A kayak roll or Eskimo roll is the act of righting a capsized kayak by use of body motion and/or a paddle. Typically this is done by lifting the torso towards the surface, flicking the hips to right the kayak, and applying a small force by means of the paddle to assist the torso back over the boat.

The roll is an essential for paddlers who attempt serious whitewater (Class IV or greater), as exiting the boat and swimming gives the paddler less maneuverability and control, and thus leaves them more exposed than in the boat.

History

The skill of righting a capsized kayak was devised by the hunter-gatherer societies that also developed the kayak as a hunting boat; the Aleut and Inuit. The Greenlandic Inuit used several techniques that allowed the kayak to be righted with or without a paddle, also using only one hand, or without hands at all. A survey in Greenland in 1911 found that of a total of 2,228 hunters with a kayak of their own, 867 were able to roll.

In 1605, some Inuit men and their kayaks were brought back to Europe by a Danish expedition; they gave a demonstration of rolling and racing against rowing boats in Copenhagen harbour, watched by King Christian IV. A similar exhibition was held at The Hague in 1625. Paul Egede, the teenaged son of a missionary living with the Inuit, was probably the first non-native to learn to roll a kayak in the 1730s. Rolling was demonstrated in 1889 at Sandviken, Norway by Oluf Dietrichson, a member of Nansen's 1888 Greenland expedition. With the rapid growth in the sport of kayaking in Europe and the USA during the 1920s, the ability to roll was popularised by an Austrian kayaker, Edi Hans Pawlata (1900–1966). Although not, as he claimed, the first European to acquire the skill, he developed a technique in which the hand grips the end of the paddle, which proved easy to master. His "Pawlata roll" is still sometimes taught to beginners. Greenlandic kalaaleq, Manasse Mathæussen (1915–1989), earned a living giving rolling demonstrations and kayak stunts for films. In 1949, he set a record by performing 10 successive rolls in 18 seconds.

Types of rolls

There are many types of roll, which involve subtle variations on the common technique of combining a paddle stroke at the surface with a hip-flick. One key to all rolls is that the head comes out of the water last, following the paddler's torso—not first, which presents a non-hydrodynamic profile and tends to oppose the angular momentum which is the hallmark of a successful roll.

Thirty-five different types of roll and related maneuvers are performed at the Greenland Kayaking Championships. Different rolls have different purposes, such as righting the kayak if the arms are entangled or injured, if the paddle is lost, if the akuilisaq has come off or is not worn, or if the kayaker has to keep hold of something (in competition, an inflated avataq or an eight-kilogram weight),

A) Hip-Flick Rolls:
As mentioned above, Hip-Flick Rolls are a category of kayak rolls that engage Hip-Flick to produce rotational force to right a capsized kayak.

Sweep roll
The Sweep Roll represents one of the earliest techniques employed in kayaking. In this maneuver, the paddler initiates an arc motion with the paddle, starting at the bow of the kayak. This technique facilitates the paddler's proximity to the water's surface, providing a tactical advantage in aerated water conditions. It aids in repositioning the paddler above the boat following a capsize.

A common end position for this technique places the paddler further back on the kayak, with the head lowered. The Sweep Roll is characterized by maintaining a flat paddle orientation throughout the roll and concludes with the paddler slightly leaning back. This roll technique has been widely and successfully imparted in both white water and sea kayaking practices since its early inception.

Screw roll
The Screw Roll is typically the initial maneuver taught to novices in the realm of kayaking, and is frequently referred to as "the roll". This roll is used in various water conditions, though its requirement for a reasonably spacious area for learning can limit its usefulness in confined spaces or whitewater scenarios.

Instruction for the Screw Roll emphasizes simultaneous rotation of the torso and the paddle shaft. This coordinated movement is designed to reduce resistance and position the kayaker in an optimal paddling stance. Over time, modifications to the original Sweep Roll have been introduced to further enhance its efficiency. One notable modification led to the development of the Screw Roll, a technique that involves a full upper body rotation, enabling the paddler to maintain an upright position throughout the maneuver.

Despite these technical differences, the terms "Sweep Roll" and "Screw Roll" are often used interchangeably in common parlance, blurring the distinctions between the original technique and its modern adaptations.

C-to-C roll
The C-to-C roll is another common roll that tends to be used more on whitewater. The name was inspired by the two curved shapes adopted by the body during the roll.

Reverse Screw roll (a.k.a. "Back Deck Roll")
As the name suggests this is similar to the screw roll but performed in reverse, it is often used in playboating or in general when the paddler goes over whilst on the back deck. In this scenario it is far quicker to perform this roll than to move the paddle into a set-up position for a more standard roll. The disadvantage of this roll is that it leaves the face exposed and poses some risk to the shoulder.

Hand roll
This roll is a bit of a 'party trick' but can also be useful if the paddler has lost their paddle and is also useful in the game of canoe polo. It relies heavily on the hip-flick. It is also frequently used by paddlers who run big waterfalls, as landing at high speed without a paddle is considered to pose less risk than landing with a paddle.

Tallit paarlatsillugit timaannarmik (body roll, no-hand roll)
Rolling up without a paddle, with the arms crossed against the chest throughout.

Obsolete rolls
Some techniques are rarely used by modern paddlers. The Pawlata roll is performed while gripping the far end of one paddle blade and sweeping the other from front to back. The Steyr roll is a reverse Pawlata.  In the put across roll, one paddle blade is gripped while the rest of the paddle extends out at right angles to the kayak; the paddler pulls down on the paddle to right the kayak without any sweeping action. The storm roll utilises a vertical rather than horizontal sweeping action.

B) Non-Hip-Flick Roll
Non-Hip-Flick Rolls are a category of kayak rolls that engage No Hip-Flick to produce rotational force to right a capsized kayak.

Fong's Roll
Fong's Roll is a non-hip-flick kayak roll, which uses hands as feet to rotate a capsized kayak, without any help from attaching devices.   Fong's Roll just changes the source of rotational force (for righting the kayak) from the rolling knee (hip flick) to the hand pulling. The principle of "body follow through" remains unchanged.

See also
Eskimo rescue

References

Kayaking techniques
Traditional knowledge

Kayak roll


Nyctyornis is a genus of the bee-eaters, near passerine birds in the family Meropidae. There are just two members of this group, which occur in tropical south and southeastern Asia.

The genus Nyctyornis was introduced by the naturalists William Jardine and Prideaux John Selby in 1830. The name comes from the Ancient Greek  nukt meaning nocturnal or night and ornis meaning bird. A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2007 showed that the genus is basal and forms a sister group to the remaining members of the bee-eater family.

Like other bee-eaters, Nyctyornis species are colourful birds with long tails, long downturned bills and pointed wings. They are large bee-eaters (blue-bearded is the largest of all bee-eaters), predominantly green, with a face colour as indicated by the species' name. This colour extends on to the slightly hanging throat feathers to form the "beard".

The two Nyctyornis species are the only bee-eaters that lack an eye-stripe and that have bi-coloured beaks. Their calls also differ from those of other bee-eaters and are somewhat similar to the noises made by rollers. Their size and more rounded wings give a heavier flapping flight that is less graceful than that of members of the genus Merops.

In common with other bee-eaters, they predominantly eat insects, especially bees, wasps and  hornets, which are caught in the air, but they have a rather different strategy. They hunt alone or in pairs, rather than in groups, and sit motionless for long periods before pursuing their prey. The blue-bearded bee-eater will also clamber in foliage for insects, and bees are sometimes attracted by the bright blue beard of a perched bird, presumably mistaking it for a flower.  They nest in burrows tunneled into the side of sandy banks, but do not form colonies.

References

Sources

Meropidae
Taxa named by Sir William Jardine
Taxa named by Prideaux John Selby

Nyctyornis


Maria Nemeth (Hungarian: Németh Mária; March 13, 1897 – December 28, 1967) was a Hungarian dramatic coloratura soprano, particularly associated with the Italian repertory, one of the leading dramatic sopranos of the inter-war period.

Life and career
Nemeth was born in Körmend. She studied first in Budapest with Georg Anthes and Géza László, in Milan with Giannina Russ, in Naples with  Fernando de Lucia, and Vienna with Kaschowska. She made her stage debut in Budapest, as Sulamith in Karl Goldmark's The Queen of Sheba, in 1923. She began her career by singing lyric and high soprano roles, gradually adding dramatic roles to her repertoire.

Star soprano at the Vienna State Opera from 1925 until 1946, she also appeared at the Paris Opéra in 1928, as Constanze in the Abduction from the Seraglio, and at the Royal Opera House in London, as Turandot, in 1931.

Her amazing voice and remarkable technique enabled her to excel in roles as diverse as Constanze and Queen of Night, Amelia and Aida. Considered one of the best Donna Anna, Tosca, and Turandot of her time. She also tackled  Wagner roles, such as Brünnhilde, with success. She died in  Vienna.

Sources
 Le guide de l'opéra, les indispensables de la musique, R. Mancini & J-J. Rouveroux, (Fayard, 1986),

1897 births
1967 deaths
Hungarian operatic sopranos
20th-century Hungarian women opera singers
Burials at Döbling Cemetery

Maria Nemeth


The Roswell Historical Society was established to preserve the history of Roswell, Georgia, US, through preservation of historically significant documents and landmarks.

The organization was founded on October 28, 1971, with Emily Dolvin as its initial chairperson.  An affiliate chapter of the Georgia Historical Society, the organization maintains and staffs a research library and archive located in the Roswell Cultural Arts Center, offers a guided tour of the Roswell Historic District, records oral histories from local residents, and places and maintains historical markers at local sites of interest.

References
 Roswell Historical Society

Organizations established in 1971
Roswell, Georgia
Historical societies in Georgia (U.S. state)

Roswell Historical Society


Robert Thomas Jr. is an American jazz percussionist and hand drummer. He is known as an innovator in Be-bop and hand drumming, and has been nominated for two Grammy awards. He is also a visual artist, working as a painter.

Life and career
Robert Thomas Jr. was born in Miami, the eldest of seven children, and grew up in North Miami Beach. He was encouraged by his fifth-grade teacher to play music, and not having an instrument, Thomas learned to play percussion on his desk. He sang in the choir at Oak Grove Missionary Baptist Church, and at age sixteen, began playing percussion with the Broomfield Family, a local group that performed in churches and nightclubs. He joined the ensemble as a roadie, but after playing percussion with the group at a private party, went on to play in the band. Although still under-age, he played with the group at such venues as the Castaway Hotel's Wreck Bar.

After graduating from high school, Thomas studied at Miami-Dade Community College. During this time, he discovered jazz, and began to play with saxophonist Jet Nero at the Gold Dust lounge and other artists including Ira Sullivan, Billy Marcus, Zoot Sims, Thad Jones, Monty Alexander and Mel Lewis. In the late 70s, Thomas played at a benefit with Jaco Pastorius in Miami Springs. Soon afterward, Thomas auditioned with Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter's jazz fusion group Weather Report at a live performance in New Haven, Connecticut. Thomas said afterward that they were looking for someone to play Be-bop, rather than Latin-style percussion. He settled in France, and continued to play with Weather Report until 1981, and in the short-lived Weather Update in 1986-7. After the group disbanded, Thomas resettled in Miami, and shortly afterward issued a solo CD of his own music In the Dreamtime on a local label. He continued to work with Zawinul until 1994.

Besides Weather Report, Thomas played with The Zawinul Syndicate, Jaco Pastorius' Word of Mouth band, and individual artists including Stan Getz, David Sanborn, Carlos Santana, Eddie Harris, Branford Marsalis, Herbie Mann, Ahmad Jamal and Roberto Perera. World artists he has played with include sitar player Amitava Chatterjee, and African artist Vinx. Thomas maintains an extensive discography and has issued several solo CDs. on which he plays an eclectic mix of instruments including conga drums, wind instruments, guitar and the African bow harp.

Thomas is married to Jane Thomas and has a son, Spencer.

References

External links
Official site

Living people
Weather Report members
American jazz percussionists
American male drummers
American drummers
American jazz composers
American multi-instrumentalists
Jazz musicians from Florida
Musicians from Miami
American male jazz composers
Year of birth missing (living people)
The Zawinul Syndicate members

Robert Thomas Jr.


Michael Tolliver Lives (2007) is the seventh book in the Tales of the City series by San Francisco novelist Armistead Maupin.

Plot summary
The novel represents Maupin's return to the Tales of the City characters some 18 years after the sixth book in the series was published. As well as further developing familiar characters, it explores the differences between the San Francisco of the 1980s, bearing the brunt of the developing AIDS crisis, and the city in the first decade of the new millennium. The realities of aging, both distressing and graceful, is a major theme of the book – as well as the generation gap between gay people from the 1970s and 80s and gay people from the 2000s.

In a departure from the third-person style of the original Tales sequence, Michael Tolliver Lives is narrated in the first person by the title character. In the book's opening pages, Michael Tolliver is middle aged and still alive in living HIV-positive for over 20 years now in the year 2006. Michael encounters a half-remembered old flame, prompting him to reflect on his status as a survivor of both the HIV epidemic (which killed many of his peers in the 1980s and 1990s but is now a more treatable chronic illness thanks in part to better medication) and of a San Francisco that has transformed due in large part to the dot com boom. Characters from the original series include Anna Madrigal, the one-time landlady of 28 Barbary Lane; Brian Hawkins and his now-adult daughter Shawna, a pansexual aspiring writer; and Brian's ex-wife Mary Ann Singleton. New characters include Michael's much younger partner Ben, and his transgender co-worker Jake Greenleaf.

Much of the plot's tension derives from the impending death of Michael's elderly mother in Florida, a test case of changes in attitude since she refused to accept Michael's homosexuality in the second Tales book. Several chapters involve a secondary plot thread concerning Michael's relationship with his brother Irwin. Eventually Michael finds himself forced to choose between being present for his mother's last days and attending to an aging Anna, described in the book as part of his "logical" (as opposed to "biological") family.

Statements by the author
Although Maupin originally stated that this novel was "NOT a sequel to Tales [of the City] and it's certainly not Book 7 in the series," he later conceded that "I've stopped denying that this is book seven in Tales of the City, as it clearly is ... I suppose I didn't want people to be thrown by the change in the format, as this is a first person novel unlike the third person format of the Tales of the City books and it's about one character who interrelates with other characters. Having said that, it is still very much a continuation of the saga and I think I realised it was very much time for me to come back to this territory."

In a June 2007 Entertainment Weekly article, Maupin said, "I was interested in pursuing the life of an aging gay man, and Michael was the perfect vehicle ... However, as soon as I started writing, I found that, one by one, all the other characters stepped forward and asked to be present. It felt natural, so I went with it."

Maupin calls the book "a smaller, more personal novel than  I've written in the past," and noted that "I've tried to focus on the  dailiness of life – which I think is  very interesting.  The small details that add up to our lives, and how  people who thought they were going to be dead 20 years ago  are facing  mortality by natural causes."

Critical reception
Philip Mayard of KQED, the San Francisco Bay Area PBS affiliate, said, "[I]t's a genuine thrill to find out what's been going on in the lives of these and all of Maupin's other relentlessly lovable characters. Even if you've never read any of Armistead's books, Michael Tolliver Lives is still a fabulous read ... This book is Armistead at his very best. In this humble scribe's opinion, there isn't an author around that can, with so few words, capture the essence of a character like Maupin."

David Leavitt of the New York Times observed, "Like its predecessors, Michael Tolliver Lives is a novel only in the loosest sense of the term. The chapters are independent yet interdependent, flowing into one another gracefully while remaining very much singular entities ... All this is rendered with balance, good humor and compassion. And indeed, if I have a complaint about Michael Tolliver Lives, it may be that for all the pleasure it takes in its own transgressiveness, it comes off as a little too nice ... Despite this, the book is great fun to read. Maupin is a master at sustained and sustaining comic turns."

David L. Ulin of the Los Angeles Times said, "Here, we get a glimpse of what Maupin, at his best, has always done: linked the individual and the collective story, unfolded his narrative against the backdrop of larger events. It's the novel as social history, an aesthetic reminiscent of Balzac, and if Maupin doesn't write with that degree of depth, he does know how to seed a story ... Unfortunately ... the novel remains flat in some essential way ... it's hard to escape the feeling that Maupin is drifting across the surface, letting our familiarity with Michael do much of the narrative work ... Maupin goes out of his way to bring back the original Tales of the City characters along with their respective partners and progeny ... Yet, if for longtime readers these interactions add an air of comfort, they also seem vestigial, even forced. This is particularly true of Mary Ann, who centered the original series and broke up the band, as it were, when she left for New York at the end of Sure of You. Her cameo here feels unlikely, gratuitous even, a tacked-on bit of resolution in a narrative universe that has always thrived on an open-ended edge of possibility."

Philip Hensher of The Observer said, "Michael Tolliver Lives is a sad spectacle; the sight of a novelist who remembers that he used to be lovable and trying to remember how he did it ... The charm of the series was always one of escape; in this sad and unappealingly thin book, what we discover is that the pleasures of Arcadia are pretty much like the pleasures of Clapham. That's honestly not what anyone wants to hear."

References

External links
Michael Tolliver Lives at ArmisteadMaupin.com
Armistead Maupin interview - SFgate.com

2007 American novels
2000s LGBT novels
Sequel novels
Novels by Armistead Maupin
Tales of the City
Novels set in San Francisco
Novels set in Orlando, Florida
HarperCollins books
First-person narrative novels
2007 LGBT-related literary works

Michael Tolliver Lives


The BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action is a science and technology center in the United States, focused on experimental and applied research on evolutionary dynamics,  sponsored by the National Science Foundation.  The consortium of universities that make up BEACON is led by Michigan State University with partner institutions of North Carolina A&T State University, the University of Idaho, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Washington.

BEACON stands for Bio/computational Evolution in Action CONsortium. BEACON's mission is illuminating and harnessing the power of evolution in action to advance science and technology and benefit society. Members of the center conduct research on evolution in both biological and digital realms, and also use evolutionary computing for engineering applications.  At latest count in 2016, BEACON had 583 members, including faculty, postdoctoral researchers, graduate and undergraduate students.

The director of the center is Charles Ofria.  The other principal investigators are Erik D. Goodman, Richard Lenski, Robert T. Pennock, and Kay Holekamp.

References

External links
 BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action

Science and technology in the United States

BEACON Center


Syncarpia glomulifera, commonly known as the turpentine tree, or yanderra, is a tree of the family Myrtaceae native to New South Wales and Queensland in Australia, which can reach  in height. It generally grows on heavier soils. The cream flowers appear in spring and are fused into compound flowerheads.

Taxonomy
English botanist James Edward Smith first described the turpentine as Metrosideros glomulifera in 1797, from a collection in the Sydney district. It was given its current binomial name by German botanist Franz Josef Niedenzu in 1893. Common names include turpentine, luster, red turpentine or red luster. It was formerly known as Syncarpia laurifolia Ten. Two subspecies are recognised, the widespread nominate, and subspecies glabra which is found from Bulahdelah north to Kempsey and has smooth leaf undersurfaces.

Description
In a suitable location, the turpentine grows into a large straight-trunked tree up to 45 or even 55 m (150–180 ft) high with a DBH of up to 1.3 or even 1.5 m (4–5 ft). On poorer soils it grows as a small tree or even adopts a mallee habit. The thick brown bark is fibrous, with deep vertical furrows running down the trunk. The leaves are arranged oppositely on the stems, and pairs grow close together so that they resemble a whorled group of four leaves. On 0.7–1.3 cm long petioles, the thick leaves are ovate to ellipictal and measure  long and  across with recurved margins. Their upper surface is a dull dark green, and lower surface much paler, either covered by fine hairs in subspecies glomulifera or smooth in glabra. Flowering takes place from August to December, peaking in September. The cream flowers are fused in groups of seven into compound flowerheads. This is followed by the development of the compound fruit –  diameter woody capsules which ripen in summer.

Distribution and habitat

The turpentine is found in eastern Queensland and New South Wales, from Atherton in the far north to as far south as Murramarang National Park. North of Gympie, the distribution is fragmented, with colonies on the Blackdown and Consuelo Tablelands, Tinaroo district and Windsor Tableland. The habitat most commonly associated with the turpentine is transitional forest between rainforest and wet sclerophyll forest. Here it grows as an emergent tree, and is associated with such trees as flooded gum (Eucalyptus grandis), tallowwood (E. microcorys), grey ironbark (E. paniculata), white stringybark (E. globoidea), yellow stringybark (E. muelleriana), white-topped box (E. quadrangulata), rough-barked apple (Angophora floribunda), brush box (Lophostemon confertus) and various rainforest species. It also grows with spotted gum (Corymbia maculata) and blackbutt (E. pilularis). On poorer soils, it can grow much smaller in dry sclerophyll forest in association with smooth-barked apple (Angophora costata) and yellow bloodwood (Corymbia eximia).

Adaptable to a wide range of soils, the turpentine is most suited to moderate to high-nutrient soils, such as clay soil over Wianamatta shale in the Sydney region. Valleys and flat areas are highly suitable sites. In the Sydney region, the species reaches an altitude of , but this extends to  above sea level in northern Queensland.

The turpentine is one of the dominant species of the critically endangered Sydney Turpentine-Ironbark Forest ecological community.

The largest known turpentine, located near the Williams River Recreation Reserve in the Barrington Tops National Park, New South Wales, measures  trunk circumference at breast height,  tall,  crown spread width and "points 517" (points calculated using the National Register of Big Trees formula).

Ecology
The flowers are pollinated by native bees and European honeybees, and possibly flies and moths. The grey-headed flying fox (Pteropus poliocephalus) and little red flying fox (P. scapulatus) also pollinate the flowers. The rainbow lorikeet (Trichoglossus haematodus) and noisy miner (Manorina melanocephala) forage for nectar.

The turpentine regenerates after bushfire by resprouting from its lignotuber and epicormic buds. Turpentine trees are thought to live up to 500 years.

Uses
Highly durable, turpentine timber is used in heavy-traffic flooring, for poles and wharves. It resists marine invertebrates and termites, and is one of the most difficult timbers to ignite. A hardy and adaptable tree, turpentine tolerates heavy soils and frosts, and is suitable for large gardens and parks, where it provides good shade with its dense canopy.

References

External links

Myrtaceae
Myrtales of Australia
Trees of Australia
Flora of New South Wales
Flora of Queensland
Plants described in 1797

Syncarpia glomulifera


In statistics, M-estimators are a broad class of extremum estimators for which the objective function is a sample average. Both non-linear least squares and maximum likelihood estimation are special cases of M-estimators. The definition of M-estimators was motivated by robust statistics, which contributed new types of M-estimators. However, M-estimators are not inherently robust, as is clear from the fact that they include maximum likelihood estimators, which are in general not robust. The statistical procedure of evaluating an M-estimator on a data set is called M-estimation.

More generally, an M-estimator may be defined to be a zero of an estimating function. This estimating function is often the derivative of another statistical function. For example, a maximum-likelihood estimate is the point where the derivative of the likelihood function with respect to the parameter is zero; thus, a maximum-likelihood estimator is a critical point of the score function.  In many applications, such M-estimators can be thought of as estimating characteristics of the population.

Historical motivation
The method of least squares is a prototypical M-estimator, since the estimator is defined as a minimum of the sum of squares of the residuals.

Another popular M-estimator is maximum-likelihood estimation. For a family of probability density functions f parameterized by θ, a maximum likelihood estimator of θ is computed for each set of data by maximizing the likelihood function over the parameter space  { θ } .  When the observations are independent and identically distributed, a ML-estimate  satisfies

or, equivalently,

Maximum-likelihood estimators have optimal properties in the limit of infinitely many observations under rather general conditions, but may be biased and not the most efficient estimators for finite samples.

Definition
In 1964, Peter J. Huber proposed generalizing maximum likelihood estimation to the minimization of

where ρ is a function with certain properties (see below). The solutions

are called M-estimators ("M" for "maximum likelihood-type" (Huber, 1981, page 43)); other types of robust estimators include L-estimators, R-estimators and S-estimators.  Maximum likelihood estimators (MLE) are thus a special case of M-estimators. With suitable rescaling, M-estimators are special cases of extremum estimators (in which more general functions of the observations can be used).

The function ρ, or its derivative, ψ, can be chosen in such a way to provide the estimator desirable properties (in terms of bias and efficiency) when the data are truly from the assumed distribution, and 'not bad' behaviour when the data are generated from a model that is, in some sense, close to the assumed distribution.

Types

M-estimators are solutions, θ, which minimize

This minimization can always be done directly. Often it is simpler to differentiate with respect to θ and solve for the root of the derivative. When this differentiation is possible,  the M-estimator is said to be of ψ-type.  Otherwise, the M-estimator is said to be of ρ-type.

In most practical cases, the M-estimators are of ψ-type.

ρ-type

For positive integer r, let  and  be measure spaces.  is a vector of parameters. An M-estimator of ρ-type  is defined through a measurable function . It maps a probability distribution  on  to the value  (if it exists) that minimizes
:

For example, for the maximum likelihood estimator, , where .

ψ-type
If  is differentiable with respect to , the computation of  is usually much easier. An M-estimator of ψ-type T is defined through a measurable function . It maps a probability distribution F on  to the value  (if it exists) that solves the vector equation:

For example, for the maximum likelihood estimator, , where  denotes the transpose of vector u and .

Such an estimator is not necessarily an M-estimator of ρ-type, but if ρ has a continuous first derivative with respect to , then a necessary condition for an M-estimator of ψ-type to be an M-estimator of ρ-type is . The previous definitions can easily be extended to finite samples.

If the function ψ decreases to zero as , the estimator is called redescending. Such estimators have some additional desirable properties, such as complete rejection of gross outliers.

Computation
For many choices of ρ or ψ, no closed form solution exists and an iterative approach to computation is required. It is possible to use standard function optimization algorithms, such as Newton–Raphson. However, in most cases an iteratively re-weighted least squares fitting algorithm can be performed; this is typically the preferred method.

For some choices of ψ, specifically, redescending functions, the solution may not be unique. The issue is particularly relevant in multivariate and regression problems. Thus, some care is needed to ensure that good starting points are chosen.  Robust starting points, such as the median as an estimate of location and the median absolute deviation as a univariate estimate of scale, are common.

Concentrating parameters
In computation of M-estimators, it is sometimes useful to rewrite the objective function so that the dimension of parameters is reduced. The procedure is called "concentrating" or "profiling". Examples in which concentrating parameters increases computation speed include seemingly unrelated regressions (SUR) models.
Consider the following M-estimation problem:

Assuming differentiability of the function q, M-estimator solves the first order conditions:

Now, if we can solve the second equation for γ in terms of
and , the second equation becomes:

where g is, there is some function to be found. Now, we can rewrite the original objective function solely in terms of β by inserting the function g into the place of . As a result, there is a reduction in the number of parameters.

Whether this procedure can be done depends on particular problems at hand. However, when it is possible, concentrating parameters can facilitate computation to a great degree. For example, in estimating SUR model of 6 equations with 5 explanatory variables in each equation by Maximum Likelihood, the number of parameters declines from 51 to 30.

Despite its appealing feature in computation, concentrating parameters is of limited use in deriving asymptotic properties of M-estimator. The presence of W in each summand of the objective function makes it difficult to apply the law of large numbers and the central limit theorem.

Properties

Distribution
It can be shown that M-estimators are asymptotically normally distributed. As such, Wald-type approaches to constructing confidence intervals and hypothesis tests can be used. However, since the theory is asymptotic, it will frequently be sensible to check the distribution, perhaps by examining the permutation or bootstrap distribution.

Influence function
The influence function of an M-estimator of -type is proportional to its defining  function.

Let T be an M-estimator of ψ-type, and G be a probability distribution for which  is defined. Its influence function IF is

assuming the density function  exists.  A proof of this property of M-estimators can be found in Huber (1981, Section 3.2).

Applications
M-estimators can be constructed for location parameters and scale parameters in univariate and multivariate settings, as well as being used in robust regression.

Examples

Mean
Let (X1, ..., Xn) be a set of independent, identically distributed random variables, with distribution F.

If we define

we note that this is minimized when θ is the mean of the Xs.  Thus the mean is an M-estimator of ρ-type, with this ρ function.

As this ρ function is continuously differentiable in θ, the mean is thus also an M-estimator of ψ-type for ψ(x, θ) = θ − x.

Median
For the median estimation of (X1, ..., Xn), instead we can define the ρ function as

and similarly, the ρ function is minimized when θ is the median of the Xs.

While this ρ function is not differentiable in θ, the ψ-type M-estimator, which is the subgradient of ρ function, can be expressed as

and

See also
Two-step M-estimator
Robust statistics
Robust regression
Redescending M-estimator
S-estimator
Fréchet mean

References

Further reading

External links
 M-estimators — an introduction to the subject by Zhengyou Zhang

M-estimators
Estimator
Robust regression
Robust statistics

M-estimator


Catherine "Cathy" Shaw (née Pidzarko; born c. 1953) is a Canadian curler, originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba.

While attending Miles Macdonell Collegiate, Shaw and her twin sister, Chris won three straight provincial junior championships (1972–1974) and won two Canadian Junior Curling Championships  (1972 & 1974). Shaw played third on the team that was skipped by her sister.

In 1978, Shaw skipped a team which included her sister at third, Iris Armstrong at second and Patti Vande at lead which won the Manitoba Lassie provincial championship and then won the 1978 Macdonald Lassies Championship, the national women's curling championship at the time.

Shaw moved to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories and won the territorial championship in 1980 playing with Donna Alexander, Lee Brooks and Marilyn Paradis. The team represented the Northwest Territories/Yukon at the 1980 Canadian Ladies Curling Association Championship, finishing with a 5–6 record. Shaw then moved to Edmonton, Alberta and won the Alberta Scott Tournament of Hearts with teammates Karen Jones, Sandra Rippel (Jenkins) and Donna Martineau. The team represented Alberta at the 1982 Scott Tournament of Hearts, where they finished the round robin in a five-way tie at 7–3. However, they would lose to Saskatchewan's Arleen Day in a tie breaker. The team won the Alberta championship again in 1983, and would represent the province at the 1983 Scott Tournament of Hearts. There they had more success, losing in the final against Nova Scotia's Penny LaRocque rink. They had finished the round robin with another 7–3 record, but were in sole possession of third place. They then beat the Northwest Territories/Yukon team skipped by Shelly Bildfell in the semi-final before losing to Nova Scotia.

Shaw currently lives in Toronto. She still curls competitively in Ontario, having skipped teams at the 2015 Ontario Masters and 2015 Ontario Seniors championships.

References

External links

Canadian women curlers
Curlers from the Northwest Territories
Living people
1950s births
Curlers from Winnipeg
Canadian women's curling champions
Canadian people of Ukrainian descent
Curlers from Edmonton
Curlers from Toronto
Sportspeople from Yellowknife

Cathy Shaw


ActionFest was an annual film festival in Asheville, NC, started by Carolina Cinemas and Magnolia Pictures founder Bill Banowsky and action director/producer Aaron Norris (Missing in Action III, Walker, Texas Ranger), along with Dennis Berman and Tom Quinn. ActionFest was the first film festival in the world devoted exclusively to action film. It was also the only film festival in the world that honoring stunt performers, filling a void caused by the decision of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences not to recognize stunt men and stunt women in its Academy Awards. ActionFest's stated mission was to "recognize, honor and appreciate the remarkable efforts of these amazing people who risk their lives every day to make Hollywood films look exciting and great."

ActionFest 2010
The first annual festival took place at The Carolina Asheville cinema April 15–18, 2010, opening with the world premiere of director Neil Marshall's bloody sword and sandal epic, Centurion. The 2010 festival featured over 25 films from around the world, including the world premiere of Undisputed III: Redemption. Legendary martial artist and action movie superstar Chuck Norris was on hand to receive ActionFest's Action Star of the Decade Award, but he actually presented the award to his long-time creative partner, his brother Aaron.

In addition to screening action movies, ActionFest also showcased movie stuntmen, stunt coordinators and other technical experts, who gave two live stunt performances with improvised fights, three to four story falls, rappelling, sky-diving and a flying jetpack demonstration.

ActionFest 2010 Awards
In its inaugural event, ActionFest began the tradition of giving out awards for achievement in areas of action cinema such as stunt work, 2nd unit directing, and stars on the screen.  The ActionFest Awards included:
Lifetime Achievement Award:  Paul Weston:  Motion Picture Stunt Coordinator / 2nd Unit Director (multiple Bond films, Robin Hood, Aliens, Superman 1-3)
Lifetime Achievement Award: Kinnie Gibson – Stuntman (Walker, Texas Ranger, Robocop 2, Delta Force 2, Jet Pack Operator
Action Star of the Decade Award: Chuck Norris
Stunt Coordinator/2nd Unit Director of the Decade:  Jeff Haberstad (The Last Airbender, Spiderman)
Rising Action Star:  Marko Zaror (Mandrill, Undisputed III: Redemption)

ActionFest 2010 Jury Awards
There were also awards given to films at the festival, chosen by a jury.  The winners of the ActionFest 2010 Jury Awards were:
Best Fight Scene:  14 Blades - Teahouse battle between Green Dragon (Donnie Yen) and the Judge of the Sky Eagles (Chen Wu)
Best Fight Choreographer: - Larnell Stovall (Undisputed 3)
Best Director: - Isaac Florentine (Undisputed 3)
Best Film: - Merantau (Directed by Gareth Evans)

The ActionFest 2010 Jury Panel
Drew McWeeny (Hitfix.com)
Devin Faraci (chud.com)
Colin Geddes (Toronto Midnight Madness)
Todd Brown (Twitchfilm.net)
Jury President:  Chuck Norris

ActionFest 2011
ActionFest returned to the Carolina Cinemas Asheville for its second year on April 7–10, 2011 and to shine a light on action films and the stuntmen and women who perform in them.

ActionFest 2011 Awards
The ActionFest Award winners for 2011 were:
Lifetime Achievement Award: - Buddy Joe Hooker (First Blood, Deathproof, The Wraith, Hooper, and many others)
Stunt Coordinator of the Year Award" - Russell Towery (Machete)
Man of Action Award: - Michael Jai White (Never Back Down 2, The Dark Knight, Black Dynamite)
Action Film Of The Year Award: - Machete (Directed by Robert Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis)
Producer of the Year Award: - Somsak Techaratanapresert (Sahamongkol Film International) (Chocolate, Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior)
ActionFest Recognition Award: - Stunts Unlimited, for 40 Years in the Action Business

ActionFest 2011 Jury Awards
The 2011 Jury Award winners for ActionFest 2011 were:
30 Seconds of Action: Evan Pease's Action Figures
Best Action Sequence: The nocturnal garbage truck/dune buggy chase in Tomorrow, When the War Began
Best Stuntwork: Bangkok Knockout's stunt team
Best Director: Julian Gilbey for A Lonely Place to Die
Best Film: A Lonely Place to Die

The ActionFest 2011 Jury Panel
The Jury in 2011 consisted of:
Katrina Hill (actionflickchick.com)
Tim League (Founder and CEO, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema)
Russell Towery (Stuntman, Stunt Coordinator, 2nd Unit Director)
Scott Weinberg (Writer: Twitch, FEARnet, Movies.com, and more)
Freakin' Jay Deacon (Program Director, 105.9 The Mountain)

ActionFest 2012
The third annual ActionFest was held on April 12–15, 2012, and honored legendary stunt man Mickey Gilbert with the third annual Lifetime Action Achievement Award.

The inaugural Chick Norris (Best Female Action Star) Award was given to MMA and Action Film Star Gina Carano. Carano received the award in person at ActionFest 2012. The Chick Norris award will be given to "a woman working in film today who best represents the spirit, attitude, athleticism and grit of Hollywood legend Chuck Norris."

Festival Director Colin Geddes returned this year to program the festival.

ActionFest 2012 Awards
The ActionFest Award winners for 2012 were:
Lifetime Achievement Award: - Mickey Gilbert (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Wild Bunch, The Last of the Mohicans
Fight Choreographer of the Year Award: - JJ Perry (Mortal Kombat, Haywire, Get the Gringo, Django Unchained)
Man Of Action Award: - Jack Gill (Knight Rider, Dukes of Hazzard, Fast Five)
Producer of the Year Award: - Courtney Solomon (After Dark Action, Dragon Eyes, Transit)
Chick Norris Award: - Gina Carano (Haywire)
Rising Action Star Award: - Cung Le (Bodyguards and Assassins, True Legend, Dragon Eyes)
Best Car Stunt Of The Decade Award: - Tom Elliott (President, Stunts Unlimited, Criminal Minds)
Best Young Stuntman Of The Year Award: - Trevor Habberstad (The Amazing Spider-Man, The Dark Knight Rises, After Earth)

ActionFest 2012 Jury Awards

30 Seconds Of Action - Tim McGaren (Operation C)
Best Action Sequence - The Lost Bladesman
Best Director - Felix Chong & Alex Mak, The Lost Bladesman
Best Picture - I Declare War
Best Screenplay - I Declare War
Best Villain - James Frain, Transit
Spirit Of ActionFest - Manborg
Best Fight - Opening Fight Scene in Dragon Eyes

The ActionFest 2012 Jury Panel
Mitch Davis - Fantasia Film Festival
Dan Guando - The Weinstein Company
Borys Kit - The Hollywood Reporter
Marc McCloud - Orbit DVD
Eric Vespe - Ain't It Cool News
Sadie - The Mountain

References
Notes

ActionFest Photos and Review

External links
 LA Times, June 20, 2010

Film festivals in North Carolina
Events in Asheville, North Carolina
Tourist attractions in Asheville, North Carolina
2010 establishments in North Carolina

ActionFest


Emmanuel Lubezki Morgenstern (; born November 30, 1964) is a Mexican cinematographer. He sometimes goes by the nickname Chivo, which means "goat" in Spanish. Lubezki has worked with many acclaimed directors, including Mike Nichols, Tim Burton, Michael Mann, Joel and Ethan Coen, David O. Russell, and frequent collaborators Terrence Malick, Alfonso Cuarón, and Alejandro González Iñárritu.

Lubezki is known for groundbreaking uses of natural lighting and continuous uninterrupted shots in cinematography, often utilizing a Steadicam, a 3-axis gimbal, or hand-held camera to orchestrate fluid, uninterrupted camera movements during particularly significant scenes. Lubezki is a member of both the Mexican Society of Cinematographers and the American Society of Cinematographers. His work has been praised by audiences and critics alike, which earned him multiple awards, including eight Academy Award nominations for Best Cinematography. He won in this category three times, becoming the first person to do so in three consecutive years, for Gravity (2013), Birdman (2014), and The Revenant (2015).

In 2020, he shot and narrated a short film for Apple displaying the camera capabilities of the iPhone 12 Pro, the first device ever to capture, edit and playback in Dolby Vision.

Early life
Lubezki was born to a Jewish family in Mexico City, Mexico. His father was actor and producer Muni Lubezki. His paternal grandfather is Lithuanian Jewish while his grandmother is also Jewish, from Russia. Lubezki studied film at Mexico's Centro Universitario de Estudios Cinematográficos (CUEC), where he met Alfonso Cuarón.

Career
Lubezki began his career in Mexican film and television productions in the late 1980s. His first international production was the 1993 independent film Twenty Bucks, which followed the journey of a single twenty-dollar bill.

Lubezki is a frequent collaborator with fellow Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón. The two have been friends since they were teenagers and attended the same film school at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Together they have worked on six motion pictures: Sólo Con Tu Pareja, A Little Princess, Great Expectations, Y Tu Mamá También, Children of Men, and Gravity.
His work with Cuarón on Children of Men (2006) has received universal acclaim. The film utilized a number of new technologies and distinctive techniques. The "roadside ambush" scene was shot in one extended take utilizing a special camera rig invented by Doggicam systems, developed from the company's Power Slide system. For the scene, a vehicle was modified to enable seats to tilt and lower actors out of the way of the camera. The windshield of the car was designed to tilt out of the way to allow camera movement in and out through the front windscreen. A crew of four, including Lubezki, rode on the roof. Children of Men also features a seven-and-a-half-minute battle sequence composed of roughly five seamless edits.

Lubezki won his first Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on Cuarón's Gravity, a thriller set in outer space. The film was praised for the way it combined two shots through digital backgrounds of space to create the illusion of scenes done in a single shot. Lubezki won his second Academy Award for Best Cinematography in the following year for his work on Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman. The film used a similar technique from Gravity, being very unusual in the way the entire movie was shot so as to appear to be photographed in one continuous take. Lubezki won the award again in 2015 for Iñárritu's The Revenant, becoming a milestone for his third consecutive win and for being the first cinematographer to do so. The film was shot entirely in the wilderness during a cold season, minimizing the amount of CGI and using only natural lighting. It was an extremely difficult process that required a limited amount of time to shoot each scene, which delayed the production, causing budget overruns and changes of locations for proper settings. However, The Revenant earned over $500 million at the box office and received critical acclaim, with much praise for the film's atmospheric tone and realism.

Lubezki won the Royal Photographic Society Lumière Award for major achievement in cinematography, video or animation in 2016.

Filmography

Short film

Feature film

Television

Awards and nominations

See also
 Cinema of Mexico

References

External links

 Internet Encyclopedia of Cinematographers
 International Cinematographers Guild interview

1964 births
Living people
Mexican artists
Mexican cinematographers
Mexican Jews
Mexican people of Russian-Jewish descent
Mexican people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent
Best Cinematographer Academy Award winners
Best Cinematography BAFTA Award winners
Independent Spirit Award winners
Writers from Mexico City

Emmanuel Lubezki


Odaline de la Martinez (born 31 October 1949) is a Cuban-American composer and conductor, currently residing in the UK. She is the artistic director of  Lontano, a London-based contemporary music ensemble which she co-founded in 1976 with New Zealander flautist  Ingrid Culliford, and was the first woman to conduct at the BBC Promenade Concerts (the Proms) in 1984. As well as frequent appearances as a guest conductor with leading orchestras throughout Great Britain, including all the BBC orchestras, she has conducted several leading ensembles around the world, including the Ensemble 2e2m in Paris; the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra; the Australian Youth Orchestra; the OFUNAM and the Camerata of the Americas in Mexico; and the Vancouver Chamber Orchestra. She is also known as a broadcaster for BBC Radio and Television and has recorded extensively for several labels.

Biography

Odaline de la Martinez was born in 1949 in Matanzas and grew up in Jovellanos, a cane-sugar manufacturing town in the same province. After the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961 her parents decided to send her and her sister to live with their aunt and uncle in the U.S.A. She enrolled at Tulane University, New Orleans, where she studied both music and mathematics, graduating summa cum laude in 1972 and receiving several awards upon graduation - a Marshall Scholarship from the British government, and a Danforth and Watson Fellowships - which allowed her to continue her studies at the Royal Academy of Music, where she studied composition with Paul Patterson and piano with Else Cross and where she founded  Lontano Ensemble in 1976 with Ingrid Culliford. With Lontano she conducted the premiere of Judith Weir's The Consolations of Scholarship at the University of Durham in 1985 (subsequently recording it with Linda Hirst in 1989).

Martinez received her MMus in composition from the University of Surrey in 1977, where she studied with Reginald Smith Brindle. This was followed by composer awards from the American National Endowment for the Arts (1979) and a Guggenheim Fellowship (1980), supporting the composition of her first opera Sister Aimee: An American Legend (1984), with a libretto by John Whiting. Sister Aimme was premiered at Tulane University in 1984, followed by two other productions at the Royal College of Music (1987) and in Marin County College, California, in 1995.

It must have been in the nineteen eighties that Odaline de la Martinez had a weeknight show, I think it was a Thursday night, on BBC Radio Three. It might have been that Lontano played the modern classical music that she introduced. The show was engaging, an education in new music.

In 1984 Martinez became the first woman to conduct at a BBC Promenade Concert at the Royal Albert Hall. In 1987 she was awarded the Villa Lobos medal from the Brazilian government for her championing of the music of Heitor Villa Lobos and other Brazilian composers. Her continuing commitment to showcase the music of Latin America for UK and European audiences led her in 1989 to co-direct with Eduardo Mata VIVA! - a festival of Latin-American music - at London's South Bank Centre. In 1990 she was made a fellow of the Royal Academy of Music and in 1992 she founded LORELT (Lontano Records Limited) with the intent of promoting the work of living composers and women and Latin American composers from all periods. The label has since released over 30 CDs to critical acclaim.

In the summer of 1994 Martinez conducted the BBC Proms premiere of Ethel Smyth's The Wreckers, later released on CD by Conifer Records. A CD recording of Smyth's orchestral music for Chandos Records followed, as did (2016) the first complete recording by Retrospect Opera of The Boatswain's Mate. Her forthcoming complete recording of Smyth's Fête Galante, also by Retrospect Opera, was announced in August 2016.

After a gap of almost 10 years, Martinez began composing again. First, music to a radio play commissioned by BBC Radio 4 (1998), followed by the Hansen Variations for Piano (1999) - commissioned by the Music Department of Tulane University. In 2008 she completed her second opera, Imoinda, with a libretto by Joan Anim-Addo about slavery and the beginning of the Afro-Caribbean culture.

In the autumn of 2006 together with Lontano Ensemble she founded the London Festival of American Music aiming to introduce UK audiences to a broader spectrum of works from contemporary American and US-based composers, and it has continued to be celebrated biennially since then. Several major works have received their UK premieres there, including works by John Harbison, Marjorie Merryman, Daniel Asia, Peter Child and Roberto Sierra.

List of Works

OPERAS

Sister Aimee: An American Legend (1978–1983) [90']
Mezzo Soprano, Tenor, Baritone, SATB Chorus, Strings, Brass Quintet

Premiered at Tulane University in April 1984 to celebrate the university's 150th anniversary. The UK premiere was held at the Royal College of Music in London in June 1987, and the work was also performed at Marin County College, California in 1995.

Imoinda: A Story of Love and Slavery (2006–2018) [1'45']
Complete trilogy premiered in February–March 2019 at The Warehouse, London, as part of the 7th London Festival of American Music. The operas can be performed individually or as one.

Part I: Imoinda (2006) [45']
Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, 2 Tenors, Baritone, Mixed Voice ensemble SATB, Strings, 4 Percussionists

A video of selected scenes from Imoinda was filmed in 2015 with an Opera America Grant for Female Composers.

Part II: The Crossing (2013) [28']
Soprano, Tenor, SATB Chorus, Strings, 3 Percussionists

Commissioned and premiered by Tulane University in 2014 with the Xavier University Choir and soloists of the Louisiana Philharmonic. The UK premiere was held in November 2014 at the 6th London Festival of American Music, performed by Eclectic Voices and Lontano Ensemble.

Part III: Plantation (2018) [37']
Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, Tenor, SATB Ensemble, Strings, 4 Percussionists

Premiered at the 7th London Festival of American Music in 2019 by the Lontano Ensemble, soloists and Festival vocal ensemble.

CHAMBER MUSIC

Litanies (1981)
Harp, Flute, String Trio

Premiered by Lontano at the Wigmore Hall in London, 1981, and broadcast by the BBC. Premiered in the US by the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble. Also performed as part of the Irish Lontano tour in 1987.

Suite for Cello and Cor Anglais (1982)
Cello, Cor Anglais

Commissioned and premiered by the McGrath duo at St George's Hanover Square in London in June 1982.

Canciones (1983)
Voice, Percussion, Piano

Commissioned and premiered by Janis Kelly and Simon Limbrick with Timothy Barrett at the Wigmore Hall in May 1983. Toured with Lontano for Eastern Arts (UK), in Canada, and broadcast by the CBC.

String Quartet (1984)
String Quartet

Commissioned by the Roth Quartet with funds from The Arts Council of Great Britain and premiered by them at the Purcell Room in January 1985.

Cantos de amor (1985)
Soprano, Violin, Viola, Cello, Piano

Commissioned by Chester Festival and premiered by Domus in July 1985. Subsequently, performed by Lontano at the Akademie der Bildenden Kunste Berlin and at St John's Smith Square in London. US premiere held at Merkin Hall in New York City in 1990.

CHORAL WORKS (A Capella)

Misa breve afrocubana (1975)
Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass

Revised version of an earlier work. Originally premiered by the Choir of Palo Verde High School in Tucson, Arizona in 1966. The revised version was performed by the Choir of the Royal Academy of Music, London, conducted by Michael Procter in 1975.

A las cinco de la tarde (1972/2018)
3 Sopranos, 2 Altos, 2 Tenors, 3 Basses

Based on a poem of the same title by Federico García Lorca. Performed by the Choir of the Royal Academy of Music, London, 1972, conducted by Michael Procter, and revised in 2018.

O Absalom (1977)
Countertenor, 2 Tenors, Baritone, Bass

Premiered by the Michael Procter Consort at the Seven Oaks Festival in May 1977.

Two American Madrigals (1978)
Choir

On two poems by Emily Dickinson. Commissioned for the Cork International Choral and Folk Dance Festival in 1978 by the Ruth Drady Memorial Trust, and premiered by the Oxford Schola Cantorum. Recorded by the BBC Singers for BBC Radio 3.

CHORAL WORKS (Choir and Ensemble)

Psalmos (1977)
Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass, Brass Quintet, Timpani, Electric Organ

Premiered at Western Washington University in November 1977. UK premiere held at St John's Smith Square in London by the choir of the University of Surrey.

CHORAL WORKS (Choir and String Orchestra)

The Crossing (2013) [28']
Soprano, Tenor, SATB Chorus, Strings, 3 Percussionists

From the opera, Imoinda. Commissioned and premiered by Tulane University in 2014, with Xavier University Choir and soloists of the Louisiana Philharmonic. UK premiere held in November 2014 at the 6th London Festival of American Music, performed by Eclectic Voices and Lontano.

STRING ORCHESTRA

Five Russian Songs (1987)
Soprano, String Orchestra

Commissioned by the Covent Garden Festival with funds from London Arts and premiered by the London Chamber Symphony in September 1987.

ORCHESTRA

Suite from 'Imoinda' (2018)
2 fls, 2 obs, 2cls, 2 bsn, 2 hns, 4 percs, strings

Funded with a grant from the Cintas Foundation.

SOLOS & DUOS

Little Piece (1975) [3']
Solo flute

Premiered by Judith Pearce at Dartington Summer School in 1976. Performed in Israel and broadcast in New Zealand by Ingrid Culliford.

EOS for Solo Organ (1976)
Organ, Assistant

Premiered by Susan Heath at St Bride's Church, London and performed at Coventry Cathedral.

After Sylvia (1976)
Soprano, Piano

On poems by Sylvia Plath. Premiered at the ISME Festival in Montreaux, Switzerland. Broadcast by the BBC. Performed and broadcast in Romania and Belgrade, Yugoslavia. US Premiere held in 2018 at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Also performed in 2019 at Florida International University, Miami, and by North/South Consonance at Christ & St Stephen's Church in New York City.

A Moment's Madness (1977)
Flute, (Inside the) Piano

Premiered at Carnegie Recital Hall, New York, by Lyn McLarin and Jonathan Rutherford in November 1977. UK Premiere at the Purcell Room by Ingrid Culliford. Broadcast by Radio Beograd.

Improvisations (1977)
Solo Violin

Premiered in October 1978 at the Istanbul Arts Festival. UK premiere at a SPNM concert in 1980 by Irvine Arditi.

Color Studies (1978)
Solo Piano

Commissioned by Eleanor Alberga with funds from the Arts Council of England and premiered by her at Southbank Centre's Purcell Room, London.

Asonancias (1982)
Solo Violin

Commissioned by Sophie Langdon and premiered by her at the Purcell Room in London. Broadcast by the BBC World Service and BBC Radio 3.

Hansen Variations (1999)
Solo Piano

Commissioned by the Music Department of Tulane University and premiered there by Daniel Weilbaecher Jr. that year.

ELECTRONIC WORKS

Hallucination (1975)
Electronic Tape

Premiered at the Salzburg Seminar for Contemporary American Music in April 1976.

Visions and Dreams (1977-78)
Electronic Tape

Premiered at the University of Hawaii and performed at the 1978 International Computer Music Conference of Chicago, and at various American universities.

Lamento (1979)
Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, Tenor, Bass (all amplified), Tape

Premiered by Electric Phoenix at St John's Smith Square in London in 1979, and performed in Holland and at the University of York.

Three Pieces for Percussion and Electronics (1980)
Percussion, Tape Delay

Commissioned and premiered by James Wood, with funds provided by the Eastern Arts Association, at the Wells-on-Sea Arts Centre, and performed again at the Purcell Room, London.

EARLY WORKS

Five Imagist Songs (1974)
Soprano, Clarinet, Piano

Premiered at the Kelso Festival in Scotland by soprano, Sarah Mosely, and clarinetist, Rory Allam, with the composer at the piano.

Phasing (1975)
Chamber Orchestra, Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, Divided Strings

Premiered by the Manson Ensemble at the RAM. Also performed at the Zagreb Music Biennale and at the University of Surrey.

References

External links
Official website of Odaline de la Martínez
Lontano's Official Website
Lorelt's Official Website
Interview with Martinez in the Kapralova Society Journal, vol. 14, no. 2 (2016): 8–11.
Interview with Martinez at BBC 4's Woman's Hour (01/10/2002)
An article on Odaline de la Martinez by Andrew Burns on The Musical Times, Vol. 126, No. 1709 (July 1985), pp. 401+403-404
Retrospect Opera

Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music
Cuban composers
Cuban women composers
Cuban emigrants to the United States
American women classical composers
American classical composers
Fellows of the Royal Academy of Music
Living people
1949 births
American women conductors (music)
Cuban women conductors (music)
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
Tulane University alumni
Alumni of the University of Surrey
Marshall Scholars
21st-century American conductors (music)
21st-century American women musicians
21st-century American composers
20th-century American conductors (music)
20th-century American women musicians
20th-century American composers
20th-century classical composers
21st-century classical composers
20th-century women composers
21st-century women composers

Odaline de la Martinez


The Republic of Letters was a publishing endeavor by George Routledge & Sons in the mid-1920s in London.  Edited by William Rose, this series of books focused on interesting and significant poets, dramatists and novelists.  In addition to containing biographical information, the books also included psychological and social background information of the writer's own time.  Certain volumes include Voltaire by Richard Aldington, Pushkin by Prince D.S. Mirsky, and Gogol by Janko Lavrin.

Herbert Read and T. S. Eliot were both asked to contribute by Aldington, who himself had been approached by Routledge in 1923, but both initially refused.  Eliot himself initiated a similar endeavour at Faber & Gwyer (where at the time he was a director) called "The Poets on The Poets".  Eventually, after consultation with Aldington, Routledge and Eliot chose to combine their two efforts, under the joint imprint of both publishers, with Eliot and Rose as joint editors.

References

Series of non-fiction books
1920s books
Books about writers

The Republic of Letters


The Initiation of Sarah is a 2006 made for TV movie that was directed by Stuart Gillard for ABC Family. It first aired as part of ABC Family's 13 Nights of Halloween on October 22, 2006 and is a loose remake of the 1978 film of the same name. The two films differ in several ways. The personalities of Sarah and Patty (who was renamed Lindsay) were switched, the two are now biological sisters instead of adopted siblings, and the movie features magic as a predominant element to the plot, whereas in the original the focus is more heavily on Sarah having telekinesis. The character of Mrs. Hunter was re-written to be younger and possess a PhD, and is seen as a more positive figure in the movie as opposed to the character portrayed by Shelley Winters. The film's ending is also changed, as Sarah ends up with her love interest and does not die at the film's completion.

Plot
Twin sisters Sarah (Mika Boorem) and Lindsay (Summer Glau) are excited to attend Temple Hill University, where they will likely join Alpha Nu as their mother Trina Goodwin (Morgan Fairchild) was a previous member. Sarah finds herself immediately drawn to Finn, a student adviser that invites them both to Pi Epsilon Delta's rush week party. At the party the sisters are introduced to the Alpha Nu President, Corrine (Joanna Garcia), but Sarah ends up leaving the party in tears after accidentally spilling a drink on Corrine. Lindsay follows Sarah and accidentally breaks her ankle. They're brought into the Pi Epsilon Delta house, where Dr. Eugenia Hunter (Jennifer Tilly) introduces herself as a friend of their mother. The sisters are surprised to find that Lindsay's ankle has been healed. The following day Corrine ingratiates herself to Lindsay during a meeting at Alpha Nu, during which time Corrine takes the opportunity to take an eyelash off of Lindsay and pocket it.

Sarah is approached by Dr. Hunter, who tells Sarah that they both possess magical powers. This unnerves Sarah, especially after Dr. Hunter later tells her that the Pi Epsilon Deltas and the Alpha Nus are mortal enemies locked in a fight of good against evil, and that Sarah is the One- a person who could disrupt the balance. Sarah is further warned that as the One, the Alpha Nu wants to sacrifice her to the Eternal Flame with the Knife of Truth in exchange for immortality.  Sarah tries to approach her sister with this, who angrily tells her that Sarah has always been the focus of attention as opposed to Lindsay herself and Lindsay ends up leaving in tears. After Corrine's vice-president Esme (Tessa Thompson) informs her of the fight, Corrine uses this to persuade Lindsay into joining the sorority in return for beauty and a chance to outshine her sister - an offer Lindsay eagerly accepts.

Things grow more tense after Lindsay is forced to stay in the Pi Epsilon Delta following a fire and after making up with Finn, Sarah discovers that Trina Goodwin is not her true mother and that Trina actually killed their birth mother after a failed ritual. The Alpha Nus had believed her to be the One, which had been proven to be false after the Knife of Truth refused to cut her, as it will only cut the flesh of the One. Sarah also learns that the Alpha Nus are willing to kill her if they can't have her, which prompts her to try to rescue her sister from their clutches. She initially seems to be successful, as Lindsay appears to want to leave the group, but this is soon revealed to be a trap to capture Sarah and force her into sacrificing herself willingly. However everyone is shocked when a struggle reveals that the true One is actually Lindsay rather than Sarah, as the Knife of Truth ends up nicking her throat. They also find that the Knife can cut through anything if it has the blood of the One on it.

Corrine immediately imprisons Lindsay in preparation for her initiation into the sorority and kills Trina Goodwin, as she is no longer of any use to Corrine. Sarah escapes with Finn and the two end up having sex in order to keep him from being sacrificed in a ceremony where the Alpha Nus will throw virgins into their Eternal Flame to keep it burning. Sarah and Lindsay are both initiated into their respective houses (Sarah into Pi Epsilon Delta, Lindsay into Alpha Nu) and Lindsay is horrified when she discovers that the Alpha Nus are intent on sacrificing her. While the Deltas cast a shielding spell to trap the most of the Alpha Nu's inside the house, Sarah manages to successfully rescue her sister, almost dying in the process, and after a struggle pushes Corrine into the Eternal Flame. After they return to the Pi Epsilon Delta house, Dr. Hunter uses Lindsay's inner power to heal her and returns the Knife of Truth to its resting place, while Sarah leads the Deltas into the night to find and destroy the remaining Alpha Nu's. The film ends with a voiceover from Esme saying "That's the trouble with fire. You never know when it's going to flare up again." as she walks off into the distance with the remains of the Eternal Flame in a small cauldron.

Cast
 Morgan Fairchild as Trina Goodwin
 Mika Boorem as Sarah Goodwin
 Summer Glau as Lindsay Goodwin
 Amber Wallace as Vita
 Ben Ziff as Finn
 Joanna Garcia as Corrine
 Jennifer Tilly as Eugenia Hunter
 Tessa Thompson as Esme

Reception
Cinema Crazed panned the remake as being an overly bland movie, as they felt that it was "just so lost in its own attempts to mimic a certain show about yakking women that it can't find its own niche." DVD Talk also panned the movie as being a "glossy, largely dull retread" and recommended that fans of the original film not view The Initiation of Sarah. Commonsensemedia gave the movie three stars and commented on its amount of violence.

References

External links

 The MGM page for The Initiation of Sarah

2006 films
2000s English-language films
2006 horror films
American supernatural horror films
Films about witchcraft
Remakes of American films
Horror film remakes
ABC Family original films
2006 television films
Films about fraternities and sororities
Films directed by Stuart Gillard
Television series about twins
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer direct-to-video films
20th Century Fox direct-to-video films
Warner Bros. direct-to-video films
2000s American films

The Initiation of Sarah (2006 film)


Max Švabinský (17 September 1873 – 10 February 1962) was a Czech painter, draughtsman, graphic artist, and professor in Academy of Graphic Arts in Prague. Švabinský is considered one of the more notable artists in the history of Czech painting and produced significant work during the first half of the 20th century. He was relatively unusual among modernist artists in that his work was accepted by the communist regime; this was due at least in part to his having formed his artistic personality prior to 1900, prior to the advent of cubism. His work was part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1932 Summer Olympics.

Biography

Max Švabinský was born on 17 September 1873 in Kroměříž. Together with Jan Preisler, Antonín Slavíček, and Miloš Jiránek, he was one of the founders of Czech modern art. Early on, Švabinský exhibited period tendencies towards Plenérian Realism, Symbolism, and Art Nouveau. Some of his most important early works were portraits or family-oriented paintings. Švabinský and his wife Ela often stayed with the Vejrych family in Kozlov near Česká Třebová. There he was inspired by the picturesque landscape. This is the period in which he painted some of his most famous works.

In Kozlov, at the beginning of the century, he took up graphics systematically, especially etching and Mezzotint. On account of the high quality of his graphic work, he was appointed a professor of the Prague Academy in 1910, and in the same years completed murals for the Municipal House in Prague. In the pages of Paradisiacal Sonata in 1917, he extended his range with wood engraving, at which time his graphic work began to overtake his painting. During the thirties, he had the chance to work in monumental forms. After the mosaics for the National Monument on Žižkov Hill, he painted boards for three stained glass windows of the St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague. At the same time, and with the same graphic skill, he was able to design in miniature for a postage stamp. At the first session of the government in 1945, he was awarded the title of "National Artist".

Max Švabinský died on 10 February 1962. The cottage in Kozlov (near Česká Třebová, East Bohemia, Czech Republic) where Max Švabinský stayed has recently been renovated and is now open to visitors. The interior looks just the same as 100 years ago and many of Švabinský's pictures are shown there. The tour can be performed both in Czech and English. Painted "Kamelie", Camellia in 1903.

He also painted in Serbia and as such he is included in a list of Serbian alumni who graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in the first decade of the 20th century.

Gallery

References

External links
Radio Prague - Svabinsky
Česká Třebová city
Paintings by Švabinský

1873 births
1962 deaths
People from Kroměříž
Artists from the Margraviate of Moravia
Czech stamp designers
20th-century Czech painters
Czech male painters
Olympic competitors in art competitions
Burials at Vyšehrad Cemetery
20th-century Czech male artists
Painters from Austria-Hungary
Czechoslovak painters

Max Švabinský


Nightfall is a 1956 American crime film noir directed by Jacques Tourneur and starring Aldo Ray, Brian Keith and Anne Bancroft.

The low-budget film is remembered today for camera work by cinematographer Burnett Guffey. It uses flashbacks as a device to tell the story, which was based on a 1948 novel by David Goodis.

The theme song, "Nightfall," was composed by Peter De Rose and "Charles Harold" (Charles H. Cuppett), with lyrics by Sam M. Lewis and sung by Al Hibbler.

Plot

At night on a busy Los Angeles sidewalk, James "Jim" Vanning (Aldo Ray) wanders aimlessly, avoiding bright lights and police cars, while he's being watched by another man, later revealed to be insurance investigator Ben Fraser (James Gregory).   At a corner, Fraser asks Vanning for a light, and the two men chat briefly, with Vanning revealing that he is a veteran who fought on Okinawa in the war.  Vanning enters a bar, sitting next to Marie Gardner (Anne Bancroft), who has been nursing her drink because she has no cash to pay for it.  Vanning pays for her drink, and the two have dinner together.  As happens several times in the film, the scenes with Vanning are intercut with scenes of Fraser and his wife (Jocelyn Brando) discussing Vanning, who is wanted for murder.  Fraser's real interest is in retrieving $350,000 in stolen money for his company.

At dinner, Marie reveals that she is a model, while Vanning is a commercial artist who has lived in several places but does not say much else about his past. Leaving the restaurant, Marie and Vanning are encountered by two thuggish men, John (Brian Keith) and "Red" (Rudy Bond). They thank Marie for distracting Vanning and she quickly goes away.  The two men drive Vanning to a deserted spot by some oil pumps, demanding that Vanning tell them where to find the $350,000 that he took from them and threatening to torture him. Vanning insists that he does not know where the money is. The men discover a slip of paper with Marie's name, address, and phone number.

In intermittent flashbacks, the story of Vanning's troubles is revealed. Near the town of Moose, Wyoming, Vanning and his friend Dr. Edward Gurston ("Doc") have been camping, hunting, and fishing. As they plan to leave because of an impending snowstorm, they see a car go off the road. John, whose arm has been fractured, and Red, emerge from the wreck. While Doc tends to John's arm, it is revealed that a bank has been robbed of $350,000 and a guard has been killed. Red pulls out a gun. The thieves are going to steal Doc's car, but wanting no witnesses, Red shoots Doc with a rifle that he places in Vanning's hand and then shoots Vanning with a pistol to make the scene look like a murder-suicide. The shot misses Vanning, but Red believes he's dead because a ricocheted piece of rock had struck Vanning and drawn blood.  When Vanning comes to, he finds the men and the car gone, but discovers that they had taken Doc's medical bag instead of the one with the money. The killers soon realize their mistake and return. Vanning flees with the money through the snow to a deserted shack.

In the present, Vanning manages to escape from John and Red.  He goes to Marie's apartment and angrily confronts her, believing she set him up. She convinces him that she was an innocent bystander and he convinces her that he is not guilty of Doc's murder as news accounts have suggested. When they spot John and Red coming out of a car on the street, they go out the building's back door to Vanning's apartment.  There he tells her more of his story. He wants to retrieve the money from Wyoming to prove his innocence and has been waiting for the roads to clear there, but he will have to search for it because he really cannot remember where he let it go.

Marie agrees to go to Wyoming with Vanning after she has finished a modeling job at a fashion show. Vanning goes to the city bus station to buy tickets to the town of Moose.  Fraser follows him and buys a seat on the same bus. Marie displays several outfits at the fashion show but spies John and Red in the audience. When Vanning arrives, she breaks away to tell him and the two run off.

When they reach Moose, Fraser reveals himself and his job to Vanning and that he believes in Vanning's innocence. In a rented car, Fraser, Vanning, and Marie drive to the campsite and head toward the shack that Vanning has recalled. They realize that John and Red have gotten there first and have found the bag with the money.  Following a standoff, Red, intent on keeping all the money for himself, shoots John and retreats to a nearby snowplow which he drives toward the shack. Vanning manages to knock Red out of the cab and steer the plow away, but it runs directly into Red.

Cast
 Aldo Ray as James "Jim" Vanning / Art Rayburn / Wilson
 Brian Keith as John
 Anne Bancroft as Marie Gardner
 Jocelyn Brando as Laura Fraser
 James Gregory as Ben Fraser
 Frank Albertson as Dr. Edward Gurston ("Doc")
 Rudy Bond as Red

Production
The film was based on a novel by David Goodis which was published in 1948. In 1950, it was adapted for TV as Sure as Fate.

In July 1955, it was announced film rights had been purchased by Copa Productions, the film company of Ted Richmond and Tyrone Power who released through Columbia. Raphael Hayes was to write the script. Richmond wanted Edmond O'Brien or Barry Sullivan to play the male lead and Barbara Stanwyck to play the female lead with filming to begin in September. William Wright was going to produce. Power did not want to appear in the film.

The lead role eventually went to Aldo Ray, who was under long term contract to Columbia but had been on suspension for refusing the lead in Beyond Mombassa. Filming ended up beginning on March 12, 1956. Jacques Tourneur signed to direct and Anne Bancroft was cast in the female lead.

Filming took place in downtown Los Angeles on Hollywood Boulevard and other locations, including MacArthur Park and the J.W. Robinson department store, where the fashion show scene was filmed.  The Wyoming scenes were filmed in Teton County.

Release
Nightfall was released in early December 1956 in Boston in the United States.

Reception
In a contemporary review Marjory Adams declared Nightfall, "a heart-pounding experience that had all that a suspense-yearning public could hope for," but its plot had enough holes in it to "drive two trucks through". Variety published a review on December 5, 1956, stating that the film had "a generous slice of mystery, action and suspense" but the modest budgeter only delivered fair entertainment. A review in the Monthly Film Bulletin observed that despite the plot being complex and unlikely, the film unfolded "in an atmosphere of deliberate obscurity", amplified by many flashbacks.

Retrospective critic Dennis Schwartz felt that Jacques Tourneur got the most out of a "minor film noir about a paranoid man haunted by his past".

Critic Jay Seaver wrote, "Nightfall isn't worried about purity of genre; it occasionally threatens to become an almost light-hearted caper movie..," which he regarded as falling somewhere between mediocrity and Tourneur's very best.

Film critic Alain Silver argues that despite being made near the end of the cycle, and that even though the film's locations include bright snow-covered landscapes, the dilemma of Nightfall's protagonist is typically noir. Although he is a victim of several mischances, Vanning struggles to "comprehend how violent but basically simple past occurrences have put him in such a dangerous and complicated present."

Legacy
The film was influential in Quentin Tarantino creating the Bruce Willis character in Pulp Fiction.  Tarantino said, Willis "reminded me of a 50s leading man... a Ralph Meeker, Aldo Ray and Brian Keith kind of man. I went to his house  and we did actually watch one print of an Aldo Ray movie, we watched Nightfall [1956]... [Ray and Brian Keith] have fantastic banter. And Brian Keith is excellent."

See also
 List of American films of 1956

References

External links

 Nightfall at TV Guide (a slightly revised version of 1987 write-up originally published in The Motion Picture Guide)
Review of film at Noir of the Week
Nightfall at Letterbox DVD

1956 films
1950s crime thriller films
American crime thriller films
American black-and-white films
Columbia Pictures films
1950s English-language films
Film noir
Films scored by George Duning
Films based on American novels
Films directed by Jacques Tourneur
Films set in Los Angeles
Films set in Wyoming
Films with screenplays by Stirling Silliphant
1950s American films

Nightfall (1956 film)


Euphorbia cotinifolia is a broadleaf red shrub native to Mexico and South America. Treated as a shrub, it reaches  but can be grown as a tree reaching . Small white flowers with creamy bracts bloom at the ends of the branches in summer. The purplish stems, when broken, exude a sap that is a skin irritant.

The scientific name of the plant comes from the words cotinus meaning "smoketree" and folia meaning "leaf".  Common names for the species include smoketree spurge, tropical smoke bush, Caribbean copper plant, and Mexican shrubby spurge.

Toxicity
The species is well known in Central America, where its poisonous sap has been used both as a medicine and a poison.  As a medicine, it has been used in folk remedies as both an emetic and cathartic substance.  Fishermen have been known to add the sap to water in fishing grounds to stun fish and force them to float to the top.  It was also historically used as a poison for arrowheads by the natives of Curaçao.

The sap can cause irritation if it comes into contact with human skin or eyes.  If ingested, the sap can cause severe damage to internal organs.

Gardening
Euphorbia cotinifolia is commonly grown as an ornamental plant in gardens and in pots, due to its colourful and distinctive foliage.  It prefers a site with well-drained soil and full sun.  While relatively hardy, it does not react well to wind, salt, or frost.

References

External links

 Fine Gardening

Flora of Mexico
Flora of Southern America
cotinifolia
Plants described in 1753
Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus

Euphorbia cotinifolia


Blart II: The Boy Who Was Wanted Dead Or Alive - Or Both is the sequel to Dominic Barker's Blart: The Boy Who Didn't Want To Save The World, released in 2007. It was published by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Plot summary
Blart, after the imprisonment of Zoltab, is living the good life on his own pig farm. But a wily merchant named Uther has conned him out of everything he owns and his freedom by a game of cards called "Muggins".

To play Muggins, the dealer simply picks two cards from the deck, hands one to the non-dealer and keeps one himself. Each player turns over their cards. If the cards were the same, say, a king and a king, then the dealer wins. If the cards are different, say, a three and a five, then the non-dealer wins. Even Blart has grasped it that the chances of the non-dealer winning is drastically in his favour and resolves to play the game with Uther to make money.

However, no sooner than Blart bets stakes in the game of Muggins than Uther begins to win every round. But then quite out of the blue, Capablanca arrives to tell him that Blart and the other questors are wanted, dead or alive - or both. They are wanted because it is believed that they are minions of Zoltab, even though it was them that imprisoned him. So Blart, Capablanca and Uther (who must help them as he is wanted for associating with Blart) must find and warn the other questors.

After gathering the original company (with the exception of the deceased dwarf Tungsten) they must travel to where Capablanca has imprisoned Zoltab, so as to prove their innocence. However, Capablanca has difficulty remembering where he has imprisoned the last lord.

2007 British novels
British children's novels
British fantasy novels
Bloomsbury Publishing books
Novels by Dominic Barker
2007 children's books
Children's fantasy novels

Blart II: The Boy Who Was Wanted Dead or Alive – or Both


José Aboulker (5 March 1920 – 17 November 2009) was a French Algerian Jew and the leader of the anti-Nazi resistance in French Algeria in World War II. He received the U.S. Medal of Freedom, the Croix de Guerre, and was made a Companion of the Liberation and a Commander of the Légion d'honneur. After the war, he became a neurosurgeon and a political figure in France, who advocated for the political rights of Algerian Muslims.

Early life
Aboulker was born in Algiers into a Jewish family. His mother, Berthe Bénichou-Aboulker, was a celebrated poet and playwright. His father, Henri Aboulker, was a surgeon and professor in the Faculty of Medicine in Algiers. The Bénichou family was one of the great Jewish families of Oran, where they owned a famous villa, equipped with its own synagogue. The Aboulker family of Algiers originated in Spain and, over the centuries, has included numerous scholars, rabbis, merchants, and physicians. A medical student at the outbreak of World War II, Aboulker was mobilized in April 1940 as an officer cadet. He was demobilized in February 1941.

Algerian Resistance
In September 1940, Aboulker founded a resistance network in Algiers, in partnership with his cousin Roger Carcassonne who had done the same at Oran, and Aboulker subsequently became the main leader of the resistance movement in pro-Nazi Vichy Algeria.

The two cousins met Henri d'Astier de la Vigerie, with whom they prepared to support the expected Allied landings in North Africa, in collaboration with Colonel Germain Jousse and the U.S. Consul Robert Murphy, President Roosevelt's representative in Algiers.  The headquarters for the preparation were at his father's house at 26 Rue Michelet.

On 23 October 1942, Aboulker was among the resistance leaders who met with General Mark Clark in Vichy Morocco.  The Americans agreed to supply weapons and radios, which were landed on 5 November.  On the night of the Allied landings in North Africa, 7 November 1942, Aboulker led the occupation of the main strategic points in Algiers by 400 members of the Resistance, seizing the central police station, with his deputy Bernard Karsenty and the help of Guy Calvet and Superintendent Achiary. "The underground numbered eight hundred fighters, half of them Jewish. But at the moment of truth, 400 of them had cold feet, and just 400 were left - almost all of them Jewish.

Led by their group leaders, all of the Resistance fighters, with the exception of the reserve officers, neutralized the command centers, occupied strategic positions, and stopped the military officials and civilian supporters of the Vichy government, starting with General General Alphonse Juin, the Commander-in-chief, and Admiral Admiral François Darlan.

In the morning, when the XIXth Army Corps of the Vichy Government tried to mobilize to oppose the Allied landings, it had to concentrate its efforts on the Resistance fighters rather than Allied forces. With the landings around Algiers having been completed, Aboulker—anxious not to spill French blood—asked the group leaders to evacuate their positions. Using Resistance fighters from the evacuated positions, he organized with the group leader Captain Pillafort barricades to hinder the mobilization of the Vichy military. As a result, the forces of the Vichy government did not attack by that evening the central police station, the last place with insurgents. The confusion created by the so-called "putsch" of 8 November 1942 helped the Allies land almost without opposition and then encircle Algiers. Admiral Darlan surrendered Algiers that afternoon, and Allied troops entered the city at 8 pm.

On 24 December 1942, Darlan, who had named himself High Commissioner and maintained Vichy policies with the support of General General Henri Giraud, was killed by a 20-year-old monarchist, Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelle, who was executed on 26 December. Giraud succeeded Darlan and ordered the arrest of Aboulker and 26 other Resistance leaders for complicity in Darlan's assassination, and they were immediately deported to prison camps in southern Algeria.

Metropolitan Resistance
Freed following the Casablanca Conference in 1943, Aboulker travelled to London in May 1943 and joined the Free French.

In October of that year, he was sent secretly into occupied France, as someone "responsible for the organization of the health service of the Resistance movement", preparing for the Liberation. There, he led operations parachuting surgical equipment into France.

Back in London in June 1944, he returned to Algiers, where he had his medical school viva.

In August 1944, he left for a new mission in the south of France, to install prefects at Toulouse, Limoges, and Clermont-Ferrand.

Peacetime
Aboulker was the representative of the Resistance in Vichy Algeria at the French Committee of National Liberation in Paris from 1944 to 1945. He proposed changing the electoral law in French Algeria to allow the election of native Muslim deputies, who had never previously been admitted. The proposal was adopted.

After the war, Aboulker joined the French Communist Party, and in 1946 he resumed his medical studies. He passed the internal examinations at the American Hospital of Paris and finally became a professor of neurosurgery.

He committed himself to Algeria's independence and opposed the return of General de Gaulle as head of the French government in 1958. Taking into account de Gaulle's role in dismantling the French empire, including Algeria, Aboulker voted in 1965 for his reelection as President of the Republic. He belonged to the emergency medical service set up for the president of the Republic following the assassination attempt made at Le Petit-Clamart. In June 1999, Aboulker became a member of the Liberation Council.

He died on 17 November 2009.

Decorations
 Commander of the Légion d'honneur
 Companion of the Liberation
 Croix de guerre 1939-1945 (3 citations)
 U.S. Medal of Freedom

References

Bibliography
 Professeur Yves Maxime Danan,La vie politique à Alger, de 1940 à 1944, L.G.D.J., Paris 1943.
 Professeur José Aboulker et Christine Levisse-Touzé, 8 novembre 1942 : Les armées américaine et anglaise prennent Alger en quinze heures, Paris, Espoir, n° 133, 2002.

External links
 José Aboulker (1920-2009) Berhouma, Moncef. Journal of Neurology 258.11 (Nov 2011): 2105-6

1920 births
2009 deaths
People from Algiers
People of French Algeria
Pieds-Noirs
Algerian Jews
French Communist Party members
Members of the Provisional Consultative Assembly
French general councillors
French neurosurgeons
French Army officers
French Army personnel of World War II
Communist members of the French Resistance
Jews in the French resistance
Free French military personnel of World War II
Emigrants from French Algeria to France
Companions of the Liberation
Commanders of the Legion of Honour
Recipients of the Croix de Guerre 1939–1945 (France)

José Aboulker


Padma Bhushan is the third highest civilian award awarded by Government of India after Bharat Ratna and Padma Vibhushan but before Padma Shri. This award was also awarded in the Republic Day of India.

Padma Bhushan award was started to be awarded to the citizens of India from 1954. As of 2015, 1230 peoples were awarded with Padma Bhushan. Some citizens refused to get the award.S.Janaki, a renowned singer of the Southern parts of India refused to get the award in 2013 as the honour came to her too late and she also stated that South Indian artists are not recognised.

Reference

Indian awards

Padma Bhushan


A superacid is an acid with an acidity greater than that of 100% pure sulfuric acid. According to the modern definition, a superacid has a chemical potential of the proton higher than that of pure sulfuric acid.

Chemists use strong acids to break down other molecules. Some molecules are so strong (held together with strong chemical bonds) that they resist attack by common acids. Superacids can break down molecules that stand up to most other acids.

Commercially available superacids include trifluoromethanesulfonic acid (CF3SO3H), also known as triflic acid, and fluorosulfonic acid (FSO3H). Both superacids are about a thousand times stronger (that is, have more negative H0 values) than sulfuric acid. The strongest superacids are prepared by the combination of two components, a strong Lewis acid and a strong Brønsted acid. The strongest known superacid is fluoroantimonic acid.

Related pages
Superbase

References

Acids

Superacid