangolins to be the intermediate host; in comparison, the SARS virus responsible for the 2002–2004 outbreak shared 99.8% of its genome with a known civet coronavirus.

The Sunda pangolin ("Manis javanica"), also known as the Malayan or Javan pangolin, is a species of pangolin. It is found throughout Southeast Asia, including Brunei, Cambodia, Java, Sumatra, Borneo, the Lesser Sunda Islands, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Myanmar and Vietnam. It prefers forested habitats (primary, secondary, and scrub forest) and plantations (rubber, palm oil). A large part of its life is spent in trees.


Background.

In 1396 the Bulgarian–Ottoman Wars ended with the fall of the Bulgarian Empire, due to the Ottoman invasion of the Balkans and its own internal divisions. Under Ottoman rule, the Bulgarian nobility was destroyed and the national consciousness suppressed. The Bulgarian National Revival, emerging in the late 18th century, revived Bulgarian identity and stoked the idea of creating a new Bulgarian state. Numerous revolutionary movements and uprisings against the Ottomans occurred alongside similar movements in the rest of the Balkans, culminating in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 to 1878.

Treaty of Berlin.

The Treaty of San Stefano of March 3, 1878 proposed a Bulgarian state, which comprised the geographical regions of Moesia, Thrace and Macedonia. Based on that date Bulgarians celebrate Bulgaria's national day each year.  Fearing the establishment of a large Russian client state on the Balkans, the other great powers, however, were not willing to agree to the treaty. As a result, the Treaty of Berlin (1878), under the supervision of Otto von Bismarck of Germany and Benjamin Disraeli of United Kingdom, revised the earlier treaty, and scaled back the proposed Bulgarian state.  A widely autonomous Principality of Bulgaria was created, between the Danube and the Stara Planina range, with its seat at the old Bulgarian capital of Veliko Turnovo, and including Sofia. This state was to be under nominal Ottoman sovereignty but was to be ruled by a prince elected by a congress of Bulgarian notables and approved by the Powers. They insisted that the Prince could not be a Russian, but in a compromise Prince Alexander of Battenberg, a nephew of Tsar Alexander II, was chosen. An autonomous Ottoman province under the name of Eastern Rumelia was created south of the Stara Planina range, whereas Macedonia was returned under the sovereignty of the Sultan.

19th century.

The Bulgarians adopted an advanced democratic constitution, and power soon passed to the Liberal Party led by Stefan Stambolov. Prince Alexander had conservative leanings, and at first opposed Stambolov's policies, but by 1885 he had become sufficiently sympathetic to his new country to change his mind, and supported the Liberals. He also supported the Unification of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia, which was brought about by a coup in Plovdiv in September 1885. The Powers did not intervene because of the power struggles between them. Shortly after, Serbia declared war on Bulgaria in the hope of grabbing territory while the Bulgarians were distracted. The Bulgarians defeated them at Slivnitsa, pushed the Serbian army into Serbia and succeeded to re-conquer the seized by the Berlin Treaty Bulgarian populated towns of Pirot and Vranya, but they were given back to Serbia with the Treaty of Bucharest in 1886.  These events made Alexander very popular in Bulgaria, but Russia was increasingly dissatisfied at the liberal tendencies under his reign. In August 1886 they fomented a coup, in the course of which Alexander was forced to abdicate and was exiled to Russia. Stambolov, however, acted quickly and the participants in the coup were forced to flee the country. Stambolov tried to reinstate Alexander, but strong Russian opposition forced the prince to abdicate again. In July 1887 the Bulgarians elected Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha as their new Prince. Ferdinand was the "Austrian candidate" and the Russians refused to recognise him. Ferdinand initially worked with Stambolov, but by 1894 their relationship worsened. Stambolov resigned and was assassinated in July 1895. Ferdinand then decided to restore relations with Russia, which meant returning to a conservative policy.

20th century.

There was a substantial Bulgarian population still living under Ottoman rule, particularly in Macedonia. To complicate matters, Serbia and Greece too made claims over parts of Macedonia, while Serbia, as a Slavic nation, also considered Macedonians as belonging to Serbian nation. Thus began a five-sided struggle for control of these areas which lasted until World War I. In 1903 there was a Bulgarian insurrection in Ottoman Macedonia and war seemed likely. In 1908 Ferdinand used the struggles between the Great Powers to declare Bulgaria a fully independent kingdom, with himself as Tsar, which he did on 5 October (though celebrated on 22 September, as Bulgaria remained officially on the Julian calendar until 1916) in the Holy Forty Martyrs Church, Veliko Tarnovo.

Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising.

The main external political problem confronting Bulgaria throughout the period up to World War I was the fate of Macedonia and Eastern Thrace. At the end of 19th century the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization was founded and began the preparation of an armed uprising in the regions still occupied by the Ottoman Turks. Relying in part on nationwide support on the part of the Principality of Bulgaria, IMARO got down to organizing a network of committees in Macedonia and Thrace. In August 1903 a mass armed uprising, known in history as the Ilinden-Preobrajenie, broke out in Macedonia and Thrace. Its aim was to liberate those regions, or at least to draw the attention of the Great Powers and make them advocate for the improvement of the living conditions for the population through legal and economic reforms. After three months of fierce battles the Ottoman army crushed the uprising using much cruelty against the civilian population.

The Principality of Bulgaria (, "Knyazhestvo Balgariya") was a "de facto" independent, and "de jure" vassal state under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. It was established by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878.


Education.

He studied from 1884 until 1899 at the University of Hannover, the Johns Hopkins University, the University of Strassburg, the University of Leipzig, and the University of Bonn. In Bonn he habilitated in 1899 and taught there until 1923.  In 1903 Bucherer published the first German-language book to be completely based on vector calculus.

Theory of relativity.

Like Henri Poincaré (1895, 1900), Bucherer (1903b) believed in the validity of the Principle of relativity, i.e. that all descriptions of electrodynamic effects should only contain the relative motion of bodies, not of the aether. However, he went a step further and even assumed the physical non-existence of the aether. Based on those ideas he developed a theory in 1906, which also included the assumption that the geometry of space is riemannian. But the theory was vaguely formulated and in 1908 Walther Ritz showed that Bucherer's theory leads to wrong conclusions with respect to electrodynamics. And contrary to Albert Einstein, he didn't connect his rejection of the aether with the relativity of space and time.  In 1904 he developed a theory of electrons in which the electrons contract in the line of motion and expand perpendicular to it. Independently of him Paul Langevin developed a very similar model in 1905. The Bucherer-Langevin model was an alternative to the electron models of:  All three models predicted an increase of the electron mass if their velocities are approaching the speed of light. The Bucherer-Langevin model was quickly abandoned, so some experimentalists tried to distinguish between Abraham's theory and the Lorentz-Einstein theory by experiment. This was done by Walter Kaufmann (1901–1905) who believed that his experiments confirmed Abraham's theory, and disproved the Lorentz-Einstein theory. But in 1908 Bucherer conducted some experiments as well, and obtained results which seem to confirm the Lorentz-Einstein theory and the principle of relativity. With exceptions like Adolf Bestelmeyer with whom Bucherer had a polemical dispute, Bucherer's experiments were regarded as decisive. But it was shown in 1938 that all those experiments of Kaufmann, Bucherer, Neumann etc. showed only a qualitative increase in mass, but were too imprecise to distinguish between the different models. This lasted until 1940, when similar experimental equipments were sufficiently accurate to confirm the Lorentz-Einstein formula, see Kaufmann–Bucherer–Neumann experiments and Tests of relativistic energy and momentum.  Bucherer (1906) was the first who used — during some critical remarks on Einstein's theory — the expression "Einsteinian relativity theory / theory of relativity" ("Einsteinsche Relativitätstheorie"). This was based on Max Planck's term "relative theory" for the Lorentz-Einstein theory. And in 1908 Bucherer himself rejected his own version of the relativity principle, and accepted the "Lorentz-Einstein theory".  Later (1923, 1924), Bucherer criticized general relativity in some papers. However, this criticism was rejected because Bucherer misinterpreted Einstein's equivalence hypothesis.

Alfred Heinrich Bucherer (* 9 July 1863 in Cologne; † 16 April 1927 in Bonn) was a German physicist, who is known for his experiments on relativistic mass. He also was the first who used the phrase "theory of relativity" for Einstein's theory of special relativity.


Order of battle.

Wehrmacht.

Army Group A - General Field Marshal ("Generalfeldmarschall") Wilhelm List

German operations.

Operation Edelweiss, named after the mountain flower, was a German plan to gain control over the Caucasus and capture the oil fields of Baku during the Soviet-German War. The operation was authorised by Hitler on 23 July 1942. The main forces included Army Group A commanded by Wilhelm List, 1st Panzer Army (Ewald von Kleist), 4th Panzer Army (Colonel-General Hermann Hoth), 17th Army (Colonel-General Richard Ruoff), part of the Luftflotte 4 (Generalfeldmarschall Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen) and the 3rd Romanian Army (General Petre Dumitrescu). Army Group A was supported to the east by Army Group B commanded by Fedor von Bock and by the remaining 4th Air Fleet aircraft (1,000 aircraft in all). The land forces, accompanied by 15,000 oil industry workers, included 167,000 troopers, 4,540 guns and 1,130 tanks.

Preparations.

Several oil firms such as "German Oil on Caucasus", "Ost-Öl" and "Karpaten-Öl" had been established in Germany. They were awarded an exclusive 99-year lease to exploit the Caucasian oil fields. For this purpose, a large number of pipes—which later proved useful to Soviet oil industry workers—were delivered. A special economic inspection "A", headed by Lieutenant-General Nidenfuhr was created. Bombing of the oil fields was forbidden. To defend them from destruction by Soviet units under the command of Nikolai Baibakov and Semyon Budyonny, an SS guard regiment and a Cossack regiment were formed. The head of the Abwehr developed Operation "Schamil", which called for landing in the Grozny, Malgobek and Maikop regions. They would be supported by the local fifth column.

Events.

After neutralizing the Soviet counter-attack in the Izyum-Barvenkovsk direction the German Army Group A rapidly attacked towards the Caucasus. When Rostov-on-Don, nicknamed "The Gates of Caucasus," fell on 23 July 1942, the tank units of Ewald von Kleist moved towards the Caucasian Mountain Range. The "Edelweiss" division commander, Hubert Lanz, decided to advance through the gorges of rivers of the Kuban River basin and by crossing the Marukhskiy Pass (Maly Zelenchuk River), Teberda, Uchkulan reach the Klukhorskiy Pass, and simultaneously through the Khotyu-tau Pass block the upper reaches of the Baksan River and the Donguz-Orun and Becho passes.  Concurrently with the outflanking maneuvers, the Caucasian Mountain Range was supposed to be crossed through such passes as Sancharo, Klukhorskiy and Marukhskiy to reach Kutaisi, Zugdidi, Sukhumi and the Soviet Georgian capital city of Tbilisi. The units of the 4th German Mountain Division, manned with Tyroleans, were active in this thrust. They succeeded in advancing 30 km toward Sukhumi. To attack from the Kuban region, capture the passes that led to Elbrus, and cover the "Edelweiss" flank, a vanguard detachment of 150 men commanded by Captain (Hauptmann) Heinz Groth, was formed. From the Old Karachay through the Khurzuk aul and the Ullu-kam Gorge the detachment reached the Khotyu-tau Pass, which had not been defended by the Soviet troops. Khotyu-tau gained a new name — "The Pass of General Konrad".  The starting point of the operation on the Krasnodar-Pyatigorsk-Maikop line was reached on 10 August 1942. On 16 August the battalion commanded by von Hirschfeld made a feint and reached the Kadar Gorge. On 21 August troops from the 1st Mountain Division planted the flag of Nazi Germany on the summit of Mount Elbrus, the highest peak in both the Caucasus and Europe.

Soviet operations.

1941.

There were no military operations in the region in 1941. But the region was affected by warfare elsewhere in the Soviet Union.  In his memoirs, Soviet Transcaucasian Front commander Ivan Tiulenev recounts how thousands of civilians attempted to flee from Ukraine to the comparatively safe Caspian ports, such as Makhachkala and Baku. The Caucasus area became a new area of industry when 226 factories were evacuated there during the industrial evacuations undertaken by the Soviet Union in 1941. After the Grozny to Kiev line was captured during Axis advances, a new link between Moscow and Transcaucasia was established with the construction of the new railway line running from Baku to Orsk (via Astrakhan), bypassing the front line at Grozny, while a shipping line was maintained over the Caspian Sea through the town of Krasnovodsk in Turkmenistan.

1942.

In 1942, the German Army launched Operation Edelweiss which was aimed at advancing to the oil field of Azerbaijan. The German offensive slowed as it entered the mountains in the southern Caucasus and did not reach all of its 1942 objectives. After the Soviet breakthroughs in the region around Stalingrad, the German forces in the Caucasus were put on the defensive.  Soviet military operations included

1943.

In early 1943, the Germans began to withdraw and consolidate their positions in the region due to setbacks elsewhere. They established a defensive line (Kuban bridgehead) in the Taman Peninsula from which they hoped to eventually launch new operations in the Caucasus. The fighting remained reasonably static until September 1943 when the Germans ordered fresh withdrawals which effectively ended the period of fighting in the Caucasus.  Soviet Operations in 1943 consisted of the following.  The key military base of Novorossiysk was retaken in September, 1943.

1944.

During the Winter Spring Campaign of 1944 (1 January - 31 May), the Soviet army was able to launch an invasion of the Crimea from the Caucasus, which was fully recaptured by 12 May 1944.  Operations included:

The Battle of the Caucasus is a name given to a series of Axis and Soviet operations in the Caucasus area on the Eastern Front of World War II. On 25 July 1942, German troops captured Rostov-on-Don, Russia, opening the Caucasus region of the southern Soviet Union, and the oil fields beyond at Maikop, Grozny, and ultimately Baku, to the Germans. Two days prior, Adolf Hitler issued a directive to launch such an operation into the Caucasus region, to be named Operation Edelweiß. German forces were compelled to withdraw from the area that winter as Operation Little Saturn threatened to cut them off.


History.

The use of games in educational circles has been practiced since at least the twentieth century. Use of paper-based educational games became popular in the 1960s and 1970s, but waned under the Back to Basics teaching movement. (The Back to Basics teaching movement is a change in teaching style that started in the 1970s when students were scoring poorly on standardized tests and exploring too many electives. This movement wanted to focus students on reading, writing and arithmetic and intensify the curriculum.)  The early 2000s saw a surge in different types of educational games, especially those designed for the younger learner. Many of these games were not computer-based but took on the model of other traditional gaming systems both in the console and hand-held formats. In 1999, LeapFrog Enterprises introduced the LeapPad, which combined an interactive book with a cartridge and allowed kids to play games and interact with a paper-based book. Based on the popularity of traditional hand-held gaming systems like Nintendo's Game Boy, they also introduced their hand-held gaming system called the Leapster in 2003. This system was cartridge-based and integrated arcade–style games with educational content.  Also in the 2000s, educational games saw an expanse into sustainable development with titles such as Learning Sustainable Development in 2000 and Climate Challenge in 2006.  By 2010, serious games had evolved to incorporate actual economies like "Second Life", in which users can create actual businesses that provide virtual commodities and services for Linden dollars, which are exchangeable for US currency. In 2015, Project Discovery was launched as a serious game. Project Discovery was launched as a vehicle by which geneticists and astronomers with the University of Geneva could access the cataloging efforts of the gaming public via a mini-game contained within the "Eve Online" massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). Players acting as citizen scientists categorize and assess actual genetic samples or astronomical data. This data was then utilized and warehoused by researchers. Any data flagged as atypical was further investigated by scientists.

Application Areas.

Health.

On the one hand, the health sector includes digital games for the professional area of doctor training, e.g. to train an operation or to impart specialist knowledge, and on the other hand they address the private end user who uses them, for example, as motivation tools for a healthier lifestyle, nutrition or for rehabilitation purposes. In addition, Serious Games can be used as a training measure for patients who acquire knowledge about their clinical pictures and possible therapy options.  On 15 June 2020, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first video game treatment, a game for children aged 8–12 with certain types of ADHD called "EndeavorRx". It can be downloaded with a prescription onto a mobile device, and is intended for use in tandem with other treatments. Patients play it for 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week, over a month-long treatment plan.

Exercise therapy.

These include serious games that animate the player to sport and movement. For example, hand-eye coordination and upper body muscles can be trained using "Wii Sports", regardless of age and physical disabilities, alone or with others. Even simple Jump-'n'-Run games can have an educational purpose, depending on the user. They are partly used in rehabilitation therapies to restore the user's finger mobility, reaction speed and eye-finger coordination.

Politics, culture and advertising.

Persuasive games are developed for advertisers, policy makers, news organizations and cultural institutions. They are politically and socially motivated games that serve social communication. They cover areas such as politics, religion, environment, urban planning and tourism. The aim is to lead to create a demand for product due to a generated positive exposure to the product in the game or introduce new ways of thinking through experience. "See also: business simulation game"

Security.

Serious games in the field of security are aimed at disaster control, the defense sector and recruitment. Public, private and municipal institutions, such as fire brigades, police, Federal Agency for Technical Relief (Technisches Hilfswerk - Germany THW), DRK as well as crisis centres and NGOs benefit from them. Scenarios such as natural disasters, acts of terrorism, danger prevention and emergency care are simulated. Challenges such as acting under time and pressure to succeed can thus be realistically tested with fewer resources and costs. This area formed the second focal point. An example of serious games from this sector is the "Emergency" game series or the possibility to explore the response of communities in a game in disaster management. Psychological effect that exist in real life-threatening situation are not realistic in a serious game but the training in a serious game and exposure to the requirements and constraints in disaster management can prepare to a better response of the teams in a real disaster management case and lead to an improved risk mitigation strategies.

Military games.

Games like America's Army are training simulations that are used in the training and recruitment of soldiers. The games try to represent warfare as realistically as possible in order to familiarize users with the dangers, strategies, weapons, tactics and vehicles.

Recruitment games.

This type of serious games is intended to bring the user closer to tasks that would otherwise be less in the limelight. Companies try to present and profile themselves through such games in order to attract apprentices and applicants. Future tasks will be presented and carried out in a large context, for example "TechForce", in which various technical areas are combined into an end product with the aim of winning a race.

Product creation games.

The aim here is to give the user an understanding of a company's products. The user can test the products in a simulation under real conditions and convince himself of their functionality. Technical basics, handling and security risks can be taught to the user.

Adult education.

Real simulations and simulation games provide the user with the opportunity to gain experience. Actions generated from knowledge can be tested here according to the trial and error principle. Theoretical knowledge can either be acquired beforehand or imparted during the game, which can then be tested in a virtual practice. There is an educational policy interest in the professionalisation of such offers. With the research project NetEnquiry, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research supports a corresponding research project for education and training, implemented here with the focus on mobile learning.

Youth education.

The user is given tasks and missions that they can only solve with the knowledge that they will gradually discover during the game. The theoretical aspects of the game are always taught in small quantities at the right time to be able to solve the next task and thus test the theoretical approaches in practice.

Art Games.

An "art game" uses the medium of computer games to create interactive and multimedia art. For the first time, the term was described scientifically in 2002 to emphasize games that attach more importance to art than to game mechanics. Mostly they convince by a special aesthetics and atmosphere and use the interactivity for creativity and the thought stimulation of the player. Art created by or through computer games is also called Art Game.

A serious game or applied game is a game designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment. The "serious" adjective is generally prepended to refer to video games used by industries like defense, education, scientific exploration, health care, emergency management, city planning, engineering, and politics. Serious games are a subgenre of serious storytelling, where storytelling is applied "outside the context of entertainment, where the narration progresses as a sequence of patterns impressive in quality... and is part of a thoughtful progress". The idea shares aspects with simulation generally, including flight simulation and medical simulation, but explicitly emphasizes the added pedagogical value of fun and competition.


Personal life.

Orpik was born in San Francisco, California, a few months after the U.S. "Miracle on Ice" win over the Soviet Union in Lake Placid, New York, in 1980. Due to this, he was named after American Olympic head coach Herb Brooks. Orpik (as well as his brother Andrew) grew up in Amherst, New York. Orpik attended the Nichols School in Buffalo and Thayer Academy in Braintree, Massachusetts.  He is married to Erin Orpik, with whom he has two daughters.

Playing career.

Collegiate.

Orpik played three seasons at Boston College for the Eagles ice hockey team, winning the Hockey East playoff championship in 1999 and 2001, as well as the NCAA Men's Ice Hockey Championship in 2001. His younger brother Andrew was also a hockey player, playing for Boston College and having a brief minor league career.

Years with the Penguins.

Orpik was drafted in the first round, 18th overall, of the 2000 NHL Entry Draft by the Pittsburgh Penguins. He began his professional career with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins of the American Hockey League (AHL) during the 2001–02 season. He made his NHL debut during the 2002–03 season, playing in six games and recording no points. After earning a permanent roster spot on the team the next year, Orpik played in 79 games, registering one goal, nine assists and 127 penalty minutes. On March 4, 2006, Orpik boarded Carolina Hurricanes forward Erik Cole, fracturing a vertebra in Cole's neck. Orpik was suspended three games for the illegal hit. Cole did not return until Game 6 of the 2006 Stanley Cup Finals.  In the summer of 2008, Orpik signed a new six-year, $22.5 million contract with the Penguins. In October 2008, he was named an alternate captain (interim while Sergei Gonchar was injured) of the Penguins, along with Evgeni Malkin, behind captain Sidney Crosby. On June 12, 2009, Orpik and the Penguins became Stanley Cup champions by defeating the Detroit Red Wings in Game 7 of the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals. He was the first native of California to win the Stanley Cup.  On December 17, 2011, Orpik recorded his 100th career point by earning an assist on Evgeni Malkin's goal on Ryan Miller at Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh.  On May 11, 2013, Orpik scored the game-winning goal in overtime of Game 6 to eliminate the New York Islanders and advance Pittsburgh to the second round of the 2013 Stanley Cup playoffs; it was his first career Stanley Cup playoff goal.  On December 7, 2013, Orpik hit Boston Bruins forward Loui Eriksson, resulting in a concussion to the latter. While Orpik lay on the ice due to a confrontation with a Bruins player, Shawn Thornton delivered a punch that concussed Orpik; Thornton was suspended 15 games for the incident.

Washington Capitals.

On July 1, 2014, the Washington Capitals signed Orpik to a five-year, $27.5 million contract as an unrestricted free agent.  In Game 2 of Washington's 2016 playoff series against the Pittsburgh Penguins, Orpik delivered an illegal and late hit to Pittsburgh defenseman Olli Määttä, making contact with Määttä's head. Orpik was suspended three games for the late hit and Määttä returned a few games later to finish, and help win, the series.  On April 23, 2018, during his fourth season with the Capitals, in 2017–18, Orpik was Washington's nomination for the King Clancy Memorial Trophy as a player who best exemplifies leadership qualities and gives back to his community. In the 2018 playoffs, on May 30, 2018, Orpik scored the game-winning goal in Game 2 of the 2018 Stanley Cup Finals against the Vegas Golden Knights. It was also the first time Orpik had scored a goal since February 20, 2016. On June 7, 2018, Orpik and the Capitals went on to win the Stanley Cup against the Golden Knights in five games. This was the first Stanley Cup for the Capitals and the second finals victory for Orpik.  On June 22, 2018, less than three weeks after winning the Stanley Cup for the second time, and due to salary cap considerations, Orpik was traded by the Capitals to the Colorado Avalanche (alongside goaltender Philipp Grubauer) in exchange for Colorado's second-round pick in the 2018 NHL Entry Draft. He was immediately informed by Avalanche general manager Joe Sakic that he would be moved to a preferred destination or bought-out from the remaining year of the five-year contract he had initially signed with Washington. He was placed on unconditional waivers the following day and on June 24, he was released to free agency. On July 24, he signed a one-year, $1 million contract to return to Washington.  Orpik scored the overtime game-winning goal in Game 2 of Washington's opening round 2019 playoff series against the Carolina Hurricanes, giving the Capitals a 2–0 series lead. This would be Orpik's last NHL goal. Despite this, the Capitals attempt at a Cup repeat would fall short as the Hurricanes went onto eliminate the Capitals in seven games.  On June 25, 2019, Orpik announced his retirement from professional hockey. Soon after retiring, the Capitals hired Orpik as a Player Development coach.

International play.

In 1999, Orpik competed for the United States in the World Junior Ice Hockey Championships in Stockholm.  In 2009, Orpik was invited to the USA Hockey orientation camp, from August 17 to 19, in preparation for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Orpik was ultimately selected to the American team, which finished with a silver medal finish behind Canada.

Richard Brooks Orpik (born September 26, 1980) is an American former professional ice hockey defenseman who played for the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Washington Capitals of the National Hockey League (NHL). Orpik is a two-time Stanley Cup champion, winning with the Penguins in 2009 and with the Capitals in 2018.


Introduction.

The term "post-Keynesian" was first used to refer to a distinct school of economic thought by Eichner and Kregel (1975) and by the establishment of the "Journal of Post Keynesian Economics" in 1978. Prior to 1975, and occasionally in more recent work, "post-Keynesian" could simply mean economics carried out after 1936, the date of Keynes's "General Theory".  Post-Keynesian economists are united in maintaining that Keynes' theory is seriously misrepresented by the two other principal Keynesian schools: neo-Keynesian economics, which was orthodox in the 1950s and 60s, and new Keynesian economics, which together with various strands of neoclassical economics has been dominant in mainstream macroeconomics since the 1980s. Post-Keynesian economics can be seen as an attempt to rebuild economic theory in the light of Keynes' ideas and insights. However, even in the early years, post-Keynesians such as Joan Robinson sought to distance themselves from Keynes and much current post-Keynesian thought cannot be found in Keynes. Some post-Keynesians took a more progressive view than Keynes himself, with greater emphases on worker-friendly policies and redistribution. Robinson, Paul Davidson and Hyman Minsky emphasized the effects on the economy of practical differences between different types of investments, in contrast to Keynes' more abstract treatment.  The theoretical foundation of post-Keynesian economics is the principle of effective demand, that demand matters in the long as well as the short run, so that a competitive market economy has no natural or automatic tendency towards full employment. Contrary to the views of new Keynesian economists working in the neoclassical tradition, post-Keynesians do not accept that the theoretical basis of the market's failure to provide full employment is rigid or sticky prices or wages. Post-Keynesians typically reject the IS–LM model of John Hicks, which is very influential in neo-Keynesian economics.  The contribution of post-Keynesian economics has extended beyond the theory of aggregate employment to theories of income distribution, growth, trade and development in which money demand plays a key role, whereas in neoclassical economics these are determined by the forces of technology, preferences and endowment. In the field of monetary theory, post-Keynesian economists were among the first to emphasise that money supply responds to the demand for bank credit, so that a central bank cannot control the quantity of money, but only manage the interest rate by managing the quantity of monetary reserves.  This view has largely been incorporated into monetary policy, which now targets the interest rate as an instrument, rather than the quantity of money. In the field of finance, Hyman Minsky put forward a theory of financial crisis based on financial fragility, which has received renewed attention.

Strands.

There are a number of strands to post-Keynesian theory with different emphases. Joan Robinson regarded Michał Kalecki’s theory of effective demand to be superior to Keynes’ theories. Kalecki's theory is based on a class division between workers and capitalists and imperfect competition. Robinson also led the critique of the use of aggregate production functions based on homogeneous capital – the Cambridge capital controversy – winning the argument but not the battle. The writings of Piero Sraffa were a significant influence on the post-Keynesian position in this debate, though Sraffa and his neo-Ricardian followers drew more inspiration from David Ricardo than Keynes. Much of Nicholas Kaldor’s work was based on the ideas of increasing returns to scale, path dependency, and the key differences between the primary and industrial sectors.  Paul Davidson follows Keynes closely in placing time and uncertainty at the centre of theory, from which flow the nature of money and of a monetary economy. Monetary circuit theory, originally developed in continental Europe, places particular emphasis on the distinctive role of money as means of payment. Each of these strands continues to see further development by later generations of economists.  Modern Monetary Theory is a relatively recent offshoot influenced by the macroeconomic modelling of Wynne Godley and Hyman Minsky's ideas on the labour market, as well as chartalism and functional finance.

Current work.

Journals.

Much post-Keynesian research is published in the "Review of Keynesian Economics" (ROKE), the "Journal of Post Keynesian Economics" (founded by Sidney Weintraub and Paul Davidson), the "Cambridge Journal of Economics", the "Review of Political Economy", and the "Journal of Economic Issues" (JEI).

United Kingdom.

There is also a United Kingdom academic association, the Post Keynesian Economics Society (PKES). This was previously called the Post Keynesian Economics Study Group (PKSG) but changed its name in 2018.

United States.

In the United States, there are several universities with a post-Keynesian bent:

Canada.

In Canada, post-Keynesians can be found at the University of Ottawa and Laurentian University.

Germany.

In Germany, post-Keynesianism is very strong at the Berlin School of Economics and Law and its master's degree course: International Economics [M.A.]. Many German Post-Keynesians are organized in the Forum Macroeconomics and Macroeconomic Policies.

Australia.

University of Newcastle.

The University of Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia, houses the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), an active educational, research and collaborative organisation whose focus is on policies "restoring full employment" and achieving an economy that delivers "equitable outcomes for all". CofFEE's work is on post-Keynesian macroeconomics, labour economics, regional development and monetary economics. Research conducted by CofFEE is aimed at developing a model for new global economy that achieves full employment without the consequences imposed by the dominant neoliberal economic policies.

Major post-Keynesian economists.

Major post-Keynesian economists of the first and second generations after Keynes include:

Post-Keynesian economics is a school of economic thought with its origins in "The General Theory" of John Maynard Keynes, with subsequent development influenced to a large degree by Michał Kalecki, Joan Robinson, Nicholas Kaldor, Sidney Weintraub, Paul Davidson, Piero Sraffa and Jan Kregel. Historian Robert Skidelsky argues that the post-Keynesian school has remained closest to the spirit of Keynes' original work. It is a heterodox approach to economics.