are fortresses constructed primarily of wood and stone. They evolved from the wooden stockades of earlier centuries and came into their best-known form in the 16th century. Castles in Japan were built to guard important or strategic sites, such as ports, river crossings, or crossroads, and almost always incorporated the landscape into their defenses.

Though they were built to last and used more stone in their construction than most Japanese buildings, castles were still constructed primarily of wood, and many were destroyed over the years. This was especially true during the Sengoku period (1467–1603), when many of these castles were first built. However, many were rebuilt, either later in the Sengoku period, in the Edo period (1603–1867) that followed, or more recently, as national heritage sites or museums. Today there are more than one hundred castles extant, or partially extant, in Japan; it is estimated that once there were five thousand. Some castles, such as the ones at Matsue and Kōchi, both built in 1611, have main keeps or other buildings that remain extant in their original forms, not having suffered any damage from sieges or other threats. Hiroshima Castle, on the opposite end of the spectrum, was destroyed in the atomic bombing, and was rebuilt in 1958 as a museum, though it does retain many of its original stone walls.

The character for castle, '城', by itself read as shiro (its kun'yomi), is read as jō (the Chinese-derived on'yomi) when attached to a word, such as in the name of a particular castle. Thus, for example, Osaka Castle is called Ōsaka-jō (大阪城) in Japanese.

Japanese castle is included in Unicode as U+1F3EF 🏯

History

Originally conceived as fortresses for military defense, Japanese castles were placed in strategic locations, typically along trade routes, roads, and rivers. Though castles continued to be built with these considerations, for centuries, fortresses were also built as centres of governance. By the Sengoku period, they had come to serve as the homes of daimyōs (feudal lords), to impress and to intimidate rivals not only with their defences but also with their sizes, architecture, and elegant interiors. In 1576, Oda Nobunaga was among the first to build one of these palace-like castles: Azuchi Castle was Japan's first castle to have a tower keep (天守閣, tenshukaku), and it inspired both Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Osaka Castle and Tokugawa Ieyasu's Edo Castle. Azuchi served as the governing center of Oda's territories, and as his lavish home, but it was also very keenly and strategically placed. A short distance away from the capital of Kyoto, which had long been a target of violence, Azuchi's carefully chosen location allowed it a great degree of control over the transportation and communication routes of Oda's enemies.

Before the Sengoku period (roughly the 16th century), most castles were called . Though most later castles were built atop mountains or hills, these were built from the mountains. Trees and other foliage were cleared, and the stone and dirt of the mountain itself was carved into rough fortifications. Ditches were dug, to present obstacles to attackers, as well as to allow boulders to be rolled down at attackers. Moats were created by diverting mountain streams. Buildings were made primarily of wattle and daub, using thatched roofs, or, occasionally, wooden shingles. Small ports in the walls or planks could be used to deploy bows or fire guns from. The main weakness of this style was its general instability. Thatch caught fire even more easily than wood, and weather and soil erosion prevented structures from being particularly large or heavy. Eventually, stone bases began to be used, encasing the hilltop in a layer of fine pebbles, and then a layer of larger rocks over that, with no mortar. This support allowed larger, heavier, and more permanent buildings.

Early fortifications

The first fortifications in Japan were hardly what one generally associates with the term "castles". Made primarily of earthworks, or rammed earth, and wood, the earliest fortifications made far greater use of natural defences and topography than anything human-made. These kōgoishi and chashi (チャシ, for Ainu castles) were never intended to be long-term defensive positions, let alone residences; the native peoples of the archipelago built fortifications when they were needed and abandoned the sites afterwards.

The Yamato people began to build cities in earnest in the 7th century, complete with expansive palace complexes, surrounded on four sides with walls and impressive gates. Earthworks and wooden fortresses were also built throughout the countryside to defend the territory from the native Emishi, Ainu and other groups; unlike their primitive predecessors, these were relatively permanent structures, built in peacetime. These were largely built as extensions of natural features, and often consisted of little more than earthworks and wooden barricades.

The Nara period (–794) fortress at Dazaifu, from which all of Kyūshū would be governed and defended for centuries afterwards, was originally constructed in this manner, and remnants can still be seen today. A bulwark was constructed around the fortress to serve as a moat to aid in the defense of the structure; in accordance with military strategies and philosophies of the time, it would only be filled with water at times of conflict. This was called a mizuki (), or "water fort". The character for castle or fortress (), up until sometime in the 9th century or later, was read (pronounced) ki, as in this example, mizuki.

Though fairly basic in construction and appearance, these wooden and earthwork structures were designed to impress just as much as to function effectively against attack. Chinese and Korean architecture influenced the design of Japanese buildings, including fortifications, in this period. The remains or ruins of some of these fortresses, decidedly different from what would come later, can still be seen in certain parts of Kyūshū and Tōhoku today.

Medieval period
The Heian period (794–1185) saw a shift from the need to defend the entire state from invaders to that of lords defending individual mansions or territories from one another. Though battles were still continually fought in the north-east portion of Honshū (the Tōhoku region) against native peoples, the rise of the samurai warrior class towards the end of the period, and various disputes between noble families jostling for power and influence in the Imperial Court brought about further upgrades. The primary defensive concern in the archipelago was no longer native tribes or foreign invaders, but rather internal conflicts within Japan, between rival samurai clans or other increasingly large and powerful factions, and as a result, defensive strategies and attitudes were forced to change and adapt. As factions emerged and loyalties shifted, clans and factions that had helped the Imperial Court became enemies, and defensive networks were broken, or altered through the shifting of alliances.

The Genpei War (1180–1185) between the Minamoto and Taira clans, and the Nanboku-chō Wars (1336–1392) between the Northern and Southern Imperial Courts are the primary conflicts that define these developments during what is sometimes called Japan's medieval period.

Fortifications were still made almost entirely out of wood, and were based largely on earlier modes, and on Chinese and Korean examples. But they began to become larger, to incorporate more buildings, to accommodate larger armies, and to be conceived as more long-lasting structures. This mode of fortification, developed gradually from earlier modes and used throughout the wars of the Heian period (770–1185), and deployed to help defend the shores of Kyūshū from the Mongol invasions of the 13th century, reached its climax in the 1330s, during the Nanboku-chō period. Chihaya Castle and Akasaka castle, permanent castle complexes containing a number of buildings but no tall keep towers, and surrounded by wooden walls, were built by Kusunoki Masashige to be as militarily effective as possible, within the technology and designs of the time.

The Ashikaga shogunate, established in the 1330s, had a tenuous grip on the archipelago, and maintained relative peace for over a century. Castle design and organization continued to develop under the Ashikaga shogunate, and throughout the Sengoku period. Castle complexes became fairly elaborate, containing a number of structures, some of which were quite complex internally, as they now served as residences, command centres, and a number of other purposes.

Sengoku

The Ōnin War, which broke out in 1467, marked the beginning of 147 years of widespread warfare (called the Sengoku period) between daimyōs (feudal lords) across the entire archipelago. For the duration of the Ōnin War (1467–1477), and into the Sengoku period, the entire city of Kyoto became a battlefield, and suffered extensive damage. Noble family mansions across the city became increasingly fortified over this ten-year period, and attempts were made to isolate the city as a whole from the marauding armies of samurai that dominated the landscape for over a century.

As regional officials and others became the daimyōs, and the country descended into war, they began to quickly add to their power bases, securing their primary residences,  and constructing additional fortifications in tactically advantageous or important locations. Originally conceived as purely defensive (martial) structures, or as retirement bunkers where a lord could safely ride out periods of violence in his lands, over the course of the Sengoku period, many of these mountain castles developed into permanent residences, with elaborate exteriors and lavish interiors.

The beginnings of the shapes and styles now considered to be the "classic" Japanese castle design emerged at this time, and castle towns (jōkamachi, "town below castle") also appeared and developed. Despite these developments, though, for most of the Sengoku period castles remained essentially larger, more complex versions of the simple wooden fortifications of centuries earlier. It was not until the last thirty years of the period of war that drastic changes would occur to bring about the emergence of the type of castle typified by Himeji Castle and other surviving castles. This period of war culminated in the Azuchi–Momoyama period, the scene of numerous fierce battles, which saw the introduction of firearms and the development of tactics to employ or counter them.

Azuchi–Momoyama period

Unlike in Europe, where the advent of the cannon spelled the end of the age of castles, Japanese castle-building was spurred, ironically, by the introduction of firearms. Though firearms first appeared in Japan in 1543, and castle design almost immediately saw developments in reaction, Azuchi castle, built in the 1570s, was the first example of a largely new type of castle, on a larger, grander scale than those that came before, boasting a large stone base (, musha-gaeshi), a complex arrangement of concentric baileys (, maru), and a tall central tower. In addition, the castle was located on a plain, rather than on a densely forested mountain, and relied more heavily on architecture and manmade defenses than on its natural environment for protection. These features, along with the general appearance and organization of the Japanese castle, which had matured by this point, have come to define the stereotypical Japanese castle. Along with Hideyoshi's Fushimi–Momoyama castle, Azuchi lends its name to the brief Azuchi–Momoyama period (roughly 1568–1600) in which these types of castles, used for military defense, flourished.

Osaka Castle was destroyed by cannon. This reproduction towers above the surroundings. The introduction of the arquebus brought dramatic shifts in battle tactics and military attitudes in Japan. Though these shifts were complex and numerous, one of the concepts key to changes in castle design at this time was that of battle at range. Though archery duels had traditionally preceded samurai battles since the Heian period or earlier, exchanges of fire with arquebuses had a far more dramatic effect on the outcome of the battle; hand-to-hand fighting, while still very common, was diminished by the coordinated use of firearms.

Oda Nobunaga, one of the most expert commanders in the coordinated tactical use of the new weapon, built his Azuchi castle, which has since come to be seen as the paradigm of the new phase of castle design, with these considerations in mind. The stone foundation resisted damage from arquebus balls better than wood or earthworks, and the overall larger scale of the complex added to the difficulty of destroying it. Tall towers and the castle's location on a plain provided greater visibility from which the garrison could employ their guns, and the complex set of courtyards and baileys provided additional opportunities for defenders to retake portions of the castle that had fallen.

Cannon were rare in Japan due to the expense of obtaining them from foreigners, and the difficulty in casting such weapons themselves as the foundries used to make bronze temple bells were simply unsuited to the production of iron or steel cannon. The few cannon that were used were smaller and weaker than those used in European sieges, and many of them were in fact taken from European ships and remounted to serve on land; where the advent of cannon and other artillery brought an end to stone castles in Europe, wooden ones would remain in Japan for several centuries longer. A few castles boasted 'wall guns', but these are presumed to have been little more than large caliber arquebuses, lacking the power of a true cannon. When siege weapons were used in Japan, they were most often trebuchets or catapults in the Chinese style, and they were used as anti-personnel weapons. There is no record that the goal of destroying walls ever entered into the strategy of a Japanese siege. In fact, it was often seen to be more honorable, and more tactically advantageous on the part of the defender for him to lead his forces into battle outside the castle. When battles were not resolved in this way, out in the open, sieges were almost always undertaken purely by denying supplies to the castle, an effort that could last years, but involved little more than surrounding the castle with a force of sufficient size until a surrender could be elicited.

The crucial development that spurred the emergence of a new type of defensive architecture was, thus, not cannon, but the advent of firearms. Arquebus firing squads and cavalry charges could overcome wooden stockades with relative ease, and so stone castles came into use.

Azuchi Castle was destroyed in 1582, just three years after its completion, but it nevertheless ushered in a new period of castle-building.  Among the many castles built in the ensuing years was Hideyoshi's castle at Osaka, completed in 1585. This incorporated all the new features and construction philosophies of Azuchi, and was larger, more prominently located, and longer-lasting. It was the last bastion of resistance against the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate (see Siege of Osaka), and remained prominent if not politically or militarily significant, as the city of Osaka grew up around it, developing into one of Japan's primary commercial centers.

Though stone was sometimes used to shore up defenses or foundations for a few centuries prior, Azuchi's distinctive style of stone base was the first of its kind, and was seen in every castle constructed afterwards. The Japanese used cannon very infrequently, and the heavy stone foundations were more than sufficient to repel arquebus fire. Whether intentionally or not, these foundations also proved very resilient against Japan's frequent earthquakes.

This period saw the climax of earlier developments towards larger buildings, more complex and concentrated construction, and more elaborate design, both externally and in the castles' interiors. European castle design began to have an impact as well in this period, though the castle had long been in decline in Europe by this point.

In Japanese politics and warfare, the castle served not only as a fortress, but as the residence of the daimyō (feudal lord), and as a symbol of his power. Fushimi Castle, which was meant to serve as a luxurious retirement home for Toyotomi Hideyoshi, serves as a popular example of this development. Though it resembled other castles of the period on the outside, the inside was lavishly decorated, and the castle is famous for having a tea room covered in gold leaf. Fushimi was by no means an exception, and many castles bore varying amounts of golden ornamentation on their exteriors. Osaka castle was only one of a number of castles that boasted golden roof tiles, and sculptures of fish, cranes, and tigers. Certainly, outside of such displays of precious metals, the overall aesthetics of the architecture and interiors remained very important, as they do in most aspects of Japanese culture.

Some especially powerful families controlled not one, but a whole string of castles, consisting of a main castle (honjō) and a number of satellite castles (shijō) spread throughout their territory. Though the shijō were sometimes full-fledged castles with stone bases, they were more frequently fortresses of wood and earthenworks. Often, a system of fire beacons, drums, or conch shells was set up to enable communications between these castles over a great distance. The Hōjō family's Odawara Castle and its network of satellites was one of the most powerful examples of this honjō-shijō system; the Hōjō controlled so much land that a hierarchy of sub-satellite networks was created

Korea

Toyotomi Hideyoshi's invasions of Korea took place between 1592 and 1598, at the same time as the high point in Azuchi–Momoyama style castle construction within Japan. Many Japanese castles (called Wajō 倭城 in Japanese and Waeseong in Korean) were built along the southern shores of Korea. All that remains of these castles today are the stone bases.

Edo period

The Sengoku period, roughly a century and a half of war that brought great changes and developments in military tactics and equipment, as well as the emergence of the Azuchi-Momoyama style castle, was followed by the Edo period, over two hundred and fifty years of peace, beginning around 1600–1615 and ending in 1868. Edo period castles, including survivors from the preceding Azuchi-Momoyama period, therefore no longer had defense against outside forces as their primary purpose. Rather, they served primarily as luxurious homes for the daimyōs, their families and retainers, and to protect the daimyō, and his power base, against peasant uprisings and other internal insurrections. The Tokugawa shogunate, to forestall the amassing of power on the part of the daimyōs, enforced a number of regulations limiting the number of castles to one per han (feudal domain), with a few exceptions, and a number of other policies including that of sankin-kōtai. Though there were also, at times, restrictions on the size and furnishings of these castles, and although many daimyōs grew quite poor later in the period, daimyō nevertheless sought as much as possible to use their castles as representations of their power and wealth. The general architectural style did not change much from more martial times, but the furnishings and indoor arrangements could be quite lavish.

This restriction on the number of castles allowed each han had profound effects not only politically, as intended, but socially, and in terms of the castles themselves. Where members of the samurai class had previously lived in or around the great number of castles sprinkling the landscape, they now became concentrated in the capitals of the han and in Edo; the resulting concentration of samurai in the cities, and their near-total absence from the countryside and from cities that were not feudal capitals (Kyoto and Osaka in particular) were important features of the social and cultural landscape of the Edo period. Meanwhile, the castles in the han capitals inevitably expanded, not only to accommodate the increased number of samurai they now had to support, but also to represent the prestige and power of the daimyō, now consolidated into a single castle. Edo castle, expanded by a factor of twenty between roughly 1600 and 1636 after becoming the shogunal seat. Though obviously something of an exception, the shōgun not being a regular daimyō, it nevertheless serves as a fine example of these developments. These vastly consolidated and expanded castles, and the great number of samurai living, by necessity, in and around them, thus led to an explosion in urban growth in 17th century Japan.

As contact with Western powers increased in the middle of the 19th century, some castles such as Goryōkaku in Hokkaidō were turned once again to martial purposes. No longer needed to resist samurai cavalry charges, or arquebus squads, attempts were made to convert Goryōkaku, and a handful of other castles across the country, into defensible positions against the cannon of Western naval vessels.

Modern period

Meiji Restoration
Before the feudal system could be completely overturned, castles played a role in the initial resistance to the Meiji Restoration.  In January 1868, the Boshin War broke out in Kyoto, between samurai forces loyal to the disaffected Bakufu government, and allied forces loyal to the new Meiji Emperor, which consisted mainly of samurai and rōnin from the Choshu and Satsuma domains.  By January 31, the Bakufu army had retreated to Osaka Castle in disarray and the shōgun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu had fled to Edo (later Tokyo).  Osaka Castle was surrendered to the Imperial forces without a fight, and on February 3, 1868, many of the buildings of Osaka Castle were burned.  The heavy damage to Osaka Castle, which was a significant symbol of the power of the Shogun in western Japan, dealt a major blow to the prestige of the shogunate and the morale of their troops.

From Edo, the Bakufu forces fled north to the Aizu domain, from whence a large number of their troops hailed.  As the Aizu Campaign opened, Nagaoka and Komine Castles were the scenes of heavy fighting.  In the course of battle, Komine Castle was burned (it was re-built in 1994). The allied forces continued north to the city of Wakamatsu, and lay siege to Tsuruga Castle. After a month, with the walls and main tower pock-marked by bullets and cannonballs, Tsuruga Castle was finally surrendered.  It was later demolished and not re-built until 1965.

From Aizu, some Bakufu loyalists made their way north to the city of Hakodate, on Hokkaido. There they set up the Republic of Ezo, centered on a government building within the walls of Goryōkaku, a French-style star fortress, which is nonetheless often included in lists and in literature on Japanese castles.  After the fierce Battle of Hakodate, the fortress of Goryōkaku was under siege, and finally surrendered on May 18, 1869, bringing an end to the Boshin War.

All castles, along with the feudal domains themselves, were turned over to the Meiji government in the 1871 abolition of the han system.  During the Meiji Restoration, these castles were viewed as symbols of the previous ruling elite, and nearly 2,000 castles were dismantled or destroyed. Others were simply abandoned and eventually fell into disrepair.

Rebellions continued to break out during the first years of the Meiji period.  The last and largest was the Satsuma Rebellion (1877).  After heated disagreements in the new Tokyo legislature, young former samurai of the Satsuma domain rashly decided to rebel against the new government, and lobbied Saigō Takamori to lead them. Saigo reluctantly accepted and led Satsuma forces north from Kagoshima city. Hostilities commenced on February 19, 1877, when the defenders of Kumamoto Castle fired on the Satsuma troops.  Fierce hand to hand combat gave way to a siege, but by April 12, reinforcements of the Imperial army arrived to break the siege.  After a series of battles, the Satsuma rebels were forced back to Kagoshima city.  Fighting continued there, and the stones walls of Kagoshima Castle still show the damage done by bullets.  (Kagoshima Castle was never re-built, but portions of the stone walls and the moat were left intact, and later the prefectural history museum was built on the castle's foundation.)  The rebel force made their last stand on Shiroyama, or "Castle Mountain", probably named for a castle built there some time in the past, whose name has been lost in history.  During the final battle, Saigo was mortally wounded, and the last forty rebels charged the Imperial troops and were cut down by Gatling guns.  The Satsuma Rebellion came to an end at the Battle of "Castle Mountain" on the morning of September 25, 1877.

Imperial Japanese Army
Some castles, especially the larger ones, were used by the Imperial Japanese Army. Osaka Castle served as the headquarters for the 4th Infantry Division, until public funds paid for the construction of a new headquarters building within the castle grounds and a short distance from the main tower, so that the castle could be enjoyed by the citizens and visitors of Osaka. Hiroshima Castle served as Imperial General Headquarters during the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) and later as the headquarters for the 5th Infantry Division; Kanazawa Castle served as HQ for the 9th Infantry Division. For this reason, and as a way to strike against the morale and culture of the Japanese people, many castles were intentionally bombed during World War II. The main towers of the castles at Nagoya, Okayama, Fukuyama, Wakayama, Ōgaki, among others, were all destroyed during air raids.  Hiroshima Castle is notable for having been destroyed in the atomic bomb blast on August 6, 1945.  It was also on the grounds of Hiroshima Castle that news of the atomic bombing was first transmitted to Tokyo.  When the atomic bomb detonated, a team of volunteer high school girls had just taken their shift on a radio in a small fortified bunker in the main courtyard of Hiroshima Castle.  The girls transmitted the message that the city had been destroyed, to the confused disbelief of the officers receiving the message in Tokyo.

Shuri Castle (actually a Ryukyuan gusuku), on Okinawa Island was not only the headquarters for the 32nd Army and the defense of Okinawa, but also has the distinction of the being the last castle in Japan attacked by an invading force. In April 1945, Shuri Castle was the coordinating point for a line of outposts and defensive positions known as the "Shuri Line".  US Soldiers and Marines encountered fierce resistance and hand-to-hand combat all along the Shuri Line.  Starting on May 25, the castle was subjected to three days of intense naval bombardment from the USS Mississippi.  On May 28, a company of US Marines took the castle, finding that the intensity of the destruction had prompted the headquarters contingent to abandon the castle and link up with scattered units and continue the defense of the island.  On May 30, the US flag was raised over one of the parapets of the castle. Shuri Castle was re-built in 1992, and is now an UNESCO World Heritage Site. Over  of the Shuri Castle were burnt down due to an electrical fault on 30 October 2019 at around 2.34 am.

Reconstruction and conservation
During the early 20th century, a new movement for the preservation of heritage grew. The first law for the preservation of sites of historical or cultural significance was enacted in 1919, and was followed ten years later by the 1929 National Treasure Preservation Law.  With the enactment of these laws, local governments had an obligation to prevent any further destruction, and they had some of the funds and resources of the national government to improve on these historically significant sites.

By the 1920s, nationalism was on the rise, and a new pride was found in the castles, which became symbols of Japan's warrior traditions.  With new advances in construction, some of the previously destroyed castle buildings were re-built quickly and cheaply with steel-reinforced concrete, such as the main tower of Osaka Castle, which was first re-built in 1928.

While many of the remaining castles in Japan are reconstructions or a mix of reconstructed and historical buildings, and many of the reconstructed buildings are steel-reinforced concrete replicas, there has been a movement toward traditional methods of construction. Kanazawa Castle is a remarkable example of a modern reproduction using a significant degree of traditional construction materials and techniques. Modern construction materials at Kanazawa Castle are minimal, discreet, and are primarily in place to ensure stability, safety concerns, and accessibility. At present, there are local non-profit associations that are attempting to collect funds and donations for the historically accurate re-construction of the main towers at Takamatsu Castle on Shikoku, and Edo Castle in Tokyo.

There are only twelve castles with main keeps that are considered "original," although many other castles have significant numbers of other extant historical castle buildings:

 Bitchū Matsuyama Castle
 Hikone Castle
 Himeji Castle
 Hirosaki Castle
 Inuyama Castle
 Kōchi Castle
 Marugame Castle
 Maruoka Castle
 Matsue Castle
 Matsumoto Castle
 Matsuyama Castle (Iyo)
 Uwajima Castle

Most of these are in areas of Japan that were not subjected to the strategic bombing of World War II, such as in Shikoku or in the Japanese Alps.  Great care is taken with these structures; open flame and smoking near the castles is usually prohibited, and visitors are usually required to remove their shoes before stepping on the wooden floors (slippers are usually provided). Local legends or ghost stories may also be associated with some of these castles; the most famous is probably the tale of Okiku and the Nine Plates, based on events that occurred at Himeji Castle.

At the other end of the spectrum are castles that have been left in ruins, though usually after archaeological surveys and excavations have been done.  Most of these belong to or are maintained by local municipal governments.  Some have been incorporated into public parks, such as the ruins of Kuwana Castle and Matsuzaka Castle in Mie Prefecture, Kunohe Castle (Ninohe, Iwate Prefecture), or Sunpu Castle (Shizuoka City).  Others have been left in more natural state, often with a marked hiking trail, such as Azaka Castle, (Matsuzaka, Mie Prefecture), Kame Castle (Inawashiro, Fukushima Prefecture), Kikoe Castle (Kagoshima city), or Kanegasaki Castle (Tsuruga city, Fukui Prefecture).  The grounds of some were developed with municipal buildings or schools.  In Toba, Mie Prefecture, the city hall and an elementary school were built on the site of Toba Castle.

Some castle sites are now in the hands of private landowners, and the area has been developed.  Vegetable plots now occupy the site of Kaminogo Castle (Gamagōri, Aichi), and a chestnut orchard has been planted on the site of Nishikawa Castle, though in both cases some of the castle-related topography can still be seen, such as the motte or ramparts.

Finally there are the castle sites that have not been maintained or developed to any degree, and may have few markings or signs.  Historical significance and local interest are too low to warrant additional costs.  This includes Nagasawa Castle (Toyokawa, Aichi), Sakyoden Castle (Toyohashi, Aichi), Taka Castle (Matsuzaka, Mie), and Kuniyoshi Castle (Mihama, Fukui Prefecture).  Castle sites of this type also include nearly every area marked "Castle Mountain" ( Shiroyama) on the maps of towns and cities across Japan.  Because the castle was small or may have been used for a short time in centuries past, the name of the castle is often lost to history, such as the "Shiroyama" at Sekigahara, Gifu Prefecture, or the "Shiroyama" between Lake Shōji and Lake Motosu near Mount Fuji, Yamanashi Prefecture.  In such cases, locals might not be aware there ever was a castle, believing that the name of the mountain is "just a name".  Detailed city maps will often have such sites marked.  At the site, castle-related landscaping, such as ramparts, partly filled wells, and a leveled hilltop or a series of terraces, will provide evidence of the original layout of the castle.

Whether their buildings are historical or reconstructions or a mix of the two, numerous castles across Japan serve as history and folk museums, as points of pride for local people, and as tangible structures reflecting Japanese history and heritage.  As castles are associated with the martial valor of past warriors, there are often monuments near castle structures or in their parks dedicated to either samurai or soldiers of the Imperial Army who died in war, such as the monument to the 18th Infantry Regiment near the ruins of Yoshida Castle (Toyohashi, Aichi). Castle grounds are often developed into parks for the benefit of the public, and planted with cherry blossom trees, plum blossom trees, and other flowering plants. Hirosaki Castle in Aomori Prefecture and Matsumae Castle in Hokkaido are both famous in their respective regions for their cherry blossom trees. The efforts of dedicated groups, as well as various agencies of the government has been to keep castles as relevant and visible in the lives of the Japanese people, to showcase them to visitors, and thus prevent the neglect of national heritage.

Architecture and defenses
Japanese castles were built in a variety of environments, but all were constructed within variations of a fairly well-defined architectural scheme. Yamajiro (山城), or "mountain castles" were the most common, and provided the best natural defenses. However, castles built on flat plains (平城, hirajiro) and those built on lowlands hills (平山城, hirayamajiro) were not uncommon, and a few very isolated castles were even built on small natural or artificial islands in lakes or the sea, or along the shore. The science of building and fortifying castles was known as chikujō-jutsu ().

Walls and foundations

Japanese castles were almost always built atop a hill or mound, and often an artificial mound would be created for this purpose (similar to European motte-and-bailey castles). This not only aided greatly in the defense of the castle, but also allowed it a greater view over the surrounding land, and made the castle look more impressive and intimidating. In some ways, the use of stone, and the development of the architectural style of the castle, was a natural step up from the wooden stockades of earlier centuries. The hills gave Japanese castles sloping walls, which many argue helped (incidentally) to defend them from Japan's frequent earthquakes. There is some disagreement among scholars as to whether or not these stone bases were easy to scale; some argue that the stones made easy hand- and footholds, while others retort that the bases were steep, and individual stones could be as large as  high, making them difficult if not next to impossible to scale.

Thus, a number of measures were invented to keep attackers off the walls and to stop them from climbing the castle, including pots of hot sand, gun emplacements, and arrow slits from which defenders could fire at attackers while still enjoying nearly full cover. Spaces in the walls for firing from were called sama; arrow slits were called yasama, gun emplacements tepposama and the rarer, later spaces for cannon were known as taihosama. Unlike in European castles, which had walkways built into the walls, in Japanese castles, the walls' timbers would be left sticking inwards, and planks would simply be placed over them to provide a surface for archers or gunners to stand on. This standing space was often called the ishi uchi tana or "stone throwing shelf". Other tactics to hinder attackers' approaches to the walls included caltrops, bamboo spikes planted into the ground at a diagonal, or the use of felled trees, their branches facing outwards and presenting an obstacle to an approaching army (abatis). Many castles also had trapdoors built into their towers, and some even suspended logs from ropes, to drop on attackers.

The Anō family from Ōmi Province were the foremost castle architects in the late 16th century, and were renowned for building the 45-degree stone bases, which began to be used for keeps, gatehouses, and corner towers, not just for the castle mound as a whole.

Japanese castles, like their European cousins, featured massive stone walls and large moats. However, walls were restricted to the castle compound itself; they were never extended around a jōkamachi (castle town), and only very rarely were built along borders. This comes from Japan's long history of not fearing invasion, and stands in stark contrast to philosophies of defensive architecture in Europe, China, and many other parts of the world. Even within the walls, a very different architectural style and philosophy applied, as compared to the corresponding European examples. A number of tile-roofed buildings, constructed from plaster over skeletons of wooden beams, lay within the walls, and in later castles, some of these structures would be placed atop smaller stone-covered mounds. These wooden structures were surprisingly fireproof, as a result of the plaster used on the walls. Sometimes a small portion of a building would be constructed of stone, providing a space to store and contain gunpowder.

Though the area inside the walls could be quite large, it did not encompass fields or peasants' homes, and the vast majority of commoners likewise lived outside the castle walls. Samurai lived almost exclusively within the compound, those of higher rank living closer to the daimyō's central keep. In some larger castles, such as Himeji, a secondary inner moat was constructed between this more central area of residences and the outer section where lower-ranking samurai kept their residences. Only a very few commoners, those directly in the employ and service of the daimyō or his retainers, lived within the walls, and they were often designated portions of the compound to live in, according to their occupation, for purposes of administrative efficiency. Overall, it can be said that castle compounds contained only those structures belonging to the daimyō and his retainers, and those important to the administration of the domain.

Layout

The primary method of defense lay in the arrangement of the baileys, called maru (丸) or . Maru, meaning 'round' or 'circle' in most contexts, here refers to sections of the castle, separated by courtyards. Some castles were arranged in concentric circles, each maru lying within the last, while others lay their maru in a row; most used some combination of these two layouts. Since most Japanese castles were built atop a mountain or hill, the topography of the location determined the layout of the maru.

The "most central bailey", containing the keep, was called honmaru (本丸), and the second and third were called ni-no-maru (二の丸) and san-no-maru (三の丸) respectively. These areas contained the main tower and residence of the daimyō, the storerooms (kura 蔵 or 倉), and the living quarters of the garrison. Larger castles would have additional encircling sections, called soto-guruwa or sōguruwa. At many castles still standing today in Japan, only the honmaru remains. Nijō Castle in Kyoto is an interesting exception, in that the ni-no-maru still stands, while all that remains of the honmaru is the stone base.

The arrangement of gates and walls sees one of the key tactical differences in design between the Japanese castle and its European counterpart. A complex system of a great many gates and courtyards leading up to the central keep serves as one of the key defensive elements. This was, particularly in the case of larger or more important castles, very carefully arranged to impede an invading army and to allow fallen outer portions of the compound to be regained with relative ease by the garrisons of the inner portion. The defenses of Himeji castle are an excellent example of this. Since sieges rarely involved the wholesale destruction of walls, castle designers and defenders could anticipate the ways in which an invading army would move through the compound, from one gate to another. As an invading army passed through the outer rings of the Himeji compound, it would find itself directly under windows from which rocks, hot sand, or other things could be dropped, and also in a position that made them easy shots for archers in the castle's towers. Gates were often placed at tight corners, forcing a bottleneck effect upon the invading force, or even simply at right angles within a square courtyard. Passageways would often lead to blind alleys, and the layout would often prevent visitors (or invaders) from being able to see ahead to where different passages might lead. All in all, these measures made it impossible to enter a castle and travel straight to the keep. Invading armies, as well as, presumably, anyone else entering the castle, would be forced to travel around and around the complex, more or less in a spiral, gradually approaching the center, all while the defenders prepared for battle, and rained down arrows and worse upon the attackers.

All of that said however, castles were rarely forcibly invaded. It was considered more honorable, and more appropriate, for a defender's army to sally forth from the castle to confront his attackers. When this did not happen, sieges were most often performed not through the use of siege weapons or other methods of forced entry, but by surrounding the enemy castle and simply denying food, water, or other supplies to the fortress. As this tactic could often take months or even years to see results, the besieging army sometimes even built their own castle or fortress nearby. This being the case, "the castle was less a defensive fortress than a symbol of defensive capacity with which to impress or discourage the enemy". It of course also served as the lord's residence, a center of authority and governance, and in various ways a similar function to military barracks.

Buildings

The castle keep, usually three to five stories tall, is known as the tenshukaku(天守閣) or tenshu(天守), and may be linked to a number of smaller buildings of two or three stories. Some castles, notably Azuchi, had keeps of as many as seven stories. The keep was the tallest and most elaborate building in the complex, and often also the largest. The number of stories and building layout as perceived from outside the keep rarely corresponds to the internal layout; for example, what appears to be the third story from outside may in fact be the fourth. This certainly must have helped to confuse attackers, preventing them from knowing which story or which window to attack, and likely disorienting the attacker somewhat once he made his way in through a window.

The least militarily equipped of the castle buildings, the keep was defended by the walls, gates and towers, and its ornamental role was never ignored; few buildings in Japan, least of all castle keeps, were ever built with attention to function purely over artistic and architectural form. Keeps were meant to be impressive not only in their size and in implying military might, but also in their beauty and the implication of a daimyō's wealth. Though castles owned by powerful daimyōs more often than not had main keeps, many lesser castles did not have them.  Though obviously well within the general sphere of Japanese architecture, much of the aesthetics and design of the castle was quite distinct from styles or influences seen in Shintō shrines, Buddhist temples, or Japanese homes. The intricate gables and windows are a fine example of this.

On those occasions when a castle was infiltrated or invaded by enemy forces, the central keep served as the last bastion of refuge, and a point from which counter-attacks and attempts to retake the castle could be made. If the castle ultimately fell, certain rooms within the keep would more often than not become the site of the seppuku (ritual suicide) of the daimyō, his family, and closest retainers.

Palisades lined the top of the castle's walls, and patches of trees, usually pines, symbolic of eternity or immortality, were planted along them. These served the dual purpose of adding natural beautiful scenery to a daimyō's home, representing part of his garden, and also obscuring the insides of the castle compound from spies or scouts.

A variety of towers or turrets, called yagura (櫓), placed at the corners of the walls, over the gates, or in other positions, served a number of purposes. Though some were used for the obvious defensive purposes, and as watchtowers, others served as water towers or for moon-viewing. As the residences of purportedly wealthy and powerful lords, towers for moon-viewing, balconies for taking in the scenery, tea rooms and gardens proliferated. These were by no means solely martial structures, but many elements served dual purposes. Gardens and orchards, for example, though primarily simply for the purpose of adding beauty and a degree of luxuriousness to the lord's residence, could also provide water and fruit in case of supplies running down due to siege, as well as wood for a variety of purposes.

Japanese castles also contained a variety of gates, some of them simple, and others quite elaborate.  Many of them were yaguramon, literally 'turret gates':  large gatehouses with a turret running along the top of the gate.  Other gates were simpler.  Japanese castles have many examples of 'masugata' gate complexes, which usually consisted of two gates placed at right angles and joined by walls to create a square enclosure which would trap would-be invaders, who then could be attacked from the turret gates or walls.

Gallery
Aerial views of Japanese castles reveal a consistent military strategy that informs the over-all planning for each unique location.

See also

100 Fine Castles of Japan
Continued 100 Fine Castles of Japan
Castle
Chashi—fortifications built by Ainu people
Gusuku—the castles of the Ryūkyū Kingdom
Jin'ya
List of foreign-style castles in Japan
Korean-style fortresses in Japan
List of castles in Japan
List of National Treasures of Japan (castles)
Nightingale floor

Notes

References

Bibliography
Benesch, Oleg. "Castles and the Militarisation of Urban Society in Imperial Japan," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Vol. 28 (Dec. 2018), pp. 107–134.

Further reading

External links

Guide of Japanese Castles
Japanese Castle Explorer
130+ Japanese Castles  GoJapanGo.com
Castles of Japan
Japan Top 100 Castles and castle ruins
Photos of Japanese Castles
The Japan's Modern Castles YouTube channel, featuring virtual tours of castle sites and discussing their modern history

Castles by type
Feudal Japan

Japanese castle


Harvey McGregor CBE QC (25 February 1926 – 27 June 2015) was a British barrister and was Warden of New College, Oxford, from 1985 to 1996.

Early life
The son of William Guthrie Robertson McGregor and Agnes McGregor (née Reid), McGregor was educated at Inverurie Academy, Scarborough High School, and Queen's College, Oxford, where he held the Hastings Scholarship and graduated BA in 1951, BCL in 1952, MA in 1955, and DCL in 1983.

Before going up to Oxford, McGregor served as a Flying Officer in the Royal Air Force for two years, from 1946 to 1948.

Career
McGregor was called to the bar from the Inner Temple in 1955 and became a Bencher in 1985. He was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1995.

He was Bigelow teaching Fellow in the University of Chicago, 1950–1951, Visiting professor at New York University and Rutgers University at various times between 1963 and 1969 and at the University of Edinburgh from 1998. He was a consultant to the Law Commission, 1966–1973.

President, Harvard Law School Association of the UK, 1981–2001, and Member of the Academy of European Private Lawyers, from 1994. Independent Chairman, London Theatre Council and The Theatre Council (formerly Provincial Theatre Council), from 1992 (and Deputy Chairman, 1971–1992). President, Oxford Stage Company, from 1992, and Trustee of the Oxford Union Society, 1977 to 2004 (Chairman of Trustees, 1994–2004), a Fellow of Winchester College, 1985 to 1996, and a Trustee of the Migraine Trust since 1999.

McGregor was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to law and education. He died at the age of 89 on 27 June 2015.

Selected publications
McGregor on Damages (12th Edition published 1961 to 20th Edition Published 2017)
Contract Code (1993)
contributor to International Encyclopedia of Comparative Law (1972)

At the Modern Law Review, McGregor was a member of the editorial board since 1986 and was previously a member of the Editorial Committee from 1967.

The Law Commission, together with the Scots Law Commission, asked McGregor to produce a proposal for the codification and union of the contract law of England and Scotland, which are based in Common Law.  He did so in Contract Code (1993).  This work was not adopted by either Law Commission, so McGregor got it published by an Italian University.  His proposals include, inter alia, the abandonment of the English doctrine of consideration.  Shortly after publication, the European Commission expressed an interest in the "Contract Code" as the basis for an EU-wide law of contract, but eventually chose not to adopt it.  Instead, the EU has looked more kindly on a document,  "Principles of European Contract Law", created by the self-styled Commission on European Contract Law (a group of leading contract law academics). In the meantime, the EU passed the Rome I Regulation, Rome II Regulation and the Rome III Regulation, all of which have had a mixed reception in English legal circles.

References

1926 births
2015 deaths
People educated at Inverurie Academy
Alumni of The Queen's College, Oxford
Wardens of New College, Oxford
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Royal Air Force officers
British barristers
Members of the Faculty of Advocates
Academics of the University of Edinburgh
People from Argyll and Bute
Members of the Inner Temple
University of Chicago faculty
New York University faculty
Rutgers University faculty
People educated at Scarborough High School for Boys

Harvey McGregor


Michael Allen Baker,  (born January 24, 1943) is a Canadian physician, academic, and cancer researcher. He is Rose Family Chair in Medicine, former Physician-in-Chief, University Health Network and Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto. His research has helped to improve the understanding of human leukemia and other cancers.

Born in Toronto, Ontario, Baker attended Oakwood Collegiate Institute, then received his M.D. from the University of Toronto in 1966. He received his diploma from the National Board of Medical Examiners in 1967 and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada specializing in Hematology and Internal Medicine. In 1982, he joined the University of Toronto as a Professor of Medicine. In 1992, he was made Physician-in-Chief of the Toronto General Hospital.

He was president of the National Cancer Institute of Canada for 3 years and a board member of the Canadian Cancer Society for 5 years. In 2008, he was appointed by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care Executive Lead - Patient Safety,  to oversee the government's patient safety agenda. In 2011, he was elected Chair of the Board of the Institute of Evaluative Sciences (ICES).

Honours
In 2008, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada "for his contributions to health care in Canada, notably for his work in developing an innovative, integrated medical care program for cancer patients and for his leadership in the area of infectious disease control". In 2009, he was made a member of the Order of Ontario in recognition for being "a leading researcher whose work has led to a better understanding of leukemia and other cancers". In 2006, he was made a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. He was awarded the 125th Anniversary of the Confederation of Canada Medal and the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal.

References

1943 births
Living people
Canadian hematologists
Cancer researchers
Members of the Order of Canada
Members of the Order of Ontario
Physicians from Toronto
Academics from Toronto
Physicians from Ontario
University of Toronto alumni
Academic staff of the University of Toronto
Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada

Michael Baker (physician)


Inspector John J. Manion (1877–March 1959), San Francisco Police Department, was a veteran officer assigned by Chief Dan O'Brien in 1921 to head up the notorious 16-member Chinatown Squad which had been established in 1875.

In the 1920s, San Francisco's Chinatown covered eight city blocks between Bush and Broadway, and three blocks up Nob Hill from Kearny Street to Powell Street. Grant and Stockton streets were the main north-south thoroughfares. As early as the 1850s, Chinese immigrants began organizing into protective associations based on family, business, or their home districts. Shunned and fiercely discriminated against on race as well as economics by the wider community, the people in Chinatown, a segregated population, banded together in associations, companies or the label applied by the press, tongs.

Five of the district associations formed the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association in the late 1850s,  known as the Five companies by non-Chinese in California. In 1862, a sixth association was added and the grouping became known to outsiders as the Chinese Six Companies.

Manion was set to the task of controlling the tongs that controlled illicit gambling, lotteries, narcotics, prostitution and other criminal enterprises with hired gunmen and the so-called "hatchetmen."

References
Jerry Flamm, Good Life in Hard Times.  Chronicle Books

External links
 Manion at San Francisco Virtual Museum

American police detectives
Chinese-American history
1877 births
1959 deaths
San Francisco Police Department officers
People from Chinatown, San Francisco

Jack Manion


Pseudolaelia is a small genus belonging to the orchid family (Orchidaceae), the entire genus endemic to Brazil. The abbreviation used in the horticultural trade is Pdla.

Description
The flowers of these orchids resemble those of Laelia, but the main difference between these two genera lies in the vegetative part.

These orchids occur exclusively in Eastern Brazil, often as epiphytes. Some are lithophytes, forming a thicket on the rocks. Others, as Pseudolaelia vellozicola, are semi-epiphytes and can be found on mat-like communities of Vellozia bushes on inselbergs (dome-shaped granitic or gneissic rock outcrops) in the Brazilian Atlantic rainforest, requiring an adaptation to the extreme environmental conditions (dryness, isolation)

The rhizomes are extended. The pseudobulbs are fusiform, cylindrical to conical, carrying three to eight leaves. These are apical, deciduous, upright, leathery and pointy. The base of the leaves clasps the pseudobulb from the upper third till the apex.

The inflorescence is a long raceme, growing from the apex of the pseudobulb, with an undefined number of small white to pink flowers, opening in a consecutive manner clustered at the apex.

Pollination is performed by hummingbirds, butterflies, dipterids and hymenopterids. The flowers of Pseudolaelia corcovadensis, being self-compatible, are also pollinated by deceit by the bee Bombus (Fervidobombus) atratus by mimicking a generalized bee-attracting food-flower. However, these visits are rather rare

Species of Pseudolaelia
Species accepted as of June 2014:

Natural hybrids
Pseudolaelia × perimii M.Frey -  Espírito Santo  (P. brejetubensis × P. freyi)

References

Books
 (in French)

External links

Laeliinae genera
Epiphytic orchids
Endemic orchids of Brazil
Laeliinae

Pseudolaelia


Houma Hunter Lime: Special Collection Vol. 1 is an Action game, developed by Copya Systems and published by Asmik Ace Entertainment, Inc, which was released in Japan in 1994.

Gameplay
Once upon a month, a door behind the full moon opens. This door is between the human world and magical world. Now it just so happens that on one such night, Lime and Bass are in hot pursuit of a demon who had stolen six power gems from the magical world. The demon escapes to the human world through the open door, and the two follow.

The PlayStation game is a first person perspective adventure game. To advance in the game the player sometimes have to talk to the other members of his group, other people or make another action.

Description
Manufacturer's description:

Houma Hunter became popular animated adventure that also have a lively girl of Darkness lime. A berth partner, and lime character, like the human world by step article on a piece of magic came to a mighty magic happen we lost sparking uproar in the Darkness, kill a monster attack Komikarusutori Cosplay four good stories enjoy.

Features:

 First person perspective.
 2D graphics
 Cartoon graphics
 Devils, Fantasy, Humour & Anime themes.

PlayStation games
PlayStation-only games
1994 video games
Japan exclusive video games


A physics processing unit (PPU) is a dedicated microprocessor designed to handle the calculations of physics, especially in the physics engine of video games. It is an example of hardware acceleration.

Examples of calculations involving a PPU might include rigid body dynamics, soft body dynamics, collision detection, fluid dynamics, hair and clothing simulation, finite element analysis, and fracturing of objects.

The idea is having specialized processors offload time-consuming tasks from a computer's CPU, much like how a GPU performs graphics operations in the main CPU's place. The term was coined by Ageia to describe its PhysX chip. Several other technologies in the CPU-GPU spectrum have some features in common with it, although Ageia's product was the only complete one designed, marketed, supported, and placed within a system exclusively being a PPU.

History
An early academic PPU research project named SPARTA (Simulation of Physics on A Real-Time Architecture) was carried out at Penn State and University of Georgia. This was a simple FPGA based PPU that was limited to two dimensions. This project was extended into a considerably more advanced ASIC-based system named HELLAS.

February 2006 saw the release of the first dedicated PPU PhysX from Ageia (later merged into nVidia).  The unit is most effective in accelerating particle systems, with only a small performance improvement measured for rigid body physics. The Ageia PPU is documented in depth in their US patent application #20050075849. Nvidia/Ageia no longer produces PPUs and hardware acceleration for physics processing, although it is now supported through some of their graphics processing units.

AGEIA PhysX
The first processor to be advertised being a PPU was named the PhysX chip, introduced by a fabless semiconductor company called AGEIA. Games wishing to take advantage of the PhysX PPU must use AGEIA's PhysX SDK, (formerly known as the NovodeX SDK).

It consists of a general purpose RISC core controlling an array of custom SIMD floating point VLIW processors working in local banked memories, with a switch-fabric to manage transfers between them. There is no cache-hierarchy like in a CPU or GPU.

The PhysX was available from three companies akin to the way video cards are manufactured. ASUS, BFG Technologies, and ELSA Technologies were the primary manufacturers. PCs with the cards already installed were available from system builders such as Alienware, Dell, and Falcon Northwest.

In February 2008, after Nvidia bought Ageia Technologies and eventually cut off the ability to process PhysX on the AGEIA PPU and NVIDIA GPUs in systems with active ATi/AMD GPUs, it seemed that PhysX went 100% to Nvidia. But in March 2008, Nvidia announced that it will make PhysX an open standard for everyone, so the main graphic-processor manufacturers will have PhysX support in the next generation graphics cards. Nvidia announced that PhysX will also be available for some of their released graphics cards just by downloading some new drivers.

See physics engine for a discussion of academic research PPU projects.

PhysX P1 (PPU) hardware specifications
ASUS and BFG Technologies bought licenses to manufacture alternate versions of AGEIA's PPU, the PhysX P1 with 128 MB GDDR3:
 Multi-core device based on the MIPS architecture with integrated physics acceleration hardware and memory subsystem with "tons of cores"
 125 million transistors
 182 mm2 die size
 Fabrication process: 130 nm
 Peak power consumption: 30 W
 Memory: 128 MB GDDR3 RAM with 128-bit interface
 32-bit PCI 3.0 (ASUS also made a PCI Express version card)
 Sphere collision tests: 530 million per second (maximum capability)
 Convex collision tests: 530,000 per second (maximum capability)
 Peak instruction bandwidth: 20 billion per second

Havok FX
The Havok SDK is a major competitor to the PhysX SDK, used in more than 150 games, including major titles like Half-Life 2, Halo 3 and Dead Rising.

To compete with the PhysX PPU, an edition known as Havok FX was to take advantage of multi-GPU technology from ATI (AMD CrossFire) and NVIDIA (SLI) using existing cards to accelerate certain physics calculations.

Havok divides the physics simulation into effect and gameplay physics, with effect physics being offloaded (if possible) to the GPU as Shader Model 3.0 instructions and gameplay physics being processed on the CPU as normal. The important distinction between the two is that effect physics do not affect gameplay (dust or small debris from an explosion, for example); the vast majority of physics operations are still performed in software. This approach differs significantly from the PhysX SDK, which moves all calculations to the PhysX card if it is present.

Since Havok's acquisition by Intel, Havok FX appears to have been shelved or cancelled.

PPU vs. GPUs
The drive toward GPGPU has made GPUs more suitable for the job of a PPU; DX10 added integer data types, unified shader architecture, and a geometry shader stage which allows a broader range of algorithms to be implemented; Modern GPUs support compute shaders, which run across an indexed space and don't require any graphical resources, just general purpose data buffers. NVidia CUDA provides a little more in the way of inter-thread communication and scratchpad-style workspace associated with the threads.

Nonetheless GPUs are built around a larger number of longer latency, slower threads, and designed around texture and framebuffer data paths, and poor branching performance; this distinguishes them from PPUs and Cell as being less well optimized for taking over game world simulation tasks.

The Codeplay Sieve compiler supports the PPU, indicating that the Ageia physX chip would be suitable for GPGPU type tasks. However Ageia seem unlikely to pursue this market.

PS2 – VU0
Although very different from the PhysX, one could argue the PlayStation 2's VU0 is an early, limited implementation of a PPU. Conversely, one could describe a PPU to a PS2 programmer as an evolved replacement for VU0. Its feature-set and placement within the system is geared toward accelerating game update tasks including physics and AI; it can offload such calculations working off its own instruction stream whilst the CPU is operating on something else. Being a DSP however, it is much more dependent on the CPU to do useful work in a game engine, and would not be capable of implementing a full physics API, so it cannot be classed as a PPU. Also VU0 is capable of providing additional vertex processing power, though this is more a property of the pathways in the system rather than the unit itself.

This usage is similar to Havok FX or GPU physics in that an auxiliary unit's general purpose floating point power is used to complement the CPU in either graphics or physics roles.

See also

 PhysX
 adapteva
 CELL
 Digital signal processor
General-purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU) – for applications of existing GPUs to the same physics problems PPUs are designed for
 Microsoft Robotics Studio
 OpenCL
 Physics Abstraction Layer
 Scratchpad RAM – relevant to the distributed memory architecture of the Ageia PhysX PPU
 Vision processing unit
 wiki.nesdev.com Known_PPU_revisions
 UA6528 Price & Stock

References

External links
 AGEIA Official Website (no longer available)
 AGEIA Physx Processor Website (no longer available)
 Projects using PhysX SDK (no longer available)
 BFG AGEIA PhysX Card Review
 Planet PhysX News & Information Page (no longer available)
 PC Hardware: AGEIA PhysX Interview (no longer available)
 PC Perspective: AGEIA PhysX Physics Processing Unit Preview (no longer available)
 Havok FX physics engine (middleware library) SDK (no longer available)
 NVIDIA CUDA Toolkit and SDK
 PhysX Toolkit and SDK

Video game hardware
Computer physics engines
Coprocessors

Physics processing unit


Volkswagen (German pronunciation: [ˈfɔlksˌvaːɡn̩] (listen)),[Note 1] abbreviated as VW ([faʊˈveː] (listen)), is a German motor vehicle manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front under the Nazi Party and revived into a global brand post-World War II by the British Army Officer Ivan Hirst, it is known for the iconic Beetle and serves as the flagship brand of the Volkswagen Group, the largest automotive manufacturer by worldwide sales in 2016 and 2017.[2] The group's biggest market is in China, which delivers 40 percent of its sales and profits.[3][4] Its name is derived from the German-language terms Volk and Wagen, translating to "people's car" when combined.

Volkswagen Group


St. George's Church, Belfast is a Church of Ireland church located on High Street in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is the oldest Church of Ireland church in Belfast. It was designed by Irish architect, John Bowden, and opened in 1816. Major refurbishment work was completed in June 2000.

History
The church stands on what had been a fording place where the River Lagan and River Farset met. The earliest mention of a place of worship existing on this site is in the papal taxation rolls of 1306. The Chapel of the Ford was a chapel of ease of the main parish church at Shankill, and was constructed here for those waiting to cross the mud flats which covered most of the area that has since become central Belfast. The chapel later became known as Corporation Chapel after the newly founded Belfast Corporation.

By the time of the Plantation of Ulster, the church had become the main parish church for the area. In 1613 James I of England granted a charter to Belfast as a key garrison town in the plantation, and St. George's became the 'corporation' church. William of Orange passed through Belfast on his way from Carrickfergus to the Battle of the Boyne, and had a famous sermon, Arise Great King, preached to him here.

By the late 18th century, however, the church had fallen into disrepair and the Earl of Chichester, the dominant local landowner, gave land for a new parish church for Belfast to be built on a more expansive site a few hundred metres away on Donegall Street. This church would later become St Anne's Cathedral.  Henry Joy McCracken, a leading member of the Society of the United Irishmen and 1798 rebellion was buried in the churchyard after being hanged, before later being moved to Clifton Street Cemetery.

However, by the 1800s, the growth of industrial Belfast necessitated a second Anglican church being built, and a new St. George's was built on the old site, opening in 1816. Throughout the 19th century, the church had a series of rectors known for their flamboyant style, and in the early 20th century, St. George's developed its distinct High Church ethos. The movement of people out of the City Centre in the 20th century saw the congregation drop, and during The Troubles, the church was seriously damaged on a number of occasions by Provisional Irish Republican Army bombs.

St. George's continues to be noted for its liturgical and musical tradition – it has one of the few men's and boys' church choirs in Ireland. Its ministry, both to the business community and to Belfast's homeless population, are an important part of parish life. St. George's has a diverse congregation, drawing members from different religious, cultural and social backgrounds. As of 2016, the rector of St George's (since 1994) is the Reverend Brian Stewart and Director of Music is David Falconer.

Architecture
The church was designed by John Bowden of Dublin in 1811. The foundation stone was laid in June 1813 by the Earl of Massereene and the church opened in June 1816. It has a simple nave and chancel plan and is built of sandstone. Inside there is a gallery on three sides. The church originally had a plain ceiling, but in 1865 the ceiling was removed and the trusses exposed and decorated by architect W. J. Barre, who also added a new pulpit in 1867. A chancel, designed by Edward Bradell, was added in 1882.

The west end, facing High Street, has a large Corinthian pillared portico, giving the impression that it is a two storied building. The portico was originally made to order in Egypt for Frederick Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry, to adorn the main entrance of Ballyscullion House in County Londonderry, built in 1788. After the Earl died in 1803, the house was gradually dismantled and the portico was bought and transported to Belfast. To reach its new home, the portico was initially hauled by horse and cart to Lough Neagh. From there it went by barge, reputedly the first barge cargo brought to Belfast from Lough Neagh by the new Lagan Canal Navigation (now disused). The coats of arms on the pediment are of the Diocese of Down and the city of Belfast.

Traditions
St. George's was the first Anglican church in Ireland to introduce Harvest Thanksgiving, musical recitals in church, early morning celebrations of the Holy Communion, a robed choir, drama in church, the Christmas Midnight Eucharist, the Three Hours Devotions on Good Friday, and to adopt the 1984 Alternative Prayer Book of the Church of Ireland.

Notable people
The first church organist was Edward Bunting, between 1817 and 1821, best known for his work in collecting Irish music at the Belfast Harp Festival.

References

Further reading

Churches in Belfast
Anglo-Catholic church buildings in Northern Ireland
Grade A listed buildings
19th-century Church of Ireland church buildings
19th-century churches in Northern Ireland

St George's Church, Belfast


The Rock Springs Masonic Temple is a historic site in Rock Springs, Wyoming, United States. It is located at 218 B Street in Rock Springs, Wyoming, United States. It is a contributing property in  the Downtown Rock Springs Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 19, 1994.

History of Rock Springs Masonic Temple
Rock Springs Lodge 12, AF&AM, was chartered on December 3, 1889 by the Grand Lodge of Wyoming.  This lodge of Masons initially met in the W. H. Mellor Building at 318 South Front Street, in Rock Springs, Wyoming.  In 1911 a site was obtained for a new Masonic Temple.  Bonds were sold in the amount of $25,000, and work on the building was started.  The Temple was finished in late 1912, and the first meeting of Rock Springs Lodge 12 in their new building was in January 1913.

In 1947 a fire occurred in the Temple.  The damage totaled about $6,000, the entire amount being covered by insurance.

References

External links
 Rock Springs Lodge 12
 Virtual Tour of Temple (Gallery)
 Grand Lodge Of Ancient, Free And Accepted Masons Of Wyoming
 Rock Springs Masonic Temple on Wikimapia

See also
 List of National Historic Landmarks in Wyoming
 National Register of Historic Places listings in Wyoming

Masonic buildings completed in 1912
Masonic buildings in Wyoming
Buildings and structures in Rock Springs, Wyoming
Historic district contributing properties in Wyoming
1912 establishments in Wyoming
National Register of Historic Places in Sweetwater County, Wyoming
Clubhouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Wyoming

Masonic Temple (Rock Springs, Wyoming)


University of Washington Continuum College, formerly Educational Outreach is the continuing education and professional development unit of the University of Washington (UW), in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1912, UW Continuum College was originally the branch of the university offering correspondence courses. Today, this UW unit provides wide-ranging programs for non-traditional and lifelong learning students, including degree programs, certificate programs, and select courses through UW Professional & Continuing Education, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), UW in the High School, UW Summer Quarter, UW Summer Youth, UW International & English Language Programs, Osher Institute for Lifelong Learning at the UW, and Conference Services. The programs provided are fee-based and self-sustaining and do not receive state funds for support.

In 2017, UW Continuum College released a new line of professional certificate programs called Career Accelerator, making their most popular programs available in four different formats: in-person, online, accelerated, and self-paced. Also in 2017, UW Continuum College created its first-ever scholarship program. The UW Certificate Scholarship covers 80 to 100 percent of the course fees for qualified applicants of select certificate programs offered through UW Professional & Continuing Education.

Offices for University of Washington Continuum College are located in the University District, Seattle near the UW campus, housed primarily in the UW Tower. The university purchased what is now the UW Tower from Safeco in 2006. Programs include offerings at the main UW campus and at various locations through UW Professional & Continuing Education.

The University of Washington Continuum College is directed by Vice Provost Rovy Branon. Branon oversees a staff of approximately 250 engaged in the development and administration of the UW's various fee-based programs.

Programs
UW Continuum College administers the following programs:
 UW Professional and Continuing Education
 Non-degree enrollment for UW credit classes
 UW Summer Quarter
 UW International & English Language programs
 UW Summer Youth programs
 UW in the High school
 Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) on Coursera and edX
 Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the UW
 Corporate learning partnerships
 Coding boot-camp

Media Mentions of UW Continuum College
 KGW8 TV appearance, "Advice for adult learners" (August 21, 2018)
 The Costco Connection article, "Certify yourself" (August 2018)
 Seattle Business article, "Extend Your Education: Lifelong Learning Is the New Reality for a Successful Career" (July 12, 2018)
 The evoLLLution article, "Addressing the Increasing Need for Non-Credit Programming: The University and True Lifelong Education" (June 8, 2018)
 Engineering Career Coach podcast, "How to Evaluate Which Professional Certificates Can Boost Your Career" (May 29, 2018)
 The Seattle Times article, "UW offers coding camp for people looking to shift careers" (May 10, 2018)
 Deseret News article, "What we can learn from the good-guy hackers" (May 2, 2018)
 The Daily article, "UW Continuum College shows that students can interact with UW at any age" (April 25, 2018)
 Tech Republic interview, "Questions developers should ask before jumping into a certificate program" (April 12, 2018)
 Crain's article, "If I Knew Then..." (March 8, 2018)
 Test and Code podcast, "Continuing Education and Certificate Programs at UW" (January 31, 2018)
 The News Tribune article, "How can I make a living without driving to Seattle? Report offers some hope." (February 16, 2018)
 Puget Sound Business Journal article, "'Nothing is standing still anymore' in continuing education " (December 8, 2017)
 The Seattle Times article, "Seattle's newcomers vs. longtime residents: At least we both like the Seahawks" (September 21, 2017)
 Q13 Fox article, "New survey highlights the reason thousands are relocating to Seattle" (September 21, 2017)
 USA Today article, "Is going back to school right for you?" (September 17, 2017)
 Forbes article, "Going Back To College To Advance Your Career" (September 12, 2017)
 GeekWire article, "Working Geek: Business vet turned UW vice provost helps professionals learn in-demand tech skills" (June 14, 2017)
 U.S. News & World Report article, "Is Continuing Education Right for My Career?" (June 8, 2017)
 The Seattle Times article, "Making continuing education possible for more adults" (June 2, 2017)

References

External links
 University of Washington Continuum College homepage
 University of Washington homepage

Adult education in the United States
University of Washington
Universities and colleges established in 1912
1912 establishments in Washington (state)


Heinz von Lichberg, real name Heinz von Eschwege (born 1890 in Marburg, died March 14, 1951, in Lübeck) was a German author and journalist, remembered chiefly for his 1916 short story Lolita. It has been argued that Vladimir Nabokov based his 1955 novel of the same name on Lichberg's story. The story was published in a collection of 15 short stories titled Die verfluchte Gioconda (The Accursed Gioconda).

Born to a family of Hessian nobility, he chose the pen name of Heinz von Lichberg after Leuchtberg near Eschwege, where many battles had been fought. He served in the cavalry during the First World War, and after the war worked as a journalist and author in Berlin. He reported from Graf Zeppelin during its record-breaking flight around the world in 1929, earning a name as a foreign correspondent. He became a member of the Nazi Party in 1933 and worked as a radio journalist and a culture journalist with the Völkischer Beobachter. He left the Nazi Party in 1938 and rejoined the military during the Second World War, serving in the Abwehr military intelligence department. After the war, he settled in Lübeck, where he worked for a Lübeck newspaper and died in 1951.

Lichberg was mostly forgotten, until literary scholar Michael Maar came across his "Lolita" short story and argued in several articles and a 2005 book that Nabokov had derived his story from Lichberg's work.

In Lichberg's "Lolita", the story takes place in Spain.

Publications
Die verfluchte Gioconda, Darmstadt, Falken-Verlag, 1916, 196 pages
Das deutsche Herz, Berlin, Stilke, 1917, 134 pages

References

1890 births
1951 deaths
20th-century German writers
German male short story writers
German short story writers
Hessian nobility
German untitled nobility
20th-century German short story writers
20th-century German male writers

Heinz von Lichberg


Lateduster is an American instrumental music group from Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was most active between 1999 and 2003, with reunion shows in 2005, 2011, 2013, 2014, and 2019. The band's core members were Andrew Broder, Martin Dosh, JG Everest and Bryan Olson.

Style
Lateduster was considered a Minneapolis "supergroup" because all four members were active in other successful bands and projects. They were also considered pioneering in their combination of live and electronic instrumentation, and their unconventional use of instruments such as turntables, looping pedals, and fender rhodes electric piano in the "post-rock" genre. Lateduster composed and performed instrumental mood music with a combination of live drums, guitars, turntables, fender rhodes, and keys run through a myriad of effects and live looping pedals.

History
Formed in Minneapolis in 1999, Lateduster was originally an instrumental sextet called Cropduster, with a symmetrical lineup of two guitars, two full drum kits and two DJs on four turntables. By the beginning of 2000, they had pared themselves down to a four-piece and began honing their sound into intricately arranged chamber music. In 2000, they recorded and released the first of three "handmade" EPs, independently released on their own Firetrunk Records label. In 2002, the best tracks from these early recordings were remastered and compiled on the first album Lateduster, which included two newly recorded songs. During the summer and fall of 2002, Lateduster completed the second album Five Easy Pieces, which was released on Firetrunk in 2002. Over the winter of 2002 to 2003, the band continued work on a new original soundtrack to the 1925 silent German Expressionist film Varieté, which they had performed live at the Sound Unseen Film Festival in 2001. In 2003, Lateduster released the first DVD Plain Old Andrea, With A Gun, a collaborative project with Alaska-born choreographer Emily Johnson and her contemporary dance company Catalyst.

After three years of performing and recording, and self-releasing 5 CDs and a DVD, Lateduster went on hiatus in Spring 2003 after Andrew Broder left the group and Bryan Olson moved to San Francisco. The various members then went on to be part of several other music projects, Fog, Hymie's Basement, Dosh, Andrew Bird, Neotropic, Sans Le Systeme, The Cloak Ox, Roma di Luna, Vicious Vicious and the Catalyst dance company. In 2003, Merck Records discovered Lateduster's music, and decided to do the first major label release of their music in fall 2004 as Easy Pieces, a compilation of previously released material.

Discography
 EP1 (2000)
 EP2 (2001)
 EP3 (2001)
 Lateduster (2002)
 Five Easy Pieces (2002)
 Plain Old Andrea, With A Gun (2003)
 Easy Pieces (2004)

References

External links
 Lateduster on Firetrunk Records
 Lateduster on Bandcamp
 Lateduster on Catalyst
 Merck Records
 Dosh
 JG Everest

American electronic music groups

Lateduster


Ing. Ilirian Kuka was born in Tirana, ALBANIA on October 14th, 1969. Mr. Kuka grew up in Tirana and after completing university he moved to Bari, Italy and later on to Boston, Massachusetts in the USA for continuing his education and furthering his career. He speaks fluently English, Italian and Albanian.
On December 6th, 2018 Ing. Kuka was accredited by the President of the Czech Republic H.E. Ing. Miloš Zeman, as the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Albania to the Czech Republic. He is a respected public servant and businessman who has worked and managed different global and multinational companies. He joined Albanian Foreign Service in 2014 as Counselor for Business, Commercial, and Cultural Affairs at the Embassy of Albania in Prague. Prior to this he founded and worked for an investment group which has helped build different companies and brands that successfully continue to operate in the Western Balkan region. From 2008 to 2014 Mr. Kuka was Chairman of the Board of Dardafone.net in Kosovo where he helped build the company from the ground up to the fastest growing telecom operator in the country. From 2005 to 2007 he was General Director of Albtelecom, Albania's state-owned telecom operator, which was privatized in 2007 to private investors. Prior to his engagements in Europe, Mr. Kuka worked in different management roles for multinational companies based in the USA. From 2001-2005 he worked for The Gillette Corporation. In 2005 he continued to work for Procter & Gamble Company after they completed the acquisition of The Gillette Inc. In the years 1997 - 2001 he worked for State Street Corp., Babson College etc. Mr. Kuka holds the title Doctor of Sciences in Engineering from the University of Bari, Italy where in 1997 he completed his studies in Electronic Engineering, specialized in Telecommunications. He had graduated in 1993 from University of Tirana in Albania with an Electronic Engineering Degree, specialized in Applied Electronics.

Ilirian Kuka


The cimbasso is a low brass instrument that covers the same range as a tuba or contrabass trombone. First appearing in Italy in the early 19th century as an upright serpent, the term cimbasso came to denote several instruments that could play the lowest brass part in 19th century Italian opera orchestras. The modern cimbasso design, first appearing as the  in the 1880s, has four to six rotary valves (or occasionally piston valves), a forward-facing bell, and a predominantly cylindrical bore. These features lend its sound to the bass of the trombone family rather than the tuba, and its valves allow for more agility than a contrabass trombone. Like the modern contrabass trombone, it is most often pitched in F, although models are occasionally made in E♭ and low C or B♭.

In the modern orchestra, cimbasso parts are usually played by tuba players as a doubling instrument. Although most commonly used for performances of late Romantic Italian opera, it has since found increased and more diverse use. Jazz musician  uses cimbasso in big bands and as a solo instrument. Cimbasso is now commonly called for in film and video game soundtracks. Los Angeles tuba players Tommy Johnson, Doug Tornquist and Jim Self have featured on many Hollywood recordings playing cimbasso, particularly since the popularisation of loud, low-brass heavy orchestral soundtracks.

Etymology

The Italian word , first appearing in the early 19th century, is thought to be a contraction used by musicians of the term  or  (), sometimes appearing in scores as c. basso or c. in basso. The term was used loosely to refer to the lowest bass instrument available in the brass family, which changed over the course of the 19th century. In the mid-20th century the word cimbasso began to be used in German-speaking countries to refer to slide contrabass trombones in F. This vagueness long impeded research into the instrument's history.

History

The first uses of a cimbasso in Italian opera scores from the early 19th century referred to a narrow-bore upright serpent similar to the  (), which were in common use in military bands of the time. These instruments were constructed from wooden sections like a bassoon, with a trombone-like brass bell, sometimes in the shape of a buccin-style dragon's head. Fingering charts published in 1830 indicate these early  were most likely to have been pitched in C.

Later, the term  was extended to a range of instruments, including the ophicleide and early valved instruments, such as the Pelittone and other early forms of the more conical bass tuba. As this progressed, the term cimbasso was used to refer to a more blending voice than the "basso tuba" or "bombardone", and began to imply the lowest trombone.

By 1872, Verdi expressed his displeasure about "that devilish bombardone" (referring to an early valved tuba) as the bass of the trombone section for his La Scala première of Aida, preferring a "trombone basso". By the time of his opera Otello in 1887, Milan instrument maker  had produced the  (sometimes , or simply ), a contrabass trombone in low 18′ B♭ wrapped in a compact form and configured with 4 rotary valves. Verdi and Puccini both wrote for this instrument in their later operas, although confusingly, they often referred to it as the , to distinguish it from the tenor trombones. This instrument blended with the usual Italian trombone section of the time—three tenor valve trombones in B—and was the prototype for the modern cimbasso.

By the early 20th century the tuba was used in Italy for cimbasso parts, and the trombone Verdi, made mainly by Milanese and Bohemian manufacturers, disappeared from Italian orchestras. In 1959 German instrument maker Hans Kunitz developed a slide contrabass trombone in F with two valves based on a 1929 patent by Berlin trombonist Ernst Dehmel. These were built in the 1960s by Gebr. Alexander and named "cimbasso" trombones. The modern cimbasso found today emerged in Germany in the 1970s, its design ultimately descended from the Pelitti trombone Verdi design. Bremen brass instrument maker Thein took the contrabass trombone in F, fitted it with the valves and fingering of a modern F tuba, and named this new instrument the "cimbasso".

Construction

The modern cimbasso is usually built with four to six rotary valves (or occasionally piston valves), a forward-facing bell, and a predominantly cylindrical bore. These features lend its sound to the bass of the trombone family rather than the tuba, and its valves allow for more agility than a contrabass trombone. Like the modern contrabass trombone, it is most often pitched in 12′ F, although instruments are made in 13′ E♭ and occasionally low 16′ C or 18′ B♭.

The mouthpiece and leadpipe are positioned in front of the player, and the mouthpiece receiver is sized to fit tuba mouthpieces. The valve tubing section is arranged vertically between the player's knees and rests on the floor with a cello-style endpin, and the bell is arranged over the player's left shoulder to point horizontally forward, similar to a trombone. This design accommodates the instrument in cramped orchestra pits and allows a direct, concentrated sound to be projected towards the conductor and audience.

The bore tends to range between that of a contrabass trombone and a small F tuba, , and even larger for the larger instruments in low C or B♭. The bell diameter is usually between .
There has been demand over time for larger bore instruments with a more conical bore and larger bell, in contrast with the trombone-like sound from smaller cylindrical bore instruments. This is because cimbasso parts are often played in the modern orchestra by tuba players, particularly in the US. Czech manufacturer Červený caters to both needs in its 2021 catalog which lists two cimbassi in F, one model with a small  bore and  bell listed with their valve trombones, and another with a tuba-like bore of  and a larger  bell with much wider flare, listed with their tubas.

The cimbasso is usually built with rotary valves, although some Italian makers use piston valves. British instrument maker Mike Johnson builds cimbassi with four compensating piston valves as commonly found on British tubas, in both F/C and E♭/B♭ sizes. Los Angeles tubist Jim Self had a compact F cimbasso built in the shape of a euphonium, which has been named the "Jimbasso".
In 2004 Swiss brass instrument manufacturer Haag released a cimbasso in F built with five Hagmann valves and a  bore. Although discontinued, this instrument is used by several operas and orchestras, including Badische Staatskapelle, Hungarian State Opera, and Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and by Swedish jazz musician .

Repertoire and performance

Although the cimbasso in its modern form is most commonly used for performances of late Romantic Italian operas by Verdi and Puccini, since the mid 20th century it has found increased and more diverse use. Along with the contrabass trombone, it has increasingly been called for in film and video game soundtracks. Los Angeles tuba players Tommy Johnson, Doug Tornquist and Jim Self have appeared on many Hollywood soundtracks playing cimbasso, especially since the popularization of loud, low-brass heavy orchestral music in films and video games such as the remake of Planet of the Apes (2001), Call of Duty (2003) and Inception (2010). British composer Brian Ferneyhough calls for cimbasso in his large 2006 orchestral work Plötzlichkeit, and nu metal rock band Korn used two cimbassos in the live backing orchestra for their acoustic MTV Unplugged album. Swedish jazz trombonist Mattis Cederberg has been using cimbasso in jazz, both as a solo instrument and for playing the fourth trombone parts in big bands.

Historically informed performance of early cimbasso parts presents particular challenges. Unless proficient with period instruments such as serpent or ophicleide, it is difficult for orchestral low-brass players to perform on instruments that resemble the early cimbassi in form or timbre. It is also challenging for instrument builders to find good surviving examples to replicate or adapt.

Although there is still a lack of consensus from conductors and orchestras, using a large-bore modern orchestral C tuba to play cimbasso parts is considered inappropriate by some writers and players. Meucci recommends using only a small, narrow-bore F tuba, or a bass trombone. James Gourlay, conductor and former tubist with BBC Symphony Orchestra and Zürich Opera, recommends playing most cimbasso repertoire on the modern F cimbasso, as a compromise between the larger B♭  instrument and the bass trombone. He also recommends using a euphonium in the absence of a period instrument for early cimbasso parts, which is closer to the sound of the serpent or ophicleide that would have been used before 1860. Douglas Yeo, former bass trombonist with Boston Symphony Orchestra, even suggests that in a modern section of slide trombonists playing parts intended for valved instruments, it should not be unreasonable to perform the cimbasso part on a modern (slide) contrabass trombone.

References

Bibliography

External links

 Recordings of orchestral excerpts by Jack Adler-McKean, including an early cimbasso and a B♭ Verdi cimbasso by Orsi built c. 1902–1918, as well as serpent, ophicleide and other early tubas
 Excerpts of Verdi's Nabbucco arranged for four cimbassi (three in F by Červený, one custom-built in low B♭), performed by German tubist Daniel Ridder
 Mattis Cederberg's "Cimbassonista" YouTube playlist

Brass instruments
Contrabass instruments
Bass (sound)
Italian musical instruments
Orchestral instruments

Cimbasso


Chumchet is a village development committee in Gorkha District in the Gandaki Zone of northern-central Nepal. At the time of the 1991 Nepal census it had a population of 979 and had 221 houses in the village.

Background
The village of Chumchet is situated in the Tsum Valley which is completely isolated from modern developments, Tsum valley saw the first set of tourists in 2007 when it was formally opened for trekking and tourism activity by Nepal government.

Tsum valley lies in Gorkha district and comprises two remote villages called Chumchet and Chhekampar. The name 'Tsum' came from the Tibetan word called 'Tsombo', which means vivid.

Traditionally Tsum valley was a very distinct place geographically and culturally therefore was called 'Tsum Tso Chuksums', which means thirteen provinces ruled as a single territory.

This land is so unexplored that many religious and archeological relics are still intact at many places in Tsum. People in Tsum Valley still practise polyandry system and they have unique culture, tradition and a dialect of their own. Their unique festivals observed here are Lhosar, Dhacyhang, Saka Dawa, Faning among others.

The residents of Tsum valley are called Tsumbas.  Many of the claimed sightings or encounters with Mehti, more commonly referred as the 'Yeti', have come from Tsumbas.

The valley occupies an area of about 1663 km2. The lowest point of Tsum Valley trek is Lhokpa (1905 m) and the highest is Ngula Dhojhyang Pass (over 5093 m) on the Tibetan border. The Hidden Valley is surrounded by the Baudha Himal and Himal Chuli to the west, Ganesh Himal to the south, and Sringi Himal to the North.

Chhekampar village is called the Upper Tsum while Chumchet village is called the Lower Tsum.

References

Populated places in Gorkha District

Chumchet


Sir George Heynes Radford  (17 June 1851 – 5 October 1917) was an English solicitor and Liberal politician. He was a member of parliament for Islington East from 1906 to 1917.

Family and education
Radford was born in Plymouth, the eldest son of George David Radford and Catherine Agnes Heynes. He went to London University to study law, where he graduated Bachelor of Laws with honours. In 1882, he married Emma Louisa Radford, the daughter of a Justice of the Peace. They had four daughters and a son; Barbara, Katherine, Cecily, Ursula and George Lawrence.

Career
Radford was admitted as a solicitor in 1872. He joined the firm of Radford and Frankland which had its offices in Chancery Lane, eventually becoming senior partner.

Politics
Radford was first involved in London local politics. He was Progressive Party member for West Islington on the London County Council from 1885 to 1907. In the 1906 general election he became MP for Islington East, a seat he went on to hold, albeit by small majorities, until his death in 1917. Radford always took a prominent part in London County Council elections and was for two years Chairman of the Council's Parliamentary Committee.

Other appointments and honours
Radford served as Chairman of the National Liberal Club Buildings Co. Ltd and was a Vice-Chairman of the Club. He also served as a Justice of the Peace in Surrey, where he had his home at Ditton Hill, now part of Surbiton. He was knighted in the 1916 Birthday Honours.

Transport
Radford had a particular interest in transport in London and a passion for tramways. He noted the advanced use of trams in Budapest and led a British Parliamentary delegation to Hungary in 1906. In 1908, the first cross-river tram in London departed from Holborn Station and it is believed that Radford was responsible for the honour of the maiden trip starting in Islington.

Papers
A collection of scrapbooks of news cuttings, notices, posters etc. donated by Miss U Radford in 1975, documenting Radford's career is deposited in the London Metropolitan Archives . A collection of documents including correspondence, books, photographs, campaign flyers etc. belonging to George Radford and several family members is deposited in the Islington Local History Centre Archive.

Publications
Radford had an interest in literature and published occasional verses and essays. In 1894 he wrote Shylock and Others a selection of eight literary studies (published by T Fisher Unwin) and in 1917 he published Verses and Versicles (T Fisher Unwin). But he also had an interest in Shakespeare. In 1884, the Liberal politician Augustine Birrell published a collection of essays entitled Obiter Dicta (Elliot Stock). Radford had anonymously written one of the essays, on Sir John Falstaff, and this was made public in 1887.

Death
Radford died at his residence, Chiswick House, Ditton Hill on 5 October 1917, aged 66 years.

References

External links

1851 births
1917 deaths
Politicians from Plymouth, Devon
Alumni of the University of London
English solicitors
Members of London County Council
Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
Politics of London
Politics of the London Borough of Islington
UK MPs 1906–1910
UK MPs 1910
UK MPs 1910–1918
English justices of the peace
Knights Bachelor
19th-century English lawyers

George Radford