Kūkai (; 27 July 774 – 22 April 835), born Saeki no Mao (佐伯 眞魚), posthumously called , was a Japanese Buddhist monk, calligrapher, and poet who founded the esoteric Shingon school of Buddhism. He travelled to China, where he studied Tangmi (Chinese Vajrayana Buddhism) under the monk Huiguo. Upon returning to Japan, he founded Shingon—the Japanese branch of Vajrayana Buddhism. With the blessing of several Emperors, Kūkai was able to preach Shingon teachings and found Shingon temples. Like other influential monks, Kūkai oversaw public works and constructions. Mount Kōya was chosen by him as a holy site, and he spent his later years there until his death in 835 C.E.

Because of his importance in Japanese Buddhism, Kūkai is associated with many stories and legends. One such legend attribute the invention of the kana syllabary to Kūkai, with which the Japanese language is written to this day (in combination with kanji), as well as the Iroha poem, which helped to standardise and popularise kana.

Shingon followers usually refer to Kūkai by the honorific title of , and the religious name of .

Biography

Early years

Kūkai was born in 774 in the precinct of Zentsū-ji temple, in Sanuki province on the island of Shikoku. His family were members of the aristocratic Saeki family, a branch of the ancient Ōtomo clan. In modern scholarship, his first name is generally believed to be Mao ("True Fish"), although one source records his birth name as Tōtomono ("Precious One"). Kūkai was born in a period of important political changes with Emperor Kanmu (r. 781–806) seeking to consolidate his power and to extend his realm, taking measures which included moving the capital of Japan from Nara ultimately to Heian (modern-day Kyoto).

Little more is known about Kūkai's childhood. At the age of fifteen, he began to receive instruction in the Chinese classics under the guidance of his maternal uncle. During this time, the Saeki-Ōtomo clan suffered government persecution due to allegations that the clan chief, Ōtomo Yakamochi, was responsible for the assassination of his rival Fujiwara no Tanetsugu. The family fortunes had fallen by 791 when Kūkai journeyed to Nara, the capital at the time, to study at the government university, the .  Graduates were typically chosen for prestigious positions as bureaucrats. Biographies of Kūkai suggest that he became disillusioned with his Confucian studies, but developed a strong interest in Buddhist studies instead.

Around the age of 22, Kūkai was introduced to Buddhist practice involving chanting the mantra of Kokūzō (Sanskrit: Ākāśagarbha), the bodhisattva of the void. During this period, Kūkai frequently sought out isolated mountain regions where he chanted the Ākāśagarbha mantra relentlessly.  At age 24 he published his first major literary work, Sangō Shiiki, in which he quotes from an extensive list of sources, including the classics of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. The Nara temples, with their extensive libraries, possessed these texts.

During this period in Japanese history, the central government closely regulated Buddhism through the  and enforced its policies, based on the ritsuryō legal code.  Ascetics and independent monks, like Kūkai, were frequently banned and lived outside the law, but still wandered the countryside or from temple to temple.

During this period of private Buddhist practice, Kūkai had a dream, in which a man appeared and told Kūkai that the Mahavairocana Tantra is the scripture which contained the doctrine Kūkai was seeking.  Though Kūkai soon managed to obtain a copy of this sutra which had only recently become available in Japan, he immediately encountered difficulty. Much of the sutra was in untranslated Sanskrit written in the Siddhaṃ script. Kūkai found the translated portion of the sutra was very cryptic. Because Kūkai could find no one who could elucidate the text for him, he resolved to go to China to study the text there. Ryuichi Abe suggests that the Mahavairocana Tantra bridged the gap between his interest in the practice of religious exercises and the doctrinal knowledge acquired through his studies.

Travel and study in China
In 804, Kūkai took part in a government-sponsored expedition to China, led by Fujiwara no Kadanomaro, in order to learn more about the Mahavairocana Tantra.  Scholars are unsure why Kūkai was selected to take part in an official mission to China, given his background as a private monk who was not sponsored by the state.  Theories include family connections within the Saeki-Ōtomo clan, or connections through fellow clergy or a member of the Fujiwara clan.

The expedition included four ships, with Kūkai on the first ship, while another famous monk, Saichō was on the second ship.  During a storm, the third ship turned back, while the fourth ship was lost at sea.  Kūkai's ship arrived weeks later in the province of Fujian and its passengers were initially denied entry to the port while the ship was impounded.  Kūkai, being fluent in Chinese, wrote a letter to the governor of the province explaining their situation.  The governor allowed the ship to dock, and the party was asked to proceed to the capital of Chang'an (present day Xi'an), the capital of the Tang dynasty.

After further delays, the Tang court granted Kūkai a place in Ximing Temple, where his study of Chinese Buddhism began in earnest. He also studied Sanskrit with the Gandharan pandit Prajñā (734–810?), who had been educated at the Indian Buddhist university at Nalanda.

It was in 805 that Kūkai finally met the monk Huiguo (746–805) the man who would initiate him into Chinese Esoteric Buddhism (Tangmi) at Chang'an's Qinglong Monastery (青龍寺). Huiguo came from an illustrious lineage of Buddhist masters, famed especially for translating Sanskrit texts into Chinese, including the Mahavairocana Tantra. Kūkai describes their first meeting:

Huiguo immediately bestowed upon Kūkai the first level abhisheka (esoteric initiation). Whereas Kūkai had expected to spend 20 years studying in China, in a few short months he was to receive the final initiation, and become a master of the esoteric lineage. Huiguo was said to have described teaching Kūkai as like "pouring water from one vase into another". Huiguo died shortly afterwards, but not before instructing Kūkai to return to Japan and spread the esoteric teachings there, assuring him that other disciples would carry on his work in China.

Kūkai arrived back in Japan in 806 as the eighth Patriarch of Esoteric Buddhism, having learnt Sanskrit and its Siddhaṃ script, studied Indian Buddhism, as well as having studied the arts of Chinese calligraphy and poetry, all with recognized masters. He also arrived with a large number of texts, many of which were new to Japan and were esoteric in character, as well as several texts on the Sanskrit language and the Siddhaṃ script.

However, in Kūkai's absence Emperor Kanmu had died and was replaced by Emperor Heizei who exhibited no great enthusiasm for Buddhism. Kūkai's return from China was eclipsed by Saichō, the founder of the Tendai school, who found favor with the court during this time. Saichō had already had esoteric rites officially recognised by the court as an integral part of Tendai, and had already performed the abhisheka, or initiatory ritual, for the court by the time Kūkai returned to Japan. Later, with Emperor Kanmu's death, Saichō's fortunes began to wane.

Saichō requested, in 812, that Kūkai give him the introductory initiation, which Kūkai agreed to do. He also granted a second-level initiation upon Saichō, but refused to bestow the final initiation (which would have qualified Saichō as a master of esoteric Buddhism) because Saichō had not completed the required studies, leading to a falling out between the two that was not resolved; this feud later extended to the Shingon and Tendai sects.

Little is known about Kūkai's movements until 809 when the court finally responded to Kūkai's report on his studies, which also contained an inventory of the texts and other objects he had brought with him, and a petition for state support to establish the new esoteric Buddhism in Japan. That document, the Catalogue of Imported Items, is the first attempt by Kūkai to distinguish the new form of Buddhism from that already practiced in Japan. The court's response was an order to reside in Takao-san temple (modern Jingo-ji) in the suburbs of Kyoto. This was to be Kūkai's headquarters for the next 14 years. The year 809 also saw the retirement of Emperor Heizei due to illness and the succession of the Emperor Saga, who supported Kūkai and exchanged poems and other gifts.

Emerging from obscurity

In 810, Kūkai emerged as a public figure when he was appointed administrative head of Tōdai-ji, the central temple in Nara, and head of the .

Shortly after his enthronement, Emperor Saga became seriously ill, and while he was recovering, Emperor Heizei fomented a rebellion, which had to be put down by force.  Kūkai petitioned the Emperor to allow him to carry out certain esoteric rituals which were said to "enable a king to vanquish the seven calamities, to maintain the four seasons in harmony, to protect the nation and family, and to give comfort to himself and others". The petition was granted.  Prior to this, the government relied on the monks from the traditional schools in Nara to perform rituals, such as chanting the Golden Light Sutra to bolster the government, but this event marked a new reliance on the esoteric tradition to fulfill this role.

With the public initiation ceremonies for Saichō and others at Takao-san temple in 812, Kūkai became the acknowledged master of esoteric Buddhism in Japan. He set about organizing his disciples into an order – making them responsible for administration, maintenance and construction at the temple, as well as for monastic discipline. In 813 Kūkai outlined his aims and practices in the document called The admonishments of Konin. It was also during this period at Takaosan that he completed many of the seminal works of the Shingon School:

 Attaining Enlightenment in This Very Existence
 The Meaning of Sound, Word, Reality
 Meanings of the Word Hūm

All of these were written in 817. Records show that Kūkai was also busy writing poetry, conducting rituals, and writing epitaphs and memorials on request. His popularity at the court only increased, and spread.

Meanwhile, Kukai's new esoteric teachings and literature drew scrutiny from a noted scholar-monk of the time named Tokuitsu, who traded letters back and forth in 815 asking for clarification.  The dialogue between them proved constructive and helped to give Kūkai more credibility, while the Nara Schools took greater interest in esoteric practice.

Mount Kōya

In 816, Emperor Saga accepted Kūkai's request to establish a mountain retreat at Mount Kōya as a retreat from worldly affairs. The ground was officially consecrated in the middle of 819 with rituals lasting seven days. He could not stay, however, as he had received an imperial order to act as advisor to the secretary of state, and he therefore entrusted the project to a senior disciple. As many surviving letters to patrons attest, fund-raising for the project now began to take up much of Kūkai's time, and financial difficulties were a persistent concern; indeed, the project was not fully realised until after Kūkai's death in 835.

Kūkai's vision was that Mt. Kōya was to become a representation of the Mandala of the Two Realms that form the basis of Shingon Buddhism: the central plateau as the Womb Realm mandala, with the peaks surrounding the area as petals of a lotus; and located in the centre of this would be the Diamond Realm mandala in the form of a temple which he named Kongōbu-ji ("Diamond Peak Temple"). At the center of the temple complex sits an enormous statue of Vairocana, who is the personification of Ultimate Reality.

Public works
In 821, Kūkai took on a civil engineering task, that of restoring Manno Reservoir, which is still the largest irrigation reservoir in Japan. His leadership enabled the previously floundering project to be completed smoothly, and is now the source of some of the many legendary stories which surround his figure. In 822 Kūkai performed an initiation ceremony for the ex-emperor Heizei. In the same year Saichō died.

Tō-ji Period

When Emperor Kanmu had moved the capital in 784, he had not permitted the powerful Buddhists from the temples of Nara to follow him. He did commission two new temples: Tō-ji (Eastern Temple) and Sai-ji (Western Temple) which flanked the road at southern entrance to the city, protecting the capital from evil influences. However, after nearly thirty years the temples were still not completed. In 823 the soon-to-retire Emperor Saga asked Kūkai, experienced in public works projects, to take over Tō-ji and finish the building project. Saga gave Kūkai free rein, enabling him to make Tō-ji the first Esoteric Buddhist centre in Kyoto, and also giving him a base much closer to the court, and its power.

The new emperor, Emperor Junna (r. 823–833) was also well disposed towards Kūkai. In response to a request from the emperor, Kūkai, along with other Japanese Buddhist leaders, submitted a document which set out the beliefs, practices and important texts of his form of Buddhism. In his imperial decree granting approval of Kūkai's outline of esoteric Buddhism, Junna uses the term  for the first time. An imperial decree gave Kūkai exclusive use of Tō-ji for the Shingon School, which set a new precedent in an environment where previously temples had been open to all forms of Buddhism. It also allowed him to retain 50 monks at the temple and train them in Shingon. This was the final step in establishing Shingon as an independent Buddhist movement, with a solid institutional basis with state authorization. Shingon had become legitimate.

In 824, Kūkai was officially appointed to the temple construction project. In that year he founded Zenpuku-ji, the second oldest temple of the Edo (Tokyo) region.  In 824 he was also appointed to the Office of Priestly Affairs. The Office consisted of four positions, with the Supreme Priest being an honorary position which was often vacant. The effective head of the Sōgō was the . Kūkai's appointment was to the position of . In addition there was a  who was responsible for the monastic code of discipline. At Tō-ji, in addition to the main hall (kondō) and some minor buildings on the site, Kūkai added the lecture hall in 825 which was specifically designed along Shingon Buddhist principles, which included the making of 14 Buddha images. Also in 825, Kūkai was invited to become tutor to the crown prince. Then in 826 he initiated the construction of a large pagoda at Tō-ji which was not completed in his lifetime (the present pagoda was built in 1644 by the third Tokugawa Shogun, Tokugawa Iemitsu). In 827 Kūkai was promoted to be Daisōzu in which capacity he presided over state rituals, the emperor and the imperial family.

The year 828 saw Kūkai open his School of Arts and Sciences (Shugei Shuchi-in). The school was a private institution open to all regardless of social rank. This was in contrast to the only other school in the capital which was only open to members of the aristocracy. The school taught Taoism and Confucianism, in addition to Buddhism, and provided free meals to the pupils. The latter was essential because the poor could not afford to live and attend the school without it. The school closed ten years after Kūkai's death, when it was sold in order to purchase some rice fields for supporting monastic affairs.

Final years
Kūkai completed his magnum opus, The  in 830. Because of its great length, it has yet to have been fully translated into any language. A simplified summary,  followed soon after. The first signs of the illness that would eventually lead to Kūkai's death appeared in 831. He sought to retire, but the emperor would not accept his resignation and instead gave him sick leave. Toward the end of 832, Kūkai went back to Mt. Kōya and spent most of his remaining life there. In 834, he petitioned the court to establish a Shingon chapel in the palace for the purpose of conducting rituals that would ensure the health of the state. This request was granted and Shingon ritual became incorporated into the official court calendar of events. In 835, just two months before his death, Kūkai was finally granted permission to annually ordain three Shingon monks at Mt. Kōya – the number of new ordainees being still strictly controlled by the state. This meant that Kōya had gone from being a private institution to a state-sponsored one.

With the end approaching, he stopped taking food and water, and spent much of his time absorbed in meditation. At midnight on the 21st day of the third month (835), he died at the age of 62. Emperor Ninmyō (r. 833–50) sent a message of condolence to Mount Kōya, expressing his regret that he could not attend the cremation due to the time lag in communication caused by Mount Kōya's isolation. However, Kūkai was not given the traditional cremation, but instead, in accordance with his will, was entombed on the eastern peak of Mount Kōya. "When, some time after, the tomb was opened, Kōbō-Daishi was found as if still sleeping, with complexion unchanged and hair grown a bit longer."

Legend has it that Kūkai has not died, but entered into an eternal samadhi (meditative trance) and is still alive on Mount Kōya, awaiting the appearance of Maitreya, the Buddha of the future.

Kūkai devotion and mantra

In modern Shingon, Kūkai is seen as a bodhisattva that one can pray and have devotion towards, similar to how the historical figure Padmasambhava became a figure of devotion in Tibet. Pilgrimages and devotional events focused around Kūkai remain a key part of the Shingon faith. The most important Kūkai pilgrimage route is the Shikoku Pilgrimage (四国遍路, Shikoku Henro).

Kūkai's mausoleum (the "Gobyo") at Mount Kōya is at Okunoin (奥の院) temple and it is the main site for devotion to Kūkai. Offerings and prayers to Kūkai are made around the year at this site. He is believed by the faithful to still be alive, having entered a deep samadhi (meditative absorption) until the arrival of the next Buddha Maitreya. There is also a large graveyard at this site, as many individuals throughout Japanese Buddhist history have wished to be buried near Kūkai.

Kūkai also has a popular mantra which is recited in Shingon religious services. It is called the Hōgō (treasure name) and is: namu daishi henjō kongō

南 無 大 師 遍 照 金 剛The mantra means "homage (namu) great teacher (daishi) henjō kongō (Vairocana vajra, Kūkai's secret tantric name). It could be rendered in Sanskrit as namo mahāguru vairocana vajra. The modern form of the Hōgō was widely used at least by the Muromachi period (1336 - 1573). It may have been created by the Shingon priest Dōhan (道範, 1178-1252) and is found in his Himitsu nenbutsu shō.

Stories and legends

Kūkai's prominence in Japanese Buddhism has spawned numerous stories and legends about him. When searching for a place on Mount Kōya to build a temple, Kūkai was said to have been welcomed by two Shinto deities of the mountain—the male Kariba, and the female Niu. Kariba was said to have appeared as a hunter, and guided Kūkai through the mountains with the help of a white dog and a black dog. Later, both Kariba and Niu were interpreted as manifestations of the Buddha Vairocana, the central figure in Shingon Buddhism and subject of Kūkai's lifelong interest.

Another legend tells the story of Emon Saburō, the wealthiest man in Shikoku. One day, a mendicant monk came to his house, seeking alms. Emon refused, broke the pilgrim's begging bowl, and chased him away. After this, his eight sons fell ill and died. Emon realized that Kūkai was the affronted pilgrim and set out to seek his forgiveness. Having traveled round the island twenty times clockwise in vain, he undertook the route in reverse. Finally, he collapsed exhausted and on his deathbed. Kūkai appeared to grant absolution. Emon requested that he be reborn into a wealthy family in Matsuyama so that he might restore a neglected temple. Dying, he clasped a stone. Shortly afterwards a baby was born with his hand grasped tightly around a stone inscribed "Emon Saburō is reborn." When the baby grew up, he used his wealth to restore the , in which there is an inscription from 1567 recounting the tale.

According to one legend, male same-sex love was introduced into Japan by Kūkai. Historians however, point that this is probably not true, since Kūkai was an enthusiastic follower of monastic regulations. Nonetheless, the legend served to "affirm same-sex relation between men and boys in 17th century Japan."

In popular culture
 a film from 1984 directed by Junya Sato. Kūkai is played by Kin'ya Kitaōji and Saichō is played by Gō Katō.

The 1991 drama film Mandala (Chinese: 曼荼羅; Japanese: 若き日の弘法大師・空海), a China-Japan co-production, was based on Kūkai's travels in China. The film stars Toshiyuki Nagashima as Kūkai, also co-starring Junko Sakurada and Zhang Fengyi as Huiguo.

The 2017 fantasy film Legend of the Demon Cat stars Shōta Sometani as Kūkai.

Gallery

 Outside Japan

Others

See also

Ākāśagarbha
Huiguo
Padmasambhava
Shingon Buddhism
Shikoku Pilgrimage
Vajrayana

References

Additional sources
 Clipston, Janice (2000). Sokushin-jōbutsu-gi: Attaining Enlightenment in This Very Existence, Buddhist Studies Reviews 17 (2), 207-220
 Giebel, Rolf W.;  Todaro, Dale A.; trans. (2004). Shingon texts, Berkeley, Calif.: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research
 Hakeda Yoshito. 1972. Kūkai – Major Works. New York, USA: Columbia University Press.
 Inagaki Hisao (1972). "Kukai's Sokushin-Jobutsu-Gi" (Principle of Attaining Buddhahood with the Present Body), Asia Major (New Series) 17 (2), 190-215
 Skilton, A. 1994. A Concise History of Buddhism. Birmingham: Windhorse Publications.
 Wayman, A and Tajima, R. 1998 The Enlightenment of Vairocana. Delhi: Motilal Barnasidass [includes Study of the Vairocanābhisambodhitantra (Wayman) and Study of the Mahāvairocana-Sūtra (Tajima)].
 White, Kenneth R. 2005. The Role of Bodhicitta in Buddhist Enlightenment. New York: The Edwin Mellen Press (includes Bodhicitta-śāstra, Benkenmitsu-nikyōron, Sanmaya-kaijō)

External links

 Koyosan Shingon Buddhism Kūkai officially founded the seminary community

 Bridge of dreams: the Mary Griggs Burke collection of Japanese art, a catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Kūkai (see index)

774 births
835 deaths
8th-century Buddhists
9th-century Buddhists
9th-century Buddhist monks
9th-century philosophers
9th-century Japanese poets
9th-century Japanese calligraphers
Buddhist poets
Creators of writing systems
Founders of Buddhist sects
Heian period Buddhist clergy
Japanese ambassadors to the Tang dynasty
Japanese Buddhist clergy
Japanese scholars of Buddhism
Japanese lexicographers
Japanese male poets
Japanese religious leaders
Shingon Buddhism

Vajrayana

Kūkai


John Ewen (1741–1821), is credited with the authorship of the well-known Scottish song, "0 weel may the boatie row".

Ewen was born in Montrose in 1741 of poor parents, and received only a very slender education. Having saved a few pounds he went in 1762 to Aberdeen, where he opened a small hardware shop. This appears to have prospered, but the chief rise in his fortunes was owing to his marriage in 1766 to Janet Middleton, one of two daughters of a yarn and stocking maker in Aberdeen. Through her, who died shortly after giving birth to a daughter, he became possessed of one half of his father-in-law's property. Ewen died on 21 Oct 1821, leaving, after the payment of various sums to the public charities of Aberdeen, about 14,000l to found a hospital in Montrose, similar to Gordon's Hospital, Aberdeen, for the maintenance and education of boys. The will was challenged by the daughter's relations, and after conflicting decisions in the Scottish court of session was appealed to the House of Lords, who, on 17 November 1830, set aside the settlement on the ground that the deed was void in consequence of its want of precision as to the sum to be accumulated by the trustees before building and as to the number of boys to be educated on the foundation. 'O weel may the boatie row' was published anonymously in Johnson's 'Scots Musical Museum.' It is thus characterised by Robert Burns: 'It is a charming display of womanly affection mingling with the concerns and occupations of life. It is nearly equal to "There's nae luck about the house".'

References

1741 births
1821 deaths
18th-century Scottish writers
19th-century Scottish writers
Scottish male songwriters
People from Montrose, Angus

John Ewen


Vinderen is a neighbourhood in the Vestre Aker borough of Oslo, Norway. It was a separate borough until 1 January 2004, when it was incorporated into the newly established borough of Vestre Aker.

Its amenities include Vinderen station.

The prosperous avenue of Tuengen Allé in Vinderen was the childhood home of Queen Sonja of Norway at 1B; and the current embassy of China in Norway at 2B. During 2015 will the Queens childhood home be moved to Maihaugen in Lillehammer.

10C Tuengen Alle is the functionalist Villa Stenersen, designed by architect Arne Korsmo and was built from 1937 to 1939 for the financier, art collector, and author Rolf Stenersen and his family. Stenerson bequeathed the Villa Stenersen to the State of Norway as a home for the Prime Minister. Odvar Nordli lived in the house, but the building has since been used for cultural purposes.

References

Neighbourhoods of Oslo

Vinderen


The fundamental plane  is a set of bivariate correlations connecting some of the properties of normal elliptical galaxies. Some correlations have been empirically shown.

The fundamental plane is usually expressed as a relationship between the effective radius, average surface brightness and central velocity dispersion of normal elliptical galaxies.  Any one of the three parameters may be estimated from the other two, as together they describe a plane that falls within their more general three-dimensional space. Properties correlated also include: color, density (of luminosity, mass, or phase space),   luminosity, mass, metallicity,  and, to a lesser degree, the shape of their radial surface brightness profiles.

Motivation
Many characteristics of a galaxy are correlated. For example, as one would expect, a galaxy with a higher luminosity has a larger effective radius. The usefulness of these correlations is when a characteristic that can be determined without prior knowledge of the galaxy's distance (such as central velocity dispersion – the Doppler width of spectral lines in the central parts of the galaxy) can be correlated with a property, such as luminosity, that can be determined only for galaxies of a known distance. With this correlation, one can determine the distance to galaxies, a difficult task in astronomy.

Correlations
The following correlations have been empirically shown for elliptical galaxies:
Larger galaxies have fainter effective surface brightnesses (Gudehus, 1973). Mathematically speaking:  (Djorgovski & Davis 1987),  where  is the effective radius, and  is the mean surface brightness interior to .
As  measuring observable quantities such as surface brightness and velocity dispersion, we can substitute the previous correlation and see that  and therefore:  meaning that more luminous ellipticals have lower surface brightnesses.
More luminous elliptical galaxies have larger central velocity dispersions. This is called the Faber–Jackson relation (Faber & Jackson 1976). Analytically this is: . This is analogous to the Tully–Fisher relation for spirals.
If central velocity dispersion is correlated to luminosity, and luminosity is correlated with effective radius, then it follows that the central velocity dispersion is positively correlated to the effective radius.

Usefulness
The usefulness of this three dimensional space  is studied by plotting  against , where  is the mean surface brightness  expressed in magnitudes. The equation of the regression line through this plot is:

or

.

Thus by measuring observable quantities such as surface brightness and velocity dispersion (both independent of the observer's distance to the source) one can estimate the effective radius (measured in kpc) of the galaxy. As one now knows the linear size of the effective radius and can measure the angular size, it is easy to determine the distance of the galaxy from the observer through the small-angle approximation.

Variations
An early use of the fundamental plane is the  correlation, given by:

determined by Dressler et al. (1987). Here  is the diameter within which the mean surface brightness is . This relationship has a scatter of 15% between galaxies, as it represents a slightly oblique projection of the Fundamental Plane.

Fundamental Plane correlations provide insights into the formative and evolutionary processes of elliptical galaxies.  Whereas the tilt of the Fundamental Plane relative to the naive expectations from the Virial Theorem is reasonably well understood, the outstanding puzzle is its small thickness.

Interpretation
The observed empirical correlations reveal information on the formation of elliptical galaxies. In particular, consider the following assumptions
 From the virial theorem the velocity dispersion , characteristic radius , and mass  satisfy  so that .
 The relation between luminosity  and mean surface brightness (flux)  is .
 Assume homology which implies a constant mass to light ratio .

These relations imply that , therefore  and so .

However, there are observed deviations from homology, i.e.  with  in the optical band. This implies that  so  so that . This is consistent with the observed relation.

Two limiting cases for the assembly of galaxies are as follows.
 If elliptical galaxies form by mergers of smaller galaxies with no dissipation, then the specific kinetic energy is conserved constant. Using the above-mentioned assumptions implies that .
 If elliptical galaxies form by dissipational collapse then  increases as  decreases for constant  to satisfy the virial theorem and  implies that .

The observed relation  lies between these limits.

Notes
Diffuse dwarf ellipticals do not lie on the fundamental plane as shown by Kormendy (1987).  Gudehus (1991) found that galaxies brighter than  lie on one plane, and those fainter than this value, , lie on another plane.  The two planes are inclined by about 11 degrees.

References

-
Extragalactic astronomy

Fundamental plane (elliptical galaxies)


In resource management, pooling is the grouping together of resources (assets, equipment, personnel, effort, etc.) for the purposes of maximizing advantage or minimizing risk to the users. The term is used in finance, computing and equipment management.

Finance
Pooling is the grouping together of assets, and related strategies for minimizing risk. For example:
Asset-backed securities (ABS) is a security whose income payments are backed by a specified pool of underlying assets.
Mortgage-backed securities (MBS) is a type of asset-backed security whereas the underlying assets are mortgages.

Debt instruments with similar characteristics can be pooled into a new security, for example:
Collateralized debt obligations (CDO) is a type of structured asset-backed security (ABS).
Collateralized mortgage obligations (CMO) is a type of complex debt security that repackages and directs the payments of principal and interest from a collateral pool to different types and maturities of securities, thereby meeting investor needs.

In general, pooling different assets or debt-like obligations into a new security is called securitization, a practice commonly used by structured finance.

Accounting
In acquisition, pooling of interest was a merger-accounting method that was taken out of the market in the United States by the Financial Accounting Standards Board on June 30, 2001. The method combines the book value of assets and liabilities of the two companies to create the new balance sheet of the combined companies.

Supply chain management
Intergovernmental risk pool is the use of the risk pool risk management technique commonly practiced by private insurance companies, but applied to public entities (e.g. made up of government agencies, school districts, county governments and municipalities) who come together to form a pool to provide protection against catastrophic risks such as floods or earthquakes.

Computing
Pooling IT (equipment and staff) resources involves virtualization of typical IT stacks server, storage and networking (but also on the level of datacenter power and cooling). Users benefit from lower individual investments since resources are shared. Although shared infrastructures have huge benefits potential issues on the environment have impact on the complete environment. A thorough analysis of the infrastructure is recommended to identify potential single point of failure (SPOF). One may opt for 'private' instances (private clouds) for specific needs or for specific reasons. On the level of resource pooling, bigger suppliers tend to have the benefit of being able to provide shared support environments with round the clock service. Do you prefer access to a service desk round the clock with potential less expertise or do you want to rely on a single support engineer (who is 'on duty' during off peak hours)"

Memory pooling is the use of a pool for memory management that allows dynamic memory allocation by preallocating a number of memory blocks with the same size called the memory pool, and is an alternative to dynamic memory allocation by techniques such as malloc and C++'s operator new which can suffer from fragmentation because of variable block sizes.
Thread pooling is a software design pattern for achieving concurrency of execution in a computer program by maintaining a pool of multiple threads waiting for tasks to be allocated for concurrent execution by a supervising program, and increases performance and avoids latency due to frequent creation and destruction of threads for short-lived tasks
Object pooling is a software design pattern that keeps a pool of initialized objects ready that are ready to be used, rather than allocating and destroying them on demand.
Connection pooling in computer science is a caching technique used to enhance the performance of executing commands on a database.

The resource management concepts of pooling can easily be abstracted and virtualized.

Equipment
Pooling of equipment is used to maintain "ready for use" equipment while damaged or dirty equipment is repaired and cleaned, by replacing it with an identical piece of equipment from the pool.

Automotive
Carpooling is sharing of car journeys so that not all of the persons need to drive to a location themselves.

See also

Pool (disambiguation)

References

Resource economics

Pooling (resource management)


Guy XX de Laval, François de Coligny (6 May 1585 – 3 December 1605) was the Count of Laval (Mayenne) and Baron of Quintin. He was son of Guy XIX de Laval and Anne d'Algère.

In 1588, Anne d'Algère took him to Sedan so that he could be raised as a Protestant. In April 1605, however, Guy XX de Laval converted to Catholicism.

Near the end of 1605 he led an expedition in Hungary against the Turks and died in combat on December 3 of that year.

He was the last Count of Laval to take the name of Guy.

See also
House of Laval

Bibliography
 Malcolm Walsby, The Counts of Laval: Culture, Patronage and Religion in Fifteenth and Sixteenth-Century France (Ashgate, Aldershot, 2007)

1585 births
1605 deaths
Military personnel killed in action
House of Laval
Counts of France

Guy XX de Laval


Richard P. Smiraglia is an American information scientist and prominent figure in the field of knowledge organization. Smiraglia is an emeritus professor in the School of Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. He is editor-in-chief of the journal Knowledge Organization and a cataloging theorist perhaps best known for his work concerning two concepts pertaining to bibliographic control, information retrieval, and knowledge organization: a definition of the meaning of a "work" derived from empirical and semiotic analysis, and "instantiation," the phenomenon of an information object realized in time.

Smiraglia, a one-time flautist who holds a B.A. in music from Lewis & Clark College (1973), is also known for his work concerning music description and music information storage and retrieval He earned a Masters of Divinity from The General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church (1997) as well and is an Episcopalian priest. Currently Professor and member of the Information Organization Research Group at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Smiraglia has taught at Long Island University (1993-2009), Columbia University (1987-1993), and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1974-1986).

A Work
In The Nature of "A Work": Implications for the Organization of Knowledge, published in 2001, Smiraglia provides a history of the treatment and role of works (as in literary works, musical works, etc. – intellectual or artistic creations) in catalogs and a survey of empirical research into the work phenomenon. Traditional modern library catalogs, Smiraglia observes, were designed to "inventory (first) and retrieve (second) specific documents," and were built "on an assumption that there was a correspondence between a book and the work it contained – one item, one work, and vice versa." Works don't equal documents (in book form or otherwise), however; Smiraglia delineates between these two concepts and that of "text":

"A text is the set of words that constitute a writing. A text is not the same as a document, which is the physical container (an item) on which the text is recorded… A work is the set of ideas created probably by an author or perhaps a composer, or other artist, set into a document using text, with the intention of being communicated to a receiver… A work may have many texts and may appear in many different documents."

The problems with assuming a one-to-one document/work correspondence started to become apparent by the middle of the twentieth century when an explosion of information in the century's first half and the publishing industry together yielded a "multiplicity of editions of major works." The idea began to take hold that a work – a set of abstract ideational content – is greater than a single a book or document and is actually a collection of sporadically varying instantiations of that ideational content.

Many attempts followed to define work and the relationships between it and the various instances and forms in which it appears. One of the best known is the FRBR entity-relationship model, which Smiraglia credits with providing "the separate identification, for the first time in the history of bibliographic control, of 'the work' as an essential and distinct bibliographic entity." In the FRBR model, a work is a distinct intellectual or artistic creation (for instance, Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet); an expression is an intellectual or artistic realization of a work (the original language text of the play); a manifestation physically embodies a work's expression (a 2007 edition of the First Quarto of Romeo and Juliet from Cambridge University Press); and an item is a single exemplar of a manifestation (a single copy of the edition of Romeo and Juliet just mentioned).

Through empirical and semiotic analysis of the work phenomenon, Smiraglia derives a somewhat more complex definition: "A work is a signifying, concrete set of ideational conceptions that finds realization through semantic or symbolic expression." In this conception, the work is not a purely abstract entity; it still represents abstract intellectual or artistic content, but it can only be perceived and considered through instances of its realization – the texts in which it finds expression. Works and texts, the ideational content and semantic content, are inextricably linked. Smiraglia finds an analogy in linguistics and semiotics. Much as with Saussure's linguistic sign, in which the signified (concept) and signifier (sound-images) combine to form a linguistic object, ideational content (concepts) couples with semantic content (text or symbolic images) to form an object of cultural communication. And just as linguistic signifiers evolve over time, subject to the vicissitudes of the culture in which they occur and the changing perceptions of their receivers, the texts that express a work are likewise volatile and subject to the same vicissitudes, making the work and its cultural signification similarly mutable.

Instantiation
Closely tied to this definition of work is the concept of instantiation, which could be understood as "version," "edition," or "manifestation"; Smiraglia selects instantiation over those other terms, however, since the word denotes temporality: "an instantiation is essentially a manifestation at a specific point in time." And for Smiraliga, there is no intermediate expression level, as in the FRBR model, between work and instantiation (manifestation). There are only different types of instantiations.

A work may find realization in a variety of different texts or other forms of semantic or symbolic expression, and this typically occurs once the work has acquired cultural significance and enters the canon. Romeo and Juliet, for instance, has spawned countless editions, an opera, several films, adaptations like West Side Story, and so forth. (And 30% to 60% of works in the general bibliographic population have generated families or networks of such related instantiations.) Some forms of instantiation are merely derivative, with the ideational and semantic content of the work remaining unchanged; these include simultaneous and successive editions, amplifications, and extractions. In other forms, such as translations, adaptations, and performances, ideational and semantic content experiences mutation. A mutation represents a work as a collaborative entity originating from the reaction of a culture (situated in a particular time and place) to that work. As the network of instantiations stemming from a work mutates over time, the work's cultural meaning changes accordingly.

Notes

External links
Smiraglia's faculty website

University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee faculty
Living people
1952 births

Richard P. Smiraglia


A semi-detached house (often abbreviated to semi) is a single family duplex dwelling house that shares one common wall with the next house. The name distinguishes this style of house from detached houses, with no shared walls, and terraced houses, with a shared wall on both sides. Often, semi-detached houses are built in pairs in which each house's layout is a mirror image of the other's.

Semi-detached houses are the most common property type in the United Kingdom (UK). They accounted for 32% of UK housing transactions and 32% of the English housing stock in 2008. Between 1945 and 1964, 41% of all properties built were semis. After 1980, the proportion of semis built fell to 15%.

History of the semi-detached house in the United Kingdom

Housing the rural working classes
Housing for the farm labourer in 1815 typically had one downstairs room with an extension for a scullery and pantry, and two bedrooms upstairs. The house would be of brick, stone if it occurred locally, or cob on a wooden frame. These houses were unsanitary, but the biggest problem was that there were simply too few of them. Population was increasing rapidly (see table), and after the Enclosure Acts labourers could not find spare land to build their own homes. Homebuilding was thus the responsibility of a landowner or speculative builder.

In the late 18th century, estate villages followed local architectural styles. This later changed as landowners adopted model designs from pattern books. By the early 19th century, landowners were typically using a "picturesque" style, and building double cottages as a way to reduce cost. In 1834, Edinburgh architect George Smith wrote "this species of cottage can be built cheaper than two single ones, and, in general, these double cottages are found to be warmer and fully as comfortable as single ones".

Housing the urban working classes
At the same time as the huge increase in the population of the rural counties there was an even greater shift in population from the impoverished land to the large towns and to cities. Society was restructuring, with the labouring classes dividing into artisans and labourers. In the cities, labourers were housed in overcrowded tenement blocks, rookeries and lodging houses, and philanthropic societies aimed to improve conditions. The rural Labourers' Friend Society expanded in 1844 and was reconstituted as the Society for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes. In their 1850 publication The Dwellings of the Labouring Classes, written by Henry Roberts, the society laid out plans for model 'semi-detached' cottages for workers in towns and the city. However, the first properties they built were tenements and lodging houses.

In 1866 the Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrious Classes built Alexander Cottages at Beckenham in Kent, on land provided by the Duke of Westminster. The development initially comprised 16 pairs of semis.  By 1868, they had built 164 semis.

In Birmingham, Wolverhampton and the Potteries there was a tradition dating from the 1790s of artisans saving through mutual funds and Friendly Societies. In the 1840s, the permanent building society model was adopted. The Woolwich Equitable was founded in 1847, the Leeds Permanent in 1848 and Bradford Equitable in 1851. Artisans could invest and then borrow a sum for a mortgage on their own property.

Model villages
In the wool towns of Yorkshire three families built villages for their workers. In each, there was a hierarchy of houses: long terraces for the workers, larger houses in shorter terraces for the overlookers, semi-detached houses for the junior managers, and detached houses for the elite. The first such village was built by Colonel Edward Ackroyd, at Copley, West Yorkshire, between 1849 and 1853, the second by Sir Titus Salt at Saltaire (1851–1861), and the third was the West Hill Park Estate in Halifax built by John Crossley. Model villages in Lancashire followed, with developments like Houldsworth Village. Semi-detached housing in colliery villages was rare; status here was determined by the length of the terrace.

The development of Port Sunlight and Bournville was important. The Port Sunlight model village was begun in 1887. William Lever used architects William Owen and his son Segar Owen and stated in 1888 that:

It is my and my brother's hope, some day, to build houses in which our work-people will be able to live and be comfortable – semi-detached houses with gardens back and front, in which they will be able to know more about the science of life than they can in a back-to-back slum.

At Bournville in 1879 the Cadbury development started with a detached house for the manager and six pairs of semis with large gardens for key workers. By 1895 the village was made up of semis and short terraces, showing that a low density layout could be a practical possibility even for the working classes. The examples of Bournville and Port Sunlight were seized on by Ebenezer Howard, and they became key models for the Garden City movement.

Housing the middle classes
The middle class became an important and expanding group in the 19th century. With industrialisation came material gain to the capitalist entrepreneur. New professions came into existence to serve their needs: insurers, engineers, designers. The growth in the population required more architects, lawyers, teachers, doctors, dentists and shopkeepers. Hierarchical tiers emerged within the middle class, each watching each other's status. According to A New system of Practical Domestic Economy (1820–1840), being middle class required an income of £150 p.a. or more. In 1851, 3 million out of a total population of 18 million in the UK would have been considered to be middle class.

Semi-detached houses for the middle class began to be planned systematically in late 18th-century Georgian architecture, as a suburban compromise between the terraced houses close to the city centre, and the detached "villas" further out, where land was cheaper. There are occasional examples of such houses in town centres going back to medieval times. Most early examples are in areas such as Blackheath, Chalk Farm and St John's Wood, now the outer fringes of Central London. Sir John Summerson considered the origin of the semi-detached house to be the Eyre Estate of St John's Wood. He commented that in a plan for the estate dated 1794 "the whole development consists of pairs of semi-detached houses. So far as I know, this is the first recorded scheme of the kind." The estate was not built at that time due to the French Revolutionary Wars, but when it was finally built it retained the semi-detached form, "a revolution of striking significance and far-reaching effect".

In these early years a common style was a row of houses in which several pairs of semi-detached houses are linked by a wall along the frontage. An example is The Paragon in Blackheath, where a blank colonnade runs between the houses. Most early examples were relatively large houses with access at the rear.

During the 19th century, a father and son architectural partnership, John Shaw Sr. and John Shaw Jr., drew up designs for semi-detached housing in London. Examples of their work can be seen in Chalk Farm, North London. John Nash, better known for his Regency terraces, built some semi-detached villas either side of the Regent's Canal. These were styled to appear as substantial single detached villas with the entrances to the side. Similarly, the landscape gardener John Claudius Loudon built a pair of semi-detached villas fashioned to appear as a single house in Porchester Terrace in 1825. In his 1838 book The Suburban Gardener and Villa Companion he gives advice on how to disguise the join between the houses by using false windows.

Late 19th century and 20th century
The Public Health Act 1875 described the structure and required minimum size of terraced houses and the street pattern that towns had to adopt. This made it difficult to place a semi in a large garden. The law stated that the building lines should be 11m apart, and that there should be rear access to allow the removal of nightsoil. In 1875, it was thought that having a privy inside the house was unhealthy. Cold water came from a stand pipe in the yard, and lighting was by candle or by gas mantles. Heating and cooking was done by coal, and hot water was boiled in kettles on the living room range. Kitchens were rare – the wet activities were done outside or in the scullery. Later, water was piped to the house, and some living room fires had a back boiler for heating.

During the First World War the Tudor Walters Report was published, setting standards for the accommodations needed for returning soldiers, dubbed "homes fit for heroes". The Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act 1919 (Addison Act) incorporated those recommendations including one that allowed for housing based on the Radburn design. In this design, small clusters of up to 15 houses would circle small cul-de-sacs of a district feeder road. This tipped the balance away from short terraces towards pairs of semi-detached houses. The housing density was initially generous, but was reduced in 1923 after a change of government from the Liberal Party to the Conservative Party.

After the Second World War, there was a chronic shortage of houses. In the short term this was relieved by the construction of prefabricated houses with a ten-year life. The successor was the pre-cast reinforced concrete semi-detached house. Although the frame was concrete the exterior panels were often traditional brick, so the final building was visually indistinguishable from a traditionally built house.

The recommendations of the Parker Morris Committee became mandatory for all public housing from 1967 till 1980. Initially the private sector adopted them too, but gradually lowered their standards.

Outside the United Kingdom and Ireland
Although semi-detached housing is built throughout the world, it is generally seen as particularly symbolic of the suburbanisation of the United Kingdom and Ireland, or post-war homes in Canada. In Toronto, the semi-detached house was a major building type during both the pre and post-war periods. In New England, some other parts of the United States, and occasionally in Canada, this style is colloquially called a "duplex". Elsewhere, however, "duplex" refers to a building comprising two flats/apartments, one above the other; this is also referred to as a "two-flat'. Semi-detached houses are typically referred to as 'twins' in the Mid-Atlantic region (particularly in Pennsylvania).

Australia

In Australia, a semi-detached house is also known as a "duplex". Townhouses may be apparently similar to semi-detached houses, but a semi-detached house sits on a single property, owned in its entirety by the owner of the semi-detached house, whereas townhouses sit on a shared property. The type of real property title held is therefore different: a semi-detached home is generally held as a Torrens titled property, while a townhouse is a Strata titled unit. Semi-detached houses come only in pairs, whereas there may be more than two townhouses attached together. In Sydney, semi-detached houses were briefly popular at the beginning of the 20th century and many examples may be found in inner suburbs such as Drummoyne. However, this style quickly gave way to the 'modern' style of detached housing which allowed better motor vehicle access, amongst other benefits.

Canada
The semi-detached house was seen as a good fit for downtown Toronto's narrow lots early in the city's history. In the late 19th century semis were built in areas such as The Annex and Cabbagetown in assorted styles: Gothic Revival, Queen Anne, Second Empire, bay-and-gable.

Semi-detached homes continued to be built in the post-war period, often alongside detached types such as the bungalow. They remain popular with developers as they are cheaper to build than detached houses. According to the 2006 census, Toronto had more than 139,000 semis, more than any other Canadian city by a wide margin. Red-brick semis are a common sight throughout downtown and older suburbs.

Cultural references
 "Semi-Detached, Suburban Mr. James", written and performed by Manfred Mann, is a satirical song about a lost love marrying a boring man from semi-detached suburbia. It was released in 1966 and reached No. 2 in the UK charts.
 Semi-Detached Mock Tudor is a live album by Richard Thompson.
 "My Pink Half of The Drainpipe", written and performed by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, satirises neighbourly relations and ownership of property, referring to the practice of each family painting only one half of the drainpipe that runs down the centre of the dividing line between properties.
 "Wisemen" is a song written and performed by British artist James Blunt, and refers to three wise men having a "semi" by the sea.

See also

 Single-family detached home
 Linked house

References

Citations

Sources cited

 Sir John Summerson, Georgian London, (1945), 1988 revised edition, Barrie & Jenkins, . (Also see revised edition, edited by Howard Colvin, 2003)

External links

 The Semi-Detached House by Hon. Emily Eden (1797-1869), published London: R. Bentley, 1859.

House types

Semi-detached


Synaphobranchus dolichorhynchus is an eel in the family Synaphobranchidae (cutthroat eels). It was described by Einar Hagbart Martin Lea in 1913, originally under the genus Leptocephalus. It is a marine, subtropical eel which is known solely from larval specimens discovered in the northern Atlantic Ocean. It is known to dwell at a depth range of .

References

Synaphobranchidae
Fish described in 1913

Synaphobranchus dolichorhynchus


Siobhan Patricia Dillon (born 1 September 1984) is an English actress and singer, who rose to fame when she performed in the British talent show-themed television series How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? on BBC One in 2006. Since then, Dillon has performed in the West End, playing the roles of Sandy in Grease at the Piccadilly Theatre, Vivienne Kensington in Legally Blonde at the Savoy Theatre, Sally Bowles in Cabaret, Molly in Ghost the Musical at the Piccadilly Theatre, Ellen in Miss Saigon, and Betty Schaefer in Sunset Boulevard with the English National Opera. Siobhan reprised this role at the Palace Theatre in New York City.

Background
Dillon's mother owned her own business in advertising after being a drama teacher. Her father is Irish from Dún Laoghaire.  For her ninth birthday Dillon asked her parents for singing lessons, and had vocal training with singing teacher Richard Paul up to the age of 16. Siobhan attended The Friary School in Lichfield where she performed in shows, but as she did not think she would become a singer, she turned to the fashion world.
She was a member of Lichfield Operatic Society and in October 2001 performed the title song from the musical Whistle Down the Wind as part of the society's show, Whistle Down the West End at The Friary School Theatre in Lichfield. After Michael Parkinson heard a tape of her singing, he asked her to sing at his charity cricket ball in 2003, where she got a standing ovation. Prior to appearing on How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? Dillon was in the middle of a BA Hons degree in Product Design and Development for the Fashion Industry, Accessories pathway at Cordwainers College, University of the Arts London.

Career

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?
Dillon was 21 years old when she appeared on the BBC television show, How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?. She reached the final of the show and finished in third place behind Helena Blackman and winner Connie Fisher. Despite being one of the favourites during the first round of auditions, Dillon initially did not make the final ten after an illness had affected her vocals during the final stages. However, after finalist Emilie Alford dropped out of the competition, Dillon, being the last person eliminated during the selection process returned to the show and was given the nickname, "Second Chance Maria".

In week one of the live shows Dillon sang the Shania Twain hit, "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!". In week two she sang the Tina Arena song, "Chains". In the lead up to the third week's show, David Ian talked to the girls about fitness and stamina and sent them on a fitness test mission with Olympic track and field athlete Iwan Thomas, requiring the Marias to complete an assault course. Dillon completed the course in the fastest time of under two minutes. On the show she sang the Pointer Sisters hit, "Jump!". Zoe Tyler then asked her to sing the final lines from her audition piece, "I Could Have Danced All Night".

In week four she sang "Songbird" by Christine McVie, which resulted in her being named the unofficial "Maria of the night". Andrew Lloyd Webber chose her to perform "Truly Scrumptious" with the children from the musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. In the fifth week, when there were two live shows, she sang "All That Jazz" from the musical Chicago accompanied by six male dancers. Dillon successfully got through to the second live show of the evening but faced the second sing off with Aoife Mulholland. They sang "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" from the musical Evita. Lloyd Webber saved Dillon because he believed she "had the strongest voice which could carry eight shows a week".

In the run-up to the final in week six, the three finalists and Lloyd Webber went to Salzburg in Austria and visited some of the locations made famous by The Sound of Music, including Leopoldskron Palace and Nonnberg Abbey, to give the finalists a chance to understand the real Maria von Trapp. On the final night she performed two songs, "Anyone Who Had a Heart" and "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music. She was eliminated during the night's first public vote, which meant she came third overall.

Performances on How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?
 Please note this is a list of her individual performances only

Grease
Dillon made her West End theatre debut in 2007 playing Patty Simcox in the musical Grease. Her first appearance in the show was on 25 July 2007 at the Piccadilly Theatre in London. Show producer, David Ian said of Dillon, "I knew that Siobhan was something special when I first saw her for The Sound of Music, and I am very pleased that she will be joining the cast of Grease." On 16 November she performed on the BBC's Children in Need 2007 live broadcast as part of the cast of Grease.

Dillon was also the understudy for the characters of Sandy and Marty and played both roles several times during her run in the show. She finished the role on 14 June 2008.

Dillon returned to the production on 25 January 2010 this time taking over the lead role of Sandy from Emma Stevens. She played her final performance on 24 July 2010 and was succeeded by Over the Rainbow contestant Lauren Samuels.

Can't Smile Without You
In July 2008 she was cast in the tour of Can't Smile Without You, a new musical based on an original idea by Bill Kenwright and featuring the hit songs of Barry Manilow, alongside Chesney Hawkes and I'd Do Anything contestant Francesca Jackson. It opened at the Churchill Theatre, in the London Borough of Bromley on 28 August 2008 and toured in England and Scotland until 29 November.

Other work
Dillon won a record deal with Andrew Lloyd Webber's company the Really Useful Group (RUG) after How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?. She is said to be writing and recording her first album, although on her Myspace page she is quoted saying, that after Andrew Lloyd Webber announced during one of the live How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? shows that "a major record label" were interested in working with her, she started writing songs for her album and worked with producers and writers but that "due to unfortunate circumstances the album was never released..."

On Christmas Eve 2007 she performed along with Lee Mead the winner of Any Dream Will Do and Connie Fisher together with other 'Maria' and 'Joseph' finalists in the BBC special festive reunion show "When Joseph Met Maria" celebrating both the hit Andrew Lloyd Webber BBC shows.

From late 2009 Dillon took over the role of Sally Bowles in the UK tour of Cabaret from former I'd Do Anything contestant Samantha Barks.

Dillon took over the part of Vivienne Kensington from Caroline Keiff in the West End production of Legally Blonde on 25 October 2010. She therefore became the second How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? finalist to star in the musical, as fellow ex-contestant Aoife Mulholland was playing Brooke Wyndham at the time she took the role.

Beginning performance 13 January 2012, Dillon replaced Caissie Levy in the lead role of Molly Jensen in Ghost the Musical at the Piccadilly Theatre in London's West End. She commented about her new role in a London theatre interview. The official press night for the new cast took place 28 February. Dillon and co-star Mark Evans (who plays Sam Wheat) appeared on Live With Gabby on 7 March 2012. In June 2012, it was announced that Ghost was to give its final curtain on 6 October 2012. It shuttered that day, with Dillon closing out the show as Molly.

In 2013, she reprised her role as Sally Bowles in the revised UK tour of Cabaret, starring alongside Matt Rawle and Will Young.

On 11 May 2015, Dillon took over the role of Ellen in the West End revival of Miss Saigon.

Dillon played the role of Betty Schaefer in Sunset Boulevard at the London Coliseum, which opened on 4 April 2016. She made her Broadway debut in the musical's Broadway revival on 9 February 2017 at the Palace Theatre.

Dillon's debut solo album, One Voice, was released in April 2020. One of the tracks on the album, She Used To Be Mine, was released on her website several years prior following her breast cancer in 2015.

References

External links

1984 births
Living people
English musical theatre actresses
English people of Irish descent
People from Lichfield
English women singers

Siobhan Dillon


Bowman's Bus Services was an Australian bus company in Adelaide.

History
In April 1935, David Bowman commenced operating a weekly  bus service from Hope Valley to the Adelaide city centre via Peserverance Road. The service quickly expanded to become twice daily. From circa 1937, a second service commenced from Tea Tree Gully to One Tree Hill.

A second service from Tea Tree Gully to Adelaide via North East Road later commenced. Following David Bowman's passing in 1967, it passed to his sons, Jack and Milton.

By the early 1970s, Bowman's had expanded to operate nine routes:
540: One Tree Hill to Adelaide city centre
541: Fairview Park to Adelaide city centre
542: Tea Tree Gully to Adelaide city centre
543: Redwood Park to Adelaide city centre
544: Westfield Tea Tree Plaza - Modbury Heights
550: St Agnes - Adelaide city centre
551: St Agnes - Adelaide city centre
560: Tea Tree Gully - Elizabeth
561: Tea Tree Gully - Salisbury

With falling revenues and rising costs, on 11 February 1974 the routes of Bowman's, along with those of 11 other operators, were taken over by the Municipal Tramways Trust.

Fleet
Up until the late 1950s, the fleet had primarily consisted of front-engined Fords. In 1959, the first of 15 Commers was delivered. These were followed by Bedford SBs and Hino RC320Ps. When operations ceased in February 1974, the fleet consisted of 36 buses and six coaches. All passed to the Municipal Tramways Trust.

Depots
In 1970, Bowman's opened a state of the art facility in St Agnes.

References

Bus companies of South Australia
Transport companies established in 1935
Transport companies disestablished in 1974
Transport in Adelaide
Australian companies established in 1935
1974 disestablishments in Australia
Defunct bus companies of Australia

Bowman's Bus Services


Pecel ayam (Javanese: pecel pitik) is a traditional chicken dish of the Kemiren Banyuwangi Osing tribe of East Java, Indonesia.

Ingredients
Pecel ayam is made with chicken and coconut sauce cooked in salted tamarind water. The sauce requires grain coconut, garlic, onions, peanuts, cutchery, kaffir lime leaves, fried nutmeg, a sachet of shrimp paste and optionally for added spice, cayenne or chili. Basil leaf and lime juice may also be added. Sugar, salt, and MSG are also added.

Method
The ingredients for pecel ayam must be prepared beforehand. The chicken is rubbed in tamarind water, salt, and spices, and baked until cooked and browned. Then, the chicken is drained and shred. After that, the grated coconut is cooked. Added spices include fried nutmeg, salt, chili, and peanuts that have been roasted. The seasoning is mixed with chicken that has been cut in several pieces. Optionally,  lime juice is added. Finally, pecel ayam is ready to serve.

See also

Cuisine of Indonesia
Javanese cuisine
Nasi pecel
Pecel
Pecel lele

References

Javanese cuisine
Indonesian chicken dishes
Chicken dishes

Pecel ayam


tribe.net (often shortened to "tribe") was a website that hosted an online community, or tribe of friends, similar to other social networking sites. The site name was always spelled in all lower case. As of February 2017 the site content was inaccessible and the site lacked a host. As of 25 February 2023, the tribe.net domain hosts a Mastodon server.

History
Tribe was founded in early 2003 by Paul Martino, Mark Pincus, and Valerie Syme. As of March 2004, the population of tribe was skewed heavily towards people living in the San Francisco Bay Area, though the geographic distribution is gradually normalizing as people from other places join. As of September 2006 it had over 500,000 members.

In a controversial move, on December 20, 2005, tribe.net decided to prohibit sexually explicit content, partially in response to the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act.  This move disappointed many users, as Tribe to that point had been notable for a permissive content policy.

On January 19, 2006, tribe.net changed its layout and user interface (UI). The management of tribe.net claimed that they received approximately 40% positive feedback during a small beta phase with 3000 users.

In April, 2006, most of the employees of Tribe.net were laid off, leaving only a skeleton group to maintain and develop the site.

On August 24, 2006, former CEO Mark Pincus announced that he was "taking back tribe." He did this through a public listing on the site.  This happened due to the financial insolvency of the initial company.  Mark formed a new corporation, Utah Street Networks, that bought the distressed assets of the original company, Tribe Networks.

In late 2007, at the request of many members , tribe.net announced that it would offer a premium service to members on a subscription basis, at the rate of US$5.00 per month.  Prospective premium members were told that they would be able to view the website in an ad-free format. It also promised free T-shirts to annual members, a benefit that has never fully been disbursed.

A September 24, 2008 article in the San Francisco Weekly quoted Pincus as saying that the site would continue. "I feel a commitment to the community of people who have made the decision to post themselves on Tribe," the Weekly quoted Pincus. "We've kept Tribe going not because we believed it would turn into a phenomenal business success like Bebo or Facebook, but because I think it serves a really valuable role for the community."
tribe.net was taken offline in March 2017 after an article on Heavy.com about a Reddit thread  described child porn activity on the network.

While development director Carolyn Anhalt told the Black Rock Beacon  in 2017 that the site was "gone for good" she said the concept might be resurrected. "We have not completely given up the hope to have a sustainable social network that supports anonymity and free speech."

In February 2022, the domain name was pointed to a list of charities supporting Ukraine. In November 2022, a new Mastodon (software) server was brought up under the tribe.net domain name, https://tribe.net/about.

Features
Anyone could register as a new tribe user, and then define their immediate network of friends, either by choosing from existing members or by inviting new members to join. Each of these users may in turn define their own network of friends. (This process results in a type of user-driven viral marketing on behalf of tribe.net.)  As more and more people and their friends joined tribe, it resulted in an elaborate computerized social network with many thousands of members. tribe users leveraged the small world phenomenon as a way to enhance their own immediate network.

tribe.net features many "tribes", loosely based on the theory of urban tribes propounded by Michel Maffesoli and Ethan Watters. In practice, these tribes are a kind of topical forum. A new tribe may be created by any registered user. When a user creates a new tribe, that user is the moderator of the tribe. Any user may in principle join any tribe, although some tribes are private or require permission from the moderator to join. In addition to threaded messages, members can use tribes to post photos, announce upcoming parties, concerts, or other events easily and reach select audiences. Currently there are thousands of tribes, with more added daily.

Tribe content fell into several different categories: Topics (discussion threads), photos (uploaded by users), listings (classified ads), events (scheduled happenings), reviews (of websites), requests (more classified ads), and olx (link to OLX, a separate website of classified ads).

Ownership
Tribe Networks, the original company behind tribe.net, was formerly privately owned, financed largely with venture capital. Tribe partnered with the Washington Post and Knight Ridder.  In 2006, a new company called Utah Street Networks was formed to buy the assets of Tribe Networks and continue operation of the site.  This transition was largely transparent to the users of the site, but largely coincides with the "taking back Tribe" message posted by Mr. Pincus.

In March 2007, Cisco Systems announced their acquisition of Tribe Networks' technology assets.

In November 2008, Utah Street turned over management of tribe to New Systems Associates, a group of users who planned to stabilize the site and expand its services. New Systems attempted to rewrite the Tribe software so that it would no longer need to license it from Cisco. Once that was complete, Pincus was to transfer the assets to New Systems, Carolyn Anhalt, the company's director of development and technical support, told the Black Rock Beacon in 2015.

In 2010, the combination of a dispute with contract programmers and the loss of advertising from a major server that objected to pornographic content on the site derailed the rewrite. The site suffered from spotty service as its software became increasingly incompatible with current  technology.

See also
 List of social networking websites
 Tribe (internet)

References

Further reading

External links

Defunct social networking services

Tribe.net


In Greek mythology, Praxidice (Ancient Greek: Πραξιδίκη, ) may refer to the following characters:

 Praxidice, goddess of judicial punishment and the exactor of vengeance, which were two closely allied concepts in the classical Greek world-view.
 Praxidice, according to the Orphic hymn to Persephone, an epithet of Persephone: "Praxidike, subterranean queen. The Eumenides' source [mother], fair-haired, whose frame proceeds from Zeus' ineffable and secret seeds." As praxis "practice, application" of dike "justice", she is sometimes identified with Dike, goddess of justice.
 Praxidice, according to Stephanus of Byzantium, a daughter of Ogygus named Praxidike was married to Tremiles (after whom Lycia had been previously named Tremile) and had by him four sons: Tlos, Xanthus, Pinarus and Cragus. Of them Tlos had a Lycian city named Tlos after himself. Cragus may be identical with the figure of the same name mentioned as the husband of Milye, sister of Solymus.

The plural Praxidicae (Praxidikai) refers to the following groups of mythological figures who presided over exacting of justice:

 Arete and Homonoia, daughters of Praxidice and Soter, sisters to Ktesios.
 Alalcomenia, Thelxionoea and Aulis, daughters of the early Boeotian king Ogyges. At Haliartos in Boeotia, Pausanias saw the open-air "sanctuary of the goddesses whom they call Praxidikae. Here the Haliartians swear, but the oath is not one they take lightly". Their images only portrayed their heads, and only heads of animals were sacrificed to them.

Notes

References

 The Hymns of Orpheus. Translated by Taylor, Thomas (1792). University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999. Online version at the theoi.com
Pausanias, Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918. . Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
 Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio. 3 vols. Leipzig, Teubner. 1903.  Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
 Stephanus of Byzantium, Stephani Byzantii Ethnicorum quae supersunt, edited by August Meineike (1790-1870), published 1849. A few entries from this important ancient handbook of place names have been translated by Brady Kiesling. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
 Suida, Suda Encyclopedia translated by Ross Scaife, David Whitehead, William Hutton, Catharine Roth, Jennifer Benedict, Gregory Hays, Malcolm Heath Sean M. Redmond, Nicholas Fincher, Patrick Rourke, Elizabeth Vandiver, Raphael Finkel, Frederick Williams, Carl Widstrand, Robert Dyer, Joseph L. Rife, Oliver Phillips and many others. Online version at the Topos Text Project.

Justice goddesses
Vengeance goddesses
Greek goddesses
Personifications in Greek mythology
Boeotian characters in Greek mythology
Religion in ancient Boeotia
Epithets of Persephone

Praxidice