The Conversion of Saint Paul is a 1620s painting by Peter Paul Rubens, now missing or lost. It showed the conversion of Paul the Apostle.

History
It was produced for Władysław Vasa of Poland. The Flemish engraver Gerard Edelinck (1640–1707), who lived in Paris, records that he was assured in Antwerp that "The Lion Hunt, for example, and the Fall of St Paul were made for the King of Poland It was transferred to John II Casimir in Paris in 1669, before being bought by the Montesquieu family in 1673. It remained in France for over a century (being acquired by Nicolas de Lamoignon in 1724), until it was bought by G Harris in 1819. It was bought from him in 1903 by the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.

The painting was moved to the Flakturm Friedrichshain (an anti-aircraft tower) in Berlin for safety with the rest of the museum's collection around 1942 and was lost or destroyed some time between March and May 1945. Between 11 March and 2 May 1945 all but 434 paintings were evacuated from the tower to former salt mines in Thuringia. The tower was surrendered to the Red Army on 2 May and its museum guards sent home. They returned on 4 and 5 May, finding one of the floors broken. On 6 May another floor burned out, with heat and smoke preventing entry, and between 14 and 18 May 1945 the whole tower was destroyed by fire.

References

Bibliography
David Freedberg (1984). Rubens: the life of Christ after the passion. Harvey Miller. p. 123. .
Alexis Merle du Bourg (2004). Peter Paul Rubens et la France, 1600–1640. Presses University Septentrion. p. 203. .
LostArt.de entry

1620s paintings
Paintings by Peter Paul Rubens
Paintings depicting Jesus
Rubens
Lost paintings

The Conversion of Saint Paul (Rubens, Berlin)


Brian Patrick Wilson (born March 16, 1982) is an American baseball player.  He was born in Winchester, Massachusetts and grew up in Londonderry, New Hampshire.  He played college baseball at Louisiana State University.  He was drafted by the San Francisco Giants in 2003 and has played his whole career in the Giants system.  He started playing with the Giants in 2006 and became their closer (a pitcher who pitches the ninth inning of the game) in 2008.  He has been named an All-Star three times in 2008, 2010 and 2011.  In the 2010 season, he starting growing a beard, which he kept after the Giants won the World Series.  He led the league in saves in 2010.  In 2011, he started slowly, but had 25 saves and six wins before the All-Star break.  Due to his beard and his personality, Wilson appeared on many talk shows and commercials, including for MLB 2K11.

1982 births
Living people
Sportspeople from New Hampshire
San Francisco Giants players
National League All-Stars
People from Winchester, Massachusetts
Sportspeople from Massachusetts

Brian Wilson (baseball)


Marie of Boulogne was the Countess of Boulogne from 1159 until 1170.

Marie was the daughter of Stephen of England and Matilda of Boulogne.  She was placed in a convent when she was young so that she could become a nun.  When her brother, William of Blois, died, she became the heir of the Count of Boulogne.  She had to leave the convent and was married to Matthew of Alsace.  Marie and Matthew ruled Boulogne together, but their marriage was not happy and they got a divorce in 1170.

After Marie died, Matthew continued to be the Count of Boulogne until 1173.  After this Marie and Matthew's daughter, Ida of Boulogne, became Countess of Boulogne.  Marie and Matthew's other daughter, Maud of Boulogne, became the wife of Henry I of Brabant.

French nobility
Earls and countesses

Marie of Boulogne


Dacin nyaéta hiji pakakas pikeun ngukur beurat barang. Dacin aya nu bisa dipaké pikeun ngukur beurat jalma, aya ogé anu dipaké dina sains pikeun nangtukeun massa barang, jeung dina widang industri jeung komérsil pikeun nangtukeun beurat rupa-rupa barang ti mimiti nu sahampang bulu nepikeun ka sabeurat traktor atawa treuk badag.

Kecap dacin kiwari biasa ogé disebut kiloan atawa timbangan, minangka kapangaruhan ku basa Indonésia.

Balance

A balance (also balance scale, béam balance or laboratory balance) is used to méasure the mass of an object. In its conventional form, this class of measuring instrument compares the sample, placed in a weighing pan (weighing basin) and suspended from one end of a beam with a standard mass or combination of standard masses in a scale pan (scale basin) suspended from the other end. To weigh an object in the méasuring pan, standard weights are added to the scale pan until the béam is in equilibrium as closely as possible. Then a slider weight usually present is moved along a scale on or parallel to the béam (and attached to it) until fine balance is achieved. The slider position gives a fine correction to the mass value.

Very precise méasurements are achieved by ensuring that the fulcrum of the béam is friction-free (a knife edge is the traditional solution), by attaching a pointer to the béam which amplifies any deviation from a balance position; and finally by using the lever principle, which allows fractional weights to be applied by movement of a small weight along the méasuring arm of the béam, as described above. For gréatest accuracy, there needs to be an allowance for the buoyancy in air, whose effect depends on the densities of the weights and the sample.

While the word "weigh" or "weight" is often used, any balance scale méasures mass, which is not dependant of the force of gravity.  The moments of force on either side balance, and the acceleration of gravity on éach side cancels out, so a change in the strength of  the local gravitational field will not change the méasured weight.  Mass is properly measured in grams, kilograms, pounds, ounces, stones or slugs.

The original form of a weighing scale consisted of a beam with a fulcrum at its center.  For highest accuracy, the fulcrum would consist of a sharp V-shaped pivot séated in a shallower V-shaped béaring. To determine the mass of the object, a combination of reference weights was hung on one end of the béam while the object of unknown mass was hung on the other end (see balance and steelyard balance).  For high precision work, the center béam balance is still one of the most accurate technologies available, and is commonly used for calibrating test weights.

To reduce the need for large reference weights, an off-center béam can be used.  A scale with an off-center béam can be almost as accurate as a scale with a center béam, but the off-center béam requires special reference weights and cannot be intrinsically checked for accuracy by simply swapping the contents of the pans as a center-béam balance can.  To reduce the need for small graduated reference weights, a sliding weight called a poise can be installed so that it can be positioned along a calibrated scale.  A poise adds further intricacies to the calibration procedure, since the exact mass of the poise must be adjusted to the exact lever ratio of the béam.

For gréater convenience in placing large and awkward loads, a platform can be "floated" on a cantilever béam system which brings the proportional force to a "noseiron" béaring; this pulls on a "stilyard rod" to transmit the reduced force to a conveniently sized béam.  One still sees this design in "portable beam scales" of 1000 lb or 500 kg capacity which are commonly used in harsh environments where electricity is not available, as well as in the lighter duty mechanical bathroom scale.  The additional pivots and béarings all reduce the accuracy and complicate calibration; the float system must be corrected for corner errors before span is corrected by adjusting the balance béam and poise.  Such systems are typically accurate to at best 1/10,000 of their capacity, unless they are expensively engineered.

Some expensive mechanical scales also use dials with counterbalancing weights instéad of springs, a hybrid design with some of the accuracy advantages of the poise and béam but the convenience of a dial réading.  These designs are expensive to produce and are largely obsolete thanks to electronics.

Spring scale

Some weighing scales such as a Jolly balance (named after Philipp von Jolly  who invented the balance about 1874) use a spring with a known spring constant (see Hooke's law) and méasure the displacement of the spring by any variety of mechanisms to produce an estimate of the gravitational force applied by the object, which can be simply hung from the spring or set on a pivot and béaring platform.  Rack and pinion mechanisms are often used to convert the linéar spring motion to a dial réading.

Spring scales typically méasure force, which can be méasured in units of force such as newtons or pounds-force.

Spring scales typically cannot be used for commercial applications unless their springs are temperature compensated or used at a fairly constant temperature.  The spring scales which are legal for commerce can be calibrated for the accurate méasurement of mass (the quantity méasured for weight in commerce) in the location in which they are used.  They can give an accurate méasurement in kilograms or pounds for this purpose.

Strain gauge scale
The deflection of a load-supporting béam can be méasured using strain gauge, which is a length-sensitive electrical resistance. The capacity of such devices is determined by the resistance of the béam to deflection and the results from several supporting locations may be added electronically and so this type of méasurement is especially suitable for determining the weight of very héavy objects, such as trucks and railcars, as is done in a modérn weigh bridge.

Hydraulic or pneumatic scale
It is also common in high-capacity applications such as crane scales to use hydraulic force to sense weight.  The test force is applied to a piston or diaphragm and transmitted through hydraulic lines to a dial indicator based on a Bourdon tube or electronic sensor.

Testing and certification
Most countries regulate the design and servicing of scales used for commerce.  This has tended to cause scale technology to lag behind other technologies because expensive regulatory hurdles are involved in introducing new designs.  Nevertheless, there has been a recent trend to "digital load cells" which are actually strain-gage cells with dedicated analog converters and networking built into the cell itself.  Such designs have reduced the service problems inherent with combining and transmitting a number of 20 millivolt signals in hostile environments.

Government regulation generally requires periodic inspections by licensed technicians using weights whose calibration is tracéable to an approved laboratory.  Scales intended for casual use such as bathroom or diet scales may be produced, but must by law be labelled "Not Legal for Trade" to ensure that they are not repurposed in a way that jéopardizes commercial interest.  In the United States, the document describing how scales must be designed, installed, and used for commercial purposes is NIST Handbook 44.

Because gravity varies by over 0.5% over the surface of the éarth, the distinction between force due to gravity and mass is relevant for accurate calibration of scales for commercial purposes.  Usually the goal is to méasure the mass of the sample rather than its force due to gravity at that particular location.

Traditional mechanical balance-béam scales intrinsically méasured mass. But ordinary electronic scales intrinsically méasure the gravitational force between the sample and the éarth, i.e. the weight of the sample, which varies with location. So such a scale has to be re-calibrated after installation, for that specific location, in order to obtain an accurate indication of mass.

Analytical balance

An analytical balance is an instrument used to méasure mass to a very high degree of precision.  The weighing pan(s) of a high accuracy (0.1 mg or better) analytical balance are inside a see-through enclosure with doors so dust does not collect and so any air currents in the room do not affect the delicate balance.  Also, the sample must be at room temperature to prevent natural convection from forming air currents inside the enclosure, affecting the weighing.

Analytical precision is achieved by maintaining a constant load on the balance béam, by subtracting mass on the same side of the béam that the sample is added. The final balance is achieved by using a small spring force rather than subtracting fixed weights.

Supermarket / Retail scale
A supermarket / retail scale is used in bakery, deli, seafood, meat, produce and other perishable departaments.  Supermarket scales can print labels and receipts (in bakery specially), marks Weight/Count, Unit Price, Total Price and in some cases Tare, a supermarket label prints weight/count, unit price and total price. Some manufacturers are Adam Equipment, AEW Delford, Hobart Corporation, Bizerba, DIGI/Teraoka, Mettler Toledo, Cas, Avery Berkel,Ishidaand ATP-Instrumentation.  Some of the more modérn Supermarket scales will print a RFD tag which can be used to track the item for tampering or returns. In most cases these type of scales have a séaled calibration so that the réading on the display is correct and cannot be tampered with - in the USA the approval is NTEP, for South Africa it is SABS, the UK it is OIML.

Sources of error
Some of the sources of potential error in a high-precision balance include the following:

 Buoyancy, due to the fact that the object being weighed displaces a certain amount of air, which must be accounted for. High-precision balances are often operated in a vacuum.
 Error in reference weight (used to chéat in méasurement)
 Air gusts, even small ones, may push the scale up or down.
 Friction in the moving components may prevent the scale from réaching equilibrium.
 Settling airborne dust may contribute to the weight.
 Scale may be uncalibrated or mis-calibrated.  The calibration of any electronic circuits may drift over time, or due to temperature changes.
 Mechanical components may be mis-aligned.
 fulcrum of the balance locking square-square lock instéad of free movement circle/point (used to chéat in méasurement)
 Shortening the arm by putting chain for the pan over the béam (used to chéat in méasurement).
 Mechanical misalignment due to thermal expansion/contraction of components of the balance.
 éarth's magnetic field may act on iron components in the balance.
 Magnetic fields from néarby electrical wiring may act on iron components.
 Placing a wéak magnet under the object to be méasured (used to chéat in méasurement)
 Magnetic disturbances to electronic pick-up coils or other sensors.
 Forces from electrostatic fields, for example, from feet shuffled on carpets on a dry day.
 Chemical réactivity between air and the substance being weighed (or the balance itself, in the form of corrosion).
 Condensation of atmospheric water on cold items.
 Evaporation of water from wet items.
 Convection of air from hot or cold items.
 The Coriolis force from éarth's rotation.
 Gravitational anomalies (i.e. using the balance néar a mountain; failing to level and recalibrate the balance after moving it from one géographical location to another.)
 Vibration and seismic disturbances; for example, the rumbling from a passing truck.
 Scales placed on soft surface, Carpet or rubber mat. (You can try this one at home)

Symbolism

The weighing scales (specifically, a béam balance) are one of the traditional symbols of justice, as wielded by statues of Lady Justice. This corresponds to the use in metaphor of matters being "weighed up" or "held in the balance".

See also
 Apparent weight
 Mass versus weight
 Nutrition scale
 Roberval Balance
 Steelyard balance
 Weigh lock - for weighing canal barges
 Weighbridge - for weighing vehicles (such as trucks) and railcars

External links

 National Conference on Weights and Méasures, NIST Handbook 44, Specifications, Tolerances, And Other Technical Requirements for Weighing and Measuring Devices , 2003
 Analytical Balance article at ChemLab
 Laser beams pluck nano-strings

Weighing instruments

Dacin


The Coast Veddas (, ), by self-designation, form a social group within the minority Sri Lankan Tamil ethnic group of the Eastern province of Sri Lanka. They are primarily found in small coastal villages from the eastern township of Trincomalee to Batticalao. Nevertheless, they also inhabit a few villages south of Batticalao as well. They make a living by fishing, slash and burn agriculture, paddy cultivation of rice, basket weaving for market and occasional wage labor. Anthropologists consider them to be partly descended from the indigenous Vedda people, as well as local Tamils.  Residents of the Eastern province consider their Vedar (Tamil for "hunter") neighbors to have been part of the local social structure from earliest times, whereas some Vedar elders believe that their ancestors may have migrated from the interior at some time in the past.

They speak a dialect of Sri Lankan Tamil that is used in the region. During religious festivals, people who enter a trance or spirit possession sometimes use a mixed language that contains words from the Vedda language. Most Vedar are Hindu Saivites and worship a plethora of folk deities, as well as the main Hindu deities such as Murugan, Pillaiyar and Amman. They also maintain the ancestor worship tradition of the interior Veddas. Clan divisions, if they still exist, do not play an important role in choosing of marriage partners or place of domicile. Most identify themselves as a caste among the Tamils as opposed to a separate ethnic group. Their economic conditions have been impacted by the Sri Lankan civil war.

Identity
Western observers such as James Emerson Tennent (1858) and Charles Gabriel Seligman (1911) have termed the social group Coast Veddahs, Coast Verdas or East Coast Veddas. Anthropologists have considered them to be at least partly descended from the Veddas of the interior of the island who had migrated at some unknown period in the past to the east coast, intermarrying with the local Tamils. Interior Veddas clans themselves have a number of divisions, each claiming either Sinhalese, Tamil, mixed, or pure Vedda lineages. Vedda identity also depends on whether these clans are hunter-gatherers or settled agriculturalists. Settled Veddas have tended over a period of time to assume Sinhalese or Tamil identity based on the area of residence. If considered a subdivision of Veddas, then they are by far the largest sub-group amongst the Vedda people. Residents of Eastern Province consider those who maintain a primitive life style, or are partly dependent on hunting and gathering, as Vedar without any connotations of ethnic origins.

Vedar are not designated as an indigenous community of Sri Lanka. They are placed within the Sri Lankan caste system. Vedar sometimes refer to themselves as "Veda Vellalar", thus claiming a high caste ranking (the Vellalar are given the highest ritual position within the caste structure of Sri Lankan Tamils in many regions). They also claim to marry into the higher castes of the neighboring region, such as Karaiyar. But some higher ranked castes did not consider Vedar quite their equals, although still placing them above the lower castes. Members of the Karaiyar caste sometimes downplayed their connections to Vedar as there was stigma attached to such unions. Field studies have indicated that mixed marriages across all caste groups of the eastern littoral was possible with Vedar. Vedar themselves claimed that they would not marry into lower Tamil castes such as Ambattar (barbers), Vannar (washerman) and Pallar (agricultural workers), but field studies indicated that such unions did sometimes take place.

Once a non-Vedar married into a Vedar family, he or she was assimilated as part of the Vedar village. Almost all Vedar families had an ancestor who was Tamil or a family member who was married to a Tamil from a neighboring village.

Some Vedar have gradually lost most aspects of their aboriginal identity and culture and no longer identify themselves as Vedar. During the 1980s and 1990s, most Vedar families were displaced from their native villages due to the effects of the Sri Lankan civil war and were placed in refugee camps along with other Tamil refugees.

History
Ancestors of Vedar migrated to Sri Lanka via the Indian sub continent during the pre-historic period. A number of Mesolithic sites have been excavated containing human remains dated to 35,000 BCE. Anthropologists consider these skeletal remains to belong to a group ancestral to some of the surviving Vedar groups. Sri Lanka has also yielded Megalithic burial sites, one of which was excavated close to a present Vedar settlement, Kathiraveli. The precise time in which some of the Vedar lineage founders migrated to the east coast of Sri Lanka is unknown. The earliest written reference to Vedar is a Tamil chronicle, Nadukadu paraveni kalvettu, which is maintained amongst the custodians of a prominent Hindu temple in the town of Tirukovil in the Ampara District. It is a Tamil 14th to 16th-century original text. The chronicle documents the presence of a people who practiced hunting and gathering for survival, exercising jurisdiction over vast jungle tracts close to the Akkaraipattu township. It names a number of Vedar chiefs, such as Kadariyan and Puliyan. These Vedars were not just hunter-gatherers, but were also accepted as the rightful owners of the forest lands.

Emerson (1858) documented the presence of Vedar north of Eravur who subsisted by fishing or helping the traditional fisherfolk, as well by cutting wood for Muslim traders. He speculated that there were then at least 400 to 500 individuals in the group. He also recorded that it was the British colonial officers, as well as Wesleyan missionaries who provided land for them to start cultivating yams and other vegetables.

Neville (1890) and Seligman (1911) also documented the presence of a subdivision of Vedar called Kovil Vanam ("Temple precincts" in Tamil) within the southern edges of the Batticalo District; their name suggests they had originally lived in the jungles close to the Kataragama temple in the Hambantota District in the Southern Province. By the early 1900s these Vedar had mingled with the local Tamils and Sinhalese and were not encountered as a separate group any more. Local legends attribute the origins of some Hindu temples in the eastern province to the presence of Vedar. Important Hindu temples in villages such as Kokkadichcholai and Mandur have such Vedar creation legends. But Vedar are no longer associated with either the ownership or maintenance of these regionally important temples.

Culture

Clans and family organization
Clans of the interior Veddas
Interior Veddas have clans called Waruge or Variga that were named after trees, animals or places of origin. Seligman speculated that these clans were territorial, thus hunting territory was divided amongst the clan, not to be violated by members of other clans. These clans were:

 Morana (after Mora tree)
 Unapana (Water)
 Namudana (Namuda tree)
 Ura (Wild boar)
 Ambilo (Ant)
 Tala (Plains)
 Rugam (Village name)
 Kovil Vannam (Temple precincts)

Among these, the Morana and Unapana clans claimed superior status to Namudana, Ambilo and Ura clans. Seligman reported that Morana and Unapana clans considered the other three as their servile groups, a classification strongly denied by the others. This also led to so-called servile groups denying such clan association when questioned and claiming Morana or Unapana clan origins.

Retention of Clan system amongst Vedar
When Seligman inquired about the Waruge divisions of the Vedar, most of them did not remember their clan origins. Of those who remembered, most self-identified as Ura Waruge. Others mentioned clans such as Ogatam, Kavatam, Umatam, Aembalaneduwe and Aembale. They also had memories of other clans such as Morana and Unapana.  By the 1980s the Vedar had no knowledge of any word Waruge, although they vaguely used the Tamil term Vamisam (family origin) to indicate some division amongst them. Some had come up with a two-fold division of the Vedars based on the Kuti or matrilineal descent system popular in the East coast. These Kutis were supposed to have descended from former local chiefs called Vanniyar, who had ruled feudal divisions called Vannimai. But these clan divisions and related rules of endogamy were not totally followed by all Vedar, and there no practical prohibitions from marrying from each Kuti.

As with local Tamils, the preferred marriage pattern is based on cross cousin preference. Parallel cousins are considered brothers and sisters and are ineligible as partners. As most marriages take place between first and second cousins, clan endogamy even it is present is of no value. Within a village, most of the residents are related and this carries on over to villages that are three to five miles away as well. The longer the distance the more distantly are the villagers related to each other. Related lineages also maintain places of worship that are the private property of the family group.

Religion
Vedar are nominally Hindus; they were known to wear the marks of Saivite Hinduism such as Vibuthi ("sacred ash") on their forehead even in the 19th century. According to local legends, Vedars are considered to be the builders of most of the regional Hindu temples associated with Hindu high god Murugan. Although Vedars frequent regionally important Hindu temples and shrines associated with high Hindu deities such as Murugan, Pillaiyar and Siva, they propitiate local deities of folk Hinduism, who are sometimes unique to Veddars. Most of the folk deities are also commonly propitiated by other local Tamils such as Vairavar, Virapathirar, Kali and  Narasingan. Seligman (1911) encountered two unique deities, Kapalpei ("Ship spirit") and Kumara Deivam ("Young god") who are peculiar to Vedar. The cult of Kappalpei is based on legends of foreigners coming over by ships and landing along the coast where the Vedar usually lived. They are propitiated to ward off evils and hard times. Kumara Deivam was also noted amongst the primitive Sinhalese village of Gonagolla in the Ampara District known as Kumara Devio. Jon Dart in the 1980s found that these deities were no longer worshipped, but were replaced by the Periyasami cult.

The worship pattern is a combination of Devil-dancing called Sandangu ("ceremony" in Tamil) and orthodox Hindu Agamic rituals. The devil-dancing is unique to Vedar, but the aspect of spirit possession as a part of devil dancing is not unique to Vedar. Locals Tamils also experience spirit procession and trance states during religious festivals. During devil-dancing ceremonies, related family groups congregate in family-owned worship centers and build platforms known as Pandals. These Pandals may have a weapon, such a lance known as a Vel, installed in their middle, a construction similar to the Kirikoroha function of the interior Veddas as well. Male family members dance throughout the night and as part of the ceremony some become possessed by spirits, sometimes those of their recently diseased family members. This pattern is similar in nature to the ancestor-worshipping patterns of the interior Veddas. Most of the Sadangu locations are temporary ones without related permanent structures over them, but some have been turned into temples. In the village of Palchennai, one of these temporary structures has become a temple now identified with Hindu high god Vishnu. Vedars also participate in Tamil folk dramas called Kuttus that depict scenes from Hindu epics such as Mahabharatha and Ramayana.

Language

Vedar use the Sri Lankan Tamil dialect peculiar to the region, known as Batticaloa Tamil dialect, in their day to day conversations. Vedar children also study in that language in schools. During Sadangu ceremonies, those who are possessed by spirits speak in a mixed language that they call Vedar Sinkalam(Vedar Sinhala") or Vedar Bhasai which is the Vedda language of the interior Vedas. This Vedar Sinkalam is mixed with many Tamil words, as people no longer know the language. There is evidence at some point in the past that the people were bilingual in Vedda language and Tamil, but that is no longer the case.

Geographic distribution
Native chronicles have documented the presence of Vedar or Vedar-like people throughout the island from the beginning of the historic period.  Vedar presence in the present Eastern province has been noted during the Kandyan Kingdom period (1469 to 1815). Tennent noted that Vedars were found chiefly from Eravur to Venloos Bay. The 1946 Sri Lankan census returned 44 Vedar villages. The largest concentration of villages was close to the Vaharai peninsula; predominantly Vedar villages there included Ammenthnaveli, Kandaladi, Komatalamadu, Palchennai, Puliyankandadi, Oddumadu, Thaddumunai, Uriyankadu, and Vammivattavan. Vedar are also found further south, in Panichankerni, Mankerni and Kayankerni. There are also Vedars close to Kalkudah, in a village called Pallanchenai, and in the Trincomalee District, between the towns of Muttur and Foul Point.

Economic status
Native chronicles such as Nadu Kadu Paraveni Kalvettu mention the socio-economic status of the Vedar as that of primitive hunter gatherers. The chronicles also mention that the chiefs amongst them received gifts such as clothes from settlers and state that the Vedar in turn provided meat and honey to the settler population, indicating a system of barter trade between the groups. Vedar also seem to have provided manual labor to clear forest lands, in exchange for an annual portion of the food crops harvested. When Tennent visited the east coast in 1858, the Vedar were living in houses that were made of mud and thatch. They were moved seasonally from place to place dependent on the availability of fish and other game. They were surviving primarily as fishermen, as well as wage laborers working for timber merchants,  cutting and transporting timber from the forests. By the time Seligman visited them in 1911, he considered the Vedar subdivision to be economically better off than the rest of the Indigenous population of the interior. He attributed this to the assimilation of Tamil economic and cultural values by the Vedar clans, as well as to absorption of non-Vedar Tamils into Vedar families by intermarriage. Studies done in the 1980s by the anthropologist Jon Dart, indicated that Vedar in general were poorer than the rest of the Tamil and Muslim communities of the Eastern Province, which Dart attributed to their physical isolation in remote villages, as well as prevailing cultural norms that prevented them from fully integrating within the society. His studies did indicate that some Vedar had successfully integrated in Eastern society, with worldly possessions that did not much differ from those of their non-Vedar neighbors. The marked impact of the Sri Lankan civil war was also noted, due to the proximity of the Vedar's native villages to the theaters of operations of both rebel LTTE and  government forces.(See Vaharai bombing)

See also
Anuradhapura Veddas
History of Eastern Tamils
Balangoda Man

Notes

References

Further reading
Ethnic identity and marginality among the coast Veddas of Sri Lanka

External links
East Coast Veddas
 East Coast Veddas: Caught between two worlds
 Sinhala-Tamil Nationalism and Sri Lanka's  East Coast Veddas
 Veddas celebrate Kataragama wedding festival
Revisiting the cultural heritage of Sri Lanka:The Veddas (Vanniyaletto)
Vedda from Everyculture.com

Sri Lankan Tamil castes
Sri Lankan Tamil society
Vedda

Coast Veddas


A phase change is a change in the states of matter.  For example, a solid may become a liquid. This phase change is called melting.  When a solid changes into a gas, it is called sublimation. When a gas changes into a liquid, it is called condensation. When a liquid changes into a solid, it is called solidification. When a gas changes into a solid, it is called deposition . When a liquid changes into gas, it is called evaporation or boiling. Phase changes are usually caused by changes in temperature or pressure.

As the states of matter change from solid to liquid to gas, respectively, their composition changes as well. For example, in a solid, the bonds are stronger than hydrogen bonds. That allows the solid substance to have a definite volume and shape. However, when the heat is added to the solid and it melts to become a liquid, the bonds are considerably weaker, and in water, are simply hydrogen bonds.  A liquid has a definite volume but not a definite shape, and it thus takes the shape of the container in which it is. When more heat is added, the liquid substance evaporates and becomes a gas, which has no bonds at all. Gas is simply a formless collection of particles that tends to expand in all directions at the same time in order to occupy its full container. If a gas is not confined, the space between the particles will continue to increase. A gas has neither a definite volume nor a definite shape.

In this pattern, solid to liquid to gas, heat is being added in order to provoke the phase change. In the other "direction," gas to liquid to solid, heat is being released through the phase change.

It often helps to think of an ice cube when thinking of phase changes. An ice cube is a solid, and when heated up, it becomes liquid water. When heated up some more, it becomes water vapor, which is a gas.

Chemistry
Physics

Phase change


The term newly industrialized country (NIC) is a socioeconomic classification used by political scientists and economists to talk about several countries around the world.

NICs are countries who still are not developed countries but are doing better than other developing countries.   NICs have fast growing economies, and export a lot. In NICs many things in the country change quickly as people from the country move to the cities to take jobs in factories.

NICs usually share some other common features, including:
Increased social freedoms and civil rights.
Strong political leaders.
A switch from agricultural to industrial economies, especially in the manufacturing sector.
An increasingly open-market economy, allowing free trade with other nations in the world.
Large national corporations operating in several continents.
A lot of investment from foreign countries.
Political leadership in the part of the word they are in.
Fewer poor people

NICs often receive support from international organizations such as the WTO and other internationl support bodies. However, as environmental, labor and social standards tend to be significantly weaker in NICs, many fair trade supporters have advocated standards for importing their products and criticized the outsourcing of jobs to NICs.

Related pages
 Emerging markets
 Flying Geese Paradigm

Groupings:
 G8+5
 G20 industrial nations
 G20 developing nations
 BRICS
 Next Eleven

References

Country classifications

Newly industrialized country


The Federal Ministry of Marshall Plan Affairs was one of the first ministries of the Federal Republic of Germany. Its job was to oversee the rebuilding of the new republic using money and aid given by the United States as part of the European Recovery Programme, which was usually called the Marshall Plan.

The only Minister for Marshall Plan Affairs was also the first Federal Vice Chancellor, Franz Blücher.

In 1953 the Ministry was renamed the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation.

Marshall Plan


Adam Jack Aitken (19 June 1921 – 11 February 1998) was a Scottish lexicographer and leading scholar of the Scots language.

Education and military service
Aitken was born on 19 June 1921 in Edinburgh, grew up in Bonnyrigg, Midlothian, and was educated at Lasswade High School. He was the only son and eldest of the three children of Adam Aitken, a miner, and his first wife Alexandrina Sutherland, who died when Jack was about nine. He suffered neglect as a step-child, but his minister, Rev. Oliver Dryer, helped him to leave home at the age of sixteen. He was able to continue his education thanks to a school bursary. As the son of a miner, he received further bursaries that allowed him to enter the University of Edinburgh in 1939.

He served as a lance bombardier in the Royal Artillery during World War II in North Africa and Sicily.  He took part in the Normandy landings landing at Port en Bessin D Day + 2, he drove to join 151 Brigade of the 50th Division beyond Bayeuk.  He fought at Tilly sur Seulles and Villers Bocage.  He was commended for bravery by Field Marshal Montgomery in 1944 during the campaign in France.  He rose to the rank of Sergeant Major.

Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue
He graduated MA with First Class Honours in English Language and Literature in 1947. In 1948 he was appointed Assistant to Sir William Craigie, the Editor of A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (DOST) and became Editor of DOST on Craigie's retirement in 1956. When he took over editorial responsibility for DOST, Aitken instituted a new reading programme that approximately doubled the list of works excerpted for the dictionary, correcting the bias towards verse and literary prose. Aitken's editorship began with the letter J, and the impact of the new reading programme is seen from the third volume onwards.

Aitken was one of the first to appreciate the potential of the computer for research in the Arts. Although computer methods arrived too late to be of central importance in the collection process for DOST, he set up, with Paul Bratley and Neil Hamilton-Smith, the Older Scots Textual Archive, a computer-readable archive of over one million words of Older Scots literature.

For most of his career, up to 1979, Aitken combined his work on DOST with teaching, as a Lecturer and latterly Reader in the Department of English Language, University of Edinburgh. He can be said to have created 'Scots language' as a university subject. The handouts that he produced in the 1950s for his courses on Scots language were for many years the only clear summaries of Scots vocabulary, phonology, orthography, grammar and stylistics, and they circulated widely amongst scholars. Over time he made much of this material available in print, and his writings largely form the foundation of the subject.

Honours
He was chairman of the Language Committee of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies 1971–1976; chairman of the Forum for Research on the Languages of Scotland 1978–1981 and honorary president from 1994; vice-president of the Scottish Text Society from 1985; Honorary Preses of the Scots Language Society from 1994; honorary vice-president of the Scottish National Dictionary Association from 1995; and honorary vice-president of the Robert Henryson Society from 1996. In 1981 the British Academy awarded him the Biennial Sir Israel Gollancz Prize. In 1983 he was awarded a DLitt by the University of Edinburgh, and was appointed honorary professor in 1984. In 1987, he was presented with a Festschrift: The Nuttis Schell, Essays on the Scots Language presented to A J Aitken.

Aitken is well known for his formulation of the Scottish vowel length rule, also known as Aitken's Law. He also developed a numbering system for the Scots vowels that enabled a better understanding and description of their historical development.

Death
He retired in 1986 and died on 11 February 1998 of ischaemia.

References

Caroline Macafee, 'Obituary: A. J. Aitken (1921–1998)', English World-Wide 19:2 (1998) 275–285 http://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/eww.19.2.09mac DOI: 10.1075/eww.19.2.09mac

Caroline Macafee, 'Professor A J Aitken', The Herald (14 February 1998) http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/spl/aberdeen/professor-a-j-aitken-1.354441
J Derrick McClure 'Professor Jack Aitken. The word in Scotland', The Guardian (10 March 1998) https://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/guardian/doc/188142614.html?FMT=CITE&FMTS=CITE:AI&type=historic&date=Mar+10%2C+1998&author=J+Derrick+McClure&pub=The+Guardian+%281959-2003%29&edition=&startpage=&desc=The+word+in+Scotland

Caroline Macafee and Iseabail Macleod, eds. The Nuttis Schell. Essays on the Scots Language Presented to A J Aitken (Aberdeen University Press, 1987)
A. J. Aitken, ed. Caroline Macafee, The Older Scots Vowels: A History of the Stressed Vowels of Older Scots from the Beginnings to the Eighteenth Century (Edinburgh: Scottish Text Society, 2002)
A. J. Aitken,'The Scottish Vowel Length-Rule' in A. J. Aitken, M. Benskin and M. L. Samuels, eds., So meny people longages and tonges: Philological Essays in Scots and Mediaeval English presented to Angus McIntosh (Edinburgh, 1981)

1921 births
1998 deaths
Academics from Edinburgh
People educated at Lasswade High School Centre
Scots language
Scottish lexicographers
Scottish linguists
Military personnel from Edinburgh
British Army personnel of World War II
Royal Artillery soldiers
Academics of the University of Edinburgh
20th-century lexicographers

A. J. Aitken


James Armstrong (born April 22, 1957, Los Angeles, California, United States) is an American soul blues and electric blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He released three albums on HighTone Records and is signed with Catfood Records. His songs have been used in the soundtracks of three films; Speechless, Hear No Evil, and The Florentine.

Biography
Armstrong's father was a jazz guitarist and his mother a blues singer. Having learned the guitar at a young age, Armstrong formed his first band at school, and was touring the United States in his late teens. Inspired by Albert King and Robert Cray, his musical education included backing musicians such as Albert Collins, Big Joe Turner and Smokey Wilson. Armstrong relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area and, in 1995, released his debut album, Sleeping with a Stranger, on HighTone.

However, in April 1997, Armstrong was almost stabbed to death by an intruder at his home. The shoulder injury necessitated months of rehabilitation, which still left Armstrong with limited guitar playing ability in his left hand. He adjusted his playing style, hired a lead guitar player, and realised that playing slide guitar helped to slowly recover his dexterity. His second, introspective, album, Dark Night, was issued in 1998. It incorporated Joe Louis Walker and Doug MacLeod playing lead guitar on a couple of the songs. The album track, "Bank of Love", was used in the films Hear No Evil and The Florentine.

Armstrong recommenced live performances on the blues festival circuit, with a noteworthy appearance at the 1999 Pocono Blues Festival in Pennsylvania. In early 2000, Armstrong returned to the recording studio to work on his next album, Got It Goin' On. He was aided in the project by utilising Walker's rhythm section, plus a guest appearance from the keyboardist Jim Pugh. In 2001, Armstrong's  song "Pennies and Picks" from Got It Goin' On, earned him a W.C. Handy Award nomination for 'Song of the Year'. Armstrong himself was nominated for 'Contemporary Male Blues Guitarist of the Year'. "2 Sides", another song from Got It Goin' On was included in the film soundtrack for Speechless.

Armstrong has worked with Albert Collins, Keb' Mo', Coco Montoya, Roy Brown, Chaka Khan, Ricky Lee Jones, Jan and Dean, Mitch Mitchell and Tommy Castro.

Armstrong's 2011 release on Catfood Records, Blues At The Border, was his first recording in 11 years. James released Guitar Angels on Catfood Records in 2014.

In 2016, Armstrong started his own record label, Guitar Angels Records. The first release on his label, in May 2016, was the self-titled CD  Mary Jo Curry from the Springfield, Illinois vocalist.

Critical comments
Living Blues:
"... With a skintight band and a well-balanced combination of fire, technical  proficiency, and taste, Armstrong continues on his way to the
upper echelon of contemporary blues artists."

CBC Radio:
"…full of haunting and subtle nuances that point to a life rich with experience, this musician has definitely paid his dues. James
plays for and with his audience, extending the reach of the blues to include highly-charged sensuality, yearning, healing and good lowdown fun!"

JazzTimes:
"...Demonstrates the kind of flexibility that allows him easily and convincingly shift gears from slow blues... to urban funk... to N'awlins grooves to rousing roadhouse shuffles..."

Tony Russell:
"If you define 'blues' by the rigid categories of structure rather than the flexible language of feeling allusion, Robert Cray... Larry Garner, Joe Louis Walker and James Armstrong are a new and uncategorizable breed, their music blues-like rather than blues, each of them blending ideas and devices from a variety of sources – soul, rock, jazz, gospel – with a sophistication beyond the reach of their forerunners".

Album discography

See also
List of soul-blues musicians
List of electric blues musicians

References

External links
Official website
Armstrong photographs at Users.rcn.com

1957 births
Living people
American blues guitarists
American male guitarists
American blues singers
American male singers
Songwriters from California
Soul-blues musicians
Electric blues musicians
Slide guitarists
Singers from California
Guitarists from Los Angeles
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American male musicians
American male songwriters

James Armstrong (musician)


There is no formal Scouting organization yet in Turkmenistan, due to the political situation and because Turkmenistan refuses to join any organization because of its "status of permanent neutrality," which was accepted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 12, 1995. The only widespread outreach activities for Turkmen children between ages 8-14 are 10 to 14 day camps that do not provide any educational components but organize some cultural events like concerts, poems and dance competitions.

With the death of Saparmurat Niyazov on December 21, 2006, the situation may change, possibly opening for the expansion of Scouting.

There are, however, two Scout troops active in the vicinity of the capital, Aşgabat and one recent attempt in Daşoguz.

As far as is known, Scouting was not introduced to the region during the khanate period of the pre-Soviet era.

The concept of Scouting is at least marginally understood in Turkmenistan, as Turkmenistan issued postage stamps for the October 7, 1997 90th anniversary of the Boy Scouts; as well as other Turkmen postage stamps with Scout motifs and showing a heavy, darkish colored fleur-de-lis.  This does not necessarily mean complete understanding, and the stamps may well simply have been produced for the sake of marketability, but it shows that the concept of Scouting exists at some level in Turkmenistan.

With the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union, it was suggested that the Türkiye İzcilik Federasyonu assist in the creation of Scouting movements in the Turkic Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, but it is uncertain if this plan ever materialized. In Iraq there is the Turkmen Federation of Scouts (Türkmen Izcilik Federasyonu) founded in 2010 and based in Kirkuk.

The Scout Motto is Daima Häzir, meaning Be Prepared in Turkmen, similar to Azeri and Turkish mottoes. The Turkmen noun for a single Scout is Skaut or İzci. Given recent flux in the Turkmen language, an entirely different name may be decided upon.

References

See also

World Organization of the Scout Movement
Organization of the Scout Movement of Kazakhstan
Scouting in Kyrgyzstan
Scout Association of Uzbekistan

Turkmenistan
Organizations based in Turkmenistan

Scouting in Turkmenistan