Injustice 2 is a 2017 fighting video game. It is the sequel to 2013's Injustice: Gods Among Us and the second installment in the Injustice series which is based on the DC Universe. It is developed by NetherRealm Studios and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. The game was initially released in May 2017 for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One; a Windows version was released later in November 2017. An expanded version of the game, titled Injustice 2: Legendary Edition, was released in March 2018 for the PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One. Similar to the previous installment, a companion mobile app was released for Android and iOS devices. A prequel comic book series of the same name, written by Tom Taylor, was also released beginning in April 2017.

The core gameplay remains similar to its predecessor, albeit with minor adjustments to returning game mechanics. Injustice 2 introduces a new feature called the Gear System, a loot-dropping system that rewards players with costume pieces and equipment that can be used to customize characters' appearances and modify their abilities and stats. According to developers, the idea for implementing a role playing game (RPG)-style progression system into a fighting game had existed since before the collapse of Midway Games, the original developer and publisher for the Mortal Kombat series. Director Ed Boon also sought to incorporate gameplay mechanics used by multiplayer shooter games, such as personalization, character creation, loot, and leveling up, into the fighting game genre, which led to the development of the Gear System.

Injustice 2s storyline centers around Batman and his insurgency's attempt to restore society after the fall of Superman's Regime; however, the arrivals of the newly formed supervillain group "The Society" and the alien Brainiac force Batman to consider freeing the imprisoned Superman to help combat the threats. The game won numerous awards and received positive reviews from critics, who praised its story, presentation, improved gameplay mechanics, abundance of in-game content, and character customization options, while criticizing its random loot and microtransaction systems.

Gameplay

Injustice 2 is a fighting game in which players compete in one-on-one combat using characters from the DC Universe and other third-party franchises. Using different combinations of directional inputs and button presses, players must perform basic attacks, special moves, and combos to try to damage and knock out the opposing fighter. Injustice 2 retains numerous gameplay mechanics from Injustice: Gods Among Us, including environment interaction, stage transitions, clashes, and character traits. The trait system, like before, provides a temporary buff or ability that complements each character's playstyle. The super meter, which allows players to execute enhanced special moves and unlock powerful "super moves" when fully charged, also returns. Players can expend meter to perform new techniques, such as an evasive forward roll, which provides a way to overcome enemy keep-away tactics, or an air recovery, which lets characters escape an opponent's combo early. Most environmental attacks, which were completely unavoidable in the first Injustice game, can now be blocked or dodged; however, certain environmental attacks with large amounts of startup, such as throwing a car, remain unblockable.

Injustice 2 introduces a loot-dropping system, known as the "Gear System", which offers character-specific costume pieces and equipment with status-altering effects. The Gear System uses RPG-like mechanics to reward players with experience and loot after every match. Every playable fighter is given four base stats: strength, defense, health, and ability, the latter of which impacts special attacks. As players collect experience points and subsequently level up, their characters' base stats will increase. Players can enhance their base stats even further by equipping gear obtained through loot drops, which also lets players customize the look of their characters. Rarer gear can include one or more bonus augmentations, which range from new visual effects for special moves to higher yields of in-game currency or experience points. Players can receive additional bonuses by equipping their characters with all five pieces of a single gear set. Gear comes in three varieties: equipment, shaders, and abilities. Besides the random loot earned at the end of a fight, all three types of gear are available to purchase in loot crates, known as "Mother Boxes", using in-game currency. Each character has five equipment slots for donning new costume pieces, which include their head, torso, arms, legs, and an accessory; two ability slots for equipping new or modified special attacks; and one shader slot for altering their color scheme. The game will also include five separate gear loadouts for each character, allowing players to switch between their setups at the beginning of each match.

The game also includes a microtransaction system. Players can buy "Source Crystals" using real-world money to purchase cosmetic adjustments for fighters, such as premier skins and shaders, instead of waiting to obtain them through normal play. Source Crystals can also be used to buy "Transform Gear". Transform Gear lets players apply the visuals of one piece of gear to another, allowing them to match their preferred stat modifiers with their preferred costume pieces. Lastly, once players have reached Level 20 with at least one character, Source Crystals can be used to level up other characters to their maximum levels. NetherRealm representatives clarified that any purchases made with Source Crystals are strictly cosmetic and offer no gameplay advantages.

In addition to the campaign, online, and arcade modes, Injustice 2 introduces a new "Multiverse" mode. Similar to the "Living Towers" mode from NetherRealm's previous title, Mortal Kombat X, the Multiverse allows players to travel through series of parallel worlds within the DC Universe and battle against opponents with various handicaps, stipulations, and goals. Online multiplayer will feature the option to disable Gear System upgrades and modifications, reducing all base stats to their default levels, turning any equipped gear into purely cosmetic items, and providing more balanced gameplay for competitive matches. Players can also form online "guilds" with up to 50 other players. Guild members can collaborate to complete daily and weekly cooperative objectives to earn and share gear exclusive to guild gameplay and climb the worldwide leaderboards.

Plot
The game begins with Kara Zor-El's and an infant Kal-El's escape from Krypton during Brainiac's attack on the planet. Aided by Kara's mother, they manage to escape aboard pods headed to Earth, but Kara's ship is knocked off course. Years later, prior to the events of the first game, Batman and his son Robin attempt to stop Superman's Regime from executing Arkham Asylum inmates. Failing to dissuade Superman, Batman fights him but is attacked by Robin, who prefers Superman's methods. Batman defeats Robin, but the latter leaves with Superman to join the Regime anyway after executing Victor Zsasz.

In the present, two years after the Regime's fall, Batman and his Insurgency are attempting to rebuild society. They learn of a new faction, the Society, composed of villains spearheaded by Gorilla Grodd, who seeks global domination. Black Canary, a parallel universe version of Green Arrow, and a reformed Harley Quinn, are tasked by Batman with stopping the Society, and track them down to Slaughter Swamp, where they form an alliance with Swamp Thing. Following the villains to Gorilla City, the heroes are warned by Doctor Fate of an incoming threat. Black Canary and Green Arrow are abducted by Brainiac, the mastermind behind the Society, who intends to add Earth to his collection of shrunken planets. After Brainiac takes over Batman's communications hub, Brother Eye, Batman searches for allies to defeat him.

While Catwoman, a double agent for Batman in the Society, rescues Harley, the reformed Flash and Green Lantern join Batman to take down Brainiac. Green Lantern is sent to recruit Aquaman, who agrees to help after Brainiac attacks Atlantis. Meanwhile, Black Adam, Wonder Woman, and Kara (who was rescued by Adam years prior and adopted the Supergirl alias) break Nightwing and Cyborg out of prison in an attempt to re-establish the Regime and defeat Brainiac. They are defeated by Blue Beetle and Firestorm before Batman arrives. Batman frees Superman and forms a reluctant alliance with the Regime members on the condition that no one is killed in the upcoming battles.

Cyborg, Catwoman, and Harley go to the Batcave to free Brother Eye from Brainiac's control and defeat Society members sent to stop them. Meanwhile, Wonder Woman and Supergirl fight the remaining Society members in New Metropolis; when the former almost kills Cheetah, Harley interferes, causing Wonder Woman to attack her. Supergirl goes to the Fortress of Solitude to confront Superman over the incident, and learns of his tyranny. As Brainiac prepares to destroy Earth after collecting enough cities, the Insurgency and the Regime attack his ship, but fail to get through its shields, and seemingly lose Superman. The group decides to weaken the shields by using Aquaman's trident as a conduit for the magic of the Rock of Eternity, which Aquaman and Black Adam go retrieve. They are followed by Grodd, who has brainwashed Black Canary, Green Arrow, and Blue Beetle, but they defeat them, and Aquaman executes Grodd.

Aquaman and Black Adam weaken Brainiac's shields enough for Batman and Supergirl to board his ship. They are captured, but a still-living Superman rescues them and helps Batman defeat the brainwashed Firestorm and Swamp Thing. Doctor Fate, ordered by the Lords of Order to help Brainiac, fights them, but he is defeated and freed from the Lords' control before Brainiac kills him. After defeating Brainiac, Superman takes control of the ship to restore the stolen cities, but inadvertently destroys New Metropolis and Coast City. As the others join them, they become divided over Brainiac's fate: the Insurgency and Supergirl want him alive so they can learn how to restore the cities, while the Regime and Aquaman want him dead for his crimes. The tension between them escalates into a fight, prompting the player to choose whether to fight as Superman or Batman. Both sides proceed to fight each other until Batman and Superman are the last ones standing. The two reminisce a final time before engaging in a final fight.

Depending on the outcome of the battle, the story ends in one of the following ways:
 If Superman wins, he reinstates the Regime, restores Earth's cities, and kills Brainiac. He later visits an imprisoned Supergirl and tells her that he wants her to co-lead an army he is forming out of aliens from Brainiac's collection. When she refuses, Superman reveals that he has brainwashed Batman using Brainiac's technology, threatening to do the same to her.
 If Batman wins, he depowers Superman with Gold Kryptonite and imprisons him in the Phantom Zone. Superman swears he will return before entering the portal. Batman then offers a Justice League membership to Supergirl, which she accepts. Batman then prepares for his return.

Characters
The base roster for Injustice 2 includes 28 playable fighters, consisting of both new and returning heroes and villains. The game also features 10 additional characters available as downloadable content (DLC). Red Hood, Starfire, and Sub-Zero made up Fighter Pack 1, while Fighter Pack 2 brought in Black Manta, Hellboy, and Raiden, and Fighter Pack 3 introduced Atom, Enchantress, and the TMNT. Darkseid was a pre-order bonus and later made available as standalone DLC from the Fighter Packs.

New playable characters are listed below in bold, while guest characters are listed below with an underscore.

 Aquaman
 Atom
 Atrocitus
 Bane
 Batman
 Black Adam
 Black Canary
 Black Manta
 Blue Beetle
 Brainiac
 Captain Cold
 Catwoman
 Cheetah
 Cyborg
 Darkseid
 Deadshot
 Doctor Fate
 Enchantress
 Firestorm
 Flash (Barry Allen)
 Gorilla Grodd
 Green Arrow
 Green Lantern (Hal Jordan)
 Harley Quinn
 Hellboy
 The Joker
 Poison Ivy
 Raiden
 Red Hood
 Robin/Nightwing
 Scarecrow
 Starfire
 Sub-Zero
 Supergirl
 Superman
 Swamp Thing
 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
 Wonder Woman

Additionally, several characters are playable as "premier skins", which transform characters from the existing roster into other characters from mostly DC Comics Universe with unique voices, dialogue, and in certain cases, altered normal/special/super moves and character powers.

 Batwoman
 Bizarro
 Black Lightning
 Bruce Wayne
 Deathstroke
 Grid
 Flash (Jay Garrick)
 Hawkman
 Hush
 Green Lantern (John Stewart)
 John Constantine
 Lord Joker
 Martian Manhunter
 Mr. Freeze
 Power Girl
 Raven
 Reverse-Flash
 Robin King
 Shazam
 Scorpion
 Silver Banshee
 The Batman Who Laughs
 Vixen
 White Canary
 Zatanna

: Available as downloadable content.: Mobile-exclusive character

Development
Injustice 2 was announced by NetherRealm Studios and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment on June 8, 2016. Following the release of Injustice: Gods Among Us, NetherRealm Studios sought to do "something unexpected and long-term" for its sequel, as well as give players "a level of control that makes playing [their] games a truly personal experience." Ed Boon also wanted to infuse various gameplay mechanics used by recent multiplayer shooter games, such as personalization, character creation, loot, and leveling up, into the fighting game genre. According to producer Adam Urbano, the idea of creating a fighting game utilizing a role playing game-like progression system had been floating around the studio since before the fall of Midway Games, the original developer and publisher for the Mortal Kombat series. Due to the success of the original Injustice, which earned NetherRealm Studios the trust of Warner Bros. and DC Comics, the development team decided to pitch their progression concept for the sequel, which was approved, leading to the implementation of the Gear System.

The Gear System was designed to encourage players to develop unique personal playstyles, while consistently rewarding them for investing time into the game. According to Senior Marketing Game Manager Brian Goodman, the developers wanted the Gear System to cater to both the casual and hardcore audiences. They hoped that hardcore players would appreciate the different mechanics offered by the system and create new strategies and fighting styles for each character, while casual players would enjoy the variety of visual customization options. NetherRealm also foresaw the potential issue with newer players being dominated by veteran players who have obtained rarer gear sets. To address this, the developers attempted to implement various solutions, such as giving players the option to disable stat modifiers during matches and the ability to buy rarer gear through the assorted tiers of Mother Boxes. A "balance team" was also consulted during development to try to prevent players from clustering around a small number of optimal builds.

NetherRealm Studios collaborated with DC Comics throughout Injustice 2s entire development process, including conceptualizing characters and determining the direction of the story. As with Injustice: Gods Among Us, NetherRealm was afforded extensive freedom with DC Comics' properties when designing characters. Lead Designer John Edwards stated that all of their design ideas had to pass through DC Comics' approval process; though, the company had rarely rejected them. This allowed the developers to create a large variety of costume variations and visually distinct items inspired by decades of source material. "It's a mutual respect," explained Art Director Steve Beran. "They respect what we do, and we respect all their characters. We are fans of their characters and, I think, art-wise and design-wise, we put a lot of detail that hardcore fans will like. We tried to really honor every character."

Injustice 2 continues the storyline established in Injustice: Gods Among Us. Unlike the previous game, which centered on a multi-universe conflict, the plot for Injustice 2 takes place entirely within the alternate, dystopian universe. According to Injustice: Gods Among Us Cinematic Director Dominic Cianciolo, the story from the first installment provided a solid foundation for adapting the canonical histories of the game's newer cast, allowing the writers to fit their stories within the Injustice universe. The biggest challenge presented to the writers was extending the series' narrative without repeating the core Batman versus Superman conflict. This led to the inclusion of Brainiac as the game's central antagonist, as there were few characters in the DC Universe that could top "Dictator Superman" as a foe for Batman.

According to Goodman, the playable characters were decided upon by NetherRealm Studios in collaboration with DC Comics, similar to the previous title. The developers considered the characters' lore, personalities, abilities, popularity, participation in the story, and relationships with other characters during the roster selection process. Creative Director Ed Boon stated that Injustice 2s roster would contain more relatively obscure characters, since Injustice: Gods Among Us had covered most of DC Comics' most notable figures. He teased the possibility of third-party DLC characters, which were well received in Mortal Kombat X, eventually resulting in the inclusions of Hellboy from Dark Horse Comics created by Mike Mignola and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from Nickelodeon, originally created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. Due to the success of Scorpion in the previous installment, who was the most downloaded DLC fighter, Boon also entertained the likelihood of NetherRealm including other Mortal Kombat characters as downloadable content, leading to the inclusions of Sub-Zero and Raiden. As with Scorpion, Sub-Zero and Raiden were given new costume designs by comic book artist Jim Lee.

Characters' facial animations were created with a custom photogrammetry facial scanner, which utilized 44 DSLR cameras with 50 mm fixed lenses. Character Art Lead Brendan George stated that 16 facial expressions were captured to create a single character; the 16 scans then took two to three days to process through their workstations. The data from their new scanner allowed the artists to produce a more advanced facial rig. All motion capture was performed in-house at NetherRealm Studios in Chicago, Illinois. According to Senior Technical Artist for Cinematics Andy Senesac, the animation team used four head-mounted camera systems in its motion capture shoots, each equipped with a choice of three different 4 mm, 5 mm, or wide-angled lenses that were used depending on the actor's head shape. The motion capture was then modified with manual animations to obtain the final result.

The online infrastructure for Injustice 2 utilizes the same rollback-based netcode introduced to Mortal Kombat X in its XL update. An online multiplayer beta test for both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions was announced on January 19, 2017, which began soon afterwards on January 24 and lasted until February 21. The game's original soundtrack was composed primarily by Christopher Drake, with additional compositions from Richard Carle, Dan Forden, and Dynamedion. Injustice 2 runs on the Mortal Kombat X engine (Unreal Engine 3), with the mobile version running on Unreal Engine 4.

Release
Injustice 2 released in North America on May 16, 2017; Australia on May 17, 2017; and most European countries including the United Kingdom on May 19, 2017, for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Aside from the standard edition of the game, a Digital Deluxe Edition and an Ultimate Edition were available for purchase. The Digital Deluxe Edition included three downloadable content (DLC) characters, the Power Girl premier skin, and one exclusive gear shader pack; the Ultimate Edition included nine DLC characters, the Reverse-Flash, John Stewart, and Power Girl premier skins, and two exclusive gear shader packs. Pre-orders of the game featured Darkseid as a playable DLC fighter.

On May 8, 2017, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced the Injustice 2 Championship Series, a global eSports program. The series offered amateur and professional players throughout North America, Europe, and Latin America a chance to compete in different programs for a portion of a  prize pool. These included the Injustice 2 Pro Series, an international tournament; the GameStop Hometown Heroes tournament, set in the United States; the Path to Pro tournament, set in Europe; and the Liga Latina, set in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and Peru. The top players from each program qualified for the ELEAGUE Injustice 2 World Championship, which featured a  prize pool. The event took place in Atlanta, Georgia, from October 21 through November 10, and was streamed worldwide through the ELEAGUE website, Twitch, and YouTube; matches were also broadcast live on TBS in the United States. On April 10, 2018, NetherRealm announced that the Pro Series would return for a second season.

On October 24, 2017, Warner Bros. announced that a Windows version developed by QLOC, who had previously taken over development for Mortal Kombat X'''s PC port from High Voltage Software, was due for release in Q4 2017, with an open beta stage beginning on October 25. However, the beta was postponed for unspecified reasons, ultimately running between November 6 and November 11. The Windows version was released on November 14, 2017. Creative director Ed Boon has also discussed the possibility of a Nintendo Switch version.

Mobile version
Like its predecessor, a free-to-play mobile app based on Injustice 2 was released for iOS and Android devices on May 11, 2017. The app was soft launched in the Philippines App Store in February 2017. It maintains several gameplay features from the original, including the swipe-based fighting mechanics, card collection, and three-on-three battles, but introduces various changes to the game's overall formula. Players are now given the ability to move around the stage freely during combat, as well as use jumping and crouching attacks. The stamina management system returns; however, instead of each character receiving their own allotment of stamina, the player is given a single pool of stamina which depletes after every match. Fights also require higher levels of stamina than the previous game. The app includes login bonuses; daily objectives, which offer experience and coins; and achievements, which are long-term goals that reward players with premium gems and "hero shards" used for unlocking and leveling up characters. It also features game mechanics similar to those found in the console versions, such as ability and gear upgrades. The app includes a story mode, which will be unfolded chapter by chapter in subsequent updates. According to Google Play, the Android version of the app has been downloaded at least ten million times since its release.

Downloadable content
According to Boon, NetherRealm Studios planned to take a more "aggressive approach" for downloadable content in Injustice 2 compared to their previous games. "One of the things we've been doing, trying to do more and more with every game...is to support it for a longer period of time," Boon stated, "With DLC characters, we've had four with Mortal Kombat, six with Injustice, eight with Mortal Kombat X, and with Injustice 2 we plan on continuing that pattern." On May 5, 2017, NetherRealm Studios announced Fighter Pack 1, which includes three DLC characters: Red Hood, Starfire, and Mortal Kombats Sub-Zero. Red Hood was released on June 13, 2017; Sub-Zero was released  on July 11, 2017; and Starfire was released on August 8, 2017. Fighter Pack 2, consisting of Black Manta, Mortal Kombats Raiden, and Dark Horse Comics' Hellboy, was revealed on August 23, 2017, at Gamescom. Black Manta was released on September 12, 2017; Raiden was released on October 3, 2017, alongside the Black Lightning premier skin; and Hellboy was released on November 14, 2017. On October 3, 2017, during the finale of The CW's documentary television series Chasing the Cup: Injustice 2, Atom was revealed as the next DLC addition. The third DLC pack, Fighter Pack 3, was unveiled during the finals of the ELEAGUE Injustice 2 World Championship on November 11, 2017, which includes Atom, Enchantress, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) protagonists Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael. Atom was released on December 12, 2017; Enchantress was released on January 9, 2018; and lastly, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were released on February 13, 2018. Players can select which TMNT member to play as using the Gear System; equipping one of four weapons — katana, bō, nunchaku, or sai — swaps between Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael, each with their own unique move sets. In tournament and online modes, where Gear System loadouts cannot be used, players can choose each turtle individually through the character select screen. At one point, NetherRealm had considered developing a Fighter Pack 0, which would consist of returning characters from Injustice: Gods Among Us, including Ares, Batgirl, Doomsday, and Shazam; however, the idea did not come to fruition. In April 2019, nearly two years after the game's release, Ed Boon revealed on Game Informer that he wanted to include Neo from The Matrix as a guest character, but plans fell through for his inclusion.

Related media

During NetherRealm Studios' Injustice 2 panel at San Diego Comic-Con International on July 22, 2016, Boon announced a digital comic book series which will detail the backstory to the events of the game. The series is written by Tom Taylor, who had previously worked on the tie-in comic books for Injustice: Gods Among Us. Bruno Redondo is its lead artist, with contributing artwork from Juan Albarran, Daniel Sempere, and Mike S. Miller. Beginning on April 11, 2017, the series was released in weekly chapters through various digital retailers, including ComiXology, Google Play Books, the Kindle Store, and DC Comics' own mobile app. Print versions became available for purchase on May 3, 2017, each containing multiple digital chapters.

It was announced on April 26, 2018, that the game would cross over with Mattel's Masters of the Universe series as a comic sequel to the game's "Superman's side" ending. The comic received six issues, from July 18, 2018, until January 2, 2019.

Injustice 2: Legendary Edition
On February 28, 2018, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced Injustice 2: Legendary Edition. Similar to the Ultimate Edition for Injustice: Gods Among Us, the Legendary Edition includes all previously released downloadable content for Injustice 2. It also introduces new features, such as an expanded tutorial system called the "Learn Hub", new gear items, and an increased character level cap. In addition, those who pre-order the Day One Edition of the Legendary Edition received a collectible coin, a steelbook case, a "comic exclusive download steel card", and 11,000 Source Crystals to use in-game. The Legendary Edition was released on March 27, 2018, for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One.

Reception
Critical responseInjustice 2 received generally favorable reviews, according to Metacritic. Reviewers lauded Injustice 2's story and presentation. Eurogamer Wesley Yin-Poole praised the game's narrative and visuals, describing them as "impressive" and a "significant step up" from Injustice: Gods Among Us. Yin-Poole commended the story mode on a technical level, praising the motion capture, action choreography, voice acting, and facial animations. Destructoid Nick Valdez shared similar views, stating that the visuals were "leagues above the first title". Valdez also complimented the game's improved writing and "more engaging narrative". In contrast, while Game Revolution James Kozanitis said the visuals were "absolutely jaw-dropping" and "set a new high bar for the [fighting game] genre", he lambasted the story campaign, which he labeled as "poorly written" and "contrived".

Reviewers also praised Injustice 2 improved gameplay mechanics and abundance of in-game content. Game Informer Andrew Reiner praised the game's faster walk speed, the additions of the evasive roll and air recovery maneuvers, and the ability to block environmental attacks, stating that the game "[felt] tighter as a whole" and "offers a higher level of strategy". The Games Machine Danilo Dellafrana stated that "the subtle changes to the combat system made for deeper gameplay". These points of praise were mirrored by IGN Darry Huskey, who remarked that Injustice 2 "[struck] a fine balance between retaining the strengths of Gods Among Us and making smart changes to improve mechanics." Huskey applauded the "incredible amount of content", declaring that "hour for hour, Injustice 2 may have more content for solo players than any fighting game ever released." Reiner also praised the amount of content, acknowledging its "lengthy story-based campaign...great fighting experience, and...nearly endless supply of notable loot." Yin-Poole wrote that NetherRealm Studios "once again [proved] it's the best in the business at that old chestnut: content."

While the customization options offered by the Gear System received praise, critics expressed frustration with receiving random, undesired gear through loot drops and the game's microtransaction system. GameSpot Peter Brown found collecting gear and outfitting characters to be enjoyable, stating that "watching a character's traditional outfit transform into something fresh or unexpected, and seeing their stats grow through leveling up and equipping gear, grants a satisfying sense of ownership over your accomplishments and possessions." On the other hand, Brown criticized the Gear System's use of currency, particularly Source Crystals, saying that spending real money seemed to be a "necessary evil" for players to have complete control over their inventories. Kotaku Mike Fahey described the ability to create custom versions of characters as "quite satisfying"; however, he found the Gear System to be "complicated" and criticized the randomness in receiving desired costume pieces and equipment, uttering "sometimes random chance really sucks." VideoGamer.com Alice Bell also called the microtransaction and loot systems "needlessly complex", which require players to keep track of several different types of currency. In contrast, Polygon Michael McWhertor called the interface "elegant", enjoying the simplicity of managing and selling of gear for each character.

PC Gamer listed it as one of their best games of the year.

SalesInjustice 2 topped the United Kingdom's multi-platform physical sales chart during its first two weeks after launch, with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions simultaneously taking the first and second spots, respectively. This marked the first time a fighting game had taken the top spot since Mortal Kombat X in April 2015. Launch sales for the game in the United Kingdom were also roughly one-third higher than the debut of Injustice: Gods Among Us. Likewise, Injustice 2 was the top-selling game across all platforms in Australia and New Zealand during its first two weeks, and the best-selling game in the United States for the month of May 2017. It reached number 2 in Switzerland. It became the PlayStation Store's most downloaded PlayStation 4 title for May 2017, with Darkseid being the third best-selling DLC of the month. The Ultimate Pack and Fighter Pack 1 were both in the Top 10 downloads in June 2017. Three months later, Fighter Pack 2 also made the Top 10. By the end of May, Injustice 2 was the ninth best-selling game of 2017. Time Warner declared the game as "the highest-grossing console game in the second quarter of 2017," selling approximately 1.5 million copies in the first three months of its release.

Awards
In June 2016, Injustice 2 received "Best of E3 2016" awards for "Best Fighting Game" from the Game Critics Awards, IGN, Game Informer, and GamesRadar. The game won "Best Fighting Game of 2017" awards from The Game Awards 2017, IGN, and Game Informer. IGN also nominated the game for "Best Xbox One Game" and "Best Spectator Game". The game was nominated for "Best International Game" at the 2017 Ping Awards, for "Best Xbox One Game" in Destructoid Game of the Year Awards 2017, and for "Best Multiplayer Game" and "Studio of the Year" (NetherRealm) at the Golden Joystick Awards. In Game Informers Reader's Choice Best of 2017 Awards, the game came in first place for "Best Fighting Game", third place for "Best Competitive Multiplayer" and fifth place for "Game of the Year". EGMNow ranked it eleventh on their list of the 25 Best Games of 2017, while GamesRadar+'' ranked it 23rd on their list of the 25 Best Games of 2017. The game won the award for "Fighting Game of the Year", and also received a nomination for "Outstanding Achievement in Sound Design", during the 21st Annual D.I.C.E. Awards. It was also nominated for "Game, Franchise Fighting" at the 17th Annual National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers Awards.

Notes

References

External links

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Injustice 2


A perennial is a plant that bears leaves and perhaps flowers every year.

Some plants only bear leaves and flowers once, then they die. Such plants are called annual.

Other plants live for two years. They are called biennial.

Most trees and shrubs are perennial plants.

Perennial


Equilibrium is the second album of the Canadian guitarist Erik Mongrain.

Description
Equilibrium is an acoustic guitar album by Erik Mongrain recorded at Paul Reed Smith's Dragon Crossing Studios during August 2008. Mongrain is accompanied by Michael Manring (fretless bass) and Bill Plumber (synthesizer).

The CD cover is a painting by Yan Mongrain, the guitarist's brother.

Tracks listing
 "A Ripple Effect" - 2:22
 "Alone In The Mist" - 5:24
 "Equilibrium" - 5:06
 "Muse" - 5:17
 "The Silent Fool" - 4:20
 "Pandora's Box" - 4:07
 "Eon's Illusion" - 4:09
 "Raindigger" - 4:03
 "Maelström" - 5:31

Tracks translations and meanings
(from CD booklet, written by Erik's hand)
 1. "A Ripple Effect"  I have a hyperactive mind. There is no switch to turn it off. One thought leading to another, it never ends...
 2. "Alone In The Mist"  This how I feel when something or someone triggers the ultimate inner loneliness.
 3. "Equilibrium"  An ode to the balance and imbalance of life, human nature and our planet. The Yin-Yang that is to live.
 4. "Muse"  A love story that it should be but it can't be.
 5. "The Silent Fool"  For all the moments in my life that I spoke too quickly, uncontrollably or stupidly. Living with regrets is harsh... Sometimes I just wish that I was mute!
 6. "Pandora's Box"  When you receive a new guitar,  there is always  the magic of discovering how it sounds on every move you can think of. Although you've tried it first or figured out how it should sound, you truly never know exactly what you're going to get! Just like the Pandora's box, everything could pop out of it!
 7. "Eon's Illusion"  A minute can be an eternity. This is a period of my life when I had to wait for a guitar in construction and my apartment in renovation. It seems to me it took forever when I was plunged into it, but now that I look back, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was! The illusion of time is tricky...
 8. "Raindigger"  There are times in life when we try to reach for something or someone that we know will remain out of our grasp regardless of how fast we try to run for it. Try to picture yourself running with abandon into the night, your whole body slashed by rain and wind, reaching out as far as you can to try and get a glimpse of your goal...
 9. "Maelström"  Ever been confused by love and all the choices it can lay upon you ? Confusion, like a maelstrom, can and will most likely swallow everything in its path... including part of your sanity!

References

External links
 Official website
 Prophasemusic.com

2008 albums
Erik Mongrain albums

Equilibrium (Erik Mongrain album)


Battery swapping or battery switching is an electric vehicle technology that allows battery electric vehicles to quickly exchange a discharged battery pack for a fully charged new one, as an alternative to recharging the vehicle via a charging station. Battery swapping is common in electric forklift applications.

Currently, Taiwanese electric scooter manufacturer Gogoro operates the largest battery swap network for electric mopeds, with nearly 11,000 GoStations in Taiwan, and 250 in Mainland China. Chinese luxury carmaker Nio is the only major operator of automobile battery swapping stations for the public. The company has built around 1,000 battery swap stations around China and Europe, and the process takes three minutes from start to finish. Previously, Renault and Tesla attempted to make their vehicles capable of swapping batteries.

History

The concept of an exchangeable battery service was proposed as early as 1896. It was first offered between 1910 and 1924, by Hartford Electric Light Company, through the GeVeCo battery service, serving electric trucks. The vehicle owner purchased the vehicle, without a battery, from General Vehicle Company (GeVeCo), part-owned by General Electric. The power was purchased from Hartford Electric in the form of an exchangeable battery. Both vehicles and batteries were designed to facilitate a fast exchange. The owner paid a variable per-mile charge and a monthly service fee to cover truck maintenance and storage. These vehicles covered more than 6 million miles.

Beginning in 1917, a similar service operated in Chicago for owners of Milburn Electric cars. A rapid battery replacement system was implemented to service 50 electric buses at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

In 1993, Suntera developed a two-seat 3-wheel electric vehicle called the SUNRAY, which came with a battery cartridge that swapped out in minutes at a battery-swap station. In 1995, Suntera added a motor scooter. The company was later renamed Personal Electric Transports(P.E.T.). After 2000 the company developed an electric bus. In 2004, the company's 3-wheel stand-up EV won 1st place at the 5-day long American Tour de Sol electric vehicle race, before closing in 2006.

Some smaller schemes have attempted to popularize battery swapping with individual cities. Zotye Auto built a fleet 15 of M300 EV hatchbacks for a taxi fleet in Hangzhou, China. In 2011, one of these vehicles caught on fire after the battery pack in the trunk caught fire. An investigation later found that battery in question, as well as the connecting electronics in the truck, had become worn out form repeated loading and unloading of charged battery packs. The electric scheme was halted following the incident.

The Better Place network was the first modern attempt at making the battery switching model mainstream. The Renault Fluence Z.E. was the first car enabled to adopt the approach and was offered in several countries, including those where no battery swap stations had been planned.

Better Place launched its first battery-swapping station in Israel, in Kiryat Ekron, near Rehovot in March 2011. The exchange process took five minutes. Subsequent battery swap stations were built in Denmark. Better Place filed for bankruptcy in Israel in May 2013.

In 2012, Tesla started building a proprietary fast-charging Tesla Supercharger network. A year later, in June 2013, Tesla announced its plan to offer battery swapping. Tesla showed that a battery swap with the Model S took just over 90 seconds. Elon Musk said the service would be offered at around  to  at June 2013 prices. The vehicle purchase included one battery pack. After a swap, the owner could later return and receive their battery pack fully charged. A second option would be to keep the swapped battery and receive/pay the difference in value between the original and the replacement. Pricing was not announced. In 2015 the company abandoned its sole swapping station, built at Harris Ranch, for lack of customer interest.

Other battery swapping service providers include Gogoro, Delta Electronics, BattSwap,, Voltia, and Swap & Go. By early 2022, Nio had built more than 850 swap stations in China, up from 131 in 2020. A station can cost $772,000 in China. A 90 kWh battery is charged at 60 kW and can be swapped in 6 minutes. China operates cement trucks where the heavy battery is swapped. A battery swap system with a 2MWh battery in each 20-foot (6.1 m) shipping container powering a converted canal barge began operating in the Netherlands in 2021.

Trial run of EV battery swapping in Singapore
Singapore started experimenting with EV battery swapping from 2022. In 2022, the country's land transport authority gave Gogoro the go-ahead to conduct a trial run of deploying swappable EV batteries - specifically for food delivery service providers. In 2023, Mo Batteries partnered with SingPost to provide battery replacement support for two electric bikes used by SingPost.

Gallery

Criticism

Battery swapping solutions were criticized as proprietary. By creating a monopoly regarding the ownership of the batteries and the patent-protected technologies the companies split up the market and decrease the chances of wider usage of battery swapping. BMW termed battery swapping as a waste of time.

References

Charging stations
Electric vehicles

Battery swapping


Polymorphic code is computer code that is able to change itself, but also keep the exact instructions. The code can change every time it is run. Polymorphic code is sometimes used by computer viruses, worms and other malware so that they can hide from antivirus software.

Malware

Polymorphic code


Giorgio Bassani (4 March 1916 – 13 April 2000) was an Italian novelist, poet, essayist, editor, and international intellectual.

Biography
Bassani was born in Bologna into a prosperous Jewish family of Ferrara, where he spent his childhood with his mother Dora, father Enrico (a doctor), brother Paolo, and sister Jenny. In 1934 he completed his studies at his secondary school, the liceo classico L. Ariosto in Ferrara. Music had been his first great passion and he considered a career as a pianist; however literature soon became the focus of his artistic interests.

In 1935 he enrolled in the Faculty of Letters of the University of Bologna. Commuting to lectures by train (third class) from Ferrara, he studied under the art historian Roberto Longhi. His ideal of the "free intellectual" was the liberal historian and philosopher Benedetto Croce. Despite the anti-Semitic race laws which were introduced from 1938, he was able to graduate in 1939, writing a thesis on the nineteenth-century writer, journalist, radical and lexicographer Niccolò Tommaseo. As a Jew in 1939, however, work opportunities were now limited and he became a schoolteacher in the Jewish School of Ferrara in via Vignatagliata.

In 1940, his first book, Una città di pianura ("A City of the Plain"), was published under the pseudonym "Giacomo Marchi" in order to evade the race laws. During this period, along with friends he had made in Ferrara's intellectual circle, he became a clandestine political activist.
His activity in the anti-fascist resistance led to his arrest in May 1943; he was released on 26 July, the day after Benito Mussolini was ousted from power.

A little over a week later he married Valeria Sinigallia, whom he had met playing tennis. They moved to Florence for a brief period, living under assumed names, then at the end of the year, to Rome, where he would spend the rest of his life. His first volume of poems, Storie dei poveri amanti e altri versi, appeared in 1944; a second, Te lucis ante, followed in 1947. He edited the literary review Botteghe oscure for Princess Marguerite Caetani from its founding in 1948 until it ceased publication in 1960.

In 1953 La passeggiata prima di cena appeared and in 1954 Gli ultimi anni di Clelia Trotti. In the same year he became editor of Paragone, a journal founded by Longhi and his wife Anna Banti. Bassani's writings reached a wider audience in 1956 with the publication of the Premio Strega-winning book of short stories, Cinque storie ferraresi (the five stories are Lida Mantovani, La passeggiata prima di cena, Una lapide in via Mazzini, Gli ultimi anni di Clelia Trotti, and Una notte del '43).

As an editorial director of Feltrinelli Bassani was responsible for the posthumous publication in 1958 of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's Il Gattopardo, a novel which had been rejected by Elio Vittorini at Mondadori, and Einaudi. It became one of the great successes of post-war Italian literature. Bassani's enthusiastic editing of the text, following instructions from  (daughter of Benedetto) who had offered him the manuscript, later became controversial, however; recent editions have been published which follow the manuscript more closely.

Also in 1958 Bassani's novel Gli occhiali d'oro (made into a film in 1987) was published, an examination, in part, of the marginalisation of Jews and homosexuals. Together with stories from Cinque storie ferraresi (reworked and under the new title Dentro le mura (1973) it was to form part of a series of works known collectively as Il romanzo di Ferrara, which explored the city, with its Christian and Jewish elements, its perspectives and its landscapes. The series includes: Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini (The Garden of the Finzi-Continis) (1962, Premio Viareggio prizewinner); Dietro la porta (1964); L'airone (1968) and L'odore del fieno (1972). These works realistically document the Italian Jewish community under Fascism in a style that manifests the difficulties of searching for truth in the meanderings of memory and moral conscience.  In 1960 one of his short stories (Una notte del '43, from Cinque storie ferraresi) was adapted as the film Long Night in 1943. A stage adaptation of The Garden of the Finzi-Continis by opera composer Ricky Ian Gordon is set to premiere in January 2022. It is a co-production of National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene and the New York City Opera.

From 1965 to 1980, Giorgio Bassani was the president of the organization Italia Nostra.

Bassani died in 2000 and was buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Ferrara. He was survived by his estranged wife Valeria and their two children Paola (born 1945-09-01) and Enrico (born 1949-06-29). He had been with his companion Portia Prebys since shortly after they met in 1977.

Bassani received the , the Strega, the Campiello, the Viareggio and the Nelly Sachs prizes. He collaborated on several screen plays.

Awards

 1956 - Strega Prize for "Cinque storie ferraresi"
 1962 - Viareggio Prize
 1969 - Nelly Sachs Prize
 1969 - Campiello Prize for "L'airone"
 1983 - Bagutta Prize for "In rima e senza"
 1987 - Pirandello Prize
 1992 - Feltrinelli Prize for Prose

Publications
Within the Walls (Dentro le mura) – 1956
The Gold-rimmed Spectacles (Gli occhiali d'oro) – 1958
A Prospect of Ferrara (Cinque storie ferraresi) – 1962
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini) – 1962
The Heron (L'airone) – 1970
Five Stories of Ferrara (Cinque storie ferraresi) – 1971
The Smell of Hay (L'odore del fieno) – 1972
Behind the Door (Dietro la porta) – 1972
Il romanzo di Ferrara (1974; revised 1980). The Novel of Ferrara, trans. Jamie McKendrick (2018)
Rolls Royce and Other Poems (extracts from Epitaffio and In gran segreto) – 1982

Film adaptations
 Long Night in 1943
 The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
 The Gold Rimmed Glasses

References

Bibliography
 Guia Risari, The Document within the Walls. The Romance of Bassani, Troubador Publishing, Leics, I. ed. 1999, II ed. 2004,
 Alessandro Giardino, Giorgio Bassani. Percorsi dello sguardo nelle arti visive,Fernandel, 2011 Giorgio Pozzi Editore, 2013
 Paola Polito, L'officina dell'ineffabile. Ripetizione, memoria e non detto in Giorgio Bassani, Giorgio Pozzi Editore, 2014
 Giorgio Bassani, Lezioni americane di Giorgio Bassani, a cura di Valerio Cappozzo, Ravenna, Giorgio Pozzi Editore, 2016
 www.italialibri.net :: Il romanzo di Ferrara – Bassani
 Poscritto a Giorgio Bassani. Saggi in Memoria del Decimo Anniversario della Morte [Postscriptum: Critical Essays on Giorgio Bassani in Memory of the Tenth Anniversary of his Death], R. Antognini e R. Diaconescu Blumenfeld (edd.), LED Edizioni Universitarie, Milano 2012,
 Massimo Colella, «Tutti i versi da me scritti fino ad oggi». Il primo tempo della poesia di Giorgio Bassani, in «Rassegna europea di letteratura italiana», 51-52, 2018, pp. 169-194.
 Massimo Colella, Fisionomia di una raccolta poetica dimenticata: 'L'alba ai vetri' di Giorgio Bassani (1963), in «Quaderni d'Italianistica» (Toronto), 40, 2, 2019, pp. 83-112.

External links

 Jonathan Keates, 2000, Giorgio Bassani, obituary for The Guardian
 cronologia.leonardo.it :: Giorgio Bassani

1916 births
2000 deaths
Italian male poets
Jewish poets
20th-century Italian male writers
20th-century Italian Jews
Italian resistance movement members
Writers from Ferrara
Writers from Bologna
Strega Prize winners
Viareggio Prize winners
20th-century Italian novelists
20th-century Italian poets
Italian male novelists
Premio Campiello winners
Jewish Italian writers

Giorgio Bassani


The Volga is a river of Russia.

Volga may also refer to:

Places

 Russia

 Volga Delta,  the delta of the Volga River
 Volga economic region
 Volga Federal District
 Volga Region, a historical region
 Volga, Russia, several rural localities in Russia

 United States

 Volga, Indiana, an unincorporated town
 Volga, Iowa, a city
 Volga Township, Clayton County, Iowa, a township
 Volga, Kentucky, an unincorporated community
 Volga, South Dakota, a city
 Volga, Texas, an unincorporated community
 Volga, West Virginia, an unincorporated community
 Volga River (Iowa), a river

 Other

 1149 Volga, an asteroid

In business

 Volga (automobile), a Russian brand
 Volga (finance), in quantitative finance, a second order derivative of an option pricing formula versus volatility
 Air Volga, a former airline headquartered in Moscow
 VoLGA Forum, an organisation of telecommunication vendors and operators

In sports and games

 FC Volga Ulyanovsk
 Volga Ulyanovsk Bandy Club
 Volga Gambit, original name of the Benko Gambit in chess

In other uses

 Volga class motorship, a type of Russian river passenger ship
 Volga radar, a Russian early warning radar in Belarus
 Operation Volga or 2 June 2006 Forest Gate raid on alleged terrorists by Metropolitan Police in London, England
 Volga Highway, see M7 highway (Russia)
 Volga (rocket stage), a rocket upper stage designed in Russia
 Volga, pen name of P. Lalita Kumari, female Telugu writer
 Volga, a character in Hyrule Warriors

 Volga Volga (1928 film), a German silent film
 Volga-Volga, a 1938 Soviet film
 Volga Germans, ethnic Germans living in the Volga Region in Russia

Related articles

 Volzhsk
 Volzhsky (disambiguation)
 Volha

Volga (disambiguation)


The Klamath Mountains ecoregion  of Oregon and California lies inland and north of the Coast Range ecoregion, extending from the Umpqua River in the north to the Sacramento Valley in the south. It encompasses the highly dissected ridges, foothills, and valleys of the Klamath and Siskiyou Mountains. It corresponds to the Level III ecoregion designated by the Environmental Protection Agency and to the Klamath-Siskiyou forests ecoregion designated by the World Wide Fund for Nature.

The ecoregion, also known as a geomorphic province, was unglaciated during the Pleistocene epoch, when it served as a refuge for northern plant species. Its mix of granitic, sedimentary, metamorphic, and extrusive rocks contrasts with the predominantly volcanic rocks of the Cascades ecoregion to the northeast. The mild, subhumid climate of the region is characterized by a lengthy summer drought. It supports a mosaic of both northern Californian and Pacific Northwestern conifers and hardwoods.

Ecology

Flora
The ecoregion harbors rich biodiversity, with several distinct plant communities, including temperate rain forests, moist inland forests, oak forests and savannas, high elevation forests, and alpine grasslands. Thirty conifer species inhabit the region, including seven endemic species, making the region one of the richest coniferous forest regions of the world in species diversity. The region also has several edaphic plant communities (adapted to specific soil types), notably those of the region's serpentine outcrops.

Temperate rain forests grow near the coast and are dominated by conifers Coast Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii subsp. menziesii), Western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla), Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis), Grand fir, Coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), Lawson's cypress (also known as Port Orford Cedar, Chamaecyparis lawsoniana), Pacific yew (Taxus brevifolia) and broadleaf Pacific madrone, Bigleaf maple, pacific rhododendron, california laurel and Tanoak.

Inland forests are dominated by Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), Sugar pine (Pinus lambertiana), Jeffrey pine (Pinus jeffreyi), Coast Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii subsp. menziesii), White fir (Abies concolor subsp. lowiana), Red fir (A. magnifica subsp. shastensis), California incense cedar (Calocedrus decurrens), Knobcone pine (Pinus attenuata), Lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta), and Oregon white oak, California black oak, Tanoak and Pacific madrone. Areas with serpentine soil are dominated by Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), Jeffrey pine (Pinus jeffreyi), Knobcone pine (Pinus attenuata), Lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) and various shrubs. Oak savanna and small patches of chaparral also occur. Oak savannas are dominated by Oregon white oak, California black oak, and chaparral is dominated by manzanita, ceanothus, deer brush and marks the northern extent of the range for California Buckeye.

High elevation forests are dominated by Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), Sugar pine (Pinus lambertiana), western juniper, Mountain hemlock (Tsuga  mertensiana), White fir (Abies concolor subsp. lowiana), Red fir (A. magnifica subsp. shastensis), Pacific silver fir, Weeping spruce (Picea breweriana) and Foxtail pine (Pinus balfouriana).

Level IV ecoregions

The ecoregion has been subdivided into Level IV ecoregions, as described below.

Rogue/Illinois Valleys (78a)
The Rogue/Illinois Valleys ecoregion includes terraces and floodplains in the Rogue and Illinois river valleys at an elevation of 900 to 2,000 feet (274 to 610 m). Historically, the valleys supported Oregon white oak and California black oak woodland, with Pacific madrone, Ponderosa pine, and grassland. Common understory plants included California fescue, snowberry, and serviceberry. Riparian areas supported willow and cottonwood. Much of the land has been developed for agricultural or residential use, and little of the original vegetation remains. Remnants of oak savanna, prairie vegetation, and seasonal ponds persist on the mesa tops of the Table Rocks north of Medford. Elsewhere, land uses include orchards, cropland, and pastureland. Climate, vegetation, and resulting land use are more similar to Northern California's inland valleys than to the Willamette Valley ecoregion to the north. The region covers  in Oregon, in three separate areas around Medford and Ashland, Grants Pass, and Cave Junction.

Oak Savanna Foothills (78b)
The Oak Savanna Foothills ecoregion consists of moderately sloping mountain foothills bordering the Rogue and Illinois river valleys and sharing their Mediterranean climate. Elevation varies from 1,400 to 4,000 feet (427 to 1,219 m). The driest area, east of Medford, is dominated by Oregon white oak and California black oak woodlands, grassland-savanna, ponderosa pine, and Coast Douglas-fir. The wetter foothills flanking the Illinois Valley support Coast douglas-fir, pacific madrone, and California incense-cedar. Understory species include oceanspray, Western poison-oak, snowberry, Idaho fescue, California brome, roughstalk bluegrass, and ceanothus. The region is lower and less dissected, with more oak woodland and less closed-canopied forest than the Inland Siskiyous. It covers  in Oregon.

Umpqua Interior Foothills (78c)
The Umpqua Interior Foothills ecoregion is a complex of foothills and narrow valleys containing fluvial terraces and
floodplains. Elevation varies from 400 to 2,800 feet (122 to 853 m). It is drier than the foothills of the Willamette Valley, partly because the summer Pacific high pressure system arrives earlier and remains longer than in ecoregions to the north. Summers are hot and dry, and soils have a xeric moisture regime in contrast to the udic soils of the Mid-Coastal Sedimentary ecoregion to the west. The slopes are covered by Oregon white oak woodland, Coast douglas-fir, grand fir, ponderosa pine, pacific madrone, tanoak, and chinquapin, with an understory chaparral community that includes snowberry, salal, Oregon grape, poison oak, oceanspray, and swordfern. Many areas have been converted to pastureland, vineyards, orchards, and row crops. It covers  in Oregon in the Umpqua Valley, including the city of Roseburg.

Serpentine Siskiyous (78d)
The Serpentine Siskiyous ecoregion consists of highly dissected mountains containing perennial, high gradient streams at an elevation of 1,500 to 4,300 feet (457 to 1,311 m). It is lithogically distinct from the rest of the Klamath Mountains ecoregion. Many plants have difficulty growing in its serpentine soils due to a shortage of calcium and high levels of magnesium, nickel, and chromium. As a result, vegetation is often sparse and composed of specialist species that have evolved to grow in the potentially toxic and nutrient-poor serpentine soils. It supports a mixed conifer forest of Jeffrey pine, tanoak, california incense-cedar, Coast douglas-fir, and montane chaparral composed of manzanita, ceanothus, Idaho fescue, and Lemmon needlegrass. Historic gold, nickel, chromite, copper, and mercury mining have contributed to water quality problems. The region covers  in Oregon, including portions of the Rogue River – Siskiyou National Forest and the Kalmiopsis and Wild Rogue wildernesses.

Inland Siskiyous (78e)

The Inland Siskiyous ecoregion is higher and more mountainous than the neighboring foothill and valley ecoregions, with an elevation of 800 to 7,000 feet (244 to 2,134 m). It has a higher fire frequency, less annual precipitation, and longer summer droughts than the Coastal Siskiyous. Forest cover is a diverse and multi-layered mix of conifers, broadleaf evergreens, and deciduous trees and shrubs, featuring Coast douglas-fir, ponderosa pine, sugar pine, Oregon white oak, California black oak, pacific madrone, serviceberry, snowberry, Oregon grape, California fescue, and pacific poison oak. The largest of the Klamath Mountains subregions mapped so far, it covers  in Oregon, including public lands within the Rogue River – Siskiyou National Forest.

Coastal Siskiyous (78f)
The Coastal Siskiyous ecoregion consists of highly dissected mountains with a wetter and milder maritime climate than elsewhere in the Klamath Mountains ecoregion. Elevation varies from 600 to 5,300 feet (183 to 1,615 m). Productive forests composed of Tanoak, Coast douglas-fir, Coast redwood, bigleaf maple, California laurel, and some Port Orford cedar and Nootka cypress cover its mountainous landscape, with chinqupin, salal, pacific rhododendron, and western swordfern; tanoak is more common than elsewhere in Oregon. Broadleaf evergreens, such as tanoak and pacific madrone, quickly colonize disturbed areas, making it difficult to regenerate conifer forest growth. Xeric soils derived from Siskiyou rock types are characteristic; udic soils which support western hemlock, Sitka spruce and Western red cedar are present but are less common than in the wetter Coast Range ecoregion to the west. The region covers  in Oregon, including portions of the Rogue River – Siskiyou National Forest and the Kalmiopsis and Wild Rogue Wilderness wildernesses.

Klamath River Ridges (78g)
The Klamath River Ridges is characterized by highly dissected mountains, with a dry, continental climate. Elevation varies from 3,800 to 7,500 feet (1,158 to 2,286 m). Vegetation varies with slope, aspect, and elevation. Higher altitudes and north-facing slopes have Coast douglas-fir, white fir and red fir; lower elevations and south-facing slopes are covered in ponderosa pine and western juniper, species that are more drought-resistant than other vegetation types found within the region. The chaparral features Oregon grape, western fescue, snowberry, bluebunch wheatgrass, and ceanothus. The region covers  in Oregon near the Siskiyou Summit, including portions of the Rogue River – Siskiyou National Forest and the Cascade–Siskiyou National Monument.

Border High-Siskiyous (78h)
The Border High-Siskiyous ecoregion consists of relatively high elevation mountains along the border area of Oregon and California. Elevations range from about , with a high point of  at Mount Ashland, Oregon. White fir and Red fir forests occur, with some Jeffrey pine on ultramafic rocks, and a few areas of
subalpine habitats. With a large western to eastern extent, conditions are slightly drier to the east.

Western Klamath Low Elevation Forests (78i)
The Western Klamath Low Elevation Forests ecoregion is at elevations generally less than . Douglas-fir and Port Orford cedar occur on lower slopes, grading into
Douglas-fir and tanoak, or higher areas with canyon live oak. Red and white alder are typical along streams. Mixed oak stands occur on drier sites. The ecoregion generally is wetter and has a somewhat denser forest landscape than the drier Ecoregion 78k to the east.

Western Klamath Montane Forests (78j)
The Western Klamath Montane Forests ecoregion generally is higher than Ecoregion 78i, with elevations typically ranging from . Annual temperatures are
cooler than in Ecoregion 78i, and precipitation is greater. The vegetation consists mostly of Douglas-fir and white fir forests, with some red fir forests at high elevations.
Ecoregion 78j lacks the serpentine geology of nearby Ecoregion 78d, and is composed mostly of Mesozoic quartz diorite, with areas of Jurassic slate, graywacke, shale, and sandstone.

Eastern Klamath Low Elevation Forests (78k)
The Eastern Klamath Low Elevation Forests ecoregion is geologically and botanically
diverse, and has some drier forests than ecoregion 78i to the west. Elevations generally are less than . Forest and woodland types can include
areas of Douglas-fir, ponderosa pine, canyon live oak, and knobcone pine, along with chaparral of chamise, deer brush, and manzanita. Along streams, cottonwoods, white alder, and willows occur.

Eastern Klamath Montane Forests (78l)
Typically at elevations greater than , the Eastern Klamath Montane Forests ecoregion includes a mosaic of forest and chaparral types. It often has more open tree
canopies and understories than western Klamath regions. White fir, incense cedar, Douglas-fir, ponderosa pine, and sugar pine are dominant, with mountain dogwood in the understory. Some
minor areas of Shasta fir or red fir occur at high elevations. Black and canyon live oaks mix with scattered conifers on drier sites, with understories of huckleberry oak and other chaparral species.

Marble/Salmon Mountains-Trinity Alps (78m)
The Marble/Salmon Mountains-Trinity Alps ecoregion includes the Salmon Mountains, Marble Mountains, and Trinity Alps in the montane elevations from . The rugged region has steep slopes and numerous canyons and narrow mountain valleys. Granitic, metavolcanic, and metasedimentary rocks occur, including some areas of serpentinized peridotite. The climate is colder than surrounding lower elevation ecoregions 78g, 78i, and 78k. Forests include Douglas-fir, white fir, and at high elevations, red fir.

Scott Mountains (78n)
The Scott Mountains ecoregion is dominated by ultramafic rocks with Mesozoic mafic intrusions, along with some granitic rocks near the Trinity Alps and at Castle Crags.
Elevations generally range from . Ecoregion 78n has more ultramaficrocks and less precipitation than Ecoregion 78m to the west. Vegetation includes Jeffrey pine, mixed conifer, and white fir. The ecoregion drains to the Trinity, Sacramento, Scott, and Shasta Rivers.

Klamath Subalpine (78o)
The Klamath Subalpine ecoregion is higher, wetter, and colder than surrounding areas, with elevations generally greater than . Most of the region was glaciated, shown by the numerous cirques, moraines, and other glacial features. Shasta red fir, mountain hemlock, and some western white pine occur, as well as subalpine meadows with various mixes of shrubs, herbs, and grasses. Some foxtail pine occurs as well as small areas of Pacific silver fir to the north. Soils tend to be thin and rocky, across various bedrock types including granitics, gabbro, and ultramafic rocks. Soils deepen downslope.

Duzel Rock (78p)
The Duzel Rock ecoregion is slightly lower in elevation with less relief than Klamath Mountain ecoregions immediately north or south, and it has more juniper and big sagebrush,
along with scattered woodland. Ponderosa pine, Oregon white oak, and areas of Jeffrey pine occur. Some Douglas-fir is found at higher elevations and on northern slopes. Curl-leaf mountain mahogany is common in the western and southern parts. The geology is mostly Cambrian through Devonian metasedimentary and minor metavolcanic rocks including metamorphosed conglomerate, sandstone, shale, chert, limestone, and basalt. The region drains to the Scott and Shasta Rivers.

See also
 Ecoregions defined by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Commission for Environmental Cooperation:
 List of ecoregions in North America (CEC)
 List of ecoregions in the United States (EPA)
 List of ecoregions in Oregon
 List of ecoregions in California
 The conservation group World Wildlife Fund maintains an alternate classification system:
 List of ecoregions (WWF)
 List of ecoregions in the United States (WWF)

References

External links

A Celebration of the Conifer Diversity in Northwest California
Conifers of Northwest California
Klamath-Siskiyou Forests images at bioimages.vanderbilt.edu (slow modem version)
CNPS: Rare and Endemic Conifers of Northwest California

Eco 1
 01
K 01
Ecoregions of California
Ecoregions of Oregon
Pacific temperate rainforests

Klamath Mountains (ecoregion)


The Alte Schwentine ("Old Schwentine") is a river in the region of Holstein in North Germany. Its different sections are also known as the Bornau, Depenau, Kührener Au, Postau and Mühlenau.

Course
It rises near Bornhöved on the hill of Grimmelsberg by the road from Bornhöved to Tarbek in a meadow and in the mill pond of Bornhöved. Initially, it flows through the Bornhöveder See and from there to the Schmalensee. From there it flows past former Slavic Belauburg into the Belauer See. Behind the lake it passes the Perdöl Mill, an old water mill, and flows into the Stolper See in an old carr wood at Perdöl Manor House (Gut Perdöl). It leaves the Stolper See at Depenau Mill and flows past Depenau Moor (Depenauer Hochmoor) towards Depenau Manor House (Gut Depenau). Beyond the manor house the river is also called the Kühren Au and meanders through meadows to the west of the town of Preetz located on the Postsee lake. Here it joins the Schwentine, which rises on the Bungsberg and empties into the Kiel Fjord in the Baltic Sea.

Between Postsee and Schwentine the names Postau or Mühlenau (after the old water mill of Preetz Priory which stood nearby) are used.

Names
This use of different names came about as a result of a mistake by the cartographer, Caspar Danckwerth, who, in 1652, gave the real Schwentine — associated with Sventanafeld, the field of battle at the Battle of Bornhöved, different names such as the Bornhöved Bornau, Depenau, Kühren Au and Mühlenau. As a result the Bungsberg Schwentine was declared to be  the real Schwentine.

Limes
A section of the Limes Saxoniae, the fortified border rampart between Saxons and Wends, which was built by the Emperor Charlemagne, ran along the chain of lakes on the Old Schwentine.

See also
List of rivers of Schleswig-Holstein

Rivers of Schleswig-Holstein
1Alte Schwentine
Rivers of Germany

Alte Schwentine


Ikere-Ekiti, also known as Ikere or Ikerre, is a city in Ekiti State of Nigeria.In Ikere Local Government. It is an agricultural and mine centre. According to the 1963 and 1991 census, the population was 114,780 and 60,257 respectively,

but the 2006 census recorded it to be 147,355.

History

Oral tradition claims that a man by the name of Aladeselu, who is said to have originated from Uselu, a town close to Benin, created Ikere. Itinerant immigrants migrated from one location to another as it was customary in those days in quest of a suitable location to dwell.

Geography
Ikere LGA has a total size of 202 square kilometers and is distinguished by several hills, including the Orole and Olorunta hills. The area's average annual temperature is 27 degrees Celsius, and its total annual precipitation is estimated to be 1850 mm.

Economy
Ikere LGA is an agricultural area notable for the cultivation of a variety of crops including maize, okro, oil palm, yam, and cassava. The LGA also has a number of markets that offer venues for the trade of a variety of goods and services. Tailoring, blacksmithing, and the care and raising of domestic animals are additional significant economic activity in the Ikere LGA.

Climate
In Ikere-Ekiti, the dry season is hot, muggy, and partly cloudy whereas the wet season is warm, oppressive, and overcast. The temperature rarely drops below 58°F or rises over 95°F throughout the year, usually fluctuating between 64°F and 90°F.

From January 22 to March 30, the hot season, with an average daily high temperature exceeding 88°F, lasts for 2.2 months. Ikere-Ekiti experiences its hottest month of the year in March, with an average high of 88°F and low of 72°F.

From June 15 to October 12, the chilly season, which has an average daily high temperature below 82°F, lasts for 3.9 months. In Ikere-Ekiti, August is the coldest month of the year, with average lows of 69°F and highs of 81°F.

References

Local Government Areas in Ekiti State
Towns in Yorubaland

Ikere-Ekiti


Gagik I Artsruni (; 879/880 – 943) was an Armenian noble of the Artsruni dynasty who ruled over Vaspurakan in southern Armenia, first as prince of northwestern Vaspurakan (Gagik III, 904–908) and after that until his death as King of Vaspurakan, also claiming the title of King of Armenia.

Background
Since the end of the 7th century, Armenia was under Arab dominion and headed by an ostikan (governor) representing the Umayyad, and later Abbasid caliphates, and was the scene of numerous battles against the Byzantine Empire since the 9th century. To strengthen the Arab authority, these ostikans were implanted into various regions of Armenian emirs; the historical province of Vaspurakan was no exception to this. In opposition, the Armenian nobility created ishkhans (princes) to gradually extend their authority in the region.

Biography

Youth and regency
Second son of Grigor-Derenik Artsruni, the Prince of Vaspurakan, and Sophia Bagratuni, the daughter of King Ashot I of Armenia, Gagik was born in 879 or 880. Upon the death of Grigor-Derenik in 887, Gagik Apumrvan Artsruni became regent of Vaspurakan (and later ishksan) and was given Grigor-Derenik's three children Gagik, Ashot-Sargis, and Gurgen. In response to Gagik Apumrvan Artsruni's defection in a military operation ordered by Smbat I, Gagik I Artsruni killed Gagik Apumrvan Artsruni and Ashot-Sargis was given the regency. In response to this, Smbat I promoted Gagik to the rank of general and Gurgen to marzpan (governor).

Ishkhan
Gagik succeeded his elder brother Ashot-Sargis as ishkhan in 904 and allowed Gourgen to rule over the southeastern possessions of the Artsruni family; both worked well together until the death of Gurgen in 923. After various rebel attacks, Gagik developed a talent for creating military and political strategies and worked towards decreasing the number of Muslim enclaves of Vaspurakan.

King
Gagik was an ally of the Sajid emir of Azerbaijan Yusuf ibn Abi'l-Saj, from whom he received recognition as king in 908, against the Bagratid Smbat I. His state was recognized by the Byzantine Empire, who awarded him the title of "prince of princes" traditionally borne by the pre-eminent Armenian ruler, and his legitimacy received a further boost when the Armenian catholicos, John V the Historian, abandoned Muslim-ruled Dvin for Vaspurakan in 924. However, Gagik later reversed his position and allied himself with Smbat's son and successor, Ashot II. He is also notable as the founder of the Armenian Cathedral of the Holy Cross.

References

Bibliography

Further reading

9th-century births
10th-century deaths
10th-century monarchs of Vaspurakan
Artsruni dynasty
Princes of Vaspurakan
10th-century Armenian people

Gagik I Artsruni


The Barbican Centre is a performing arts centre in the Barbican Estate of the City of London, England, and the largest of its kind in Europe. The centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhibitions. It also houses a library, three restaurants, and a conservatory. The Barbican Centre is a member of the Global Cultural Districts Network.

The London Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Orchestra are based in the centre's Concert Hall. In 2013, it once again became the London-based venue of the Royal Shakespeare Company following the company's departure in 2001.

The Barbican Centre is owned, funded, and managed by the City of London Corporation. It was built as the City's gift to the nation at a cost of £161 million (equivalent to £480 million in 2014) and was officially opened to the public by Queen Elizabeth II on 3 March 1982.  The Barbican Centre is also known for its brutalist architecture.

Performance halls and facilities
 : capacity 1,943; home of the London Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
 : capacity 1,156; designed exclusively by and for the Royal Shakespeare Company
 : flexible 200-seat theatre venue
  and the free new-commission gallery The Curve
 : 3 cinema screens with seating capacity of 288, 156 and 156
 : Public lending library with special collections in arts and music
 Restaurants: 3
 Conference halls: 7
 Trade exhibition halls: 2
 Informal performance spaces

The second-floor library is one of the five City of London libraries. It is one of the largest public libraries in London and has a separate arts library, a large music library and a children's library which regularly conducts free events. The Barbican Library houses the 'London Collection' of historical books and resources, some of which date back 300 years, all being available on loan. The library presents regular literary events and has an art exhibition space for hire. The music library has two free practice pianos for public use.

History and design

The Barbican Centre had a long development period, only opening some years after the surrounding Barbican Estate housing complex had been finished.  It is situated in an area which was badly bombed during World War II.

The Barbican Centre, designed by Peter Chamberlin, Geoffry Powell and Christoph Bon of Chamberlin, Powell and Bon in the Brutalist style, has a complex multi-level layout with numerous entrances. Lines painted on the ground help would-be audience members avoid getting lost on the walkways of the Barbican Estate, within which the centre is located, on the way to it. The Barbican Centre's design – a concrete ziggurat – has always been controversial and divides opinion. It was voted "London's ugliest building" in a Grey London poll in September 2003.

In September 2001, arts minister Tessa Blackstone announced that the Barbican Centre complex was to be a Grade II listed building. It has been designated a site of special architectural interest for its scale, its cohesion and the ambition of the project. The centre was designed by architectural practice Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, who were also responsible for the upscale residential area surrounding the centre (the Barbican Estate), as well as the nearby Golden Lane Estate. Project architect John Honer later worked on the British Library at St Pancras – a red brick ziggurat.

In the mid-1990s, a cosmetic improvement scheme by Theo Crosby, of the Pentagram design studio, added statues and decorative features reminiscent of the Arts and Crafts movement. In 2005–2006, the centre underwent a more significant refurbishment, designed by architects Allford Hall Monaghan Morris and Roger Westman, which improved circulation and introduced bold signage in a style in keeping with the centre's original 1970s Brutalist architecture. That improvement scheme added an internal bridge linking the Silk Street foyer area with the lakeside foyer area. The centre's Silk Street entrance, previously dominated by an access for vehicles, was modified to give better pedestrian access. The scheme included removing most of the mid-1990s embellishments.

Outside, the main focal point of the centre is the lake and its neighbouring terrace. The theatre's fly tower has been surrounded by glass and made into a high-level conservatory.

The Barbican Hall's acoustic has also been controversial: some praised it as attractively warm, but others found it too dry for large-scale orchestral performance. In 1994, Chicago acoustician Larry Kirkegaard oversaw a £500,000 acoustic re-engineering of the hall "producing a perceptible improvement in echo control and sound absorption", music critic Norman Lebrecht wrote in October 2000 – and returned in 2001 to rip out the stage canopy and drop adjustable acoustic reflectors, designed by Caruso St John, from the ceiling, as part of a £7.5 mn refurbishment of the hall. Art music magazine Gramophone still complained about "the relative dryness of the Barbican acoustic" in August 2007.

The theatre was built as the London home of the Royal Shakespeare Company, which was involved in the design, but decided not to renew its contract in 2002 after claiming a lack of performing space, plus the artistic director, Adrian Noble, wanting to develop the company's touring performances. The theatre's response was to extend its existing six-month season of international productions, "Barbican International Theatre Event", to the whole year. On 23 January 2013 Greg Doran, RSC artistic director, announced the company's return to the Barbican Centre in a three-year season of Shakespeare's history plays.

In 2017, a new concert hall called the Centre for Music, London was proposed by the Barbican, London Symphony Orchestra, and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. The proposals were cancelled in 2021.

The Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where the Barbican Centre theatrical performances are occasionally staged, and the City of London's Barbican Library, neither part of the centre, are also on the site. The Museum of London is nearby at Aldersgate, and is also within the Barbican Estate.

In popular culture

In literature
The Barbican Centre features in Michael Paraskos's novel In Search of Sixpence as the home of the lead character, Geroud, and also a bar called "The Gin Bar" loosely based on the Gin Joint bar at the Barbican Centre.

TV and film
The centre has been used as a filming location for numerous TV shows and films, including the BBC series Luther and in the Disney+ series Andor.

Gallery

Nearby railway stations
 Barbican tube station
 Farringdon station
 Liverpool Street railway station
 Moorgate tube station
 St Paul's tube station

See also
 Barbican Centre, York
 Barbicania, a feature-length film by Ila Bêka & Louise Lemoine
 Culture of London
 List of concert halls

References

External links

Barbican Estate
1982 establishments in England
Art museums and galleries in London
Arts centres in London
Music venues completed in 1982
Concert halls in London
Dance in London
Event venues established in 1982
Grade II listed buildings in the City of London
London Symphony Orchestra
Museums in the City of London
Theatres in the City of London
Brutalist architecture in London

Barbican Centre


The Homeland Security Council (HSC) is an entity within the Executive Office of the President of the United States tasked with advising the president on matters relevant to Homeland Security. The current Homeland Security Advisor is Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall.

History

The Homeland Security Council (HSC) is an entity within the Executive Office of the President and was created by  on October 29, 2001, and subsequently expanded on by Homeland Security Presidential Directive 1.  It served as the successor to the Office of Homeland Security, established on September 20, 2001, immediately after the September 11 attacks. Congress subsequently codified the HSC in the Homeland Security Act of 2002, charging it with advising the president on homeland security matters.

On February 23, 2009, the Obama administration released Presidential Study Directive 1. This memorandum ordered a 60-day inter-agency review of the White House homeland security and counter-terrorism structure. The review recommended that the president merge the staff supporting the Homeland Security Council with the staff supporting the National Security Council. On May 26, 2009, Barack Obama signed the recommendation to merge the Homeland Security Council and National Security Council staffs into one National Security Staff. On February 10, 2014, President Obama renamed the National Security Staff the National Security Council (NSC) staff.

Policymakers and observers have debated whether the HSC staff should remain an independent entity within the White House or merged with the NSC staff. The HSC and NSC continue to exist by statute as independent councils of leadership advising the president.

Mission
The Homeland Security Council is responsible for assessing the objectives, commitments, and risks of the United States, and for making recommendations to the president with respect to homeland security policy.

Structure
The HSC was similar to its national security counterpart, the National Security Council (NSC), which was established in the National Security Act of 1947. The HSC also maintained structural similarities with the NSC; the HSC consisted of full-time staff organized by subject areas relating to homeland security missions, with the Council itself being composed of Cabinet members and senior White House officials whose departments have principal interests in homeland security policy-making. During the Bush administration, the council was chaired by the Homeland Security Advisor. The Joint Chiefs of Staff consist of the primary military advisers to the Homeland Security Council, as well as the National Security Council. Due to the recommendations implemented by Obama, the Homeland Security Council and the National Security Council now have combined staff, the National Security Staff (NSS).

While similar in name, the Department of Homeland Security is a distinct federal executive department; unlike DHS, the HSC functioned as part of the Executive Office of the President, drawing staff from across federal agencies and under the direct control of the president.

Membership

See also
 Homeland Security Advisor
 National Security Advisor
 United States National Security Council

References

2001 establishments in the United States
Disaster preparedness in the United States
Executive Office of the President of the United States

United States Homeland Security Council


Emmanuel Gyimah Labi (born 27 September 1950 in Accra) is a Ghanaian composer, conductor, and music professor. He is a graduate of the Achimota School and a former conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra Ghana.

In 1971, Labi became a member of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation Orchestra, where he played cello and was also involved in composition. He was a member of the orchestra for six years. During this time, he also studied for a bachelor's degree in music and philosophy at the University of Ghana, graduating in 1976. His tutors included Ato Turkson and Joseph Hanson Kwabena Nketia. After graduation, Labi undertook further musicological study at the University of Illinois and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. In 1984, he began lecturing at the University of Nigeria and, later, at Mercy College in New York and the University of Ghana.

Between 1988 and 1997, Labi was the director of the National Symphony Orchestra Ghana. As a composer, his music incorporates indigenous musical practices.

He married Mary Margaret Blicharz on 31 August 1985. They have one daughter.

Selected works

Orchestral
 Symphony no. 1, "Essi-Ataa", Op. 20, (1983–4)
 Gya Nhyira (Baptism by Fire), Op. 26 (1996)

Chamber music
 Gentle Winds, Op. 5, for violin and pianoforte (1973)
 Tunes of the Fisherfolks, Op. 10, for octet (1974)
 Aseda, Op. 6, for duet (1975)
 From the Durbar, Op. 7, for duet (1978)
 String Quartet no. 1, "At the Immaculate Bee Hive" (1982)
 Visions of Space, for flute, clarinet and pianoforte (1983)
 2 Ancient Perspectives, Op. 24, for tuba (1992)
 Ancient Perspectives no. 3, Op. 26, timpani concerto (1993)
 7 Dialects in African Pianism (1986–2011), consisting of:
 The Hunters' Song (1986)
 Lotus (1987)
 Earthbeats (1988)
 Lullaby (1991)
 Tenderly Loving a Rose (1993)
 Larterian Placid Streams (2009)
 Romanticism in African Pianism (2011)

Publications
 Theoretical Issues in African Music: Exploring Resources in Creativity (Breitinger, 2003)

References

Ghanaian composers
1950 births
Musicians from Accra
Living people
Alumni of Achimota School
Mercy College (New York) faculty

Emmanuel Gyimah Labi


The Government Emergency Telecommunications Service (GETS) is a White House-directed emergency telephone service provided by a division of the Department of Homeland Security. GETS uses enhancements based on existing commercial technology

Purpose
GETS supports federal, state, local, and tribal government, industry, and non-governmental organization personnel during crisis or emergencies by providing emergency access and priority processing for local and long-distance telephone calls on the public switched telephone network. GETS is intended to be used in an emergency or crisis situation when the public switched telephone network is congested and the probability of completing a call over normal or other alternate telecommunication means is reduced.

GETS is necessary because reliance on telecommunications has been accompanied by an increased vulnerability to network congestion and system failures. Although backup systems are in place, disruptions in service can still occur. Natural disasters, power outages, fiber cable cuts, and software problems can cripple the telephone services of entire regions. Additionally, congestion in the public switched telephone network, such as the well-documented "Mother's Day phenomenon", in which Mother's Day generally has the highest blocking of long-distance telephone calls of any single day of the year, can prevent access to circuits. However, during times of emergency, crisis, or war, government personnel and emergency workers need to know that their calls will go through.

For cellular telephone users, a related capability is offered by the Nationwide Wireless Priority Service (WPS). WPS users have the ability to queue at the top for the next available communications channel to their registered base station in order to place their call by dialing , greatly enhancing their ability to complete wireless calls during times of congestion. WPS is available only to designated leadership at all government levels, national security, emergency responders, and private sector critical infrastructure personnel, as approved by the NCS and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Rules and Requirements.

GETS uses these major types of networks:
 The local networks provided by local exchange carriers and wireless providers, such as cellular carriers and personal communications services (PCS)
 The major long-distance networks provided by interexchange carriers such as AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint, including their international services
 Government-leased networks, including the Federal Technology Service and the Defense Switched Network

In accordance with Section 1(g)5 of Executive Order 12472, the NCS also performs research and development to further enhance the GETS and WPS services through the use of new packet-based technologies (such as IP, or Internet Protocol). This work is done in the NCS' lab, formerly referred to as the eXperimental Testbed Environment. The multi-vendor lab is in the process of preparation for interoperability tests with other labs and research groups to validate these new approaches in today's Next Generation Networks (NGNs). Interoperability between NGNs and legacy telephone systems will continue to be an area of high interest and more elaborate studies for the NCS and their Committee of Principals throughout the transition from these legacy systems.

Accessibility
GETS is accessed through a dialing plan and Personal Identification Number (PIN) card verification system. Using common telephone equipment, the user dials the universal access number 710-627-4387 (710-NCS-GETS). A prompt directs the entry of the user's assigned twelve-digit PIN and the destination telephone number. Once the user is authenticated as valid, the call receives special treatment. When dealing with GETS User Assistance, users may need to provide a registered password of 4 to 9 alphanumeric characters for those cards issued to an individual rather than through stockpile.

Effectiveness
GETS is designed to provide a 90% call completion rate when call volume is eight times normal capacity.

See also
 Nationwide Wireless Priority Service

References

External links
 GETS Web Site

Disaster preparedness in the United States
United States Department of Homeland Security


Royal Meeker (February 23, 1873 – August 16, 1953) was a progressive American economist, born at Quaker Lake, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania.  He graduated from Iowa State College in 1898, then studied with E.R.A. Seligman at Columbia (Ph.D., 1906) and for a year at the University of Leipzig (1903–1904). His dissertation was entitled History of Shipping Subsidies (1905).

From 1906 to 1913, Meeker was a professor of history, economics, and political science at Ursinus College, Collegeville, Pennsylvania and a preceptor and professor of economics at Princeton.  He knew Woodrow Wilson, then the president of Princeton, and they served together on New Jersey political boards. Both were associated with the Progressive movement for an active role for government.

President Wilson appointed Meeker Commissioner of Labor Statistics in 1913. As the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Meeker managed special economic studies during World War I and began its regular publication, the Monthly Labor Review, in 1915. In 1916 he was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association. Meeker resigned from the administration in June 1920 to take up the opportunity to help organize the new International Labour Organization, where he was the Chief of the Scientific Division from 1920 to 1923.

Meeker served as Pennsylvania Secretary of Labor and Industry from 1923–1924, and later joined the faculty of Carleton College (1926–1927) and Yale University (1930–1936, perhaps longer). He was Director of Research of the Connecticut Department of Labor (1941–1946). He died in New Haven, Connecticut in 1953.

Meeker advocated progressive reforms, including a minimum wage, national health insurance, child labor restrictions combined with strong, State-controlled schools, workmen's compensation, and a nationwide system of public employment offices.

Bibliography

References

Columbia University alumni
1873 births
1953 deaths
American economists
American historians
American statisticians
Princeton University faculty
Yale University faculty
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Fellows of the American Statistical Association
Woodrow Wilson administration personnel

Royal Meeker


Probability distribution is a term from mathematics. Suppose there are many events with random outcomes. A probability distribution is the theoretical counterpart to the frequency distribution. A frequency distribution simply shows how many times a certain event occurred. A probability distribution says how many times it should have occurred in the long run (that is, its probability). The probability distribution of a random variable  is often written as  (or simply ). Such a distribution can either be discrete, taking a discrete (or countable) amount of values, or continuous, taking an uncountable amount of values (as from a continuous interval).

As an example, the probability distribution for a single roll of a normal 6-sided dice can be presented by:

where result is the outcome of the dice roll, and the probability shows the chances of that result occurring. If we roll a dice 60 times, then in the long run, we should expect to have each side appear 10 times on average.

There are different probability distributions. Each of them has its use, its benefits and its drawbacks. Some common probability distributions include:

 Binomial distribution
 Cauchy distribution
 Chi-square distribution
 Exponential distribution
 Gumbel distribution
 Normal distribution
 Poisson distribution
 Student's t-distribution

Related pages

 Probability density function

References

Probability distribution


Maria Johanna Görtz, also known as Jeanette Görtz, (1783–1853), was a Swedish artist, still life painter and drawing artist.  She was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts.

Born to Cup-bearer Johan Hindrik Görtz. In the 1803 exhibition of the Academy of Arts, Maria Johanna Görtz exhibited several drawings of birds and flowers. Her work impressed the Academy, who sent her a letter of appreciation and encouragement. After having participated in another exhibition of 1804, she was elected into the Academy. In 1805, she had a third exhibition which was much talked about. Görtz continued as a very active artist, and took part in many exhibitions between 1803 and 1826. One of her most admired paintings was one of dead birds.

References

 Europas konstnärer
 Anteckningar om svenska qvinnor
 Dahlberg och Hagström: Svenskt konstlexikon. Allhems Förlag (1953) Malmö.

1783 births
1853 deaths
19th-century Swedish painters
Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts
19th-century Swedish women artists

Maria Johanna Görtz


David Franklin is an American microbiologist and former fellow of Harvard Medical School who while employed by Parke-Davis filed the 1996 whistleblower lawsuit exposing their illegal promotion of Neurontin (gabapentin) for off-label uses.  Franklin's suit, filed on behalf of the citizens of the United States under the qui tam provisions of US federal and state law, uncovered illegal pharmaceutical industry practices and created new legal precedent that resulted in a cascade of criminal convictions and civil and criminal penalties against Pfizer and several other pharmaceutical companies totalling more than $7 billion.  Civil cases also followed Franklin v. Parke-Davis.  Insurance companies, led by Kaiser Permanente, sued Pfizer for fraud and violation of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act;  the Kaiser case settled in April 2014 after Pfizer's appeal at the US Supreme Court was rejected.   Franklin v. Pfizer also spawned more than a thousand wrongful death (suicide) suits associated with use of Neurontin. Numerous books have addressed the social, economic and healthcare implications of Dr. Franklin's stance and actions. The settlement was the first off-label promotion settlement under the False Claims Act.

Franklin v. Parke-Davis case

Franklin's suit, filed under the False Claims Act, claimed that Parke-Davis (since acquired by Pfizer) had used fraudulent scientific evidence supported by "tens of thousands of payments" to doctors for "consultations" and "studies" to encourage them to prescribe the drug Neurontin for conditions including migraine, bipolar disorder and attention deficit disorder, even though it was approved for use only as adjunctive treatment in patients with partial seizures and postherpetic neuralgia.  Prescribing a drug for such off-label use was not itself illegal, but promoting such use was prohibited by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and federal law.

The case revealed that the company marketed the drug for these illnesses while withholding evidence that the drug was not effective for these illnesses. After initially denying wrongdoing, Pfizer pleaded guilty on 13 May 2004 to criminal violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and paid a criminal fine of $240 million and $152m to state and federal healthcare programmes. Under the False Claims Act, Dr Franklin received $24.6m as part of the settlement agreement.

Franklin v. Parke-Davis opened a unique window into pharmaceutical industry practices through UCSF's archiving and study of documents obtained by Franklin's attorney Thomas Greene. The case was unique in a number of ways: it was the largest settlement obtained for U.S. taxpayers in a case not joined by the Department of Justice, it established a new standard of accountability for pharmaceutical industry marketing practices, it broadened the use of the False Claims Act to include fraudulent marketing claims (not just financial fraud) as criminal violations of federal and state law, it revealed the involvement, complicity and active participation in fraud by many renowned physicians, and it demonstrated that the medical literature which is the foundation for medical practice (particularly off-label prescribing by physicians) has been deeply adulterated by the pharmaceutical industry and its paid clinical consultants.

References

Living people
American whistleblowers
American microbiologists
1961 births
Scientists from Rhode Island
Harvard Medical School people

David Franklin (scientist)