Virgin Interactive was a British video game publisher. It was formed as Virgin Games Ltd. in 1981. The company became much larger after purchasing the budget label, Mastertronic in 1987. It was part of the Virgin Group. In 1994 it was renamed Virgin Interactive.

Summary

General summary
It published games for PC and systems, including the Amiga, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, C64, Sega Master System, Sega Mega Drive, Sega Game Gear, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Saturn, Sony PlayStation, Nintendo 64 and Dreamcast.

It helped the career of many developers, including Westwood Studios (who developed Command & Conquer Series and the PC port of Resident Evil) and Synergistic. Also, many workers for Shiny Entertainment, including David Perry, worked for Virgin before splitting off to create Earthworm Jim.
Also among Virgin Interactive alumni are famed video game composer Tommy Tallarico, artist Doug TenNapel, designer David Bishop, animator Bill Kroyer, animator/artists Andy Luckey and Mike Dietz and programmer Andy Astor.

In 1993 Virgin Interactive created the "Digicel" process, originally for an unpublished game called "Dynoblaze". Key to developing the process were Dr. Stephen Clarke-Willson, David Perry, designer David Bishop, animator Bill Kroyer, animator artists Andy Luckey, animator Mike Dietz and programmer Andy Astor. The technology was first released to the public in Disney's Aladdin for the Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis, and subsequently on such projects as The Lion King video game.

The worldwide operations were acquired in a management buyout backed by Mark Dyne who became its Chief Executive Officer in 1998. Tim Chaney, the former Managing Director, was named as President. The U.S. operations were spun out to Electronic Arts as part of its acquisition of Westwood Studios that same year.

The Company's assets were acquired by the French publisher Titus Software — its name was changed to Avalon Interactive on July 1, 2003.

In May 2002, the Spanish division of Virgin Interactive, known as Virgin Interactive España, was purchased by Tim Chaney along with former Spanish president and founder Paco Encinas. The branch was then separated from the main Virgin Interactive company, already part of Titus Software, and kept its own identity as a Virgin brand. Renamed Virgin Play in October 2002, this Spanish publisher remains as the sole representation of the Virgin Group in the video game industry.

Popular games
 Falcon Patrol (1983)
 Doriath (1985)
 Hunter Patrol (1985)
 Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future (1986)
 Action Force (1987)
 Falcon Patrol II (1987)
 Action Force II (1988)
 Wonderland (1990)
 Realms (1991)
 Corporation (1991)
 M.C. Kids (1991)
 Dune II (1992)
 Global Gladiators (1992)
 The 7th Guest (1992)
 Jeep Jamboree: Off Road Adventure (1992)
 The Terminator (1992)
 Cannon Fodder (1993)
 Cool Spot (1993)
 Disney's Aladdin (1993)
 Lands of Lore series (1993)
 Reach for the Skies (1993)
 RoboCop Versus The Terminator (1993)
 Super Slap Shot (1993)
 Goal! (1994)
 Doom II: Hell on Earth (1994) (European PC version only)
 The Lion King (1994)
 Walt Disney's The Jungle Book (1994) *Earthworm Jim (Europe only) (1994) *Command & Conquer (1995)
 Cyberia 2 (1995)
 Hyper 3D Pinball (1995)
 Super Karts (1995)
 Zone Raiders (1995)
 World Masters Golf (1995)
 Command & Conquer: Red Alert (DOS Version Only) (1996)
 Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars (1996)
 Toonstruck (1996)
 Resident Evil (Europe and PC versions only, PC versions made by Westwood Studios) (1996)
 Agile Warrior F-111X (1997)
 Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror (1997)
 Subspace (1997)
 Mega Man X3 (Europe only) (1997)
 Nanotek Warrior (1997)
 Ignition (1997)
 Resident Evil 2 (Europe only) (1998)
 Magic & Mayhem (Europe only) (1998)
 Super Dany (Europe only) (1998)
 Dino Crisis (Europe only) (1999)
 Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (Europe only) (2000)
 Dino Crisis 2 (Europe only) (2000)
 Project Justice (Europe only) (2001)
 Screamer 4x4 (2001)
 Resident Evil: Gaiden (Europe only) (2001)
 Devil May Cry (Europe only) (2001)
 Now Games compilation series (1985-1988)

References

Other websites
 Virgin Interactive profile on MobyGames

Video game companies of the United Kingdom
Virgin Group
1981 establishments in the United Kingdom
Defunct companies of the United Kingdom

Virgin Interactive


Richard Whalley Anthony Curtis  (born 8 November 1956) is a British screenwriter, producer and film director. One of Britain's most successful comedy screenwriters, he is known primarily for romantic comedy films, among them Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Notting Hill (1999), Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), Love Actually (2003), Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004), About Time (2013) and Yesterday (2019). He is also known for the drama War Horse (2011) and for having co-written the sitcoms Blackadder, Mr. Bean and The Vicar of Dibley. His early career saw him write material for the BBC's Not the Nine O'Clock News and ITV's Spitting Image.

In 2007, Curtis received the BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. He is the co-founder, with Sir Lenny Henry, of the British charity Comic Relief, which has raised over £1 billion. At the 2008 Britannia Awards, he received the BAFTA Humanitarian Award for co-creating Comic Relief and for his contributions to other charitable causes.

Curtis was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest figures in British comedy in 2003. In 2008, he was ranked number 12 in a list of the "100 most powerful people in British culture" compiled by The Telegraph. In 2012, he was one of the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous artwork—the cover of The Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Early life and education
Curtis was born in Wellington, New Zealand. He is the son of Glyness S. and Anthony J. Curtis. His father was a Czechoslovakian refugee who moved to Australia when aged thirteen and became an executive at Unilever. Curtis and his family lived in several different countries during his childhood, including Sweden and the Philippines, before moving to the United Kingdom when he was 11.

Curtis attended Papplewick School in Ascot, Berkshire (as did his younger brother Jamie). For a short period in the 1970s, he lived in Warrington, Cheshire, where he attended Appleton Grammar School (now Bridgewater High School). He then won a scholarship to Harrow School, where he joined the editorial team of The Harrovian, the weekly school magazine, and this, he asserts, is "where I learned all the skills that made me a sketch writer. I did reviews, comment pieces and funny articles where I'd try to conjure something out of nothing." While at Harrow, Curtis directed a school performance of Joe Orton's play  The Erpingham Camp; this controversial choice was given the 'green light' by his classics master, James Morwood. Later, Curtis commented that Morwood's support had helped him understand that it was all right "to push boundaries and to be funny". Curtis didn't approve of fagging at the school, and at 18, when he became head of his house, he banned it.

He achieved a first-class Bachelor of Arts in English Language and Literature at Christ Church, Oxford. At the University of Oxford, he met and began working with Rowan Atkinson, after they both joined the scriptwriting team of the Etceteras revue, part of the Experimental Theatre Club. He appeared in the company's "After Eights" at the Oxford Playhouse in May 1976.

Early writing career
Collaborating with Rowan Atkinson in the Oxford Revue, he appeared alongside him at his breakthrough Edinburgh Fringe show. As a result, he was commissioned to co-write the BBC Radio 3 series The Atkinson People with Atkinson in 1978, which was broadcast in 1979. He then began to write comedy for film and TV. He was a regular writer on the BBC comedy series Not the Nine O'Clock News, where he wrote many of the show's satirical sketches, often with Rowan Atkinson. Curtis co-wrote with Philip Pope for The Hee Bee Gee Bees' song "Meaningless Songs (In Very High Voices)", released in 1980, to parody the style of a series of The Bee Gees' disco hits. In 1984 and 1985, Curtis wrote material for ITV's satirical puppet show Spitting Image.

First with Atkinson and later with Ben Elton, Curtis then wrote the Blackadder series from 1983 to 1989, each season focusing on a different era in British history. Atkinson played the lead throughout, but Curtis was the only writer who participated in every episode of Blackadder. The pair continued their collaboration with the comedy series Mr. Bean, which ran from 1990 to 1995.

Curtis had by then already begun writing feature films. His first was The Tall Guy (1989), a romantic comedy starring Jeff Goldblum, Emma Thompson and Rowan Atkinson and produced by Working Title films. The TV movie Bernard and the Genie followed in 1991.

In 1994, Curtis created and co-wrote The Vicar of Dibley for comedian Dawn French, which was a great success. In an online poll conducted in 2004 Britain's Best Sitcom, it was voted the third-best sitcom in British history and Blackadder the second-best, making Curtis the only screenwriter to create two shows in the poll's top 10 programmes.

Film career
Curtis achieved his breakthrough success with the romantic comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral. The 1994 film, starring Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell, was produced on a limited budget by the British production company Working Title Films. Curtis chose Mike Newell to direct the film after watching his TV film Ready When You Are, Mr. McGill. Four Weddings and a Funeral proved to be the top-grossing British film in history at that time. It made an international star of Grant, and Curtis' Oscar nomination for the script catapulted him to prominence (though the Oscar went to Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary for Pulp Fiction). The film was also nominated for Best Picture, but lost to Forrest Gump.

Curtis' next film was also for Working Title, which has remained his artistic home ever since. 1997's Bean brought Mr. Bean to the big screen and was a huge hit around the world. He continued his association with Working Title writing the 1999 romantic comedy Notting Hill, starring Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts, which broke the record set by Four Weddings and a Funeral to become the top-grossing British film. The story of a lonely travel bookstore owner who falls in love with the world's most famous movie star was directed by Roger Michell.

Curtis next co-wrote the screen adaptation of the international bestseller Bridget Jones's Diary for Working Title. Curtis knew the novel's writer Helen Fielding. Indeed, he has credited her with saying that his original script for Four Weddings and a Funeral was too upbeat and needed the addition of the titular funeral.

Two years later, Curtis re-teamed with Working Title to write and direct Love Actually. Curtis has said in interviews that the sprawling, multi-character structure of Love Actually owes a debt to his favourite film, Robert Altman's Nashville. The film featured a "Who's Who" of UK actors, including Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Bill Nighy, Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson, Andrew Lincoln, Alan Rickman and Keira Knightley, in a loosely connected series of stories about people in and out of love in London in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Its regular festive screening has seen it labelled as being arguably a modern-day Christmas staple.

Curtis followed this in 2004 with work as co-writer on Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, the sequel to Bridget Jones's Diary. Curtis then wrote the screenplay to The Girl in the Café, a television film directed by David Yates and produced by the BBC and HBO as part of the Make Poverty History campaign's Live 8 efforts in 2005. The film stars Bill Nighy as a civil servant and Kelly Macdonald as a young woman he falls in love with at a fictional G8 summit in Iceland. Macdonald's character pushes him to ask whether the developed countries of the world cannot do more to help the most impoverished. The film was timed to air just before the Gleneagles G8 summit in 2005. It received three Emmy Awards in 2006, including Outstanding Made for Television Movie, Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie for Kelly Macdonald and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special trophy for Curtis himself. Curtis said of Yates' direction that he made "a much more beautiful film, and a surprising film and a better film than I could possibly have made."

In May 2007, he received the BAFTA Fellowship at the British Academy Television Awards in recognition of his successful career in film and television and his charity efforts. Curtis next co-wrote with Anthony Minghella an adaptation of Alexander McCall Smith's novel, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, which Minghella shot in mid-2007 in Botswana. It premiered on the BBC on 23 March 2008, just days after Minghella's death. The film did not run in the US until early 2009, when HBO aired it as the pilot of a resulting six-episode TV series with the same cast, on which Curtis served as executive producer.

His second film as writer/director, The Boat That Rocked, was released in 2009. The film was set in 1966 in the era of British pirate radio. It followed a group of DJs on a pirate radio station run from a boat in the North Sea. The film starred Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Nick Frost, Rhys Ifans, Gemma Arterton and Kenneth Branagh. The film was a commercial and critical disappointment in the UK. Curtis re-edited the film for its US release where it was re-titled Pirate Radio, but also failed to find an audience. He followed that with War Horse, which he rewrote for director Steven Spielberg based on an earlier script by playwright Lee Hall. Curtis was recommended to Spielberg by DreamWorks Studio executive Stacey Snider, who had worked with Curtis during her time at Universal Studios. Curtis's work on the World War I-set Blackadder Goes Forth meant he was already familiar with the period.

Curtis then wrote Mary and Martha, a BBC/HBO television film directed by Phillip Noyce. The film starred Hilary Swank and Brenda Blethyn as two women who bond after they both lose their sons to malaria. The film was broadcast in the UK on 1 March 2013. He next wrote and directed About Time, a romantic comedy/drama about time travel and family love. It starred Rachel McAdams, Domhnall Gleeson, Bill Nighy, Tom Hollander, Margot Robbie, Lydia Wilson and Vanessa Kirby. It was released in the UK on 4 September 2013. Soon after the film came out, Curtis delivered a screenwriting lecture as part of the BAFTA and BFI Screenwriters' Lecture Series. He followed that with Trash, which he adapted from the novel by Andy Mulligan for director Stephen Daldry. With three unknown Brazilian children in the lead roles, the film co-starred Wagner Moura, Rooney Mara and Martin Sheen. It was filmed in 2013 in Rio de Janeiro and released in Brazil on 9 October 2014 and in the UK on 30 January 2015.

He next wrote Roald Dahl's Esio Trot, a BBC television film adaptation of Roald Dahl's classic children's novel. Receiving acclaim, the film starred Dustin Hoffman and Judi Dench, with James Corden as the narrator, was directed by Dearbhla Walsh and was broadcast on BBC on 1 January 2015. His next film, Yesterday, was adapted from an original screenplay by Jack Barth (who received only "co-story" credit, reportedly at Curtis's insistence). The film, directed by Danny Boyle and starring Lily James and Himesh Patel, follows a young man who discovers that the entire world except for him has no memory of the Beatles, allowing him to become a global pop star by performing their songs as his own. While Barth's original screenplay depicted an obscure musician unable to capitalize on his windfall, Curtis's more conventional script featured an independent musician unable to control his own career once the music industry takes over. It began filming on 21 April 2018 and was released on 28 June 2019.

Campaigning
Curtis together with Lenny Henry are co-founders and co-creators of Comic Relief. Curtis is also a founder of Make Poverty History. He organised the Live 8 concerts with Bob Geldof to publicise poverty, particularly in Africa, and pressure G8 leaders to adopt his proposals for ending it. He has written of his work in The Observer in the Global development section in 2005.

Curtis helped spearhead the launch of the Robin Hood tax campaign in 2010. The campaign fights for a 0.05% tax levied on each bank trade ranging from shares to foreign exchange and derivatives that could generate $700bn worldwide and be spent on measures to combat domestic and international poverty as well as fight climate change.

He talked the producer of American Idol into doing a show wherein celebrities journeyed into Africa and experienced the level of poverty for themselves. It was called American Idol: Idol Gives Back. In 2014, Curtis publicly backed "Hacked Off" and its campaign in support of UK press self-regulation by "safeguarding the press from political interference while also giving vital protection to the vulnerable."

In August 2014, Curtis was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue.

In 2020, Curtis co-founded the climate finance campaign Make My Money Matter. According to Campaign Director David Hayman the campaign "is all about helping people understand the impact of their money and how helping them think that if they are saving for retirement, what kind of retirement is their money saving for? What kind of world is it building?"

In 2021, he joined the Rewriting Extinction campaign to fight the climate and biodiversity crisis through comics. He wrote a comic story in collaboration with War and Peas named "Woke". It was printed in the book The Most Important Comic Book on Earth: Stories to Save the World which was released on 28 October 2021 by DK.

Controversy
In October 2010, a short film created by Curtis titled No Pressure was released by the 10:10 campaign in Britain to promote climate change politics. The film depicted a series of scenes in which people were asked if they were going to participate in the 10:10 campaign, told there was "no pressure" to do so, but if they did not, they were blown up at the press of a red button.
Reaction was mixed, but the video was swiftly removed from the organisation's website.

In March 2011, Curtis apologised following a complaint by the British Stammering Association about 2011 Comic Relief's opening skit, a parody by Lenny Henry of the 2010 film The King's Speech.

Personal life
Curtis lives in Notting Hill and has a country house in Walberswick, Suffolk with broadcaster Emma Freud whom he married in September 2023, this was accidentally announced by Richard E Grant at Cheltenham Literature Festival in front of a packed audience; they have four children, including writer and activist Scarlet. He previously dated Anne Strutt, now Baroness Jenkin of Kennington, before her marriage to Sir Bernard Jenkin, a Member of Parliament (MP). Curtis has named characters in his writing Bernard (reputedly after Bernard Jenkin). It is claimed he used the Jenkins' wedding as inspiration for Four Weddings and a Funeral. He is irreligious.

Filmography

Theatrical movies

Internet-streaming movies

Short movies

Television shows

Episodes of television shows

Television miniseries

Pilot episodes of television miniseries

Television movies

Television short movies

Television specials of the Robbie the Reindeer trilogy

BBC radio programmes

Charity telethons

Songs

Awards and accolades

See also
 Comic Relief
 Live 8
 Skinhead Hamlet

References

External links

 BBC Comedy Guide entry
 Richard Curtis interview at the Latitude Festival, BAFTA webcast, July 2007
 Interview with Richard Curtis by Laurie Taylor in New Humanist magazine
 Stars pay tribute to Richard Curtis in a BAFTA video
 No Pressure on YouTube

1956 births
Living people
20th-century English male writers
20th-century English screenwriters
21st-century English male writers
21st-century English screenwriters
Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford
BAFTA fellows
British male screenwriters
British male television writers
Comic Relief people
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
English comedy writers
English film directors
English male screenwriters
English people of Australian descent
English people of Czech descent
English television writers
Freud family
New Zealand emigrants to England
People educated at Harrow School
People educated at Papplewick School
People from Walberswick
Mass media people from Wellington City
Primetime Emmy Award winners
Writers Guild of America Award winners

Richard Curtis


The Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area has one of the densest populations of nesting raptors. The National Conservation Area (NCA) is located  south of Boise, Idaho along  of the Snake River, and is managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The NCA covers . In descending order of land area it is located in Ada, Elmore, Owyhee, and Canyon counties.

Section 2301 of the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009, section 2301 renamed the area as the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area in recognition of the contributions of Morley Nelson, a raptor expert and advocate and a leading proponent of the original creation of the National Conservation Area.

About 14,000 years ago, as glaciers receded from the last ice age, the  Lake Bonneville crested at Red Rock Pass, Idaho, creating what is known as the Bonneville Flood. As soft soils eroded at the pass, the lake poured into the volcanic plain of the Snake River and its canyons. Today, visitors to the Snake River area can explore the house-size boulders, box canyons, and other evidence left behind by the tremendous flood. At Swan Falls (now Swan Falls Dam), peak discharge of the flood was an astounding 33 million cubic feet/second.

In the Snake River ecosystem, a unique combination of climate geology, soils, and vegetation supports extraordinary numbers of predators and prey. More than 700 pairs of raptors, representing 15 different species, nest on the high canyon walls. Nine additional raptor species use the Snake River area as seasonal hunting grounds during migrations or as wintering areas. Birds of Prey NCA is particularly important for prairie falcons, North America's only endemic falcon. The area is home to a significant portion of the species' known population.

Unusually high numbers of small burrowing mammals, which make their home on a plateau rich in vegetative cover and ideal soil, support a high density of raptors. Paiute ground squirrels, the main prey of the prairie falcon, are the most abundant of the burrowing creatures (in fact, according to the BLM, portions of the Birds of Prey NCA support the densest ground squirrel populations ever recorded). Nesting success for prairie falcons is linked very closely to the squirrel abundance. Similarly, the success of golden eagles and other raptors is tied to the great quantity of black-tailed jackrabbits. Additionally, abundant prey and deep soil support one of the densest populations of badgers in the world (up to 11 badgers per square mile).

Recurring wildfires and military training exercises at Snake River have altered the prey base for the raptor population that the NCA was established to protect. As a result, the raptor population is currently at risk. A Bureau of Land Management (BLM) study documents that nesting prairie falcons in the NCA have declined from a historical 230 pairs to an estimated 110 pairs today.

Crater Rings are adjacent, symmetrical volcanic pit craters and a National Natural Landmark located in the Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area.

History

In addition to its precious natural resources, Snake River Birds of Prey NCA has significant cultural value. Human occupation of the Snake River area has been dated to 10,000 BC. Shortly after the Bonneville Flood deposited large rounded boulders in the canyon, early inhabitants were using them as canvases for carving petroglyphs. Some of the oldest and most remarkable Native American Archeological sites in Idaho have been found within the NCA. The NCA also contains some of the best-preserved portions of the Oregon National Historic Trail and three sites from an 1860s gold mining settlement that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Congress designated the Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area on August 4, 1993, following two decades of research indicating the need to protect prey habitat and hunting territory as well as nesting habitat. The expressed purpose of the NCA, according to the United States Congress, is "to provide for the conservation, protection, and enhancement of raptor populations and habitats...." Currently, the BLM allows ranching, power generation and Army National Guard training to continue within the boundaries of the NCA.

References

External links

Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area - BLM

Protected areas of Ada County, Idaho
Protected areas of Canyon County, Idaho
Protected areas of Elmore County, Idaho
Protected areas of Owyhee County, Idaho
National Conservation Areas of the United States
Protected areas of Idaho
Protected areas established in 1993
Bureau of Land Management areas in Idaho
Units of the National Landscape Conservation System
1993 establishments in Idaho


Space debris is the collection of useless objects that are in orbit around Earth, for example broken satellites, empty rocket stages, pieces of metal, and many more. Because of how much space debris there is, collisions happen between space debris and sometimes even operational spacecraft, creating more debris.

Since the start of space programs and the launch of Sputnik 1, NORAD has an active list of all known space launches and objects that are in Earth orbit, including waste parts, for example booster rockets. This is the Space Object Catalog.

Related pages
 Kessler Syndrome

Other websites
  Space junk map tracks 200 'ticking time bombs'.
 Space debris -Citizendium

Space
Waste management

Space debris


A soprano is a female singer with a high voice. Young boys who sing, and also girls, are usually called trebles. The word "soprano" can also refer to the top line of choir music. This would be sung by sopranos or trebles. Soprano is also used as a name for high pitched instruments, such as a soprano saxophone.

In opera there are different kinds of soprano voices:
 A dramatic soprano will sing big, dramatic roles such as Aida in Verdi's opera Aida.
 A coloratura soprano will have a light voice which can bounce up to very high notes (the Queen of the Night in Mozart's Magic Flute goes up to top F (2  octaves above middle C).
 A soubrette is usually the maid or a young girl who flirts.
 A lyric soprano role needs a beautiful smooth voice, e.g. Mimi in Puccini's La Boheme.
 A heavy dramatic soprano is needed in many of Wagner's operas, e.g. Isolde in Tristan und Isolde or Brunnhilde in Der Ring des Nibelungen.
 In the 17th and 18th centuries many of the soprano roles were written for male sopranos. Called a castrato, they were men who had their testicles removed before puberty so that their voices would remain high pitched.

References

Vocal ranges

Soprano


USS Satterlee (DD-626) was a  in the United States Navy during World War II. She is the second Navy ship named for United States Coast Guard Captain Charles Satterlee.

Satterlee was laid down on 10 September 1941 by the Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corp., Seattle, Washington and launched on 17 July 1942; sponsored by Miss Rebecca E. Satterlee, niece of Capt. Satterlee. The ship was commissioned on 1 July 1943.

Service history
Satterlee escorted the British aircraft carrier, , from the Western Seaboard to the Atlantic coast, where the new destroyer joined the U.S. Atlantic Fleet on 26 August 1943. After two convoy escort voyages to Casablanca, and training out of Casco Bay, Maine, she escorted the battleships  and  to Belfast, Northern Ireland, in April 1944.

In the first week of May 1944, Satterlee underwent training for a special mission assigned to her for the Normandy landings. She was to support a crack unit of 200 Army Rangers in eliminating a German gun battery at Pointe du Hoc which commanded the Omaha landing beaches. After escorting minesweepers to the beach area on the night of 5 and 6 June, she commenced pre-arranged fire on Pointe du Hoc at 05:48, 6 June. As the Rangers landed, she broke up enemy units attempting to oppose them from the top of the cliff.

Although the Rangers found that the battery's guns had been removed before the landings, German resistance was stiff, and Satterlee provided gunfire support for the rest of the day. Satterlee remained off the Normandy beaches for the next forty days, and then joined the invasion force which arrived off Saint-Tropez, southern France, on 15 August 1944. Here she helped repel a night attack of five German motor torpedo boats, sinking one from which she rescued 12 survivors.

Satterlee returned to the east coast in October 1944 for training at Casco Bay. In January and February 1945, she escorted the cruiser , with President Franklin D. Roosevelt embarked, on the Norfolk–Bermuda portion of his trip to and from the Yalta Conference. She next sailed for the Pacific, arriving at Pearl Harbor on 16 May 1945 for duty as a gunnery school ship. She also provided escort for the aircraft carriers , , and  during night and day flight operations off Hawaii.

On 4 July, Satterlee left Pearl Harbor and commenced air-sea rescue patrol duty between Saipan and Okinawa and performed this duty for the rest of the war and the initial months of the occupation. On 9 November, she began her trip back to the United States for inactivation.

Satterlee was decommissioned on 16 March 1946 and placed in reserve at Charleston, South Carolina. She was struck from the Navy list on 1 December 1970.

Satterlee received two battle stars for her World War II service. Henry Fonda also served on the ship, as a Quartermaster 3rd Class.

References

External links
   navsource.org: USS Satterlee
    hazegray.org: USS Satterlee

World War II destroyers of the United States
Ships built in Seattle
1942 ships
Gleaves-class destroyers of the United States Navy

USS Satterlee (DD-626)


The National Library of Indonesia (, Perpusnas) is the legal deposit library of Indonesia. It is located at Gambir, on the south side of Merdeka Square, Jakarta. It serves primarily as a humanities library alongside several others holding national responsibilities for science and agriculture. The national library was established in 1980 through a decree of the Ministry of Education and Culture and the consolidation of four different libraries. It maintains the status of a non-departmental government institution and is responsible to the President of Indonesia.

The earliest collections originated from the library of the National Museum, opened in 1868 and formerly operated by the Royal Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences. The previous library building was opened in 1988 with financial support from Tien Suharto. The new  tall building is claimed to be the tallest library building in the world. It was inaugurated by Indonesian president Joko Widodo on 14 September 2017.

History

Origins

The origins of the national library date back to the 1778 foundation of the Royal Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences, the first of its kind in Asia. Through its promotion of scholarship in the Dutch East Indies, the society created numerous publications and accumulated a number of collections, including establishing a library. After increasing its collections during the first half of the 19th century, the society and its library moved in 1868 to a new location at the current National Museum at Merdeka Square. Attempts to divert some collections to the new Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) were resisted by members. Between 1846 and 1920, the library's collection grew from 1,115 items to over 100,000.

The Society's library survived the years of conflict during and following World War II. Japanese forces occupying Indonesia during the war years were impressed by the number Japanese scholars in the society and did not interfere with the affairs of the museum. Because authorities also upheld the library's powers of legal deposit, it holds a substantial collection of official wartime publication. Following independence, the society was renamed the Indonesian Institute of Culture () before being dissolved in 1962. The library was then placed under the museum's jurisdiction.

National library

Although a plan for a national library was included in the 1961 First National Development Plan, it was not sustained in the following years. In 1973, Mastini Hardjoprakoso, an employee of the National Museum library, developed a concept for the national library, but it was not immediately adopted by the Ministry of Education and Culture. However, the plan caught the attention of the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) and other information services. When a new culture director took office in 1978, the ministry finally gave its support for the project. Funding for the library was also provided by Madam Tien Suharto, who was impressed by a 1968 exhibition of colonial and national newspapers at the National Museum.

The National Library of Indonesia was created through a 1980 decree by the Minister of Education and Culture Daoed Joesoef. Four libraries were consolidated in the process: two departments of the Library Development Centre (the Library of Political and Social History, founded in 1952, and the Department of Bibliography and Deposits, founded in 1953); the library of the Jakarta regional office of the Ministry of Education and Culture, founded in 1953; and the library of the National Museum. In addition to the establishment of a national library system, the decree granted the library powers of legal deposit. The library was placed under the jurisdiction of the Directorate General for Culture within the ministry. The new library building opened in 1988.

Under Presidential Decree 11 of (6 March) 1989, the National Library fully subsumed the assets of the Library Development Centre and became a non-departmental government institution. It no longer reports to the ministry and is responsible to the President of Indonesia through the State Secretariat. The library's operations were once again revised through a 1997 decree in order to meet the needs of globalization.

New building
The new library building, which took almost three years to build, is 126.3 meters tall, and has 27 floors. It was planned in line with "green building" concepts. Membership cards and books are equipped with Radio-frequency identification devices for security and to monitor the inventory.

Facilities
The new building of National Library consists of 24 operational floors.
At the entrance of the main building, there is a plaza, four large rooms, two each on the right and left, displaying the history of Indonesian reading. The script room displays a map of Indonesia on a digital screen on one side of the wall with a recording telling the story of literacy in people of Indonesia. Next to the script room, there is a room that presents an explanation of the development of writing media as well as items that bear witness to history, such as bamboo writing media, alim wood, lontar leaves, gebang, dluwang daluwang, European paper to Chinese paper. In the hallway to the new building, there are glass cases with displays of scripts from around Indonesia, such as the Nagarakretagama by Empu Prapanca, and the Babad Diponegoro written by Prince Diponegoro. In the museum's pavilion there are also books about and photographs of Indonesia's first president, Sukarno. There is a green open space with colorful flowers leading to the new building. At the main lobby, there is a giant bookshelf adorned with an Indonesian map in the upper area. Some of the books available here include encyclopedias, novels, biographies and books on traditional fabrics. Rows of paintings of Indonesian presidents are hung in the lobby, which features a bookcase reaching to the fourth floor. Above it on the ceiling is an illustrated map of Indonesia.

The second floor there is an information center, member card making, and baggage locker. The third and fourth floors are often used as exhibition areas, while the fifth floor is to the library's office. The 10th to 13th floors are dedicated to deposits and closed monograph collections. On the 14th floor there is a collection of rare books. The 15th floor is the center of reference in Indonesia. All kinds of maps, including the first map in Indonesia, photos and classic paintings can be found on the 16th floor, while the 17th and 18th floors serve as an office for the Indonesian Sciences Academy (AIPI). The 19th floor is home to the library's multimedia room. 20th floor is to read current and old newspapers and journals. Floor 21–24 is dedicated for the collection of general books. The 21st and 22nd floors are allocated for books for military, religion, literature, novels, computer techniques, health and languages. Some of them are in English, but most are in Bahasa Indonesian. The 23rd floor offers books on international affairs, while the 24th floor for books about Indonesia. On the top floor, 24th floor there is also an executive lounge and a great place to see the panorama of Monas area. The seventh floor is dedicated to children, elderly and disabled people. A colorful Children Service room is located on the left side, while the service room for the elderly and disabled people is on the right. Children's service room is filled with books, toys, a playground, outdoor balcony and nursery room, while the latter boasts a collection of books on health as well as books in Braille. A canteen is located on the seventh floor and prayer room on sixth floor. The eighth floor contains audiovisual room with facilities of enjoying films from different genres or read old newspapers from the 1800s and more in microfilm form. This floor also has a private discussion room and a mini theater that can accommodate over 35 people. The ninth floor is home to a collection of ancient texts from across the archipelago. Not infrequently there is also a regular exhibition in the National Library of Indonesia.

Services
The library serves the entire Indonesian people and is primarily a humanities library. National responsibility for science belongs to the Centre for Scientific Documentation and Information (). The Centre for Agricultural Library and Technology Dissemination (), formerly part of the Bogor Botanical Gardens, holds the responsibility for an agriculture library. Other libraries of national importance include the library of the Bandung Institute of Technology and the University of Indonesia medical faculty library.

Under the national library, Indonesia began its own International Standard Book Number and Cataloging in Publication programs. The library maintains bibliographies of the state ideology Pancasila and Javanese manuscripts. It also develops an independent computer housekeeping system and implements the MARC standards. Both the United States Library of Congress and the National Library of Australia maintain regional offices in Jakarta.

In January 2017, the National Library of Indonesia partnered with Neliti, a freely available repository of publications from Indonesian research institutions.

Library system
The 1980 ministerial decree also outlined a library system for the country. Aside from the national library, the decree established libraries at the provincial and other administrative levels. It outlined plans for an integrated system of school, academic/university, and mobile libraries.

Gallery

See also

 Indonesian literature
 National Archives of Indonesia

Notes

References

External links

Indonesia
Libraries in Indonesia
Buildings and structures in Jakarta
1980 establishments in Indonesia
Libraries established in 1980
Library buildings completed in 1988
Deposit libraries
ISBN agencies

National Library of Indonesia


The phalanx formation  is an Ancient Greek term for a block-like infantry formation. The Greek hoplites (heavy infantry) were armed with spears, swords, or similar weapons. The mass of infantry marched forward as one entity against opponents. The system was used by city states, who often fought each other. Cavalry were rare, partly because horses were a scarce resource, and partly because the lack of space on valley floors in the Peloponnese left little room for cavalry manoeuvres. Later, the Macedonian phalanx was always supported by cavalry in the conquests of Alexander the Great.

Tactics

Early battles with the phalanx usually resulted in similar formations pushing against each other until one broke. The potential of the phalanx to do more was shown at the Battle of Marathon (490 BC). Facing the huge army of Darius I, the Athenians thinned out their phalanx and lengthened their front to avoid being outflanked. However, even a reduced-depth phalanx proved unstoppable to the lightly armed Persian infantry. After routing the Persian wings, the hoplites on the Athenian wings wheeled inwards, destroying the elite troop at the Persian centre. This was a crushing victory for Athens. Throughout the Greco-Persian Wars the hoplite phalanx continued to defeat the Persian infantry (e.g. the battles of Thermopylae and Plataea).

Perhaps the best example of the phalanx's flexibility was the oblique advance made in the Battle of Leuctra. There, the Theban general Epaminondas thinned out the right flank and centre of his phalanx, and deepened his left flank to an unheard-of 50 men deep. This reversed the convention by which the right flank of the phalanx was strongest. The new arrangement allowed the Thebans to assault in strength the elite Spartan troops on the right flank of the opposing phalanx. Meanwhile, the centre and right flank of the Theban line were echeloned back, from the opposing phalanx, keeping the weakened parts of the formation from being engaged. Once the Spartan right had been routed by the Theban left, the remainder of the Spartan line also broke. Thus by heading with the powerful wing, Epaminondas was able to defeat an enemy previously thought invincible.

Philip II of Macedon spent several years in Thebes as a hostage, and paid attention to Epaminondas' innovations. When he got home he raised a revolutionary new infantry force, which was to change the face of the Greek world. Phillip's phalangites were the first force of professional soldiers in Ancient Greece (apart from Sparta). They were armed with much longer spears and were drilled more thoroughly in more complex tactics and manoeuvres. More importantly, though, Phillip's phalanx was part of a multi-faceted, combined force that included a variety of skirmishers and cavalry, most notably his famous Companion cavalry.

The Macedonian phalanx now was used to pin the centre of the enemy line, while cavalry and more mobile infantry struck at the foe's flanks. Its supremacy over the more static armies fielded by the Greek city-states was shown at the Battle of Chaeronea, where Philip II's army crushed the allied Theban and Athenian phalanxes.

References

Army
Military of ancient Greece

Phalanx formation


An osprey is a type of fish-eating bird. They are also known as 'fish hawk', 'sea hawk', and 'fish eagle'.  It is a large bird measuring up to 60 cm (24 in) long from beak to tail. It has dark brown wings.

Description
The osprey weighs 1.4–2 kg (3.0–4.4 lb) and is 52–60 cm (20–24 in) long with a 150–180 cm (5–6 ft) wingspan (the distance between the right wingtip and left wingtip when they are spread out). The back of the bird is brown and the belly is white. The head is white with a dark stripe across the eyes. The eyes are golden to brown and the beak (the mouth of a bird) is black. The legs and feet are white with black talons (nails of a bird).

The osprey has a short tail and long, narrow wings. Males and females look similar, but males are often paler. In flight, the osprey raises its wings in an arch shape, making it look like a gull.

Conservation

Scotland
Scotland is typical osprey habitat with lots of trees and lakes (called 'lochs'). Because of egg thieves and hunting, only two pairs of ospreys were left there in 1967. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds began to protect the nests. Ospreys have returned every year to the protected nest at Loch Garten. More than 1.5 million people have been to see them.

The number of ospreys in Scotland has increased a lot, but the population has been slow to spread. This is because ospreys often return to breed near to the place where they hatched.  This has been shown in studies in the USA and Sweden.

References

Accipitriformes

Osprey


Pilot whales are two species of oceanic dolphins, whose scientific name is Globicephala. The two types of pilot whales are the long-finned pilot whale and the short-finned pilot whale. Their behaviour resembles that of the larger whales more than that of dolphins.

The two look similar at sea and are usually just known simply as pilot whales or calderón in Spanish. They and other large dolphins are also known as blackfish.

Pilot whales can be found nearly worldwide. The long-finned variety prefers colder waters, for example near Antarctica. The short-finned ones can also be found in tropical waters. Pilot whales are highly social animals, they live in groups of 20-30 animals, called pods. Larger groups of over 100 pilot whales have been observed. Studies suggest that the young remain in the same pod as their parents, which is unusual for mammals. Female short-finned pilot whales go through menopause. Females that no longer reproduce contribute to the survival of the young.

For reasons which are unknown, pilot whales seem to end up stranded on a beach fairly often.

References

Oceanic dolphins
Mammals of Asia

Pilot whale


Medianet is the largest Pay TV and cable TV operator in the Maldives. The company was established as a subsidiary of the Maldives Electronic Services Company in 2001 as CableNET. Today the company is the leading Pay TV provider in all the atolls of the country, providing more than 90 TV channels today. The company renewed itself in 2010, with the launch of 'MediaNet Digital'; through which a high-definition television and a personal video recorder service were introduced.

Services availability
The service is available in Malé, Hulhumale, near by island of Kaafu Atoll, Addu City and Fuahmulah. Medianet Hits is Now Available Natonwide for Across the Maldives

History
CableNet started in 2000 with one MMDS Station located at the centre of Malé. The company was officially established in the year 2001. When the government granted permission to expand CableNET's services in 2002, the company provided decoders to its customers and provided connection kits for installment at homes

CableNET and CableVision Merger
By 2005, MESCO's CableNET was the leading cable provider in the Maldives, with J-SAT's Cable Vision, the second cable provider closely behind. Nevertheless, due to financial problems, the two cable TV providers merged that year to form Multi Service Operator Pvt. Ltd. Due to the merger, the two companies were able to spread throughout the country at a faster speed and provide more channels.

Suspension
In that same year, it was discovered by the ministry that the Multi Service Operator Pvt. Ltd was operating without a license from the ministry, thus illegally. Even though the company had been discarded, the service was allowed to stay on air since it was a public television network.

MediaNET
In late 2005, J-SAT's CableVision and MESCO's CableNET merged once again, to form MediaNET, which was registered by the ministry.

2007 antenna collapse
On 27 May 2007, the main cable television headend that distributes the TV signals for Malé fell down. The 100-foot antenna had snapped 10 feet from the top due to violent weather conditions that day. service to the neighboring islands were halted for some time due to this incident. The company was able to fix the antenna for use in Malé within 6 hours.

Cable television companies
Mass media companies established in 2005
Companies of the Maldives

MediaNet


The human skin is the outer covering of the body and is the largest organ of the integumentary system.  The skin has up to seven layers of ectodermal tissue guarding muscles, bones, ligaments and internal organs. Human skin is similar to most of the other mammals' skin, and it is very similar to pig skin. Though nearly all human skin is covered with hair follicles, it can appear hairless. There are two general types of skin, hairy and glabrous skin (hairless).  The adjective cutaneous literally means "of the skin" (from Latin cutis, skin).

Skin plays an important immunity role in protecting the body against pathogens and excessive water loss. Its other functions are insulation, temperature regulation, sensation, synthesis of vitamin D, and the protection of vitamin B folates. Severely damaged skin will try to heal by forming scar tissue. This is often discoloured and depigmented.

In humans, skin pigmentation (affected by melanin) varies among populations, and skin type can range from dry to non-dry and from oily to non-oily. Such skin variety provides a rich and diverse habitat for bacteria that number roughly 1000 species from 19 phyla, present on the human skin.

Structure
Human skin shares anatomical, physiological, biochemical and immunological properties with other mammalian lines, especially pig skin. Pig skin shares similar epidermal and dermal thickness ratios to human skin; pig and human skin share similar hair follicle and blood vessel patterns; biochemically the dermal collagen and elastin content is similar in pig and human skin; and pig skin and human skin have similar physical responses to various growth factors.

Skin has mesodermal cells, pigmentation, such as melanin provided by melanocytes, which absorb some of the potentially dangerous ultraviolet radiation (UV) in sunlight. It also contains DNA repair enzymes that help reverse UV damage, such that people lacking the genes for these enzymes have high rates of skin cancer. One form predominantly produced by UV light, malignant melanoma, is particularly invasive, causing it to spread quickly, and can often be deadly. Human skin pigmentation varies among populations in a striking manner. This has led to the classification of people(s) on the basis of skin colour.

In terms of surface area, the skin is the second largest organ in the human body (the inside of the small intestine is 15 to 20 times larger). For the average adult human, the skin has a surface area of from . The thickness of the skin varies considerably over all parts of the body, and between men and women and the young and the old. An example is the skin on the forearm which is on average 1.3 mm in the male and 1.26 mm in the female.  of skin holds 650 sweat glands, 20 blood vessels, 60,000 melanocytes, and more than 1,000 nerve endings. The average human skin cell is about 30 micrometres (μm) in diameter, but there are variants. A skin cell usually ranges from 25 to 40 μm2, depending on a variety of factors.

Skin is composed of three primary layers: the epidermis, the dermis and the hypodermis.

Epidermis

The epidermis, "epi" coming from the Greek language meaning "over" or "upon", is the outermost layer of the skin. It forms the waterproof, protective wrap over the body's surface which also serves as a barrier to infection and is made up of stratified squamous epithelium with an underlying basal lamina.

The epidermis contains no blood vessels, and cells in the deepest layers are nourished almost exclusively by diffused oxygen from the surrounding air and to a far lesser degree by blood capillaries extending to the outer layers of the dermis. The main type of cells that make up the epidermis are Merkel cells, keratinocytes, with melanocytes and Langerhans cells also present. The epidermis can be further subdivided into the following strata (beginning with the outermost layer): corneum, lucidum (only in palms of hands and bottoms of feet), granulosum, spinosum, and basale. Cells are formed through mitosis at the basale layer. The daughter cells (see cell division) move up the strata changing shape and composition as they die due to isolation from their blood source. The cytoplasm is released and the protein keratin is inserted. They eventually reach the corneum and slough off (desquamation). This process is called "keratinization". This keratinized layer of skin is responsible for keeping water in the body and keeping other harmful chemicals and pathogens out, making skin a natural barrier to infection.

The epidermis contains no blood vessels and is nourished by diffusion from the dermis. The main type of cells that make up the epidermis are keratinocytes, melanocytes, Langerhans cells, and Merkel cells. The epidermis helps the skin regulate body temperature.

Layers
The skin has up to seven layers of ectodermal tissue and guards the underlying muscles, bones, ligaments and internal organs. The epidermis is divided into several layers, where cells are formed through mitosis at the innermost layers. They move up the strata changing shape and composition as they differentiate and become filled with keratin. After reaching the top layer stratum corneum they are eventually 'sloughed off', or desquamated. This process is called keratinization and takes place within weeks.

It was previously believed that the stratum corneum was "a simple, biologically inactive, outer epidermal layer comprising a fibrillar lattice of dead keratin". It is now understood that this is not true, and that the stratum corneum should be considered to be a live tissue. While it is true that the stratum corneum is mainly composed of terminally differentiated keratinocytes called corneocytes that are anucleated, these cells remain alive and metabolically functional until desquamated.

Sublayers
The epidermis is divided into the following 5 sublayers or strata:
Stratum corneum
Stratum lucidum
Stratum granulosum
Stratum spinosum
Stratum basale (also called "stratum germinativum")

Blood capillaries are found beneath the epidermis and are linked to an arteriole and a venule. Arterial shunt vessels may bypass the network in ears, the nose and fingertips.

Genes and proteins expressed in the epidermis
About 70% of all human protein-coding genes are expressed in the skin. Almost 500 genes have an elevated pattern of expression in the skin. There are fewer than 100 genes that are specific for the skin, and these are expressed in the epidermis. An analysis of the corresponding proteins show that these are mainly expressed in keratinocytes and have functions related to squamous differentiation and cornification.

Dermis

The dermis is the layer of skin beneath the epidermis that consists of connective tissue and cushions the body from stress and strain. The dermis is tightly connected to the epidermis by a basement membrane. It also harbours many nerve endings that provide the sense of touch and heat. It contains the hair follicles, sweat glands, sebaceous glands, apocrine glands, lymphatic vessels and blood vessels. The blood vessels in the dermis provide nourishment and waste removal from its own cells as well as from the stratum basale of the epidermis.

The dermis is structurally divided into two areas: a superficial area adjacent to the epidermis, called the papillary region, and a deep thicker area known as the reticular region.

Papillary region
The papillary region is composed of loose areolar connective tissue. It is named for its finger-like projections called papillae, which extend toward the epidermis. The papillae provide the dermis with a "bumpy" surface that interdigitates with the epidermis, strengthening the connection between the two layers of skin.

In the palms, fingers, soles, and toes, the influence of the papillae projecting into the epidermis forms contours in the skin's surface. These epidermal ridges occur in patterns (see: fingerprint) that are genetically and epigenetically determined and are therefore unique to the individual, making it possible to use fingerprints or footprints as a means of identification.

Reticular region
The reticular region lies deep in the papillary region and is usually much thicker. It is composed of dense irregular connective tissue, and receives its name from the dense concentration of collagenous, elastic, and reticular fibres that weave throughout it. These protein fibres give the dermis its properties of strength, extensibility, and elasticity.

Also located within the reticular region are the roots of the hairs, sebaceous glands, sweat glands, receptors, nails, and blood vessels.

Tattoo ink is held in the dermis. Stretch marks, often from pregnancy and obesity, are also located in the dermis.

Subcutaneous tissue

The subcutaneous tissue (also hypodermis and subcutis) is not part of the skin, but lies below the dermis of the cutis. Its purpose is to attach the skin to underlying bone and muscle as well as supplying it with blood vessels and nerves. It consists of loose connective tissue, adipose tissue and elastin. The main cell types are fibroblasts, macrophages and adipocytes (subcutaneous tissue contains 50% of body fat). Fat serves as padding and insulation for the body.

Cross-section

Cell Count and Cell Mass

Skin Cell Table
The below table identifies the skin cell count and aggregate cell mass estimates for a 70kg adult male (ICRP-23; ICRP-89, ICRP-110).

Tissue mass is defined at 3.3kg (ICRP-89, ICRP110) and addresses the skin's epidermis, dermis, hair follicles, and glands. The cell data is extracted from 'The Human Cell Count and Cell Size Distribution', Tissue-Table tab in the Supporting Information SO1 Dataset (xlsx). The 1200 record Dataset is supported by extensive references for cell count, cell size, and aggregate cell mass.

Detail data for below cell groups are further subdivided into all the cell types listed in the above sections and categorized by epidermal, dermal, hair follicle, and glandular subcategories in the Dataset and on the dataset's graphical website interface. While adipocytes in the hypodermal adipose tissue are treated separately in the ICRP tissue categories, fat content (minus cell-membrane-lipids) resident in the dermal layer (Table-105, ICRP-23) is addressed by the below interstitial-adipocytes in the dermal layer.

Development

Skin colour

Human skin shows high skin colour variety from the darkest brown to the lightest pinkish-white hues. Human skin shows higher variation in colour than any other single mammalian species and is the result of natural selection. Skin pigmentation in humans evolved to primarily regulate the amount of ultraviolet radiation (UVR) penetrating the skin, controlling its biochemical effects.

The actual skin colour of different humans is affected by many substances, although the single most important substance determining human skin colour is the pigment melanin. Melanin is produced within the skin in cells called melanocytes and it is the main determinant of the skin colour of darker-skinned humans. The skin colour of people with light skin is determined mainly by the bluish-white connective tissue under the dermis and by the haemoglobin circulating in the veins of the dermis. The red colour underlying the skin becomes more visible, especially in the face, when, as consequence of physical exercise or the stimulation of the nervous system (anger, fear), arterioles dilate.

There are at least five different pigments that determine the colour of the skin. These pigments are present at different levels and places.
Melanin: It is brown in colour and present in the basal layer of the epidermis.
Melanoid: It resembles melanin but is present diffusely throughout the epidermis.
Carotene: This pigment is yellow to orange in colour. It is present in the stratum corneum and fat cells of dermis and superficial fascia.
Hemoglobin (also spelled haemoglobin): It is found in blood and is not a pigment of the skin but develops a purple colour.
Oxyhemoglobin: It is also found in blood and is not a pigment of the skin. It develops a red colour.

There is a correlation between the geographic distribution of UV radiation (UVR) and the distribution of indigenous skin pigmentation around the world. Areas that highlight higher amounts of UVR reflect darker-skinned populations, generally located nearer towards the equator. Areas that are far from the tropics and closer to the poles have lower concentration of UVR, which is reflected in lighter-skinned populations.

In the same population it has been observed that adult human females are considerably lighter in skin pigmentation than males. Females need more calcium during pregnancy and lactation, and vitamin D which is synthesized from sunlight helps in absorbing calcium. For this reason it is thought that females may have evolved to have lighter skin in order to help their bodies absorb more calcium.

The Fitzpatrick scale is a numerical classification schema for human skin colour developed in 1975 as a way to classify the typical response of different types of skin to ultraviolet (UV) light:

Ageing

As skin ages, it becomes thinner and more easily damaged. Intensifying this effect is the decreasing ability of skin to heal itself as a person ages.

Among other things, skin ageing is noted by a decrease in volume and elasticity. There are many internal and external causes to skin ageing. For example, ageing skin receives less blood flow and lower glandular activity.

A validated comprehensive grading scale has categorized the clinical findings of skin ageing as laxity (sagging), rhytids (wrinkles), and the various facets of photoageing, including erythema (redness), and telangiectasia, dyspigmentation (brown discolouration), solar elastosis (yellowing), keratoses (abnormal growths) and poor texture.

Cortisol causes degradation of collagen, accelerating skin ageing.

Anti-ageing supplements are used to treat skin ageing.

Photoageing

Photoageing has two main concerns: an increased risk for skin cancer and the appearance of damaged skin. In younger skin, sun damage will heal faster since the cells in the epidermis have a faster turnover rate, while in the older population the skin becomes thinner and the epidermis turnover rate for cell repair is lower, which may result in the dermis layer being damaged.

UV-induced DNA damage

UV-irradiation of human skin cells generates damages in DNA through direct photochemical reactions at adjacent thymine or cytosine residues on the same strand of DNA.  Cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers formed by two adjacent thymine bases, or by two adjacent cytosine bases, in DNA are the most frequent types of DNA damage induced by UV.  Humans, as well as other organisms, are capable of repairing such UV-induced damages by the process of nucleotide excision repair. In humans this repair process protects against skin cancer.

Types

Though most human skin is covered with hair follicles, some parts can be hairless. There are two general types of skin, hairy and glabrous skin (hairless). The adjective cutaneous means "of the skin" (from Latin cutis, skin).

Functions
Skin performs the following functions:

 Protection: an anatomical barrier from pathogens and damage between the internal and external environment in bodily defence; Langerhans cells in the skin are part of the adaptive immune system. Perspiration contains lysozyme that break the bonds within the cell walls of bacteria.
 Sensation: contains a variety of nerve endings that react to heat and cold, touch, pressure, vibration, and tissue injury; see somatosensory system and haptics.
 Heat regulation: the skin contains a blood supply far greater than its requirements which allows precise control of energy loss by radiation, convection and conduction. Dilated blood vessels increase perfusion and heat loss, while constricted vessels greatly reduce cutaneous blood flow and conserve heat.
 Control of evaporation: the skin provides a relatively dry and semi-impermeable barrier to fluid loss. Loss of this function contributes to the massive fluid loss in burns.
 Aesthetics and communication: others see our skin and can assess our mood, physical state and attractiveness.
 Storage and synthesis: acts as a storage centre for lipids and water, as well as a means of synthesis of vitamin D by action of UV on certain parts of the skin.
 Excretion: sweat contains urea, however its concentration is 1/130th that of urine, hence excretion by sweating is at most a secondary function to temperature regulation.
 Absorption: the cells comprising the outermost 0.25–0.40 mm of the skin are "almost exclusively supplied by external oxygen", although the "contribution to total respiration is negligible". In addition, medicine can be administered through the skin, by ointments or by means of adhesive patch, such as the nicotine patch or iontophoresis. The skin is an important site of transport in many other organisms.
 Water resistance: The skin acts as a water-resistant barrier so essential nutrients are not washed out of the body.

Skin flora

The human skin is a rich environment for microbes. Around 1000 species of bacteria from 19 bacterial phyla have been found. Most come from only four phyla: Actinomycetota (51.8%), Bacillota (24.4%), Pseudomonadota (16.5%), and Bacteroidota (6.3%). Propionibacteria and Staphylococci species were the main species in sebaceous areas. There are three main ecological areas: moist, dry and sebaceous. In moist places on the body Corynebacteria together with Staphylococci dominate. In dry areas, there is a mixture of species but dominated by Betaproteobacteria and Flavobacteriales. Ecologically, sebaceous areas had greater species richness than moist and dry ones. The areas with least similarity between people in species were the spaces between fingers, the spaces between toes, axillae, and umbilical cord stump. Most similarly were beside the nostril, nares (inside
the nostril), and on the back.

Reflecting upon the diversity of the human skin researchers on the human skin microbiome have observed: "hairy, moist underarms lie a short distance from smooth dry forearms, but these two niches are likely as ecologically dissimilar as rainforests are to deserts."

The NIH conducted the Human Microbiome Project to characterize the human microbiota which includes that on the skin and the role of this microbiome in health and disease.

Microorganisms like Staphylococcus epidermidis colonize the skin surface. The density of skin flora depends on region of the skin. The disinfected skin surface gets recolonized from bacteria residing in the deeper areas of the hair follicle, gut and urogenital openings.

Clinical significance

Diseases of the skin include skin infections and skin neoplasms (including skin cancer). Dermatology is the branch of medicine that deals with conditions of the skin.

There are seven cervical, twelve thoracic, five lumbar, and five sacral. Certain diseases like shingles, caused by varicella-zoster infection, have pain sensations and eruptive rashes involving dermatomal distribution. Dermatomes are helpful in the diagnosis of vertebral spinal injury levels. Aside from the dermatomes, the epidermis cells are susceptible to neoplastic changes, resulting in various cancer types.

The skin is also valuable for diagnosis of other conditions, since many medical signs show through the skin. Skin color affects the visibility of these signs, a source of misdiagnosis in unaware medical personnel.

Society and culture

Hygiene and skin care

The skin supports its own ecosystems of microorganisms, including yeasts and bacteria, which cannot be removed by any amount of cleaning. Estimates place the number of individual bacteria on the surface of  of human skin at 50 million, though this figure varies greatly over the average  of human skin. Oily surfaces, such as the face, may contain over . Despite these vast quantities, all of the bacteria found on the skin's surface would fit into a volume the size of a pea. In general, the microorganisms keep one another in check and are part of a healthy skin. When the balance is disturbed, there may be an overgrowth and infection, such as when antibiotics kill microbes, resulting in an overgrowth of yeast. The skin is continuous with the inner epithelial lining of the body at the orifices, each of which supports its own complement of microbes.

Cosmetics should be used carefully on the skin because these may cause allergic reactions. Each season requires suitable clothing in order to facilitate the evaporation of the sweat. Sunlight, water and air play an important role in keeping the skin healthy.

Oily skin
Oily skin is caused by over-active sebaceous glands, that produce a substance called sebum, a naturally healthy skin lubricant. A high glycemic-index diet and dairy products (except for cheese) consumption increase IGF-1 generation, which in turn increases sebum production. Overwashing the skin does not cause sebum overproduction but may cause dryness.

When the skin produces excessive sebum, it becomes heavy and thick in texture, known as oily skin. Oily skin is typified by shininess, blemishes and pimples. The oily-skin type is not necessarily bad, since such skin is less prone to wrinkling, or other signs of ageing, because the oil helps to keep needed moisture locked into the epidermis (outermost layer of skin). The negative aspect of the oily-skin type is that oily complexions are especially susceptible to clogged pores, blackheads, and buildup of dead skin cells on the surface of the skin. Oily skin can be sallow and rough in texture and tends to have large, clearly visible pores everywhere, except around the eyes and neck.

Permeability

Human skin has a low permeability; that is, most foreign substances are unable to penetrate and diffuse through the skin. Skin's outermost layer, the stratum corneum, is an effective barrier to most inorganic nanosized particles. This protects the body from external particles such as toxins by not allowing them to come into contact with internal tissues. However, in some cases it is desirable to allow particles entry to the body through the skin. Potential medical applications of such particle transfer has prompted developments in nanomedicine and biology to increase skin permeability. One application of transcutaneous particle delivery could be to locate and treat cancer. Nanomedical researchers seek to target the epidermis and other layers of active cell division where nanoparticles can interact directly with cells that have lost their growth-control mechanisms (cancer cells). Such direct interaction could be used to more accurately diagnose properties of specific tumours or to treat them by delivering drugs with cellular specificity.

Nanoparticles

Nanoparticles 40 nm in diameter and smaller have been successful in penetrating the skin. Research confirms that nanoparticles larger than 40 nm do not penetrate the skin past the stratum corneum. Most particles that do penetrate will diffuse through skin cells, but some will travel down hair follicles and reach the dermis layer.

The permeability of skin relative to different shapes of nanoparticles has also been studied. Research has shown that spherical particles have a better ability to penetrate the skin compared to oblong (ellipsoidal) particles because spheres are symmetric in all three spatial dimensions. One study compared the two shapes and recorded data that showed spherical particles located deep in the epidermis and dermis whereas ellipsoidal particles were mainly found in the stratum corneum and epidermal layers. Nanorods are used in experiments because of their unique fluorescent properties but have shown mediocre penetration.

Nanoparticles of different materials have shown skin's permeability limitations. In many experiments, gold nanoparticles 40 nm in diameter or smaller are used and have shown to penetrate to the epidermis. Titanium oxide (TiO2), zinc oxide (ZnO), and silver nanoparticles are ineffective in penetrating the skin past the stratum corneum. Cadmium selenide (CdSe) quantum dots have proven to penetrate very effectively when they have certain properties. Because CdSe is toxic to living organisms, the particle must be covered in a surface group. An experiment comparing the permeability of quantum dots coated in polyethylene glycol (PEG), PEG-amine, and carboxylic acid concluded the PEG and PEG-amine surface groups allowed for the greatest penetration of particles. The carboxylic acid coated particles did not penetrate past the stratum corneum.

Increasing permeability

Scientists previously believed that the skin was an effective barrier to inorganic particles. Damage from mechanical stressors was believed to be the only way to increase its permeability.

Recently, simpler and more effective methods for increasing skin permeability have been developed. Ultraviolet radiation (UVR) slightly damages the surface of skin and causes a time-dependent defect allowing easier penetration of nanoparticles. The UVR's high energy causes a restructuring of cells, weakening the boundary between the stratum corneum and the epidermal layer. The damage of the skin is typically measured by the transepidermal water loss (TEWL), though it may take 3–5 days for the TEWL to reach its peak value. When the TEWL reaches its highest value, the maximum density of nanoparticles is able to permeate the skin. While the effect of increased permeability after UVR exposure can lead to an increase in the number of particles that permeate the skin, the specific permeability of skin after UVR exposure relative to particles of different sizes and materials has not been determined.

There are other methods to increase nanoparticle penetration by skin damage: tape stripping is the process in which tape is applied to skin then lifted to remove the top layer of skin; skin abrasion is done by shaving the top 5–10 μm off the surface of the skin; chemical enhancement applies chemicals such as polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), and oleic acid to the surface of the skin to increase permeability; electroporation increases skin permeability by the application of short pulses of electric fields. The pulses are high voltage and on the order of milliseconds when applied. Charged molecules penetrate the skin more frequently than neutral molecules after the skin has been exposed to electric field pulses. Results have shown molecules on the order of 100 μm to easily permeate electroporated skin.

Applications

A large area of interest in nanomedicine is the transdermal patch because of the possibility of a painless application of therapeutic agents with very few side effects. Transdermal patches have been limited to administer a small number of drugs, such as nicotine, because of the limitations in permeability of the skin. Development of techniques that increase skin permeability has led to more drugs that can be applied via transdermal patches and more options for patients.

Increasing the permeability of skin allows nanoparticles to penetrate and target cancer cells. Nanoparticles along with multi-modal imaging techniques have been used as a way to diagnose cancer non-invasively. Skin with high permeability allowed quantum dots with an antibody attached to the surface for active targeting to successfully penetrate and identify cancerous tumours in mice. Tumour targeting is beneficial because the particles can be excited using fluorescence microscopy and emit light energy and heat that will destroy cancer cells.

Sunblock and sunscreen
Sunblock and sunscreen are different important skin-care products though both offer full protection from the sun.

Sunblock—Sunblock is opaque and stronger than sunscreen, since it is able to block most of the UVA/UVB rays and radiation from the sun, and does not need to be reapplied several times in a day. Titanium dioxide and zinc oxide are two of the important ingredients in sunblock.

Sunscreen—Sunscreen is more transparent once applied to the skin and also has the ability to protect against UVA/UVB rays, although the sunscreen's ingredients have the ability to break down at a faster rate once exposed to sunlight, and some of the radiation is able to penetrate to the skin. In order for sunscreen to be more effective it is necessary to consistently reapply and use one with a higher sun protection factor.

Diet

Vitamin A, also known as retinoids, benefits the skin by normalizing keratinization, downregulating sebum production which contributes to acne, and reversing and treating photodamage, striae, and cellulite.

Vitamin D and analogues are used to downregulate the cutaneous immune system and epithelial proliferation while promoting differentiation.

Vitamin C is an antioxidant that regulates collagen synthesis, forms barrier lipids, regenerates vitamin E, and provides photoprotection.

Vitamin E is a membrane antioxidant that protects against oxidative damage and also provides protection against harmful UV rays.

Several scientific studies confirmed that changes in baseline nutritional status affects skin condition.

The Mayo Clinic lists foods they state help the skin: fruits and vegetables, whole-grains, dark leafy greens, nuts, and seeds.

See also
 Acid mantle
 Adam and Eve
 Anthropodermic bibliopegy
 Artificial skin
 Callus, thick area of skin
 List of cutaneous conditions
 Cutaneous structure development
 Fingerprint, skin on fingertips
 Human body
 Hyperpigmentation, about excess skin colour
 Intertriginous
 Meissner's corpuscle
 Nude beaches
 Nude swimming
 Nudity
 Pacinian corpuscle
 Polyphenol antioxidant
 Sexual intercourse
 Skin cancer
 Skin lesion
 Skin repair
 Sunbathing

References

External links

Organs (anatomy)

Human skin


A computer printer is a piece of hardware for a computer. It allows a user to print items on paper, such as letters and pictures. Usually a printer prints under the control of a computer. Many can also work as a photocopier or with a digital camera to print directly without using a computer.

Types of printers
Today, the following types of printers are in regular use:
 Inkjet printers, also sometimes called bubble jet printers throw colored ink onto a paper.
 Plotters are large format inkjet printers, or printers that use special pens.
 Laser printers transfer tiny particles of toner onto the paper. Most do not print colors.
 Dye sublimation printers produce very high quality images. Three colors are used. Cyan, Magenta and Yellow. Each color is printed one at a time from cellophane sheets. The image is the sealed with an clear top layer. Some small photographic printers made by Kodak and Canon use this process.
 Thermal printer is an inexpensive printer that works by pushing heated pins against heat-sensitive paper. Thermal printers are widely used in calculators and fax machines. Many 20th century computer printers worked this way.
 Impact printers worked by striking the paper with an inked ribbon. They were noisy.
Dot-matrix printers are now almost extinct. There were models with 9 pins and models with 24 pins.
 Daisy Wheel printers were a typewriter printer. Results looked hand-typed. They had no real graphics and were very loud. Few were made in the 21st century.
 Line printers contain a chain of characters or pins that print an entire line at one time. Line printers are very fast, but produce low-quality print.

Producing output
Printers are programmed using a programming language. The printer interprets the program, and the outputs the result. There are two big classes of such languages: Page description languages, and Printer Control languages. A page description language describes what a page should look like. The program in a page description language is sent to the printer, which interprets them. Printer command languages are at a lower level than Page description languages, they contain information that is specific to the printer model.

Common programming languages for printers include:
 ESC/P
 Postscript
 PCL
 GDI
 HPGL and HPGL/2
 PDF
 VPS

Cost of printers
When comparing the cost of a printer, people often talk about how expensive it is to print one page. This cost usually has three components:
 The cost of the printer, how expensive it was to buy the printer
 The cost of the consumable; the printer needs supplies (called toner, ink, or ribbon) to print
 The cost of the paper; some printers can only print on special paper
Printers that are more expensive to buy will usually be less expensive in the consumables (the ink, toner, or ribbon used by the printer).  Therefore, laser printers are often more expensive to buy than inkjet printers, but are not as expensive to use over a long period of time.  Inkjet printers on the other hand cost more to use because the ink tanks they use are more expensive than the toner for a laser printer.

Laser printers that can print in color are usually more expensive than those that only print in black and white.  Some expensive printers can do other things such as print on both sides of the paper, automatically sort the output, or staple the pages.

Printers

Computer printer


(यह लेख अनुवाद की प्रक्रिया में है कृपया इसे न हटाएँ)
The Indian Institute of Petroleum (IIP) is one of the constituent laboratories of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR), it is a premier organisation dedicated to Research & Technology development in hydrocarbon sector. The Institute has continued its efforts to grow into an internationally renowned R&D organisation, providing quality research and innovative technologies for the national and international market place and to produce technical support to the industry.

संगठन

It is situated in Dehradun, the capital of Uttarakhand state, on National Highway no. 72.Established through an act of parliament in the year 1959, it started functioning initially at New Delhi in 1960 and finally at Dehradun since 1963. In pursuit of excellence it sought initial organisational help from Institut français du pétrole (IFP), France, the world renowned petroleum research organisation, under UNESCO programme during 1960 to 1964. An ISO 9001 certified Institute, it is devoted to multidisciplinary areas of Research and Development in the down stream sector of hydrocarbon and related industry . The acquirement of ISO-9001 certification by the institute in 1998 is a step forward. It has dedicated, experienced and qualified staff out of which 132 are R&D Scientists supported by 208 highly skilled technical personnel. It is equipped with comprehensive state-of-the-art R&D facilities including pilot plants. Annual budget of the Institute, currently, is around 18 crores.Institute is recognised by many Universities to conduct research leading to Doctorate degree.

उद्देश्य

Development of processes for petroleum refining / petro chemicals / petroleum products and application Assistance to refineries in selection, and adoption of technologies and optimization of their unit operations,Evaluation of crudes & petro products
Technical services Conduct techno-economic feasibility studies and market demand surveys of petroleum products. Impart training to personnel of oil / petrochemical industry Assistance to BIS in formulating standards for petroleum products

अनुसंधानगत विषयों के प्रकार

Applied research leading to the development of technologies, products and processes in the area of Petroleum refining, Petrochemicals, Speciality chemicals, IC engines, and Combustion
Basic / Fundamental research

विशेषज्ञता

Process & product development (lab / bench / pilot scale)
Process scale-up, process design
Process optimization
Process improvement & revamping
Techno-economic feasibility studies
Technology assessment
Energy audit and conservation in chemical plants
Vehicular pollution abatement
Use of alternative fuels in IC engines
Product characterisation

कार्यकलाप

Petroleum Refining & Catalysis
Catalytic refining and catalysis
Catalyst for refining process
Separation process, solvent extraction, adsorption, membranes
Lubricating oil base stocks processes, evaluation and characterisation
Modified bitumen and carbon materials
Thermal conversion process
Modeling and simulation
Chemical /Petrochemicals Intermediates
Additives for petrochemicals industry
Process and product development for specialty chemicals
Petrochemicals intermediates
Bioprocessing of petroleum streams
Fuel Lubes and chemicals from Biomass

पेट्रोलियम पदार्थों का उपयोग

Engine emission : pollution abatements
Alternative fuels : oxygenates, CNG, Propane, LPG, DME
Engine development: improved efficiency, lower emission
Tribology : Evaluation and development of petroleum products, and developments of techniques for product evaluation
Combustion : Developments of industrial and domestic combustion appliances, evaluation of fire resistant properties of hydraulic fluids

तुलनात्मक विज्ञान

Detailed and short evaluation of crude oil
Characterisation of petroleum products
Characterisation of catalyst
Technical and support services
Instrumental analysis
Engineering services
Training
Business developments and technology transfer

कुछ सम्मानित पुरस्कारों की सूची

CSIR Technology

Production of food grade hexane by using nmp technology 2001.

Lube oil base stock (lobs) production through nmp 2000.

Propane deasphalting 1999.

Visbreaking technology 1998.

Sulfolane production technology 1997.

Business development & technology marketing 1996.

Low air pressure film burner 1994.

Food grade hexane 1993.

Bimetallic pt-re reforming catalyst 1992.

Production of benzene / toluene through sulfolane extraction 1990.

Young Scientist

1990 young scientist.

1993 federation of Indian chambers of commerce and industry (ficci).

Excellence in science and technology 1993.

Production of benzene / toluene through sulpholane extraction 1986.

Indian Chemical Manufacturers Association (ICMA)

Production of benzene / toluene through sulpholane extraction 1985.

Major Achievements

Institute has developed a large number of processes and technologies. Thirty eight technologies having licensed capacity around 25 million tonnes per annum transferred to the industry. Almost every refinery in the country has technologies licensed by the institute. Test techniques developed for evaluation of petroleum products included in BIS specifications. Established global tie-ups for contract research and technical services.
Filed 185 patents in India and 29 patents abroad.PhD degrees awarded to about fifty research fellows and Scientist of the institute by various universities. A large number of research paper published in reputed International and National journals bestowed with many prestigious awards in recognition of excellence in various fields.

References

Research institutes in India

भारतीय पेट्रोलियम संस्थान


The national emblem of France has been a symbol of the country since 1953. It is not officially the coat of Arms but it appears on French passports.

On it you can see:
 A wide shield with the head of a lion and two letters, "RF". This means République Française (French Republic in french).
 A laurel branch that symbolises victory of the Republic.
 An oak branch that symbolises perenity or wisdom.
 The fasces is a symbol associated with justice (from Roman axes.

Symbols of France
France

Coat of arms of France


Iron(III) oxide, also known as rust, is a reddish substance, an iron oxide. It has a chemical formula of Fe2O3. It is made by the reaction of iron with oxygen.  It is found naturally in the ground as hematite, the major ore which blast furnaces use to smelt iron.  It dissolves in acids. It can be mixed with fine powdered granules of aluminum in a 27:80 ratio to form thermite, a semi-explosive powder.

The iron is in the +3 oxidation state, which is what the III means. If the iron was in the +2 oxidation state, it would be iron(II) oxide.

Related pages
 Rust
 Hematite

Iron compounds
Oxides

Iron(III) oxide


Rufus Philip Isaacs (June 11, 1914 – January 18, 1981) was a game theorist especially prominent in the 1950s and 1960s with his work on differential games.

Biography
Isaacs was born on 11 June 1914 in New York City. He worked for the RAND Corporation from 1948 until winter 1954/1955. His investigation stemmed from classic pursuit–evasion type zero-sum dynamic two-player games such as the Princess and monster game. In 1942, he married Rose Bicov, and they had two daughters.

His work in pure mathematics included working with monodiffric functions, fractional-order mappings, graph theory, analytic functions, and number theory. In graph theory he constructed the first two infinite families of snarks. In applied mathematics, he worked with aerodynamics, elasticity, optimization, and differential games, which he is most known for. He received his bachelor's degree from MIT in 1936, and received his MA and PhD from Columbia University in 1942 and 1943 respectively. His first post after the war ended was at Notre Dame, but he left in 1947 due to salary issues. While at RAND, much of his work was classified, and thus remained unknown until the publication of his classic text on differential games a decade after leaving RAND. His career after RAND was spent largely in the defense and avionics industries. While at RAND, he worked with researchers including Richard E. Bellman, Leonard D. Berkovitz, David H. Blackwell, John M. Danskin, Melvin Dresher, Wendell H. Fleming, Irving L. Glicksberg, Oliver A. Gross, Samuel Karlin, John W. Milnor, John F. Nash, and Lloyd S. Shapley. His work has significant influence on mathematical optimization including fundamental concepts such as dynamic programming (Richard E. Bellman) and the Pontryagin maximum principle (Breitner 2005) which are widely used in economics and many other fields.

Isaacs was a professor of Mathematical Sciences and Electrical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University between 1967 and his retirement in 1977.

Selected work(s)
Isaacs, Rufus. Differential Games, John Wiley and Sons, 1965.

The Isaacs Award
The executive board of the International Society of Dynamic Games decided in 2003 to establish a prize to recognize the "outstanding contribution to the theory and applications of dynamic games" of two scholars at each of its symposium, starting in 2004. The prize was named after Isaacs.

The recipients of this prize are:
 Yu-Chi Ho and George Leitmann (2004)
 Nikolay Krasovskii and Wendell Fleming (2006)
  and Alain Haurie (2008)
 Tamer Başar and  (2010)
 Steffen Jørgensen and Karl Sigmund (2012)
 Eitan Altman and Leon Petrosyan (2014)
 Martino Bardi and Ross Cressman (2016)
 Andrzej Nowak and Georges Zaccour (2018)

See also
Pursuit–evasion games
Princess and Monster game
Search games

Notes

References
Yu, P. L. "An appreciation of professor Rufus Isaacs" Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications, Springer Netherlands. Volume 27, Number 1 / January, 1979
Breitner, M. H. "The Genesis of Differential Games in Light of Isaacs' Contributions". Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications, Springer Netherlands. Volume 124, Number 3 / March, 2005

1914 births
Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni
Columbia University alumni
University of Notre Dame faculty
Game theorists
Control theorists
1981 deaths
20th-century American mathematicians

Rufus Isaacs (game theorist)


Alton is an unincorporated community on the Buckhannon River in Upshur County, West Virginia, United States.

Alton is located at the junction of County Routes 32 and 11/9. The community was originally known as Pringles Mill after the local Pringle family, descendants of John and Samuel Pringle. The Pringle brothers became popular in West Virginia folklore when they took up residence in a sycamore tree and lived there until the fall of 1767, when John went back to the South Branch Potomac River valley and learned that the French and Indian War was over and that they were no longer wanted as deserters.

Unincorporated communities in Upshur County, West Virginia
Unincorporated communities in West Virginia

Alton, West Virginia


Puberty is the process o pheesical changes through which a bairn's body maturs intae an adult body capable o sexual reproduction tae enable fertilisation. It is initiatit bi hormonal signals frae the brain tae the gonads: the ovaries in a girl, the testes in a boy. In response tae the signals, the gonads produce hormones that stimulate libido an the growth, function, an transformation o the brain, banes, muscle, bluid, skin, hair, breasts, an sex organs. Pheesical growth—hicht an wicht—accelerates in the first hauf o puberty an is completit when the bairn haes developed an adult body. Till the maturation o their reproductive capabilities, the pre-pubertal pheesical differences atween boys an girls are the external sex organs.

Adolescence
Human development
Sexuality an age

Puberty


The Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry or simply the Très Riches Heures (The Very Rich Hours of the Duke of Berry) is a richly decorated Book of Hours. Such books contained prayers to be said by lay faithful at each of the canonical hours of the day. The book was commissioned by Jean, Duc de Berry around 1410. It is probably the most important illuminated manuscript of the 15th century, "le roi des manuscrits enluminés" ("the king of illuminated manuscripts"). The Très Riches Heures has 416 pages. 131 of them have large miniatures, many more have border decorations or historiated initials. These artworks are among the high points of International Gothic painting, even though they are very small. There are 300 decorated capital letters. The book was worked on, over a period of nearly a century, in three main campaigns, led by the Limbourg brothers, Barthélemy van Eyck, and Jean Colombe. The book is now Ms. 65 in the Musée Condé, Chantilly, France.

References
Bober, Harry. "The Zodiacal Miniature of the Tres Riches Heures of the Duke of Berry: Its Sources and Meaning." Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 11, no. 1948 (1948).
Cazelles, Raymond, and Johannes Rathofer. Book Title Illuminations of heaven and earth : the glories of the Très riches heures du duc de Berry. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1988.
Longnon, John, Raymond Cazelles, and Millard Meiss. The Tres Riches Heures of Jean, Duke of Berry. New York: G. Braziller, 1969.
Manion, Margaret M. "Psalter Illustration in the Très Riches Heures of Jean de Berry." Gesta (International Center of Medieval Art) 34, no. 2 (1995): 147–161.
 Michael Camille.  "The Très Riches Heures: An Illuminated Manuscript in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction."  Critical Inquiry 17 (Autumn 1990). 72–107.

Illuminated manuscripts

French literature
Religion in France
15th-century books

Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry


The foot-pound force (symbol: ft·lbf), or simply foot-pound (symbol: ft·lb), is a unit of energy and also a unit of torque.  By definition it is one foot times one pound-force.

Unit of energy
As a unit of energy, one foot-pound is the energy it takes to push with one pound-force one pound for a distance of one  foot.

1 foot-pound is equivalent to:
 1.3558179483314004 joules (exactly)
 13558179.483314004 ergs (exactly)
 ~0.001285067 British Thermal Unit IT
 ~0.323832 calorie IT (calIT)
 ~0.000323832 "food calorie" (kcal or Cal)
 ~32.174049 foot-poundals (ft pdl)

Unit of torque
As a unit of torque, one foot-pound is the torque created by one pound force acting at a perpendicular distance of one foot from a pivot point.

1 foot-pound is equivalent to:
 1.3558179483314004  newton metre (exactly)

Imperial units
Units of energy

Foot-pound (energy)


Ilmarinen is an important person in Finnish mythology. He is a very good smith who made the sky. He also made the Sampo, a magical machine that makes salt, gold and food. He tried to create a new moon and a sun, but failed. Ilmarinen married one of Louhi´s daughters.

Finnish mythology

Ilmarinen