USS Speed (AM-116) was an  acquired by the United States Navy for the dangerous task of removing mines from minefields laid in the water to prevent ships from passing.

Speed was laid down at Cleveland, Ohio, on 17 November 1941 by the American Ship Building Company, launched on 18 April 1942, and commissioned on 15 October 1942.

World War II Mediterranean operations
Departing Cleveland, Ohio on 15 November, Speed proceeded to Boston, Massachusetts, where she arrived on 8 December. During the next three months, she conducted shakedown and training along the Atlantic Coast from Casco Bay, Maine, to Norfolk, Virginia, before departing New York on 19 March 1943 for the Mediterranean. As escort for an eastbound convoy, she sailed via Bermuda and arrived at Tunis, Tunisia, on 13 April.

Assigned to Mine Division 17, Speed conducted coastal patrols off the coast of Algeria during the next two months. On 5 July, she departed Mers El Kébir, Algeria, and joined Vice Admiral H. Kent Hewitt's Western Naval Task Force for the invasion of Sicily. Steaming with ships of Task Force 85, she closed the Sicilian coast off Scoglitti on 10 July and served as a control ship during amphibious assaults.

Following the invasion, Speed swept waters along the southern and western coasts of Sicily. After sweeping off Palermo, she escorted supply convoys between Tunisia and Sicily from 10 to 23 August. On 25 August, she sailed for Algeria and arrived at Oran on the 29th to prepare for the invasion of Italy.

Invasion of Italy operations
As a unit of Rear Admiral J. L. Hall's Southern Attack Force, Speed departed Oran on 5 September and arrived off the Gulf of Salerno late on 8 September. She swept channels during the landings the next day and operated in the Gulf of Salerno on mine and antisubmarine patrols until 26 September. While on patrol on the 25th, she rescued survivors of  after that minesweeper had been fatally hit by an enemy torpedo.

Speed departed Salerno on 26 September and escorted a convoy of merchant ships to Bizerte, Tunisia. Interspersed with minesweeping and ASW patrols, she performed escort duties during the next nine months as she screened supply and reinforcement convoys from North Africa to Sicily and Italy. While steaming in convoy from Oran to Bizerte on 20 April 1944, she helped repulse a determined German air attack which sank three ships, including .

After returning to Naples on 20 June, Speed operated in the Gulf of Salerno until 7 August preparing for the invasion of southern France. Assigned to Task Force 87, she departed Salerno on 12 August and escorted an LCI convoy to the assault area off Fréjus and St. Raphael. She closed the French coast early on 15 August and served as a glide bomb "jam ship" and in the ASW screen during amphibious landings. She operated along the French coast during the next few weeks, sweeping channels and clearing harbors from Fréjus to Toulon.

Stateside overhaul
After two escort runs to North Africa, she departed Oran for the United States on 24 November and arrived at Norfolk, Virginia on 11 December to begin a two-month overhaul.

Pacific Ocean operations
Speed departed Norfolk, Virginia, on 15 March 1945 for mine-sweeping duty in the western Pacific. Steaming via the Panama Canal and San Diego, California, she reached Pearl Harbor on 31 May. Between 11 June and 12 July, she steamed to Okinawa via the Marshall Islands and Marianas Islands. Assigned to Mine Squadron Six, she swept the waters of the Ryūkyūs during the closing weeks of World War II.

Post-World War II operations
After the end of hostilities, she departed Okinawa on 1 September for sweeping operations along the coast of Japan. Arriving at Kagoshima, Kyūshū, on 3 September, she swept Kagoshima Wan and Van Diemen Strait before returning to Okinawa on 13 September.

During the remainder of 1945, Speed continued minesweeping operations in support of the Allied occupation of Japan. Her duties carried her to Bungo Suido and the Inland Sea, as well as to the East China Sea and waters off Formosa.

Decommissioning
She returned to the United States early in 1946, was decommissioned on 7 June, and entered the Pacific Reserve Fleet at San Diego, California. She was reclassified MSF-116 on 7 February 1955. On 17 November 1967, Speed was transferred to the Republic of Korea, and she served the South Korean Navy as Sunchon (PCE-1002).

Awards
Speed received seven battle stars for World War II service.

References

External links

 Uboat.net - USS Speed (AM 116)
 Ships of the U.S. Navy, 1940-1945 : AM-116 USS Speed

Auk-class minesweepers of the United States Navy
Ships built in Cleveland
1942 ships
World War II minesweepers of the United States

USS Speed


Vasily Grigorievich Vasilievsky (also spelled Vasiljevskij and Wasiliewski; ) was a Russian historian who founded the St. Petersburg school of medieval studies and was a major force in Byzantine studies during the second half of the 19th century.

The son of a rural priest, Vasilievsky was born on 2 February 1838. Graduating with honours from the University of St. Petersburg in 1860, he was appointed professor there and was elected into the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1890.

Vasilievsky edited the Journal of the Ministry of Education before founding, in 1894, the Vizantiyskiy Vremennik, which remains the chief organ for Byzantine studies in Russia to this day. He was the first to publish many medieval Greek sources relating to Russian history (Byzantium and the Pechenegs, 1872). He was also the first to research the agrarian history of Byzantium and its tax system (Iconoclast Legislation, 1878).

Vasilievsky died in Florence on 25 May 1899. His collected works were published in four volumes between 1908 and 1930. The Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary (1890-1906) noted that "almost every modern Byzantinist is Vasilievsky's disciple". The foremost among his pupils was Alexander Vasiliev (1867-1953).

References
Litavrin G.G. Василий Григорьевич Васильевский - основатель санкт-петербургского центра византиноведения (1838-1899). // Vizantiyskiy Vremennik. Moscow, 1994. Volume 55, part 1, pages 5–21.

Historians from the Russian Empire
Byzantinists from the Russian Empire
Saint Petersburg State University alumni
Full members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences
1838 births
1899 deaths
Privy Councillor (Russian Empire)
Scholars of Byzantine history
Journal of the Ministry of Education editors
Russian scientists

Vasily Vasilievsky


Giotto di Bondone (c.1267–8 January 1337), usually known as Giotto, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence. He is generally thought of as the first in a line of great artists of the Italian Renaissance.

Giovanni Villani, who lived at the same time as Giotto, wrote that he was the king of painters, who drew all his figures as if they were alive. Villani says that, because he was so clever, the city of Florence gave him a salary.

In the 16th century, the biographer Giorgio Vasari says that Giotto changed painting from the Byzantine style of other artists of his day, and brought to life the great art of painting as it was made by the later Renaissance painters like Leonardo da Vinci. This was because Giotto drew his figures from life, rather than copying the style them from old well-known pictures in the way that the Byzantine artists like Cimabue and Duccio did.

Giotto's greatest work is the decoration of the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, finished around 1305. The building is sometimes called the "Arena Chapel" because it is on the site of an Ancient Roman arena. This fresco series shows the life of the Virgin and the life of Christ. It is thought of as one of the greatest masterpieces of the Early Renaissance.

Although Vasari wrote about Giotto's life, it is not known how many of the stories are true, because Vasari was writing more than 200 years after Giotto died. Only two things are known for certain. It is known that in 1334 Giotto was chosen by the "commune" (town council) of Florence to design the bell tower next to Florence Cathedral which was being built at that time. It is also known for certain that Giotto painted the "Arena Chapel". But no-one can be certain where he was born, who his teacher was, what he looked like, whether he really painted the famous frescos at Assisi or where he was buried when he died.

Biography

Early years
Giotto was probably born in a hilltop farmhouse, perhaps at Colle di Romagnano or Romignano. He was the son of a well-respected man named Bondone. His name Giotto might have been a nickname from Ambrogiotto (little Ambrose) or Angelotto (little Angelo).
The year of his death is 1337, but the year of his birth (1267) is based on a poem by Antonio Pucci, the town crier of Florence, who said that Giotto was seventy when he died. Some people think that Pucci just used seventy because it fitted the rhyme of his poem, and that perhaps Giotto was a quite different age when he died.

In his Lives of the Artists, Giorgio Vasari tells the story of how Giotto was a shepherd boy, a merry and intelligent child who was loved by all who knew him. One day the great Florentine painter Cimabue passed by and saw him drawing pictures of his sheep on a rock. They were so lifelike that Cimabue asked Bondone if he could take the boy as an apprentice. Many art historians think this story is just a legend. They think that Giotto's family was quite rich, and they moved to Florence where Giotto was sent to Cimabue's workshop as an apprentice.

Vasari tells several stories to show how clever Giotto was, and what a sense of humour he had. Vasari writes that when Cimabue was away from the workshop, Giotto painted a fly on the face of the painting that his master was working on. When Cimabue came back, he tried several times to brush the fly off.

Vasari also tells the story that the Pope wanted to see if Giotto would be a good artists to paint some important pictures. The Pope sent a messenger asking Giotto to send him back a small picture. Instead of doing a painting, which would take many days, Giotto drew, in red paint, a circle that was so perfect that it seemed as though it was drawn using a pair of compasses. Giotto told the messenger to give that to the Pope.

Early career

Giotto's master, Cimabue, was one of the two most famous painters of Tuscany. He worked in Florence, while the other famous painter, Duccio, worked mainly in Siena. Around 1280, Giotto and Cimabue went to Rome, where there were several fresco painters. The most famous painter in Rome was Pietro Cavallini. The famous sculptor and architect from Florence, Arnolfo di Cambio, was also working in Rome. Giotto would have seen the paintings and sculpture by these different artists. Pietro Cavallini's paintings and Arnolfo's sculpture was far more realistic and three-dimensional than the paintings by Giotto's teacher Cimabue.

From Rome, Giotto's teacher Cimabue went to Assisi to paint several large frescoes at the "Upper Church" of the newly built Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. Through the 19th century,and for much of the 20th century it was believed that Giotto had also painted a famous series of frescos in the "Upper Church". These pictures show the "Life of St. Francis". From 1912, some art historians who studied these frescos more closely, decided that they were the work of several different artists (probably four), probably from Rome, and that probably none of the pictures were by Giotto. Nowadays, most art historians agree with this, but some books and some websites continue to say that these paintings are by Giotto. All the papers that belonged to the monastery were destroyed by Napoleon's soldiers, so there is no record of which artist was paid to do the job.

Vasari wrote that Giotto's earliest works were for the Dominican Friars at the Church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. These paintings include a fresco of the Annunciation and the enormous suspended Crucifix which is about 5 metres high painted in about 1290 In 1312, a rich Florentine gentleman called Ricuccio Pucci left money in his will so that a lamp could be kept burning before the crucifix "by the illustrious painter Giotto".

In 1287, when he was about 20, Giotto married Ricevuta di Lapo del Pela, known as "Ciuta". The couple had many children, perhaps eight. One of the sons, Francesco, became a painter. Giotto's fame as a painter spread. He was called to work in Rome, Padua, and Rimini, where his Crucifix can be seen in the Church of St Francis.(See right) Giotto became rich enough to buy land in the wealthy city of Florence. This probably means that he was the master of a large workshop.

The Scrovegni Chapel
Giotto's most famous works are the fresco paintings in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. These were painted sometime between 1303 and 1310. The Scrovegni Chapel is often called the Arena Chapel because it is on the site of an Roman arena.

Giotto was "commissioned" (given the work) by a rich Paduan man called Enrico degli Scrovegni. Enrico built the chapel and had it painted as a place to pray for the soul of his dead father. It was next to a very old palace that Enrico was restoring to live in. The palace has gone now, but the chapel is still standing. The outside of the building is very plain, pinkish-red bricks.

The inside of the chapel is also very simple. It is long, with a chancel at one end where a priest can say the mass, an arched roof and windows down one side. The walls have been painted with three tiers (layers) of pictures. The "theme" (the main idea) in the pictures is God's Salvation of people through Jesus Christ.

In the usual way for churches of that date, the wall above the main door has a large painting of the Last Judgement. At the other end of the building, on either side of the chancel archway are paintings of the Annunciation. One side shows the Virgin Mary and the other side show the Angel Gabriel who is bringing her the message that she will have a son, Jesus.

Around the walls, starting at the top layer, are scenes which tell the life of the Virgin Mary. Under them, in two layers, are the stories of the life of Jesus. There are 37 scenes altogether.

About the paintings
Giotto's master Cimabue painted in a Medieval style. But Giotto's paintings look quite different. The writer Giorgio Vasari says that Giotto brought about a complete change in painting, with a more natural style. Giotto would have seen the paintings of Pietro Cavallini and some Ancient Roman sculpture, on his visit to Rome. He also saw the sculpture of Arnolfo di Cambio who worked in Florence. The style of these sculptured figures was solid and natural, not "elongated" (made longer) like most Medieval sculptured and painted figures.

The figures that Giotto painted are solid and three-dimensional. They have anatomy, faces and actions that look very natural, because they have been drawn from looking at real people. The clothes of the figures are not arranged to form a beautiful pattern, like the clothes in Cimabue's paintings. They fit the figures and hang in a natural way like real clothes. This more natural way of showing people was started by Pietro Cavallini, but Giotto took the new ideas much further.

In the paintings around the walls of the Scrovegni Chapel, each scene looks like a shallow stage with actors on it. There are always some buildings or landscape such as a rocky hill, so that the viewer can see where the action is happening. The figures in each scene are carefully arranged so that the viewer can imagine that they are right there, taking part in the action.

The figures are not just shown with natural bodies, clothing and action. Giotto is a brilliant story-teller, because he shows the emotions of the characters in each painting, in both their faces and their "gestures" (body movement).
 One picture shows old Joachim returning to the hillsides, looking sad because he can have no children. Two young shepherds look sideways at each other.
 Another picture, shows the dreadful scene of the murder of the babies of Bethlehem. There is a soldier who has his head hunched down, and a look of shame as he pulls a baby away from its screaming mother.
 In the picture of Mary and Joseph on the way to Egypt, the people who are walking behind them are gossiping about them, as they go.
 The most famous of the paintings, the "Lamentation over the Body of Christ", is shown the deep sadness of Jesus' mother and friends, as they get His body ready to be buried. On Earth, the people crying and moaning, while in Heaven, the angels are roaring and shrieking and tearing their hair in grief.

A famous English critic of the 1800s, John Ruskin, said that while Giotto painted the Madonna and St. Joseph and the Christ Child, he also painted them to look like an ordinary "Mamma, Papa and Baby."

Giotto had pupils who copied his style. Many other artists were influence by him. These painters include Guariento, Giusto de' Menabuoi, Jacopo Avanzi, and Altichiero. In the next hundred years, there were many churches and chapels painted with scenes like the ones that Gitto painted. The Scrovegni Chapel paintings were so famous that many other artists, such as Michelangelo, who lived 200 years later, made drawing or copies of them.

Mature works
From 1306 to 1311 Giotto was in Assisi, painting frescoes in the Lower Church. The paintings are about The Life of Christ, the Teachings of the Franciscan Friars and The Lives of the Saints.

In 1311 Giotto returned to Florence. In 1313 He went to Rome to design a mosaic for the façade (front) of the old St. Peter's Basilica. This was destroyed when the building was demolished.

From 1314 until 1327 Giotto lived in Florence. At this time he pianted the famous altarpiece for the Ognissanti Church (Church of All Saints). This large tempera painting is called the Ognissanti Madonna. It is now in the Uffizi where it is exhibited beside Cimabue's Santa Trinita Madonna and Duccio's Rucellai Madonna. Giotto also painted a very large Crucifix to hang in Ognissanti Church.

The sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti wrote that in 1318 Giotto began to paint four Chapels at the Church of Santa Croce. The chapels were paid for by four different rich families and were given their names. Giotto painted the Life of St. Francis in the Bardi Chapel. He painted the Life of St. John the Baptist and the Life of St. John the Evangelist in the Peruzzi Chapel. He painted Stories of the Virgin Mary in the Tosinghi Spinelli Chapel and Stories of the Apostles in the Giugni Chapel. The Giugni Chapel has been destroyed. The Peruzzi Chapel was very famous during Renaissance times. More than 150 years later, Michelangelo came to studied Giotto's paintings.

Later life

In the 1320s Giotto painted two large altarpieces. The first was the Stefaneschi Triptych, which is now in the Vatican Museum. (A triptych is a painting on three panels. Some triptychs are very small and can be folded up and carried around, but this triptych is a large altarpiece.) The second altarpiece is called the Baroncelli Polyptych. (A polyptych has lots of parts, big and small. They are usually made as great big altarpieces for important churches, and have big, carved gold frames.)

Giotto travelled around and did paintings in Rome, Naples and Bologna. He always took a group of students with him. Nowadays, many of the frescos that he painted in these cities have been destroyed by damp, by earthquakes, by war and by people demolishing the church to build a new one. Because Giotto was very famous, people always liked to believe that he painted the fresco in their church. Many frescos are probably by Giotto's students.

In 1334 Giotto was in Florence where the magnificent new Florence Cathedral was being built. Giotto was made the chief architect and was given the job of designing a huge tower to hold the cathedral bells. It is called Giotto's Bell Tower and was designed and begun by him on July 18 1334, but it was not completed to his design.

As he grew old, Giotto became friends with two writers, Giovanni Boccaccio and Sacchetti, who both thought that he was such an entertaining and famous person that they wrote about him in their stories. The most famous writer of that time, Dante, also wrote about him in his book The Divine Comedy. Dante said that Giotto was the greatest painter in the world, even greater than his famous master, Cimabue.

Giotto's bones
Giotto died in January 1337. Vasari wrote that Giotto was buried in Santa Maria del Fiore, the Cathedral of Florence, on the left of the entrance and with the spot marked by a white marble plaque.
In the 1970s, some bones were discovered underneath the paving near at a spot described by Vasari. In 2000 the bones were examined by experts.

The bones were those of a very short man, just over four feet tall. In a fresco in the Church of Santa Croce, there is a figure of a man who is a dwarf (a person who is very short). People at that church have always said that the dwarf was Giotto himself. The bones that were found at the cathedral support this story. Also, the bones had lots of unusual chemicals in them, such as arsenic and lead, which were found in the artist's paints. After the bones had been examined, they were buried with great honour, because many people believed that they were the remains of the great artist. Not everybody believes this.

Gallery

Related pages
 List of Italian painters

References
 G.Previtali, Giotto e la sua bottega (1993)
 Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architetti (1568)
 Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists, trans. George Bull, Penguin Classics, (1965)
 Sarel Eimerl, The World of Giotto, Time-Life Books, (1967),

Other reading
 Norman Land, Giotto as an Ugly Genius: A Study in Self-Portrayal, in Andrew Ladis, ed., Giotto as a Historical and Literary Figure: Miscellaneous Studies, 4 vols. (Vol. 1: Giotto and the World of Early Italian Art), Garland Publishing, New York, 1998: 183 – 196.

Footnotes

1267 births
1337 deaths
13th-century Italian painters
Italian architects
People from Florence
14th-century Italian painters

Giotto


Euglenids (euglenoids, or euglenophytes, formally Euglenida/Euglenoida, ICZN, or Euglenophyceae, ICBN) are one of the best-known groups of flagellates, which are excavate eukaryotes of the phylum Euglenophyta and their cell structure is typical of that group. They are commonly found in freshwater, especially when it is rich in organic materials, with a few marine and endosymbiotic members.  Many euglenids feed by phagocytosis, or strictly by diffusion. A monophyletic group consisting of the mixotrophic Rapaza viridis (1 species) and the two groups Eutreptiales (24 species) and Euglenales (983 species) have chloroplasts and produce their own food through photosynthesis. This group is known to contain the carbohydrate paramylon.

Euglenids split from other Euglenozoa more than a billion years ago. The plastids in all extant photosynthetic species is the result from secondary endosymbiosis between a phagotrophic eukaryovorous euglenid and a Pyramimonas-related green alga.

Structure
Euglenoids are distinguished mainly by the presence of a type of cell covering called a pellicle. Within its taxon, the pellicle is one of the euglenoids' most diverse morphological features. The pellicle is composed of proteinaceous strips underneath the cell membrane, supported by dorsal and ventral microtubules. This varies from rigid to flexible, and gives the cell its shape, often giving it distinctive striations. In many euglenids, the strips can slide past one another, causing an inching motion called metaboly. Otherwise, they move using their flagella.

Classification

The euglenids were first defined by Otto Bütschli in 1884 as the flagellate order Euglenida, as an animal.  Botanists subsequently created the algal division Euglenophyta; thus, they were classified as both animals and plants, as they share characteristics with both. Conflicts of this nature are exemplary of why the kingdom Protista was adopted.  However, they retained their double-placement until the flagellates were split up, and both names are still used to refer to the group. Their chlorophylls are not masked with accessory pigments.

Nutrition
The classification of euglenids is still variable, as groups are being revised to conform with their molecular phylogeny.  Classifications have fallen in line with the traditional groups based on differences in nutrition and number of flagella; these provide a starting point for considering euglenid diversity. Different characteristics of the euglenids' pellicles can provide insight into their modes of movement and nutrition.

As with other Euglenozoa, the primitive mode of nutrition is phagocytosis.  Prey such as bacteria and smaller flagellates is ingested through a cytostome, supported by microtubules.  These are often packed together to form two or more rods, which function in ingestion, and in Entosiphon form an extendable siphon.  Most phagotrophic euglenids have two flagella, one leading and one trailing.  The latter is used for gliding along the substrate.  In some, such as Peranema, the leading flagellum is rigid and beats only at its tip.

Osmotrophic euglenoids
Osmotrophic euglenids are euglenids which have undergone osmotrophy.

Due to a lack of characteristics that are useful for taxonomical purposes, the origin of osmotrophic euglenids is unclear, though certain morphological characteristics reveal a small fraction of osmotrophic euglenids is derived from phototrophic and phagotrophic ancestors.

A prolonged absence of light or exposure to harmful chemicals may cause atrophy and absorption of the chloroplasts without otherwise harming the organism. A number of species exists where a chloroplast's absence was formerly marked with separate genera such as Astasia (colourless Euglena) and Hyalophacus (colourless Phacus). Due to the lack of a developed cytostome, these forms feed exclusively by osmotrophic absorption.

Reproduction
Although euglenids share several common characteristics with animals, which is why they were originally classified as so, no evidence has been found of euglenids ever using sexual reproduction. This is one of the reasons they could no longer be classified as animals.

For euglenids to reproduce, asexual reproduction takes place in the form of binary fission, and the cells replicate and divide during mitosis and cytokinesis. This process occurs in a very distinct order. First, the basal bodies and flagella replicate, then the cytostome and microtubules (the feeding apparatus), and finally the nucleus and remaining cytoskeleton. Once this occurs, the organism begins to cleave at the basal bodies, and this cleavage line moves towards the center of the organism until two separate euglenids are evident. Because of the way that this reproduction takes place and the axis of separation, it is called longitudinal cell division or longitudinal binary fission.

Gallery

References

Bibliography

External links

 The Euglenoid Project
 Tree of Life: Euglenida

Algal taxonomy
Euglenozoa
Extant Ypresian first appearances

Euglenid


Wesley Mouzon (August 15, 1927 – July 1, 2003) was a professional boxer.

Born in Kingstree, South Carolina, Mouzon moved as a child to Philadelphia, long considered one of the best boxing school cities in the United States. In Philadelphia, he learned how to box.

Mouzon is better known in the boxing world for his results against two former world champions: Ike Williams and Bob Montgomery. He drew  with Williams, and beat Montgomery by knockout. His career had a sudden finish, however, when rematched with Montgomery: He lost by knockout in their second bout, and suffered a detached retina. At the time, detached retinas meant automatic retirement for fighters, and Mouzon had to retire at the young age of 19. He had a record of 23 wins, 3 losses and 1 draw, with 9 wins by knockout.

Mouzon went on to train some recognizable boxing figures, such as the former two time world champion Dwight Muhammad Qawi (whom he also managed), Roy Jones Jr. title challenger Tony Thornton and Vinnie Burgese, the latter of whom called Mouzon the best trainer he had.

On July 1, 2003, he died from kidney cancer.

References

1927 births
2003 deaths
People from Kingstree, South Carolina
Boxers from Philadelphia
Boxers from South Carolina
Deaths from kidney cancer
American male boxers

Wesley Mouzon


The Robosapien V2 is the second generation of Mark Tilden's Robosapien robot. It is nearly twice the size of the original robot, standing around  tall. Instead of the original caveman grunts, the V2 can speak a large list of pre-recorded phrases. It has infrared and basic color recognition sensors, grip sensors in its hands, touch or contact activated hand and foot sensors, and sonic sensors. For movement, the V2 has an articulated waist, shoulders, and hands giving him a variety of body animations.

Overview
The Robosapien V2 model was designed by Mark Tilden and is an autonomous robot. The Robosapien V2 comes packaged with a remote, a bowling ball with three pins, and the robot. It is an "evolved" form of Robosapien V1.

Additional features
The V2 comes with a repertoire of sayings and animations which can be activated from the remote control. Features from the original Robosapien such as burp and fart are included, along with a parody of the Lost In Space robot's "Danger, Will Robinson!" and many other one-liners.

Much of the V2's internal behavior can be deduced by the blinking patterns of his blue eye pads, which change as the V2 changes modes.

See also
WowWee
Humanoid robot
Roboraptor
Roboreptile
WowWee Alive Chimpanzee
Robotics

References

External links
RoboCommunity - The official WowWee Robotics user community (run by Capable Networks LLC)
The Evolution of Robosapien V2 (in pictures)
Robosapien V2 - V2 News & Tips
Robosapien V2 Review - Blog for Robosapien V2 fans
Robosapien V2 Hacks  - An examination of the Robosapien V2's internal circuitry
Welcoming our new robot overlords - Ars Technica review
Marcus @ Evosapien - Various Robobosapien V2 hacks
 web site RoboDance for control Robots Wow Wee

2000s toys
Entertainment robots
Bipedal humanoid robots
WowWee
2000s robots

fr:Robosapien V2

Robosapien v2


Jack Irons (born 18 July 1962 in Los Angeles, California) was the drummer for the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers. He was in the original band when they formed in 1983. He left Red Hot Chili Peppers to play in his other band What Is This? with his friend Hillel Slovak. He came back to the band in 1986 to record The Uplift Mofo Party Plan. In 1987, Hillel Slovak, the guitarist, died of a drug overdose. He quit the band because of this. Jack Irons has also played in many other bands, most notably Pearl Jam.

1962 births
Living people
American drummers
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Musicians from Los Angeles
American rock musicians

Jack Irons


Hole-in-the-Ground is a large maar (volcanic explosion crater) in the Fort Rock–Christmas Lake Valley basin of Lake County, central Oregon, northeast of Crater Lake, near Oregon Route 31.

It is about  across, a little longer N-S than E-W. Its floor is about  below the surrounding ground level and has a rim that rises  above, the highest point on the east side.  The crater formed during the late Pleistocene, between 13,500 and 18,000 years ago, at which time the Fort Rock basin was a lake and the location was near the shore.  Basaltic magma intruding near the surface flashed ground water to steam, which blew out overlying rock and soil, along with some juvenile material.  As material slid into the hole formed, it closed the vent and the process repeated, eventually forming the huge hole.  Blocks as large as  in size were flung as far as  from the crater.

To the west of Hole-in-the-Ground is an even bigger maar, , but older and more eroded, called Big Hole.

See also
Crack in the Ground

References

Maars of Oregon
Landforms of Lake County, Oregon
Volcanoes of Oregon

Hole-in-the-Ground


Moral reasoning is a topic studied in psychology and in moral philosophy. It studies how people think about moral issues, problems, and questions. Psychologists who have studied it include Lawrence Kohlberg and Elliot Turiel. Kohlberg said that moral understanding develops in three main stages as a person gets older, but Turiel said that there are three domains of moral understanding that develop at the same time as a person gets older.

Moral philosophy, or ethics, is a major branch of philosophy. It is the study of value or quality. It covers the analysis and use of concepts such as right, wrong, good, evil, and responsibility.

ethics
psychology
philosophy

Moral reasoning


James Raleigh "Biz" Mackey (July 27, 1897 – September 22, 1965) was an American catcher and manager in Negro league baseball. He played for the Indianapolis ABCs (1920–1922), New York Lincoln Giants (1920), Hilldale Daisies (1923–1931), Philadelphia Royal Giants (1925), Philadelphia Stars (1933–1935), Washington / Baltimore Elite Giants (1936–1939), and Newark Dodgers/Eagles (1935, 1939–1941, 1945–1947, 1950).

Mackey was regarded as black baseball's premier catcher in the late 1920s and early 1930s. His superior defense and outstanding throwing arm were complemented by batting skill which placed him among the Negro leagues' all-time leaders in total bases, runs batted in and slugging percentage, while hitting over .300 for his career. Mackey was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006.

Baseball career
Mackey was born in Eagle Pass, Texas, to a sharecropping family that included two brothers.  He began playing baseball with his brothers on the Luling Oilers, a Prairie League team, in 1916 in his hometown of Luling. He joined the professional San Antonio Black Aces two years later. When the team folded in 1920, his contract was sold to the Indianapolis ABCs in time for the Negro National League's first season. After three years under manager C. I. Taylor, in which he hit .315, .317, and .344, he was picked up by Hilldale when the Eastern Colored League was organized in 1923.

In his first season with Hilldale, Mackey batted .423, winning the ECL batting title and pacing the team to the pennant, and followed with eight consecutive seasons batting .308 or better. In 1924, he finished third in the batting race as Hilldale repeated as champions, but lost to the Kansas City Monarchs 5 games to 4 in the first Negro League World Series with Mackey playing third base. At first platooning behind the plate with the aging Louis Santop, while also sharing time at shortstop with Pop Lloyd and Jake Stephens, he took over the full-time catching job in 1925. In that year's Negro League World Series, Mackey helped Hilldale to the title over the Monarchs with a .360 average. He drove in the lead run in the 11th inning of the first game, which Hilldale won in 12 innings. After scoring the winning run in a 2–1 victory in Game 5, his three hits in the deciding Game 6 clinched the title.

Mackey's barnstorming tours included a highly successful trip to Japan in 1927, during which he became the first player to hit a home run out of Meiji Shrine Stadium, doing so in three straight games. He was particularly well received on the tour and made later trips to Japan in 1934 and 1935. In 1931, he won his second batting title with a .359 average, as Hilldale also finished with the best record among eastern teams.

In voting for the first East–West All-Star Game in 1933, Mackey was selected at catcher over the young Josh Gibson, batting cleanup. He played in three more All-Star Games by 1938. In 1934, he batted only .299, as the Philadelphia Stars' won the NNL second-half pennant, but had a good postseason, batting .368 and driving in the first run of a 2–0 victory in Game 7 to defeat the Chicago American Giants 4 games to 3.

By 1937, Mackey was managing the Baltimore Elite Giants, where he began mentoring 15-year-old Roy Campanella in the fine points of catching. Campanella later recalled:

"In my opinion, Biz Mackey was the master of defense of all catchers. When I was a kid in Philadelphia, I saw both Mackey and Mickey Cochrane in their primes, but for real catching skills, I don't think Cochrane was the master of defense that Mackey was. When I went under his direction in Baltimore, I was 15 years old. I gathered quite a bit from Mackey, watching how he did things, how he blocked low pitches, how he shifted his feet for an outside pitch, how he threw with a short, quick, accurate throw without drawing back. I got all this from Mackey at a young age."

Mackey joined the Newark Eagles in 1939, replaced Dick Lundy as manager a year later, and continued his work with young players such as Monte Irvin, Larry Doby, and Don Newcombe. When Doby joined the Cleveland Indians of the American League in 1947, it was Mackey who recommended moving him from second base to center field.

Personality conflicts with Newark owner Effa Manley led to Mackey's departure from play after the 1941 season. He returned to the field in 1945 and managed the team in 1946 as the Eagles won the Negro League World Series 4 games to 3, again over the Monarchs, who featured pitcher Satchel Paige. Even in his 40s, Mackey was still an effective player – he batted .307 in 1945, and appeared in the 1947 All-Star Game at age 50. When the Eagles moved to Houston in 1950, he retired from baseball following the season.

Later life
In the 1950s, Mackey moved to Los Angeles and began working as a forklift operator. In 1952, he was selected by a Pittsburgh Courier poll as the Negro leagues' greatest catcher, ahead of Josh Gibson. Mackey received more attention on May 7, 1959, when Campanella was honored at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum following his paralysis from a car accident.  Mackey was introduced to the crowd of over 93,000 for an exhibition game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees.

Mackey lived in Los Angeles until his death in 1965. He is buried in that city's Evergreen Cemetery. Through the 1990s, reference sources widely reported his death as having occurred in 1959; this seems to have resulted from Campanella's recollection in John B. Holway's 1988 book Blackball Stars that Mackey "passed away right after" the Coliseum event, an apparent error that Campanella repeated in other interviews. In 2006, Mackey was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Mackey's grandson Riley Odoms played 12 seasons for the National Football League's Denver Broncos.

References

 Holway, John B. (1988). Blackball Stars: Negro League Pioneers. Westport, Connecticut: Meckler Books. .
 Riley, James A. (1994). The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues. New York: Carroll & Graf. .
 Holway, John (2001). The Complete Book of Baseball's Negro Leagues: The Other Half of Baseball History. Fern Park, Florida: Hastings House. .
 Martin, Douglas D. (1987). Biographical Dictionary of American Sports: Baseball. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. .
 Brockenbury, L.I. "Brock" (September 30, 1965). "Tying the Score". Los Angeles Sentinel, p. 28.

External links

 Negro League Baseball Players Association
 Biz Mackey – Baseball Biography and Career Highlights
 BlackBaseball.com

1897 births
1965 deaths
20th-century African-American sportspeople
African-American baseball players
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Lincoln Giants players
Indianapolis ABCs players
Hilldale Club players
Baltimore Elite Giants players
Baltimore Black Sox players
Homestead Grays players
Newark Eagles players
Philadelphia Stars players
Pittsburgh Crawfords players
St. Louis Giants players
Negro league baseball managers
Baseball players from Texas
People from Eagle Pass, Texas
Burials at Evergreen Cemetery, Los Angeles

Biz Mackey


Faust or Faustus is a character from German legendary stories.  His name comes from a Latin word meaning "lucky".  The legend is about a man called Faust.  Faust wants to have knowledge.  He meets the Devil.  The Devil tells Faust he can have anything he wants.  In return, the Devil says, Faust must give him his soul.  Faust agrees, and the Devil lets Faust have a wonderful time, but in the end Faust has to go to Hell.

The story of Faust became famous all over Europe.  Many writers from different countries wrote their own versions of the Faust story, e.g. Christopher Marlowe, Goethe, Mikhail Bulgakov, Thomas Mann.  Many composers wrote music about Faust, e.g. Hector Berlioz, Franz Liszt, Charles Gounod and Ferrucio Busoni.

The adjective "Faustian" is used to describe a person who wants something so much that it leads them into trouble.

In the early versions of the Faust story: in ballads, dramas and puppet-plays, Faust is always damned (meaning he will have to go to Hell).  This is because he prefers human knowledge instead of God's knowledge.  This was thought to be very bad at that time.

Some of the plays and comic puppet theatre from around the 16th century make up their own versions of the story.  They often show Faust as a figure of vulgar fun. The story became popular in England when Christopher Marlowe wrote a play called The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. But in Goethe's version of the story two centuries later, Faust is described as a well-educated man who wants more than just "meat and drink."

References

Faust

Faust


Heating is making something warm. It could mean:
HVAC: Heating, ventilation and air-conditioning.
HVACR "R" stand for Refrigeration

Heating devices, or systems:
Block heater, or headbolt heater, an electric heater that heats the engine of a car to ease starting in cold weather
Boiler
Cathode heater, a coil or filament used to heat the cathode in a vacuum tube or cathode ray tube
Central heating, method of providing warmth from one point to multiple rooms or apartments of a building
Convector heater, a heater which operates by air convection currents circulating through the body of the appliance
Dielectric heating, the phenomenon in which radiowave or microwave electromagnetic radiation heats a dielectric material
District heating, a system for distributing heat generated in a centralized location for residential and commercial heating requirements
Fan heater, a heater that works by using a fan to pass air over a heating element
Feedwater heater, a power plant component used to pre-heat water delivered to the boiler
Fireplace, an architectural element consisting of a space designed to contain a fire for heating or cooking
Gas heater, a heater that burns natural gas or liquefied petroleum gas
Geothermal heat pump, a heat pump that uses the thermal mass of the Earth to regulate indoor temperatures
Geothermal heating a method of heating using geothermal heat
Heating pad, a pad used for warming of parts of the body
Hydronics, the use of water as the heat-transfer medium in heating and cooling systems
Induction heating, the process of heating a metal object by electromagnetic induction
Radiant heating, a heating system which heats a building through radiant heat rather than convection or forced-air heating
Radiator, a heat exchanger designed to transfer thermal energy from one medium to another for the purpose of cooling and heating
Radioisotope heater unit, small heaters that provide heat through radioactive decay
Salamander heater, a portable forced-air or convection heater, often kerosene-fueled, used in ventilated areas for worksite comfort
Solar furnace a structure used to harness the sun's rays to produce very high temperatures
Solar heating, the usage of solar energy to provide process, space or water heating
Storage heater, an electrical appliance which stores heat at a time when base load electricity is available at a low price
Water heating, the heating of water for residential, commercial or industrial use

Heating


The white-eyed gull (Larus leucophthalmus) is a small gull that is endemic to the Red Sea. Its closest relative is the sooty gull. The species is classed as Least Concern by the IUCN; human pressure and oil pollution are deemed the major threats. As is the case with many gulls, it has traditionally been placed in the genus Larus.

Morphology

Adult white-eyed gulls have a black hood in breeding plumage, which extends down onto the upper throat, and on the neck-sides is bordered below by a narrow white bar. The upperparts and inner upperwings are medium-dark grey; the breast is mid-grey but the rest of the underparts are white. The secondaries are black with a white trailing edge, and the primaries are black. The underwing is dark and the tail white. Adults in non-breeding plumage are similar, but the hood is flecked white small white spots.

The white-eyed gull acquires adult plumage at two to three years of age. Juvenile birds have a very different plumage—chocolate brown on the head, neck and breast, and with brown, broadly pale-fringed, feathers to the upperparts and upperwings, and a black tail. In their first winter, birds acquire greyer feathering on their head, breast and upperparts; the second-winter plumage is closer to that of the adult, but lacking the hood.

A distinctive feature of white-eyed gull at all ages is its long slender bill. This is black in younger birds, but in adults it is deep red with a black tip. The legs are yellow—dullest in younger birds, brightest in breeding plumaged adults. The eye itself is not white; the bird takes its name from white eye-crescents, which are present at all ages.

Distribution
The white-eyed gull breeds on inshore islands with rocks and sandy beaches, such as the Siyal Islands, in the Red Sea from July to September. For the rest of the year it occurs throughout the Red Sea, with some birds travelling to Oman and Somalia.

References

 Malling Olsen, Klaus and Hans Larsson (2004) Gulls of Europe, Asia and North America
 BirdLife International. 2018. Larus leucophthalmus. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2018: e.T22694299A132335382. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2018-2.RLTS.T22694299A132335382.en. Accessed on 16 April 2023.

white-eyed gull
Birds of East Africa
Birds of the Arabian Peninsula
white-eyed gull
Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN
Taxa named by Coenraad Jacob Temminck

White-eyed gull


Ballet Master (also Balletmaster, Ballet Mistress, Premier Maître de ballet or Premier Maître de ballet en Chef) is an employee of a ballet company. The Ballet Master  is responsible for keeping the dancers in the company to a high level of competence.

Ballet masters (or ballet mistresses for women) teach the daily company ballet class. They rehearse the dancers for both new and old ballets in the company's repertoire. The artistic director of a ballet company may also be called its ballet master.

Ballet
Entertainment occupations

Ballet Master


Jean-Marie Balestre (; 9 April 1921 – 27 March 2008) was a French auto racing administrator, who became President of the Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile (FISA) from 1978 to 1991 and President of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) from 1985 to 1993.

Early life
Balestre was born at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Bouches-du-Rhône. He studied law in Paris, and afterwards worked as a journalist on a number of publications.

World War II
Details of Balestre's activities during World War II are unknown. He was a member of the French Nazi division of the SS, but later claimed to have been an undercover agent for the French Resistance, and received the Legion of Honour for services to France in 1968.

Career
After the war, he worked as a journalist for Robert Hersant at a successful French automobile magazine called L'Auto-Journal. Balestre continued to work with Hersant as he expanded his publishing operations, which made Balestre a wealthy individual. He was a founding member of the Fédération Française du Sport Automobile, a French national motorsport organization, in 1950, and in 1961 became the first president of the International Karting Commission of the FIA. He was elected president of the FFSA in 1973 and president of the FIA's International Sporting Commission in 1978. He was instrumental in transforming the International Sporting Commission into the Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile (FISA) in 1978.

In the late 1970s, photographs began to circulate of Balestre wearing a German SS uniform, and he took unsuccessful legal action to suppress their publication.

Balestre was heavily involved in what is colloquially called the FISA–FOCA war, a political battle over finances and control of the Formula One World Championships between 1980 and 1982. Balestre and his opponent, Bernie Ecclestone, settled the dispute after Enzo Ferrari brokered a compromise. Balestre signed the first Concorde Agreement, under which FOCA was granted the commercial rights to Formula One while the FIA retained control of all sporting and technical regulations.

In 1986, a few hours after the death of Henri Toivonen and Sergio Cresto in a crash, Balestre announced the unilateral decision of FISA to ban Group B rallying in favour of the slower, less technically advanced Group A. Despite this decision, WRC driver fatalities peaked in 1989.

Balestre is credited with establishing specific crash test requirements for Formula One cars, significantly improving the safety of the sport. He was also a key proponent of the switch to naturally aspirated engines in 1989, also arguing that such a move was essential for safety reasons.

However, Balestre has also been accused of using his power for more than it was intended. In , after Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost collided at Suzuka, there were implications in Autosport magazine that Balestre was involved in manipulating the World Championship in favor of Prost, as Senna would be disqualified from the race, fined, and suspended. This ultimately led to Max Mosley's decision to run for the FISA presidency. Senna fell out with Balestre who threatened to revoke his super license but was included on the 1990 entry list. However, when Senna deliberately collided with Prost in 1990 at the same circuit, Balestre did not intervene or sanction the Brazilian. Years later, after leaving the presidency of FIA, Balestre admitted to having acted to benefit Prost in 1989.

Balestre was elected as president of the FIA, while remaining president of FISA, in 1986. He was replaced as president of FISA in 1991 when he lost the election to Max Mosley in October by a vote of 43 to 29. Facing certain defeat in the re-election to the FIA presidency in October 1993, Balestre elected to stand down, and proposed that FISA be abolished and Mosley replace him as president of the FIA. Balestre maintained the presidency of the FFSA until the end of 1996.

Death
Balestre died on 27 March 2008, aged 86.

References

1921 births
2008 deaths
People from Saint-Rémy-de-Provence
Formula One people
French collaborators with Nazi Germany
Auto racing executives
French motorsport people
Presidents of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile
Sportspeople from Bouches-du-Rhône

Jean-Marie Balestre


The February 1848 Revolution in France ended the reign of King Louis-Philippe, and led to the creation of the French Second Republic (1848-1852).

The revolution established the principle of the "right to work" (droit au travail), and decided to establish "National Workshops" for the unemployed. At the same time a sort of industrial parliament was established at the Luxembourg Palace, under the presidency of Louis Blanc. Tensions between liberal Orleanist and Radical Republicans and Socialists would cause the June Days Uprising a few months later.

Meanwhile the revolution inspired other European Revolutions of 1848.

The End of the Revolution in France

The era of revolution in France came to an end when Louis Napoleon dissolved the National Assembly without having the constitutional right to do so, and became the sole ruler of France. In 1852 he reestablished the empire and took the title Emperors Napoleon III.

1848 Revolution in literature

 Karl Marx's Essay The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852) describes the 1848 revolution as a class struggle.

1848 in Europe
1840s in France
Democracy movements
Revolutions

French Revolution of 1848


Abdullah (died c. 1359) was the leader of the Qara'unas (1358–1359) and the ruler of the Chagatai ulus (1358). He was the son of Amir Qazaghan.

After Qazaghan had taken control of the Chagatai ulus in around 1346, he appointed Abdullah as governor of Samarkand. During his father's lifetime, Abdullah led an expedition against Khwarazm, although Qazaghan had been against it. When the latter died in 1358 Abdullah succeeded him. Unlike his father, he had an active interest in the tribes of the northern part of the ulus. Qazaghan, whose power base had been in the southern portion of the ulus, had tended to leave the northern tribes alone; Abdullah was not content to do the same. The northern tribes bitterly resented his attempts to curtail their power.

Abdullah's decision to keep his capital in Samarkand proved to be his undoing. The Barlas and Suldus tribes, both located near the city, hated the prospect of a strong Qara'unas presence in their immediate vicinity. Together the leaders of the Barlas and Suldus, Hajji Beg and Buyan Suldus, revolted and drove Abdullah out of power; he returned to the territories of the Qara'unas and died soon afterwards. The victorious parties often cited Abdullah's treatment of Bayan Quli as a pretext for their revolt. Bayan Quli had been Qazaghan's puppet khan; soon after Qazaghan's death Abdullah desired Bayan Quli's wife and had him executed. In any case, Buyan Suldus was installed as amir of the ulus, while both Abdullah's brothers and Shah Temur, who had been raised by Abdullah to the khanship following Bayan Quli's execution, were killed.

References

Manz, Beatrice Forbes, The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane. Cambridge University Press, 1989, .

Mongol Empire people
1359 deaths
Mongol Empire Muslims
Year of birth unknown
Place of birth unknown
Date of death unknown
Place of death unknown
14th-century monarchs in Asia
Chagatai khans
1350s in the Mongol Empire

Abdullah (Chagatai Khanate)


The United States Census of 1800 was the second Census in the United States. It was done on August 4, 1800.

It showed that 5,308,483 people were living in the United States. 893,602 were slaves. The 1800 Census included the new District of Columbia. The census for the following states were lost: Georgia, Kentucky, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Virginia.

1800
1800s in the United States
United States Census

1800 United States census


Field Marshal Alan Francis Brooke, 1st Viscoont Alanbrooke KG, GCB, OM, GCVO, DSO & Bar (23 Julie 1883 – 17 Juin 1963) wis a senior commander in the Breetish Airmy. He wis the Chief o the Imperial General Staff durin the Seicont Warld War, an wis promotit Field Marshal in 1944. As chairman o the Chiefs o Staff Committee, Brooke wis the foremaist military advisor tae Prime Meenister Winston Churchill, an in the role o co-ordinator o the Breetish military efforts wis an important but no aaways well-kent contributor tae the Allies' victory in 1945. Efter reteerin frae the airmy he served as Lord Hie Constable o Ingland durin the coronation o Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.

His war diaries attractit attention for thair criticism o Churchill an for Brooke's fortricht views on ither leadin figures o the war.

1883 births
1963 daiths
Breetish field marshals
Breetish Airmy personnel o Warld War I
Ryal Artillery officers
Breetish Warld War II Field Marshals
Knichts Grand Cross o the Order o the Bath
Knichts Grand Cross o the Order o the Netherlands Lion
Knichts Grand Cross o the Ryal Victorian Order
Knichts o the Gairten
Recipients o the Order o Polonia Restituta
Recipients o the Croix de Guerre (Belgium)
Recipients o the Order o Leopold (Belgium)
Order o the Redeemer
Recipients o the Order o Suvorov
Laird Heich Constables
Laird-Lieutenants o the Coonty o Lunnon
Members o the Order o Meerit
Fowk associatit wi Queen's University Belfast
Foreign recipients o the Distinguished Service Medal (Unitit States)
Viscoonts in the Peerage o the Unitit Kinrick
Brooke, Alan
Woolwich graduates
Anglo-Persian Oil Company
BP fowk
Companions o the Distinguished Service Order an Bar
Birdwatchers

Alan Brooke, 1st Viscoont Alanbrooke


Samul nori is a Korean traditional musical performance, which is performed with four percussion instruments: Jing, Janggu, Buk (the drum in Korean), Kkwaenggwari. The performance includes dancing. Specifically, in Samul, sa means "four", and mul means "object" in Korean, and nori means "to play". Considering the meaning of Samul nori, this is one kind of playful and casual art performance done in public. In the past, Korean people usually play Samul nori when they work in agricultural area to relax after working.

Nowadays, some Korean people who play Korean traditional music try to boost Samul nori. Famous samul-nori performances are Kim duk soo Samul nori and Namsadang nori. Namsadang Nori was chosen as a UNESCO Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. In addition, some Koreans are trying to transform Samul nori to modern styles by mixing this with other modern performances. For example, there were TV shows where Samul nori performers were dancing with pop singers or DJs.

Furthermore, other than mixing Samul nori with modern performances, some Korean people try to create new performance inspired by Samul nori. For example, Nanta, a performance of sounds made by hitting everyday objects, is inspired by Samul nori. Also, there is Nori dan, social enterprise in Korea, which play recycled garbage as musical instruments by hitting them.

Korean music

Samul nori


The Grand Coulee used to be a river in the U.S. state of Washington. This dry river stretches for sixty miles from the Grand Coulee Dam to Soap Lake. A feature known as Dry Falls divides the Coulee into two parts. Dry Falls is thought to be the remains of the largest waterfall ever, two or three times higher than Niagara Falls.

Geological history
The Grand Coulee is granite bedrock which is 40 to 60  million years old. The volcanic basalt is  thick. The coulee is said to have been made when the Columbia River was blocked by a large glacier. At the end of the last ice age the Columbia River went back to its old route and left the coulee. The coulee is a mile wide and was formed by a river that now flows a different way.

Modern Uses

The area surrounding the Grand Coulee is shrub land. It has a rainfall of twelve inches per year. The Lower Grand Coulee contains the Park, Blue, Alkali, Lenore, and Soap lakes. Until recently, the Upper Coulee was dry.

The Columbia Basin Project dammed the river in 1952. It used the Grand Coulee as an irrigation network.  The Upper Grand Coulee was dammed and made Banks Lake. The lake is filled by pumps from the Grand Coulee Dam. Banks Lake feeds a hundred-mile (160 km) irrigation system.

References

Geography of Washington (state)

Grand Coulee


Babi ngepet () is boar demon in Indonesian mythology. Babi ngepet are commonly known in Java and Bali.

Outline
According to local myth, the creature is believed to be the manifestation of a person practising pesugihan babi black magic. Pesugihan is derived from the Javanese word sugih meaning "rich". It is a kind of magic to help people become rich instantly, but in exchange they must sacrifice something. In this case they must sacrifice their humanity; allowing themselves to be transformed into a boar for a period of time, or allowing themselves to be possessed by a boar demon. The human-animal transformation is similar to shapeshifting or the werewolf concept in the West.

Transformation
Some of the myths told about a man enveloped in black robes before miraculously turning into this creature. After the transformation, the demon boar roams around the village, scratching its body against the wall, door, cupboard, or furniture. Magically the belongings of the villagers, such as money, gold, and jewellery will disappear and be magically carried away by the Babi Ngepet. If the mission was successful, by the time Babi Ngepet safely returns home and transforms back into their human form, the black robes will be filled with the stolen money or jewellery.

The person that practices Babi Ngepet black magic needs assistance from another person. The assistant's task is to stay home and guard the lit candle floating on a basin of water, while the Babi Ngepet is in action. If the candle flame is shaking, fading or almost out, it is the sign that the Babi Ngepet is in danger, caught in the act by villagers, or turned back into their human form. Because of this belief, Javanese villagers often chase or even kill any boar wandering around the village at night.

Interpretation
The skeptical view is that it was probably a traditional way to explain the unexplainable loss of fortune or a mysterious theft in the village, by blaming the wild boar roaming the village in the night. Or probably it was a means of traditional pest control; to get rid of wild boars from eating and destroying rice fields or barns. The association of the boar with magic concerning fortune probably originated from Javanese pre-Islamic and pre-Hindu-Buddhist beliefs that associate the boar with domestic richness, fortune and prosperity, similar to its connections with Celengan, which means piggy bank in Javanese.  The word Celengan is derived from word Celeng which means boar.

See also
 Aswang
 Tuyul
 Werewolf

References

Javanese mythology
Shapeshifting
Mythological pigs
Indonesian legendary creatures

Babi ngepet


Argyroxiphium sandwicense subsp. macrocephalum, the east Maui silversword or Haleakala silversword, is a rare plant, part of the family Asteraceae.  The silversword in general is referred to as āhinahina in Hawaiian (literally, "very gray").

Distribution
The Haleakala silversword is found on the island of Maui at elevations above  on the dormant Haleakalā volcanoon the summit depression, the rim summits, and surrounding slopesin Haleakalā National Park.
The Haleakala silversword has been a threatened species as defined by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, since May 15, 1992. Prior to that time, excessive grazing by cattle and goats, and vandalism inflicted by people in the 1920s, had caused its near extinction. Since strict monitoring and governmental protection took effect,  the species' recovery is considered a successful conservation story, although threats remain.

Description
The Haleakala silversword, Argyroxiphium sandwicense subsp. macrocephalum, has numerous sword-like succulent leaves covered with silver hairs.  Silversword plants in general grow on volcanic cinder, a dry, rocky substrate that is subject to freezing temperatures and high winds.  The skin and hairs are strong enough to resist the wind and freezing temperature of this altitude and protect the plant from dehydration and the sun.

The plant's base of leaves, arranged in a spherical formation at ground level of the plant, dominates for the majority of the plant's lifewhich may be greater than 50 years. The leaves are arranged so that they and the hairs of the leaves can raise the temperature of the shoot-tip leaves up to 20 °C (68 °F), having adapted to the extreme high-altitude temperatures by focusing the sunlight to converge at this point and warm the plant.

The other subspecies, Argyroxiphium sandwicense subsp. sandwicense (Mauna Kea silversword), is found on Mauna Kea. They differ primarily in the inflorescence shapebroader in the Haleakalā plants (less than 4 times as long as wide) and narrower on Mauna Kea (4.3–8.6 times as long as wide). The Haleakala subspecies also generally has more ray florets, 11–42 versus 5–20 for Mauna Kea.

Lifecycle

At senescence, which often occurs when the plant reaches a diameter of approximately , the plant produces a tall stalk in just a few weeks of maroon ray flowers which resemble the sunflower. Flowering usually occurs from July through October. The leaves become limp and dry as the monocarpic plant then goes to seed and dies.

The flowering stalk may have up to 600 heads of up to 40 outlying ray flowers and 600 disk flowers and is pollinated by flying insects like Hylaeus (Nesoprosopis) volcanicus. The flower stalk can reach up to  in height and has numerous tiny sticky hairs to prevent crawling insects from damaging the plant. Seeding is a critical time because damage to the flowers or stalk by insects before the seeds can mature can jeopardize the plant's entire reproductive output.

History and conservation
Before the National Park Service was granted control of Haleakalā volcano, visitors to the volcano's summit often participated in the common practice of uprooting a silversword plant and then rolling it on the jagged lava rock terrain, drying the flowers for arrangements, or using the plant as kindling. Because the delicate, shallow root structure can be crushed by walking in the rocks around the plant, they are very sensitive to foreign elements. Feeding by goats also severely damaged many plants and prevented reproduction.  Ungulates are now fenced out of the crater area and the species is legally protected from damage by humans.

Gallery

See also
Silversword alliance

References

Reference links
Ka'ahele Hawai'i Native Plants
Federal recovery plan
Hawaiian Silversword Alliance, UH Botany

External links
USDA Plants Profile for Argyroxiphium sandwicense subsp. macrocephalum (Hawai'i silversword)
USGS: Haleakalā Silversword (Argyroxiphium sandwicense subsp. macrocephalum)

sandwicense subsp. macrocephalum
Endemic flora of Hawaii
Biota of Maui
Haleakalā National Park
Plant subspecies


Davis Wasgatt Clark (February 25, 1812 – May 23, 1871) was an American Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, elected in 1864; the first President of the Freedman's Aid Society; and the namesake of Clark Atlanta University, an HBCU.

Birth and early life
Clark was born on Mount Desert Island, Hancock County, Maine. He was a grandson of Davis Wasgatt, a soldier of the American Revolutionary War.  Influenced by the family altar, at the age of 16 he joined the first Methodist Class formed by the Rev. David Stimson on Mount Desert Island.

Education
Clark graduated from Kents Hill School in 1833. He then graduated from Wesleyan University of Connecticut in 1836.

Ordained ministry
After some years of teaching at Amenia Seminary in New York, Clark joined the traveling ministry of the New York Annual Conference in 1843. He served as pastor, educator and editor, including time spent as the editor of the Ladies' Repository, a Methodist Episcopal women's magazine. This appointment was spent in Cincinnati.

Episcopal ministry
Clark was elected a bishop in 1864. In 1866 he was called upon to serve as a mediator to reunite the northern and southern branches of the M.E. Church. He also played an important role in healing the spiritual wounds created by the American Civil War.

He was the first president of the Freedman's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Clark College, founded in 1869, was named in his honor. In 1877, the school was chartered as Clark University and its first degree was conferred in 1880. Clark University was the United States' first four-year liberal arts college to serve a predominately Black student population. The school was relocated in 1933. In 1988, the school merged with Atlanta University, thus becoming Clark Atlanta University.

Bishop Clark became one of the most popular and best known Methodist leaders during the post-Civil War years.

He died in Cincinnati, Ohio, May 23, 1871. At the time of his death, he was one of the country's leading religious personalities.

Books
 Elements of Algebra: Embracing Also the Theory and Application of Logarithms. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1846.
 Man All Immortal; or, The Nature and Destination of Man as Taught by Reason and Revelation. Cincinnati: Poe & Hitchcock, 1864.
 Mental Discipline: With Reference to the Acquisition and Communication of Knowledge.  New York: Lane & Tippett, 1847.
 Sermons for the College. Akers, 1851.

Note: Many other works which were edited by Rev. Clark are currently available at Google Books.

See also
Clark Atlanta University
List of bishops of the United Methodist Church

References

Further reading
 Some Kents Hill School Notables

1812 births
1871 deaths
American Methodist Episcopal bishops
Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church
People from Mount Desert Island
Wesleyan University alumni
Editors of Christian publications
People of the Reconstruction Era
American magazine editors
American sermon writers
Religious leaders from Cincinnati
19th-century American journalists
American male journalists
19th-century male writers
19th-century Methodists
19th-century American clergy

Davis Wasgatt Clark


The contemporary meaning of the term civil society is contested. It is sometimes considered to include the family and the private sphere, and referred to as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business. Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon defines civil society as 1) the aggregate of non-governmental organizations and institutions that manifest interests and will of citizens or 2) individuals and organizations in a society which are independent of the government. Sometimes the term is used in the more general sense of "the elements such as freedom of speech, an independent judiciary, etc, that make up a democratic society" (Collins English Dictionary).

សត្រូវនៃសង្គមស៊ីវិល
John A. Hall lists 5 distinct enemies of civil society:
Despotism: this is this idea of fear which discourages any type of group that's formed between society and government.
Revival of the tradition of republican civic virtues: these are qualities that hold a moral value or moral principle and amount to dispositions to obey.
Specific forms of nationalism: this would be where the rule of majority wins, and assimilation is used in order to form an ideal society.
Totalizing ideologies
Essentialist cultural ideals: these would be social cages of individuals that determine the function and value of that person in society.

អង្គភាព

 academia
 ក្រុមសកម្មជន
 charities
 citizens' militia
 civic groups
 clubs (sports, social, etc.)
 community foundations
 អង្គការសហគមន៍
 consumers/consumer organizations
 cooperatives
 churches
 ក្រុមវប្បធម៌
 ក្រុមបរិស្ថាន
 មូលនិធិ
 intermediary organizations for the voluntary and non-profit sector
 men's groups
 អង្គការក្រៅរដ្ឋាភិបាល (NGOs)
 non-profit organizations (NPOs)
 policy institutions
 គណបក្សនយោបាយ
 private voluntary organizations (PVOs)
 សមាគមវិជ្ជាជីវៈ
 អង្គការសាសនា
 សហគ្រាសសង្គម
 support groups
 trade unions
 voluntary associations
 women's groups

មើលផងដែរ

 Portal:Politics
 Associationalism
 Civic association
 Civics
 Civic virtue
 Civil affairs
 Civil liberties
 Anarchism
 Civil religion
 Civil societarianism
 Civil and political rights
 Communitarianism
 Constitutional economics
 Cultural hegemony
 Democracy
 Foucault–Habermas debate
 Global civics
 Global governance
 សិទ្ធិមនុស្ស
 អង្គតុលាការ
 Liberal nationalism
 Mass society
 Non-state actor
 Open society
 Political science
 Public interest litigation
 Rule of law
 Rule According to Higher Law
 Social capital
 Social economy
 Social entrepreneurship
 Social innovation
 Sociology
 Power
 Voluntary sector
 Yearbook of International Organizations

Civil-society scholars

 Jeffrey C. Alexander
 Helmut Anheier
 Andrew Arato
 Phillip Blond
 Benjamin Barber
 Daniel Bell
 Robert N. Bellah
 Walden Bello
 Jean L. Cohen
 Michael Edwards
 Jean Bethke Elshtain
 Amitai Etzioni
 Francis Fukuyama
 Ernest Gellner
 Susan George (political scientist)
 Jürgen Habermas
 Peter Dobkin Hall
 Mary Kaldor
 Barry Dean Karl
 John Keane
 David Korten
 John W. Meyer
 Frank Moulaert
 Michael Oakeshott
 Michael O'Neill
 Elinor Ostrom
 Robert D. Putnam
 Michael Sandel
 Charles Taylor
 Lori Wallach

កំណត់ចំណាំ

ឯកសារយោង

 Alagappa, Muthiah. Civil Society and Political Change in Asia. Stanford: Standford University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8047-5097-1
 Edwards, Michael. Civil Society. Cambridge, England: Polity Press, 2004. ISBN 0-7456-3133-9.
 Draper, Hal  Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution (Volume 1: State and Bureaucracy, Volume 2: The Politics of Social Classes). New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977 & 1986.
 Gosewinkel, Dieter: Civil Society, European History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History, 2011, retrieved: August 24, 2011.
 Hemmati, Minu. Dodds, Felix. Enayati, Jasmin. and McHarry,Jan downloadable copy of Multistakeholder Processes for Governance and Sustainability:Beyond Deadlock and Conflict
 O'Connell,Brian.Civil Society: The Underpinnings of American Democracy.Medford, Mass:Tufts University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-87451-924-1.
 Perlas, Nicolas, Shaping Globalization – Civil Society, Cultural Power and Threefolding. ISBN 0-9583885-8-X .
 Pollock, Graham.Civil Society Theory and Euro-Nationalism , Studies In Social & Political Thought, Issue 4, March 2001, pp. 31–56
 Tvedt, Terje. Angels of Mercy or Development Diplomats. NGOs & Foreign Aid. Oxford: James Currey, 1998.
 Whaites, Alan, Let's get civil society straight: NGOs and Political Theory, Development in Practice, 1996,
 Whaites, Alan, NGOs, Civil Society and the State: Avoiding theoretical extremes in real world issues,' Development in Practice 1998
 Zaleski, Pawel Stefan, Tocqueville on Civilian Society: A Romantic Vision of the Dichotomic Structure of Social Reality, Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte Bd. 50/2008

តំណភ្ជាប់ខាងក្រៅ
 LSE Centre for Civil Society
 UN and Civil Society
 UNEP Global Civil Society Forum .
 EU relations with Civil Society
 UK DFID relations with Civil Society
 Civicus – Worldwide Alliance for Citizen Participation
 Global civil society (PCDF).
 One World Trust Database of Civil Society Self-regulatory Initiatives
 Wiser.org – World Index for Social and Environmental Responsibility  – formerly www.civilsociety.org.
 Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future engagement in UN stakeholder relations
 International Society for Third-Sector Research
 Requier-Desjardins Mélanie & Bied-Charreton Marc, 2007. Science and civil society in the fight against desertification. Les dossiers thématiques du CSFD. Issue 6. 40 pp.
 100 years of trends in international civil society by the Union of International Associations
 Interface journal special issue on civil society and social movements

ការកសាងសហគមន៍
សង្គម

សេដ្ឋកិច្ចសង្គម
លទ្ធិប្រជាធិបតេយ្យ

សង្គមស៊ីវិល


Ignazio Cerio (1841 – 1921) was an influential but eccentric physician and amateur philosopher on the island of Capri, in Italy. His father, imprisoned for his liberal beliefs, had spent his time in jail devising chemical concoctions and mechanical constructions that would never be made; Ignazio continued the family traditions of both liberalism and idiosyncratic inventiveness. Ignazio even coined the word disutilità to refer to a human life lacking a sense of purpose but full of tension and reflection, mixing passionate pursuit of ideas with periods of lovesickness and ennui.

He worked for fifty years as a medical doctor on Capri, a profession he followed with his characteristically unconventional flair. On one occasion, for example, he established a sanitorium at Pozzuoli, claiming that the sulphurous gases would cure tuberculosis. The only patient to arrive at the sanitorium rejected the doctor's contention that both sulphur and arsenic would be good for the health.

Nevertheless, he remains a well-remembered and much-loved figure on the island of Capri, his memory immortalised both in the writings of his son, Edwin Cerio (particularly in La vita e la figura di un uomo (1921)) and in the cultural Centro Caprense Ignazio Cerio, established in his name to organise conferences and meetings on medicine, Italian and foreign literature, archaeology, palaeontology, and international and local history.

Palazzo Cerio, close to the Piazzetta, hosts the Ignazio Cerio museum about Capri's natural history.

References

Article on Cerio family in Capri Review Magazine

External links

Centro Caprense Ignazio Cerio
Giulianova (TE) - Città natale di Ignazio Cerio

1841 births
1921 deaths
Italian essayists
Italian male non-fiction writers
People from Capri, Campania
19th-century Italian people
Male essayists

Ignazio Cerio


A helmet is a hard or cushioned hat which is worn to protect a person's head. There are many different types of helmets. Some helmets are made from metal. Other helmets are made from plastic. Helmets often have fabric cushions inside and fabric straps to hold the helmet on a person's head.

Soldiers wear steel helmets to protect their heads from explosions and flying bits of metal.  Construction workers wear plastic helmets to protect their heads from falling objects.  Welders wear special helmets with a dark window that lets less light through.  This protects their eyes from the bright light of welding.  People who ride bicycles or horses wear plastic helmets with foam, to protect their heads in case they have an accident.  Motorcycle riders wear similar but stronger helmets.  People who rock climb wear helmets in case they fall.  Cavers wear helmets to protect their heads from bumping into rocks in a cave.  Helmets are also worn for protection by participants of numerous sports including horse racing, baseball, ice hockey, and cricket.

Images

Helmet


A colonel is a rank of officer in the military. It is usually the highest or second highest rank before General and Field Marshal, but many of the countries represents this post as the highest military officer like Gambia, Libya, Niger, Suriname etc. A colonel is usually in charge of a regiment.

The word comes from the Latin word columnella which means column, but it was first used in Italy as the name for the officer in charge of a column. It came into English from French. It is usually said like the word kernel.

Military ranks

Colonel


A user is a person who uses a computer or network service. Users of computer systems typically have no experience on how the software works.

In order to identify oneself, a user has an account (a user account) and a username (also called a screen name, handle, nickname, or nick on some systems), and in most cases also a password.

A user account allows one to authenticate to system services. It also generally provides one with the opportunity to be authorized to access them. However, authentication does not automatically mean authorization. Once the user has logged on, the operating system will often use an identifier such as an integer to refer to them, rather than their username.

Related pages
Pseudonym
End-user database, a collection of data developed by end-users.
End-user development, a method that allows people who are not professional developers to perform programming tasks, i.e. to create or modify software.
End-user license agreement (EULA), a contract between a supplier of software and its purchaser, granting the right to use it.
Registered user
User agent

References

Computer terminology

User (computing)


Phut or Put ( Pūṭ; Septuagint Greek  Phoud) is the third son of Ham (one of the sons of Noah), in the biblical Table of Nations (Genesis ; cf. 1 Chronicles ). The name Put (or Phut) is used in the Bible for Ancient Libya, but a few scholars proposed the Land of Punt known from Ancient Egyptian annals.

Historical records
Epiphanius writes: "Thus Mistrem was allotted Egypt, Cush Ethiopia, Put Axum, Ragman and Sabteka and [Dedan, also called Judad], the region bordering on Garama."

Josephus writes: "Phut also was the founder of Libya, and called the inhabitants Phutites (Phoutes), from himself: there is also a river in the country of Moors which bears that name; whence it is that we may see the greatest part of the Grecian historiographers mention that river and the adjoining country by the appellation of Phut (Phoute): but the name it has now has been by change given it from one of the sons of Mezraim, who was called Lybyos." Pliny the Elder and Ptolemy both place the river Phuth on the west side of Mauretania (modern Morocco). Ptolemy also mentions a city Putea in Libya (iv.3.39).

A Libyan connection has likewise been inferred from Nahum , where it is said that "Put and Lubim" were the helpers of Egypt. Other biblical verses consistently refer to the descendants of Put as warriors. In , they are again described as being supporters of Egypt. Ezekiel mentions them three times: in , as supporters of Tyre (Phoenicia), in  again as supporting Egypt, and in , as supporters of Gog. The Hebrew Bible substitutes Put in Ezekiel where the Septuagint Greek (LXX) refers to Libues.  However, the Hebrew reads Pul in , in place of Put in the LXX.

The Libyan tribe of pỉdw shows up in Egyptian records by the 22nd dynasty, while a Ptolemaic text from Edfu refers to the t3 n nꜣ pỉt.w "the land of the Pitu". The word was later written in Demotic as Pỉt, and as Phaiat in Coptic, a name for Libya Aegypti, northwestern Egypt.

A fragment of Nebuchadnezzar II's annals mentions his campaign in 567 in Egypt, and defeating the soldiers of Pu-ṭu-ia-a-man, i.e. Greek Libya (Cyrene). A multilingual stele from al-Kabrīt, dating to the reign of Darius I refers to the Put as the province of Putāya (Old Persian) and Puṭa (Neo-Babylonian), where the equivalent text written in Egyptian has tꜣ ṯmḥw "Libya".

See also
 Hamitic
Putāya (satrapy)

References

Bibliography
 Baker, David W. 1992. "Put". In The Anchor Bible Dictionary, edited by David Noel Freedman. Vol. 5 of 6 vols. New York: Doubleday. 560
 Graefe, Erhart. 1975. "Der libysche Stammesname p(j)d(j)/pjt im spätzeitlichen Onomastikon." Enchoria: Zeitschrift für Demotistik und Koptologie 5:13–17.

Children of Ham (son of Noah)
Hebrew Bible nations
Book of Genesis people
Noach (parashah)
Land of Punt

Put (biblical figure)


The ribcage is a part of the skeleton of humans and some animals. It is made up of curved bones called ribs. The rib cage is found in the chest area. It protects a person's internal organs from damage. Most humans have 12 pairs of rib bones with one from each pair on each side of the chest. Some people may have 11 or 13 pairs of rib bones. The bones are also filled with bone marrow. The bones that are connected to the sternum directly are called true ribs, and the bones that are connected to the sternum indirectly, through the seventh bone, are called false ribs (eighth, ninth, and tenth bones), and the bones which are not connected to the sternum, and is connected to the back bone, are called floating ribs. If these floating ribs were connected to the sternum, we could not breathe properly, as the chest needs space to expand and decrease. The rib cage is also called the thoracic cavity.

Bones

Rib cage


A hendecagon or 11-gon is a shape with 11 sides and 11 corners.

Regular hendecagon
All sides of a regular hendecagon are the same length. Each corner is 147.27°. All corners added together equal 1619.97°.

Area
The amount of space a regular hendecagon takes up is

a is the length of one of its sides.

11

Hendecagon


Kett's Rebellion was a fight in Norfolk during the reign of Edward VI of England. The rebellion was led by Robert Kett of Wymondham, Norfolk. It started in July 1549.

Kett's Rebellion started in Wymondham after a small group of peasants (poor people) got together to protest against barons, who had stolen the common land, leaving the poor people to die of hunger. The leader was Robert Kett. The peasants marched 16 kilometres into Norwich and gathered on Mousehold Heath. They attracted the support of the poorer people of Norwich.

Hundreds of peasants were killed and 300 were captured and executed in Norwich. Robert Kett was captured, held in the Tower of London and then hanged at Norwich Castle on 7 December 1549.

1549
Rebellions in Europe
16th century in England
16th-century rebellions
1540s in Europe

Kett's Rebellion


Denis Wright, OBE (22 February 1895 – 20 April 1967) was an English composer and conductor of brass band music.

Wright was born in Kensington, London and moved to Wembley with his family at the age of five and attended St George's School, Harpenden. He began musical studies at the Royal College of Music, but interrupted his studies to serve in the British Army in Macedonia during World War I.

Wright began working as a schoolteacher of modern languages in East Grinstead, and in 1925, he entered and won a competition to compose a brass band piece for use in the National Brass Band Championships. He continued to write occasional test pieces for the championships, and began teaching music at his old school, St George's. He was offered a job as an editor at the music publishers Chappell & Co. in 1930. In 1933, the BBC asked him to form a band section in the Music Department. At the outbreak of World War II, the BBC transferred Wright to Glasgow, during which time he undertook doctorate study in music at the University of Edinburgh.

In 1942, he returned to London to join the BBC Overseas Service. By the late 1940s, his conducting engagements were irregular however he still appeared on BBC programmes and at massed band concerts organised with Harry Mortimer. He wrote a book on brass band conducting, and travelled through Europe, Australia and New Zealand where he was in much demand to adjudicate brass band contests. He left the BBC in 1955, aged 60, and although officially retired, worked frequently with the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain, which had been formed on his suggestion.

In 1959, Wright was awarded an OBE in the New Year Honours. In 1965 and 1966, he received Honours from the Royal Academy of Music, which made him an Honorary Member of the Academy.

References

1895 births
1967 deaths
20th-century British conductors (music)
20th-century British male musicians
20th-century English composers
Brass band composers
British male conductors (music)
British Army personnel of World War I
English conductors (music)
Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
BBC people
Honorary Members of the Royal Academy of Music
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
People educated at St George's School, Harpenden

Denis Wright (composer)


Ayyavazhi (, "path of the master"), is a Hindu denomination with one god that started in South India in the middle of the 19th century. The 'zhi' () in the word, 'Ayyavazhi', is a retroflex, ri.

Ayyavazhi is considered as a branch of Hinduism, officially. It is widespread in Tamil Nadu's southern districts of Kanyakumari, Tirunelveli, and Thoothukudi district and some parts of Kerala. As one of the fastest growing faiths of southern India, its growth had been noted in the Christian missionary reports of the mid-19th century.

The ideas and philosophy of the religion are based on the teachings of Ayya Vaikundar and the religious texts Akilattirattu Ammanai and Arul Nool. Most followers of Ayyavazhi do not regard themselves as different from Hinduism.

History

Ayyavazhi began to be seen firstly by the large number of people gathering to worship Ayya Vaikundar at Swamithoppe, which is at that time poovandanthoppe. The majority of the followers of Ayyavazhi were from the poor group of the society. For the Christian missionaries it gives a big challenge in their converting mission from its beginning. Although the majority of these followers were from the Chanar cast, apart from Ayyavazhi sources, some outer sources too says that a large number of people from other castes also followed this religion.

By the middle of nineteenth century, Ayyavazhi had come to be recognised as a separate religion, grown well in the region of South Travancore and South Tirunelveli. The growth in its number of followers had increased speedly from 1840s. After the death of Vaikundar, the religion was spread on the basis of his teachings and the religious books Akilattirattu Ammanai and Arul Nool. The five Citars, who were the deciples of Ayya Vaikundar, and their descendants travelled to several parts of the country and carried the mission of Ayyavazhi. At that time the Payyan dynasty started ruling of Swamithoppe pathi, while other Pathis came under the control of the followers of Ayya. Hundreds of Nizhal Thangals (places of worship) were built across the country. Currently Bala Prajapathi Adikalar, one of descendant of Payyan dynasty is said to be as the leader of Ayyavazhi. He has laid foundations for a large number of Nizhal Thangals all over South India. And now seeing the growth of the religion the day of birth of Vaikundar, Ayya Vaikunda Avataram was announced as a holiday by the government for the districts of Tirunelveli and Tuticorin from this year while the district of Kanyakumari was announced as a holiday earlier.

Scriptures and holy places

The holy books of Ayyavazhi are the Akilattirattu Ammanai and the Arul Nool, and they are the source of the religion's mythology. The holy book states that the Akilattirattu Ammanai was written down by Hari Gopalan Citar by hearing the contents of Akilam told by Narayana to his wife Lakshmi. There was no definite history about the beginning of Arul Nool; but the followers believe that it was written by Citars and by those who get possessed by divine power. It contains the prayers, hymns and ways for the worship in Ayyavazhi, religious practices, prophesies and also many rules.

To the Ayyavazhi devotees, there are five holy places, called Pathis, with "Panchappathis" as the most important. The temple of Swamithoppepathi is the head of the Ayyavazhi religion. The Vakaippathi, where 700 families were sent to Thuvayal Thavasu by Vaikundar was approved as a Pathi in Akilam although this place has no direct association with the activities of Vaikundar. There is a big disagreement within the followers of Ayyavazhi as to the holiness of some of the places of worship. The Avatharappathi in Thiruchendur was accepted by the book Akilam as a Pathi, but as some of the followers believe that the place at which the present temple is located is not the exact place where Ayya Vaikundar incarnated from the sea, they disagree with the other devotees. There are also some followers which strongly quarrel Thiruchendur as a Pathi though they accept it as a secondary holy site.

Ayyavazhi

Ayyavazhi


Irvine (Gaelic: Irbhinn) is a coastal new town in North Ayrshire, Scotland.

History
Irvine was the site of Scotland's 12th century Military Capital and former headquarters of the Lord High Constable of Scotland, Hugh de Morville. It also served as the Capital of Cunninghame.

The town was once a haunt of Robert Burns, after whom two streets in the town are named: Burns Street and Burns Crescent. He is known to have worked in a flax mill on the Glasgow Vennell. Despite being classed as a new town, Irvine has had a long history stretching back many centuries and was classed as a Royal Burgh. There are also conflicting rumours that Mary, Queen of Scots, was briefly involved in the town's history. Some say she stayed briefly at Seagate Castle. To this day there is still an annual festival, called Marymass, held in the town.

People
Irvine is the birthplace of the present Deputy First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon and the former First Minister of Scotland, Jack McConnell. Its twin town is Saint-Amand-les-Eaux in northern France just outside Lille.

Towns in North Ayrshire

Irvine, North Ayrshire


The Dominican city of San Francisco de Bánica, or simply Bánica, is a municipality of the Elías Piña province, on the border with Haiti and near the River Artibonite.

Origin of name
The name Bánica comes from the Taíno name of the region, Banique ("land of ebony trees").

Population
The municipality had, in 2010, a total population of 2,112: 1,043 men and 1,069 women. The urban population was  of the total population.

History
The town was founded in 1504 by Diego Velázquez, who later went to conquest the island of Cuba, on the left side of the Artibonite river. It was an important town in those years but later it lost its importance. In the 18th century, the Spanish government moved the city to its present place, away from the river, and brought families from the Canary Islands to live there.

When the Haitian independence, most of the people moved to other places. When the Haitians occupied the eastern part of the island (the present Dominican Republic), they founded again the town as part of the Artibonite department.

After the Dominican Independence in 1844, the town was made a municipality of the Azua province. But again the town was abandoned by its inhabitants. After the "Restoration War" (1863 - 1865), some families from other towns near the Haitian border came to live in Bánica.

Bánica was made a municipality of the San Juan province in 1938 and then, in 1942, of the new province of Elías Piña.

Geography

Bánica is at  to the west of Santo Domingo and  to the northeast of Comendador.

The limits of the municipality are the municipality of Pedro Santana to the north, the San Juan province to the east, the municipality of Comendador to the south and Haiti to the west.

The average daily temperature in the city is 25.4 °C.

Administrative division
The municipality of Bánica has two municipal districts; these are:

Economy
The main economic activity of the municipality is farming. Commerce with Haiti is also an important economic activity in the city.

Places of interest
 Iglesia de San Francisco de Asís (Saint Francis of Assisi Church). It is a very interesting colonial Catholic church. It is not known when it was built but in 1740 the Bishop Domingo Pantaleón Álvarez Abréu wrote that in Bánica "there is a new church".
 Reloj de sol (Sundial). In one of his faces there is a date, "1795", that could be the date when it was built. There were only two sundials in the old Spanish colony: one in Santo Domingo and another in Bánica.
 Cerro de San Francisco (Saint Francis Hill). It is a rocky hill at  from the city. Here there is a cave visited by many people to pray to Saint Francis; they get wet with water that falls from the top of the cave and they put limestone dust in their faces so when they get back to town they are identified by their white faces. The hill is protected by law because here there is the only wild population of Pereskia marcanoi, a cactus with leaves and beautiful small purple flowers; its common name is Rosa de Bánica ("Bánica Rose").

References

Settlements in the Dominican Republic
1504 establishments in the Spanish Empire

Bánica


Catastrophism is the idea that Earth has been affected in the past by sudden, short-lived, violent events. Catastrophes, possibly worldwide in scope, came between long periods of quiet inactivity. This was called 'catastrophism' by William Whewell in 1837.

Catastrophes were thought to be the main cause of the changes seen in the record of the rocks and fossils. This record appeared to show that the Earth had suffered occasional gigantic upheavals in what was otherwise a quiet planet.

Supporting this view was the greatest comparative anatomist and palaeontologist of the early 19th century. He was Georges Cuvier, Director of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris. Cuvier had shown that extinction of species had definitely taken place. His catastrophism was an explanation for the regular changes in species seen in the rock strata. He had no real explanation of why later species were different from earlier ones. He rejected the idea of evolution, but did not propose a religious solution.

The opposition
James Hutton's Theory of the Earth (2 vols, 1795), followed lated by Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology (3 vols, 1830–33), painted a quite different picture.

This was uniformitarianism, also a word coined by Whewell. Hutton's basic idea was 'present-day processes also worked in the past'. The Earth's features had been shaped by same geological processes that could be observed in the present, acting gradually over an immense period of time.

Lyell developed these ideas, and presented a huge number of observations which could only be explained by gradual action. His book strongly influenced the young Charles Darwin, who took the first volume with him on the HMS Beagle, and had the second volume sent ahead to Rio de Janeiro.

The age of the Earth is a factor in the debate. In the 19th century it was thought the Earth was perhaps 100 million years old. Now, we know it to be about 4,560 million years old. That is definitely long enough for slow processes to take effect.

As a result, for a long period from 1840 to 1980, virtually all geologists were uniformitarians, believing 'the present is the key to the past'.

Synthesis
Finally, it became clear that both slow processes and rapid disasters have played a part in Earth history.

A major reason for this is the realisation that asteroid impacts, and some other events, have influenced Earth history.

End of the dinosaurs
Walter and Luis Alvarez suggested in 1980 that a  asteroid struck Earth 65 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous period.

The impact wiped out about 70% of all species, including the dinosaurs, leaving evidence of the K/T extinction event. In 1990, a  candidate crater marking the impact was identified at Chicxulub in the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico.

The only debate now is whether the main extinction mechanism was the asteroid impact or widespread flood volcanism from the Deccan Traps (which occurred about the same time). Both mechanisms suggested are catastrophic in nature, though only the asteroid impact was sudden.

The observation of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 cometary collision with Jupiter illustrated that catastrophic events do occur as natural events.

Origin of the Moon
The giant impact hypothesis is that the Moon was created out of the debris from a collision between the young Earth and a Mars-sized protoplanet. This is the favoured scientific hypothesis for the formation of the Moon.

References

History of science
Geology
Philosophy of science

Catastrophism