Jürgen Erich Schrempp (born September 15, 1944, in Freiburg) was the CEO of Daimler-Benz from May 1995 to December 31, 2005, which became DaimlerChrysler, a German-American car and truck manufacturer. Following a decision of the board taken on July 28, 2005, he was succeeded on January 1, 2006, by Chrysler frontman Dieter Zetsche. Schrempp was the architect of the merger joint venture between Daimler Benz and Chrysler, which ultimately ended in failure when Chrysler was sold in 2007.

Career
During his tenure, Daimler-Benz made the 80% acquisition of the Chrysler Corporation to become DaimlerChrysler. Schrempp called the merger a "match made in heaven". In addition to the acquisition of Chrysler, Schrempp pursued the acquisition of Mitsubishi Motors as part of his 'Three Pillars' strategy to expand the reach of Daimler-Benz into the major markets of the United States and Asia.

In 2004, the Mitsubishi investment became a liability with the Japanese manufacturer swamped under a mountain of debt and following a refusal by other members of the Japanese Mitsubishi keiretsu to assist Daimler in funding its operation. The German company eventually walked away with substantial losses. On 14 May 2007, Daimler sold 80% of Chrysler to the private equity firm Cerberus.

Before becoming the CEO of Daimler-Benz in 1995, Schrempp headed the aerospace division of Daimler-Benz, then called DASA, which is EADS today. DASA acquired the Dutch aircraft manufacturer Fokker that was already in difficulty in 1993 after it signed a contract stating the intention to take Fokker over on October 30, 1992. Schrempp called Fokker his "love baby". On January 22, 1996, after having subsidized the losses of Fokker with billions of Deutsche Marks, Daimler-Benz decided to stop putting more money into Fokker, and the firm subsequently went bankrupt.

Schrempp is a Director of South African Coal, Oil and Gas Corporation Ltd., and Compagnie Financière Richemont S.A., Switzerland. Additional engagements include the Chairmanship of United Global Academy - UGA, the advisory board of Deutsche Bank, the European Advisory Board of Harvard Business School, and the German Council of INSEAD. He is also on the board of Transnet.

He was previously a non-executive director of Vodafone Group plc, after their 2000 take over of Mannesman Group. He is a former member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group.

Recognition
Schrempp is the recipient of:
 Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
 Bavarian Order of Merit
 Medal of Merit of the Federal State of Baden-Württemberg
 Commander of the National Order of Merit of the French Republic
 Commander of the French Legion of Honour
 The Vatican City's Cross of the St. Gregorius Order
 Austrian Grand Decoration of Honor in Gold with Star for Services
 Brazilian Southern Cross.
 Woodrow Wilson Award for Corporate Citizenship
 Commander of the Order of Good Hope

Personal life

Schrempp lives primarily in Munich, Germany and Kitzbuehel Austria where his wife, Lydia Schrempp, owns an Italian restaurant. He has been married to Lydia since 2000, with whom he has a daughter, Loana Theresa, (born in 2001) and a son, Luca-Timon, (born in 2005). Schrempp has two sons, Alexander and Marc, from his previous marriage to Renate Lutz, which was ended by Lutz due to Schremp's adulterous affair with Lydia, who was his secretary at the time.

References

External links
 Dutch Wikipedia :nl:Fokker 30 July 2005
 Daimler's nose dive: After reporting Germany's worst loss ever, the company dumps Dutch planemaker Fokker as diversification fails article in TIME International February 5, 1996 Volume 147, No. 6

Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Recipients of the Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg
Members of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group
Chrysler executives
Mercedes-Benz Group executives
DaimlerChrysler
Harvard Business School people
1944 births
Living people
Businesspeople from Freiburg im Breisgau
Automotive businesspeople
Chrysler people
Daimler people

Jürgen E. Schrempp


Elias Mitri Freij (; 1918 – 29 March 1998), was a Palestinian Christian politician. He was the mayor of Bethlehem from 1972 to 1997.

Freij was born in 1918 in Bethlehem to a family which could trace its residence in Bethlehem back 500 years. He graduated from the British-run Bishop Gobat school in Jerusalem in 1940. In the early 1950s, he headed the local branch of the Holy Land Mission, an American Presbyterian-backed charity. As the owner of a string of shops selling olivewood and mother-of-pearl souvenirs, he was appointed to Bethlehem town council under Jordanian rule in 1960. He remained on the council when Israel occupied the West Bank in the 1967 war, which had been previously occupied by Jordan in the aftermath of 1948 Arab–Israeli War.

He was named and has been set up as a mayor in May 1972 by actual elected and winner Ibrahim Salim Abu-Hmud with 1181 votes, in the second place Ayyoub Musallam with 1007 votes and Elias Freij in third place with 998 votes, in 1976 he was elected. Israel then banned all further municipal elections and Freij remained in office until he stepped down on health grounds in May 1997. He was the only elected Palestinian mayor not deposed by the Israeli military authorities for pro-Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leanings. He was also the only non-PLO mayor to remain in office after the Palestinian National Authority was established. Despite his independence from the PLO, he was part of the PLO delegation to the Madrid Conference of 1991 and was a close confidant of Yassir Arafat.

During his long period in office he made use of his international contacts to gain financial support for infrastructure projects, including construction of schools, administration buildings and water supply projects. In his time, Bethlehem became a twin city with Athens in Greece, Córdoba in Spain and Assisi in Italy.

Freij was an influential local figure, becoming Chairman of Bethlehem University's Board of Trustees and President of the Chamber of Commerce.

He travelled abroad frequently, and was a member of the Palestinian negotiation team to the Madrid Conference of 1991 and was appointed in 1995 as a Minister of Tourism and Antiquities in the Palestinian National Authority, a post he held until 1997. He died on 29 March 1998 in Amman, Jordan.

References

1918 births
1998 deaths
Mayors of Bethlehem
Palestinian Christians

Elias Freij


The EServer was an open access electronic publishing cooperative, founded in 1990, which published writings in the arts and humanities free of charge to Internet readers. In 2006, it was rated by Alexa as the most popular arts and humanities website in the world.

Martha L. Brogan and Daphnée Rentfrow wrote in 2005 that it had "more than 200 active members, including editors of an eclectic mix of 45 discrete 'collections' (Web sites), which 'publish' more than 32,000 works." Duke University Library rated the EServer among the "best overall directories for literary information on the Web."

Scope of collection
The EServer published written works in the arts and humanities, largely (but not exclusively) those from the Western cultural tradition. In addition to literature such as poetry, novels, drama and short stories, the EServer published seven scholarly journals. Most releases were in English, but there were also significant numbers in many other languages. Whenever possible, EServer publications were released in open standards, such as XHTML.

History

The EServer was founded in 1990, when a group of graduate students set up their office computer in "Trailer H" on the Carnegie Mellon University campus network to permit them to collaborate with one another. In 1991, with the addition of more disk space, it became an Internet network server designed to provide public access (via FTP, telnet and Gopher to literary research, criticism, novels, and writings from various humanities disciplines.

The site, originally called the English Server, was dedicated to publishing works in the arts and humanities free of charge to Internet readers. It was developed to assist leisure reading in particular, following a study by Geoffrey Sauer (the site's director) into the rapid and significant increase of books in the United States post-1979 and a consequent decrease in leisure readings among young Americans. By 1992 it was an extremely popular Gopher and FTP site, and by 1993 had a significant World Wide Web presence.

Its original Internet domain name was "english-server.hss.cmu.edu", which later became "english-www.hss.cmu.edu", then "english.hss.cmu.edu", then "eng.hss.cmu.edu". In the years since, the name was shortened to "eserver.org", and it was usually referred to as "EServer." The site is no longer published and available.

Ideals
Contemporary publishing tend to place highest value on works that sell to broad markets. Quick turnover, high-visibility marketing campaigns for bestsellers, and corporate "superstore" bookstores have all made it less common for unique and older texts to be published. Geoffrey Sauer has argued that the costs this marketing adds to all books discourage people from leisure reading as a common practice. Publishers, he argues, then tend to encourage authors to write books with strong appeal to the current, undermining (if unknowingly) writings with longer-term implications.

Criticism
The EServer was described in 2005 as linking to works of varied origin and quality. It was described in July 2006 as having some broken links and some out-of-date collections.

Copyright issues
Copyright for the texts and collections published on the EServer were held by their authors, with rare exception for works commissioned by the EServer itself. Some of the texts were published under Creative Commons licenses, though many were distributed under an older model, which preserves the copyright in the author but permits reading and linking but not redistribution, except under specific limited conditions.

See also
 Creative Commons
 Digital library
 e-texts
 Google Book Search
 Open access (publishing)
 Open Content Alliance
 Project Gutenberg

Notes

External links
Schultz, Ethan. "Professor's literature site most popular of its kind in world". Iowa State Daily. November 28, 2005.

Electronic literature
Accessible information
American book websites
Discipline-oriented digital libraries
Open access publishers
Academic journal online publishing platforms
Publishing cooperatives
Cooperatives in the United States

EServer.org


Michael Jeffrey Jordan (born February 17, 1963) is a former American basketball player. He is widely considered the greatest basketball player of all time. He won six championships and was the Finals MVP 6 times. He played for the Chicago Bulls and the Washington Wizards. Jordan led the Bulls to a then-record 7320 wins in the 1995–96 NBA season. Jordan earned the nicknames "Air Jordan" and "His Airness" due to his leaping ability, which was illustrated by performing slam dunks from the free throw line in slam dunk contests. Jordan won two Olympic gold medals with Team USA, famously playing on the 1992 Dream Team. During the early part of his college career, he went by Mike Jordan, and he still uses Mike as a nickname to this year.

Family and early years
Michael Jeffrey Jordan was born on February 17, 1963 in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, New York, he is the son of Deloris (née Peoples), who worked in banking, and James R. Jordan, Sr., an equipment supervisor. His family moved to Wilmington, North Carolina when he was a toddler.[7]Jordan developed a competitive edge at an early age. He wanted to win every game he played.

Jordan is the fourth of five children. He has two older brothers, Larry Jordan and James R. Jordan, Jr., one older sister, Deloris, and a younger sister, Roslyn. Jordan's brother James retired in 2006 as the Command Sergeant Major of the 35th Signal Brigade of the XVIII Airborne Corps in the U.S. Army.

Early career
As a sophomore at Laney High School in Wilmington, North Carolina, Jordan did not make his school's varsity (main) basketball team. This inspired him to work harder, and he made the team the next year. In 1981, he went to the University of North Carolina to play. He averaged 13.5 points per game his freshman year, and 20 points per game his sophomore year. Under coach Dean Smith's system, no player was allowed to average more than 20 ppg.  North Carolina won the national championship in 1982, Jordan's freshman year. Jordan made the winning shot with 18 seconds left in the championship game. After Jordan's junior year in college, he said that he would be leaving college to play in the NBA. The Chicago Bulls chose him with the third pick in the 1984 NBA draft.  He never served as a team captain in college.

NBA career
In 1993, after winning three NBA championships in a row, Jordan said that he would retire and switch to a career in minor league baseball. He played for the Birmingham Barons, a minor league team in the Chicago White Sox's system, but hit only one home run during his whole baseball career. In 1995, Jordan announced that he would return to the NBA with a two word announcement: "I'm back". He was back in time to play for the Bulls in the 1995 playoffs, but the Bulls lost in the playoffs before reaching the NBA Finals. However, the next three seasons after that, the Bulls won the championship. This included the 1995-1996 season, when the Bulls won 72 games in the regular season and only lost 10. In 1996, he starred in the live-action/animated comedy movie Space Jam as himself. Jordan retired for a second time in 1998, but was still not done playing. He would buy part of the Washington Wizards basketball team, and played for the Wizards from 2001 to 2003, and ended his playing career after that.

Game-winning shots
During his NBA career, Jordan had at least 29 game-winning shots on field goals or free throws when deciding a game in the last 30 seconds of the game.  In addition to well-documented instances, he made a pair of free throws in a road game at New Jersey, on March 16, 1996.  While making the free throws, WGN play-by-play announcer Wayne Larivee remarked, "Michael Jordan, ice water in his veins".

Player Profile
Michael Jordan played mostly shooting guard.  Other than a brief spell in April 1989 during which he played point guard, Jordan almost always played shooting guard during his time with the Chicago Bulls.  He was widely heralded as the most skilled and accomplished basketball player of all time.

After retiring
Jordan is now the majority owner of the Charlotte Hornets. He was chosen to enter the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009.

References

Notes

Other websites

Michael Jordan's NBA profile

1963 births
Living people
African-American baseball players
African-American basketball players
American Olympic gold medalists
Chicago Bulls players
Sportspeople from Chicago
Sportspeople from New York City
Sportspeople from North Carolina
Washington Wizards players
Tune Squad players
National Basketball Association players with retired numbers
American basketball players
Space Jam characters
Sports movie characters
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees

Michael Jordan


Frog and Wombat is a 1998 independent children's film written and directed by Laurie Agard, about two 12-year-old girls named Jane and Allison who investigate a murder in their hometown, which they believe was committed by the middle school principal. Their investigations become more and more involved, to the point where they sneak into the principal's car and hide in it to reach his house. As they get closer to discovering the truth, he kidnaps Allison. But before he can take her to a mental hospital while outrunning Jane in a golf cart, she bashes his car and causes it to collide with a tree by coming to her rescue. The principal is arrested, taken to the police station by the police officers, and imprisoned in a county jail for kidnapping Allison.

The title derives from the nicknames the girls use over a walkie-talkie, as they refer to themselves and each other as "Frog" and "Wombat".

External links

1998 films
1990s mystery films
American independent films
American mystery films
1990s American films

Frog and Wombat


Alango School is a former school building in Alango Township, Minnesota, United States.  It was built in 1927 in a sparsely populated area of northern Minnesota that was still in the early stages of being homesteaded and settled by Euro-Americans.  Owing to its remoteness, the school was provided with living quarters for the principal and faculty.  Alango School was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 for its local significance in the theme of education.  It was nominated for being a large and well-preserved example of northern Minnesota's rural schools.

History
Alango Township's earlier two-room school burned down in 1926, forcing high school classes to move into a local private home until this facility was completed the following year.  At the time the area still lacked good roads and public utilities, so the school was designed with its own state-of-the-art electric generating plant, wood-fired furnace, and indoor plumbing.  The second floor served as a "teacherage", with school-year living quarters for up to six faculty members and a shared cooking and dining area.  A one-room schoolhouse was moved nearby from Bear River, Minnesota, to house the principal and his family.

A gymnasium/auditorium with additional classroom space and locker rooms was built onto the north side of the school from 1937 to 1938 with federal funding from the Public Works Administration and Works Progress Administration.  At the same time the principal's house—which had been a half mile away—was moved onto the rear of the school property and renovated.

Alango School had to close for "Mud Week" in the 1930s and 1940s when the spring thaw made area roads impassable.  The building graduated its final high school class in 1963.  Alango School continued to host elementary grades and early childhood education until closing for good on February 9, 1988.

The non-profit Alango School Project formed in 2004 to preserve and interpret the building.

See also
 National Register of Historic Places listings in St. Louis County, Minnesota

References

External links
 Alango School Project restoration group

1927 establishments in Minnesota
Defunct schools in Minnesota
Former school buildings in the United States
National Register of Historic Places in St. Louis County, Minnesota
New Deal in Minnesota
School buildings completed in 1927
School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Minnesota
Schools in St. Louis County, Minnesota

Alango School


Dominique-Marie Gauchet (14 August 1853 in Vains – 4 February 1931 in Vains) was a French admiral during World War I.

Life
After a career of almost 40 years in the French Navy, Gauchet was appointed commander of the French Dardanelles squadron at the time of the Gallipoli Campaign. In March 1916 he led the first squadron. In December 1916, he replaced Louis Dartige du Fournet as Allied commander in the Mediterranean Sea and continued in that role until the end of the war.

He organized the convoy system against submarine attacks and the blockade of the Austro-Hungarian fleet in the Adriatic from Corfu. In June 1917 he led the occupation of the Corinth Canal and in March 1918 the blockade of the Soviet Black Sea fleet by patrolling the Aegean Sea.

He retired in August 1919 and died in February 1931. He is buried in Les Invalides in Paris.

References
 Biography on l'École Navale
 Biography on First World War

French Navy admirals
French military personnel of World War I
1853 births
1931 deaths
Admirals of World War I

Dominique-Marie Gauchet


USS Hammerhead (SSN-663), a , was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named for the hammerhead shark, a voracious fish found in warm seas, with a curious hammerlike head.

Construction and commissioning
The contract to build Hammerhead was awarded to Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company at Newport News, Virginia, on 28 May 1964 and her keel was laid down there on 29 November 1965.  She was launched on 14 April 1967, sponsored by Mrs. O. Clark Fisher, and commissioned on 28 June 1968.

Service history

In 1981, she won the Marjorie Sterrett Battleship Fund Award for the Atlantic Fleet.

Tom Clancy, author of the 1984 novel The Hunt for Red October, was given a brief ride into port aboard Hammerhead in the late 1980s prior to the filming of the 1990 film adaptation of the novel, also entitled The Hunt for Red October. After spotting a mounted roll of toilet paper in Hammerheads sonar room used for wiping grease pencil markings off the screens in the rooms, he proclaimed his intention to write the contrasting image of the low-technology toilet paper mount among all of the complicated electronics and other equipment aboard Hammerhead into the film. True to his word, he did.

Decommissioning and disposal
Hammerhead, under the command of Commander Forrest Novacek, was decommissioned on 5 April 1995 and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on the same day. Her scrapping via the Nuclear-Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, was completed on 22 November 1995.

References

NavSource Online: Submarine Photo Archive Hammerhead (SSN-663)

Sturgeon-class submarines
Cold War submarines of the United States
Nuclear submarines of the United States Navy
1967 ships
Ships built in Newport News, Virginia

USS Hammerhead (SSN-663)


The Battle of Dun Nechtain or Battle of Nechtansmere (Old Welsh: Gueith Linn Garan) was fought between the Picts, led by King Bridei Mac Bili, and the Northumbrians, led by King Ecgfrith, on 20 May 685.

The Northumbrian hegemony over northern Britain, won by Ecgfrith's predecessors, had begun to disintegrate. Several of Northumbria's subject nations had rebelled in recent years, leading to a number of large-scale battles against the Picts, Mercians and Irish, with varied success. After sieges of neighbouring territories carried out by the Picts, Ecgfrith led his forces against them, despite advice to the contrary, in an effort to reassert his suzerainty over the Pictish nations.

A feigned retreat by the Picts drew the Northumbrians into an ambush at Dun Nechtain near the lake of Linn Garan. The battle site has long been thought to have been near the present-day village of Dunnichen in Angus. Recent research, however, has suggested a more northerly location near Dunachton, on the shores of Loch Insh in Badenoch and Strathspey.

The battle ended with a decisive Pictish victory which severely weakened Northumbria's power in northern Britain. Ecgfrith was killed in battle, along with the greater part of his army. The Pictish victory marked their independence from Northumbria, who never regained their dominance in the north.

Background
During the seventh century AD, the Northumbrians gradually extended their territory to the north. The Annals of Tigernach record a siege of "Etain" in 638, which has been interpreted as Northumbria's conquest of Eidyn (Edinburgh) during the reign of Oswald, marking the annexation of Gododdin territories to the south of the River Forth.

To the north of the Forth, the Pictish nations consisted at this time of the Kingdom of Fortriu to the north of the Mounth, and a "Southern Pictish Zone" between there and the Forth. Evidence from the eighth century Anglo-Saxon historian Bede points to the Picts also being subjugated by the Northumbrians during Oswald's reign, and suggests that this subjugation continued into the reign of his successor, Oswiu.

Ecgfrith succeeded Oswiu as king of Northumbria in 670. Soon after, the Picts rose in rebellion against Northumbrian subjugation at the Battle of Two Rivers, recorded in the 8th century by Stephen of Ripon, hagiographer of Wilfrid. Ecgfrith was aided by a sub-king, Beornhæth, who may have been a leader of the Southern Picts, and the rebellion ended in disaster for the Northern Picts of Fortriu. Their king, Drest mac Donuel, was deposed and was replaced by Bridei mac Bili.

By 679, the Northumbrian hegemony seems to have started to fall apart. The Irish annals record a Mercian victory over Ecgfrith at which Ecgfrith's brother, Ælfwine of Deira, was killed. Sieges were recorded at Dunnottar, in the northernmost region of the "Southern Pictish Zone" near Stonehaven in 680, and at Dundurn in Strathearn in 682. The antagonists in these sieges are not recorded, but the most reasonable interpretation is thought to be that Bridei's forces were the assailants.

Bridei is also recorded as having "destroyed" the Orkney Islands in 681, at a time when the Northumbrian church was undergoing major religious reform. It had followed the traditions of the Columban church of Iona until the Synod of Whitby in 664 at which it pledged loyalty to the Roman Church. The Northumbrian diocese was divided and a number of new episcopal sees created. One of these was founded at Abercorn on the south coast of the Firth of Forth, and Trumwine was consecrated as Bishop of the Picts. Bridei, who was enthusiastically involved with the church of Iona, is unlikely to have viewed an encroachment of the Northumbrian-sponsored Roman Church favourably.

The attacks on the Southern Pictish Zone at Dunnottar and Dundurn represented a major threat to Ecgfrith's suzerainty. Ecgfrith was contending with other challenges to his overlordship. In June 684, countering a Gaelic-Briton alliance, he sent his armies, led by Berhtred, son of Beornhæth, to Brega in Ireland. Ecgfrith's force decimated the local population and destroyed many churches, actions which are treated with scorn by Bede.

Account of the battle
While none of the historical sources explicitly state Ecgfrith's reason for attacking Fortriu in 685, the consensus is that it was to reassert Northumbria's control over the Picts. The most thorough description of the battle is given by Bede in his 8th-century work Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People), but this is still brief. Additional detail is given in the Irish annals of Ulster and Tigernach, and by the early Welsh historian Nennius in his Historia Brittonum (written around a century later).

Ecgfrith's attack on Fortriu was made against the counsel of his advisors, including Cuthbert, who had recently been made Bishop of Lindisfarne. The Picts, led by Bridei, feigned retreat and drew Ecgfrith's Northumbrian force into an ambush on Saturday, 20 May 685 at a lake in mountains near Duin Nechtain. The Northumbrian army was defeated and Ecgfrith slain.

Location

The site of the battle is uncertain. Until relatively recently the battle was most commonly known by its Northumbrian name, the Battle of Nechtansmere, from the Old English for 'Nechtan's lake', following 12th-century English historian Symeon of Durham. The location of the battle near a lake is reinforced by Nennius' record of the conflict as Gueith Linn Garan, Old Welsh for 'Battle of Crane Lake'. It is likely that Linn Garan was the original Pictish name for the lake.

The most complete narrative of the battle itself is given by Bede, who nevertheless fails to inform us of the location other than his mention that it took place 'in straits of inaccessible mountains'.

The Irish Annals have provided perhaps the most useful resource for identifying the battle site, giving the location as Dún Nechtain, 'Nechtan's Fort', a name that has survived into modern usage in two separate instances.

Dunnichen

Dunnichen in Angus was first identified as a possible location for the battle by antiquarian George Chalmers in the early 19th century. Chalmers notes that the name 'Dunnichen' can be found in early charters of Arbroath Abbey as 'Dun Nechtan'. He further suggests a site, 'Dunnichen Moss' (), to the east of the village, which he informs us had recently been drained but can be seen in old maps as a small lake. Earlier local tradition, related by Headrick in the Second Statistical Account, claimed that the site was the location of the Battle of Camlann, where King Arthur fought Mordred.

More recent suggestions for the battle site include the valley to the north of Dunnichen Hill, centering on Rescobie Loch () and Restenneth Loch (), which is now much reduced following drainage in the 18th century.

The battle scene inscribed on the Aberlemno kirk yard stone is often cited as evidence for the battle site. This interpretation was made based on the stone's proximity to Dunnichen, only  to the north, but while the short distance seems compelling, the stone is unlikely to be any earlier than mid-8th century, and the ornamentation of the stone, including the animal forms used and the style of weaponry depicted, suggests it may be as late as the mid-9th century. Prior to being linked with the Battle of Nechtansmere, the Aberlemno stone had been cited as evidence for the Battle of Barry (now known to be historically inauthentic), and there are a number of other possible interpretations for the carving.

Dunachton

In a paper published in 2006, historian Alex Woolf gives a number of reasons for doubting Dunnichen as the battle site, most notably the absence of "inaccessible mountains" in mid-Angus. He makes a case for an alternative site at Dunachton in Badenoch (), on the north-western shore of Loch Insh, which shares Dunnichen's toponymical origin of Dún Nechtain. James Fraser of Edinburgh University suggests that, while it is too early to discount Dunnichen as a potential battle site, locating it there requires an amount of "special pleading" that Dunachton does not need.

Aftermath
Ecgfrith's defeat at Dun Nechtain devastated Northumbria's power and influence in the North of Britain. Bede recounts that the Picts recovered their lands that had been held by the Northumbrians and Dál Riatan Scots. He goes on to tell how the Northumbrians who did not flee the Pictish territory were killed or enslaved.

The Northumbrian/Roman diocese of the Picts was abandoned, with Trumwine and his monks fleeing to Whitby, stalling Roman Catholic expansion in Scotland.

While further battles between the Northumbrians and Picts are recorded, for example in 697 when Beornhæth's son Berhtred was killed, the Battle of Dunnichen marks the point in which Pictish independence from Northumbria was permanently secured.

Notes

References

External links
 Dunnichen Moss as it is now
 The monument at Dunnichen
 Loch Insh. Dunachton is to the left of the picture
 Mountains to south of Loch Insh

680s conflicts
685
7th century in Scotland
Battles involving Northumbria
Battles involving the Picts
History of Angus, Scotland

Battle of Dun Nechtain


General elections were held in Antigua and Barbuda on 17 April 1984, the first after the country had become an independent Commonwealth realm in 1981.

The result was a victory for the governing Antigua Labour Party (ALP), whose leader Vere Bird was reelected as Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda. In contrast, the opposition vote was split between George Walter's new political vehicle, the United People's Movement, and the Progressive Labour Movement, Walter's former party from his pre-independence term as Premier. The only non-ALP seat was won by a pro-ALP independent from Barbuda. Voter turnout was 61.1%.

Results

References

Antigua
Elections in Antigua and Barbuda
General election
April 1984 events in North America

1984 Antiguan general election


In probability theory and statistics, partial correlation measures the degree of association between two random variables, with the effect of a set of controlling random variables removed. When determining the numerical relationship between two variables of interest, using their correlation coefficient will give misleading results if there is another confounding variable that is numerically related to both variables of interest. This misleading information can be avoided by controlling for the confounding variable, which is done by computing the partial correlation coefficient. This is precisely the motivation for including other right-side variables in a multiple regression; but while multiple regression gives unbiased results for the effect size, it does not give a numerical value of a measure of the strength of the relationship between the two variables of interest.

For example, given economic data on the consumption, income, and wealth of various individuals, consider the relationship between consumption and income. Failing to control for wealth when computing a correlation coefficient between consumption and income would give a misleading result, since income might be numerically related to wealth which in turn might be numerically related to consumption; a measured correlation between consumption and income might actually be contaminated by these other correlations. The use of a partial correlation avoids this problem.

Like the correlation coefficient, the partial correlation coefficient takes on a value in the range from –1 to 1. The value –1 conveys a perfect negative correlation controlling for some variables (that is, an exact linear relationship in which higher values of one variable are associated with lower values of the other); the value 1 conveys a perfect positive linear relationship, and the value 0 conveys that there is no linear relationship.

The partial correlation coincides with the conditional correlation if the random variables are jointly distributed as the multivariate normal, other elliptical, multivariate hypergeometric, multivariate negative hypergeometric, multinomial, or Dirichlet distribution, but not in general otherwise.

Formal definition
Formally, the partial correlation between X and Y given a set of n controlling variables Z = {Z1, Z2, ..., Zn}, written ρXY·Z, is the correlation between the residuals eX and eY resulting from the linear regression of X with Z and of Y with Z, respectively. The first-order partial correlation (i.e., when n = 1) is the difference between a correlation and the product of the removable correlations divided by the product of the coefficients of alienation of the removable correlations. The coefficient of alienation, and its relation with joint variance through correlation are available in Guilford (1973, pp. 344–345).

Computation

Using linear regression
A simple way to compute the sample partial correlation for some data is to solve the two associated linear regression problems and calculate the correlation between the residuals. Let X and Y be random variables taking real values, and let Z be the n-dimensional vector-valued random variable. Let xi, yi and zi denote the ith of  i.i.d. observations from some joint probability distribution over real random variables X, Y, and Z, with zi having been augmented with a 1 to allow for a constant term in the regression. Solving the linear regression problem amounts to finding (n+1)-dimensional regression coefficient vectors  and  such that

where  is the number of observations, and  is the scalar product between the vectors  and .

The residuals are then

and the sample partial correlation is then given by the usual formula for sample correlation, but between these new derived values:

In the first expression the three terms after minus signs all equal 0 since each contains the sum of residuals from an ordinary least squares regression.

Example

Consider the following data on three variables, X, Y, and Z:

Computing the Pearson correlation coefficient between variables X and Y results in approximately 0.970, while computing the partial correlation between X and Y, using the formula given above, gives a partial correlation of 0.919. The computations were done using R with the following code.

> X <- c(2,4,15,20)
> Y <- c(1,2,3,4)
> Z <- c(0,0,1,1)
> mm1 <- lm(X~Z)
> res1 <- mm1$residuals
> mm2 <- lm(Y~Z)
> res2 <- mm2$residuals
> cor(res1,res2)
[1] 0.919145
> cor(X,Y)
[1] 0.9695016
> generalCorr::parcorMany(cbind(X,Y,Z))

     nami namj partij   partji rijMrji
[1,] "X"  "Y"  "0.8844" "1"    "-0.1156"
[2,] "X"  "Z"  "0.1581" "1"    "-0.8419"
The lower part of the above code reports generalized nonlinear partial correlation coefficient between X and Y after removing the nonlinear effect of Z to be 0.8844. Also, the generalized partial correlation coefficient between X and Z after removing the nonlinear effect of Y to be 0.1581. See the R package `generalCorr' and its vignettes for details. Simulation and other details are in Vinod (2017) "Generalized correlation and kernel causality with applications in development economics," Communications in Statistics - Simulation and Computation, vol. 46, [4513, 4534], available online: 29 Dec 2015, URL https://doi.org/10.1080/03610918.2015.1122048.

Using recursive formula
It can be computationally expensive to solve the linear regression problems. Actually, the nth-order partial correlation (i.e., with |Z| = n) can be easily computed from three (n - 1)th-order partial correlations. The zeroth-order partial correlation ρXY·Ø is defined to be the regular correlation coefficient ρXY.

It holds, for any  that

Naïvely implementing this computation as a recursive algorithm yields an exponential time complexity. However, this computation has the overlapping subproblems property, such that using dynamic programming or simply caching the results of the recursive calls yields a complexity of .

Note in the case where Z is a single variable, this reduces to:

Using matrix inversion
The partial correlation can also be written in terms of the joint precision matrix. Consider a set of random variables,  of cardinality n. We want the partial correlation between two variables  and  given all others, i.e., . Suppose the (joint/full) covariance matrix  is positive definite and therefore invertible. If the precision matrix is defined as , then

Computing this requires , the inverse of the covariance matrix  which runs in  time (using the sample covariance matrix to obtain a sample partial correlation). Note that only a single matrix inversion is required to give all the partial correlations between pairs of variables in .

To prove Equation (), return to the previous notation (i.e. ) and start with the definition of partial correlation: ρXY·Z is the correlation between the residuals eX and eY resulting from the linear regression of X with Z and of Y with Z, respectively.

First, suppose  are the coefficients for linear regression fit; that is,

Write the joint covariance matrix for the vector  as

whereThen the standard formula for linear regression gives

Hence, the residuals can be written as

Note that  has expectation zero because of the inclusion of an intercept term in . Computing the covariance now gives

Next, write the precision matrix  in a similar block form:

Then, by Schur's formula for block-matrix inversion,

The entries of the right-hand-side matrix are precisely the covariances previously computed in (), giving

Using the formula for the inverse of a 2×2 matrix gives

So indeed, the partial correlation is

as claimed in ().

Interpretation

Geometrical
Let three variables X, Y, Z (where Z is the "control" or "extra variable") be chosen from a joint probability distribution over n variables V. Further, let vi, 1 ≤ i ≤ N, be N n-dimensional i.i.d. observations taken from the joint probability distribution over V. The geometrical interpretation comes from considering the N-dimensional vectors x (formed by the successive values of X over the observations), y (formed by the values of Y), and z (formed by the values of Z).

It can be shown that the residuals eX,i coming from the linear regression of X on Z, if also considered as an N-dimensional vector eX (denoted rX in the accompanying graph), have a zero scalar product with the vector z generated by Z. This means that the residuals vector lies on an (N–1)-dimensional hyperplane Sz that is perpendicular to z.

The same also applies to the residuals eY,i generating a vector eY. The desired partial correlation is then the cosine of the angle φ between the projections eX and eY of x and y, respectively, onto the hyperplane perpendicular to z.

As conditional independence test

With the assumption that all involved variables are multivariate Gaussian, the partial correlation ρXY·Z is zero if and only if X is conditionally independent from Y given Z. This property does not hold in the general case.

To test if a sample partial correlation  implies that the true population partial correlation differs from 0, Fisher's z-transform of the partial correlation can be used:

The null hypothesis is , to be tested against the two-tail alternative .  can be rejected if

where  is the cumulative distribution function of a Gaussian distribution with zero mean and unit standard deviation,  is the significance level of , and  is the sample size. This z-transform is approximate, and the actual distribution of the sample (partial) correlation coefficient is not straightforward. However, an exact t-test based on a combination of the partial regression coefficient, the partial correlation coefficient, and the partial variances is available.

The distribution of the sample partial correlation was described by Fisher.

Semipartial correlation (part correlation)

The semipartial (or part) correlation statistic is similar to the partial correlation statistic; both compare variations of two variables after certain factors are controlled for. However, to calculate the semipartial correlation, one holds the third variable constant for either X or Y but not both; whereas for the partial correlation, one holds the third variable constant for both. The semipartial correlation compares the unique variation of one variable (having removed variation associated with the Z variable(s)) with the unfiltered variation of the other, while the partial correlation compares the unique variation of one variable to the unique variation of the other.

The semipartial correlation can be viewed as more practically relevant "because it is scaled to (i.e., relative to) the total variability in the dependent (response) variable." Conversely, it is less theoretically useful because it is less precise about the role of the unique contribution of the independent variable.

The absolute value of the semipartial correlation of X with Y is always less than or equal to that of the partial correlation of X with Y. The reason is this: Suppose the correlation of X with Z has been removed from X, giving the residual vector ex . In computing the semipartial correlation, Y still contains both unique variance and variance due to its association with Z. But ex , being uncorrelated with Z, can only explain some of the unique part of the variance of Y and not the part related to Z. In contrast, with the partial correlation, only ey (the part of the variance of Y that is unrelated to Z) is to be explained, so there is less variance of the type that ex cannot explain.

Use in time series analysis
In time series analysis, the partial autocorrelation function (sometimes "partial correlation function") of a time series is defined, for lag , as

This function is used to determine the appropriate lag length for an autoregression.

See also
 Linear regression
 Conditional independence
 Multiple correlation

References

External links

 Mathematical formulae in the "Description" section of the IMSL Numerical Library PCORR routine
 A three-variable example

Covariance and correlation
Autocorrelation
Articles with example R code

Partial correlation


East Coast was a government-owned British train operating company. It ran high-speed passenger trains on the East Coast Main Line between London, Yorkshire, the North East and Scotland, being forced to take over after National Express East Coast defaulted on their franchise. It started operations on 14 November 2009. It ended operations on 28 February 2015. They had 45 locomotives and served 53 stations whilst operating 12 of them. The franchise was re-let to Virgin Trains East Coast, ending the period of government ownership, despite contributing a lot of money to the Treasury and calls for the government to retain the franchise.

Profitability
East Coast paid back over £1 billion to the government over the course of its franchise, more than twice as much as rival Virgin Trains did in the same time period on the West Coast Main Line. However, it used relatively old trains and therefore had much lower leasing costs, as in 2012/13 Virgin paid £302 million for its fleet of trains, while East Coast paid £53 million.

East Coast's successor, Virgin Trains East Coast pays much more money back to the government than East Coast did: £3.3 billion over 8 years, compared to East Coast's £1 billion.

References

British train operating companies
2009 establishments in the United Kingdom

East Coast (train company)


Ardozyga diplonesa is a species of moth in the family Gelechiidae. It was described by Edward Meyrick in 1904. It is found in Australia, where it has been recorded from Western Australia.

The wingspan is . The forewings are grey densely mixed with white, the costa broadly suffused with white from near the base to near the apex. The discal stigmata are large, roundish, dark fuscous, the plical little marked or obsolete, somewhat obliquely beyond the first discal. The hindwings are pale grey, becoming darker posteriorly.

References

Ardozyga
Moths described in 1904
Taxa named by Edward Meyrick
Moths of Australia

Ardozyga diplonesa


The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) was founded in 1804 in London, England. It was originally called the Horticultural Society of London, and was renamed in 1861.  The RHS is the UK's leading gardening charity.

The RHS helps to protect plants, gardens and parks. It also helps people learn gardening, and encourages people to grow their own food.

It holds flower shows such as the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, RHS Tatton Park Flower Show and RHS Cardiff Flower Show.

The RHS has several gardens. The four main gardens are: Wisley Garden in Surrey, Rosemoor Garden in Devon, Hyde Hall in Essex, and Harlow Carr in North Yorkshire.

Medals and awards

The society honours certain people with the Victoria Medal of Honour, and the Banksian, Knightian and Lindley medals. It awards Gold, Silver-gilt, Silver, and Bronze medals to exhibitors at its flower shows. The Veitch Memorial Medal is awarded each year for an outstanding contribution to the science and practice of horticulture.

Other awards bestowed by the society include the Associate of Honour and the Honorary Fellowship.

The Award of Garden Merit, or AGM, is for garden plants that have been extensively tested by the society, and are recommended.

Collections
The RHS works to help keep collections of cultivated plants. Some of these collections are kept by the RHS, and others are kept by other people who send documents and dried plant samples to the RHS.

The Lindley Library of the RHS has five branches. The library began as the book collection of John Lindley.

The RHS Herbarium has many dried plant specimens. It also has its own image library with more than 3,300 original watercolours, approximately 30,000 colour slides and many digital images.

Publications

Magazines
The society has published a magazine since 1866. Since 1975 it has had the title The Garden and is currently published monthly. The RHS publishes The Plantsman and The Orchid Review four times a year. Hanburyana is published once a year. It is about horticultural taxonomy.

Plant registers
Since the International Registration Authorities for plants were formed in 1955, the RHS has been the official "Registrar" for some groups of cultivated plants. It is now Registrar for nine categories – conifers, clematis, daffodils, dahlias, delphiniums, dianthus, lilies, orchids and rhododendrons. It publishes The International Orchid Register , the central list of orchid hybrids.

References

 Brent Elliott (2004). The Royal Horticultural Society, A History 1804-2004. Phillimore.

Other websites
 Official website

Gardening
Royal Societies of the United Kingdom
1804 establishments in Europe
1800s establishments in the United Kingdom
19th-century establishments in England
Charities of the United Kingdom

Royal Horticultural Society


The  Tang dynasty in Inner Asia was the expansion of the Tang dynasty's realm in Inner Asia in the 7th and, to a lesser degree, the 8th century AD, in the Tarim Basin (Southern Xinjiang), the Mongolian Plateau, and portions of Central Asia. Wars were fought against the Gokturk Empires and Xueyantuo, but also against many states of Central Asia. This expansion was not steady; for example, the Tang did lose control of the Tarim Basin temporarily to the Tibetan Empire in the 680s, and their expansion north of the Gobi Desert was thwarted in 682. Emperor Taizong's military success was, in part, a consequence of changes he initiated in the Chinese army, including improved weaponry. The emperor placed a new emphasis on cavalry, which was very important because his non-Han opponents used the horse effectively in warfare.

History

Tang expansion
The Tang dynasty was one of the Golden Ages of Chinese history. Coming out of the devastation of the late Sui dynasty, Tang emperors were eager to expand their territories by conquering the Gokturks. As a result, Tang forces mounted several campaigns against the Gokturks in order to subjugate them and  consolidated Tang rule in the process. Controlling the Tarim Basin, which contained key trade routes, was also a secondary objective.

Tang conquest of the Eastern Gokturks

The Eastern Gokturks were the primary threat to the Tang dynasty. Following Liang Shidu's defeat and death, the Tang dynasty prepared to march against the Eastern Gokturks. In 630, the Tang army marched against the Gokturks and defeated them in Southern Mongolia, sending them to flight. However, the real victory came when Li Jing, regarded as one of the best generals in Chinese history, surprised the Eastern Gokturk Khan with a fast force of 3,000 Cavalry at the battle of Ying shan, which also involved a rear guard of over 100,000 Tang troops. This battle destroyed the Gokturk army, resulting in the capture of the Khan and over 120,000 Gokturks. Thus ended the Eastern Gokturk Empire. Emperor Taizong of Tang took up the title of Tian Kehan, or "Heavenly Khan" of the Gokturks.

Tang conquest of Xueyantuo

Xueyantuo had helped Tang armies defeat the Eastern Gokturks, but after the demise of the Eastern Gokturks, Xueyantuo-Tang relations turned hostile because Xueyantuo kept on making attacks on Gokturks who were now Tang subjects.

In 642, Taizong sent an army to attack Xueyantuo and destroyed it.

Tang Conquest of the Western Gokturks

The Western Gokturks were not an initial threat to the Tang, so initially relations were peaceful. However, Civil war and dispute in the Western Gokturks gave the Tang the opportunity to expand into Central Asia. From 642 to 645, the Tang army defeated the Western Gokturks and drove them out of Dzungaria.

In 657, the Tang defeated the last Western Gokturk Khan and took over all Western Gokturk territory.

Second Göktürk Khaganate
In what has been described as "a response to a surge of something like national sentiment", the Eastern Türkish Kaghanate was restored in 682 by Elterish (a.k.a. Qutlugh). In the Orkhon inscriptions, Elterish's son describes the modest beginnings of Elterish's struggle against the Tang thus: My father the kaghan set out with seventeen men, and as the word spread that he had set out and was advancing, those who were in the towns went up into the mountains and those who were in the mountains came down, they gathered, and there were seventy-seven men. Because heaven gave them strength, the army of my father was like wolves and his enemies were like sheep. [...] When they were seven hundred, in accordance with the institutions of my ancestors my father organized those who had been deprived of their state, those who had been deprived of their kaghan, who had become slaves and servants, who had lost their Türk institutions"
The new Kaghanate was centered on the upper Orkhon river and in the Ötükän, presumably the Khangai mountains. After decades of war and border raids with the Tang, peace was made in 721–22.
The second Gokturk Khanate remained a tributary and vassal of the Tang dynasty. It then survived until the 740s, when it fell due to internal conflicts and was succeeded by the Uighur Kaghanate

Battle of Talas River

The Battle of Talas was a military engagement between the Arab Abbasid Caliphate along with their ally the Tibetan Empire against the Tang dynasty, governed at the time by Emperor Xuanzong. In July 751 AD, Tang and Abbasid forces met in the valley of the Talas River to vie for control of the Syr Darya region of central Asia. After a stalemate in several days of combat, the Tang lost the battle because the Karluks defected from the Tang side to the Abbasid side. The defeat marked the end of Tang westward territorial expansion, resulting in Muslim control of Transoxiana for the next four hundred years.

Retrenchment of Tang influence post-763
In 755, the Tang dynasty was subject to the devastating Anshi Rebellion and lost much influence in Inner Asia, which came to be dominated by the Uyghurs. Tang influence and rule over the northwestern regions, however, continued until the dynasty's fall in 907, at which time these areas were taken over by the Tanguts, who later established the Western Xia dynasty in 1038.

Tang-Uyghur relations
Although they now controlled most of the Mongolian Plateau, the Uyghur Khans still maintained relatively cordial relations with the Tang dynasty, accepting many titles from the Tang emperors. in 788, the Uyghur Khan pleaded the Tang emperor to change the title of the Uyghurs from Huihe (回紇) to Huihu (回鶻).

Fall of the Uyghur Khanate

By the mid-800's, the power of the Uyghur Khanate was on the wane. Attacked on all sides, the Uyghurs retreated to the Xinjiang area and their Khanate collapsed, to be replaced by other peoples

See also
 Horses in East Asian warfare
 Military history of China before 1912
 Protectorate General to Pacify the West
 Protectorate General to Pacify the North
 Protectorate General to Pacify the East
 Jimi system
 Khan of Heaven
 Tang–Tibet relations
 Yuan dynasty in Inner Asia
 Ming dynasty in Inner Asia
 Qing dynasty in Inner Asia

References

Citations

Sources

 Grousset, René. (1970).  The Empire of the Steppes. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.  ; .  (1939).  L'empire des steppes, Attila, Gengis-Khan, Tamerlan Paris: Editions Payot. OCLC 220712631
 Sinor, Denis. (1990).  "The establishment and dissolution of the Türk empire" (pp. 285-316) in The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. ; .
  Li Bo (李波), Zheng Yin (郑颖), "5000 years of Chinese history" (《中华五千年》), Inner Mongolian People's Publishing Corp. (内蒙古人民出版社), , 2001. http://book.jqcq.com/product/30157.html
  Bo Yang (柏扬), Outlines of the History of the Chinese (《中国人史纲(下)》), vol. 2, The Time Literature & Art Press (时代文艺出版社), , Dec. 1987
 Marc Samuel Abramson, Ethnic identity in Tang China, 2007.
 Book of Tang, "http://www.njmuseum.com/rbbook/gb/25/xingtanshu/xts.htm"
 Zizhi Tongjian, "http://www.guoxue.com/shibu/zztj/zztjml.htm"

Foreign relations of the Tang dynasty
History of Mongolia
History of Xinjiang
Inner Asia
Chinese Central Asia
Military history of the Tang dynasty

Tang dynasty in Inner Asia


Paraccra mimesa is a species of moth of the family Tortricidae. It is found in Kenya and Tanzania.

The wingspan is about 14 mm. The ground colour of the forewings is bluish grey, the costa and proximal half of the termen edged with yellowish ochreous marked with blackish spots and grey dots respectively. The ochreous orange fascia from two-thirds of the costa to the end of the termen is marked red inside. The hindwings are brown.

The larvae feed on the fruit of Agelaea pentagyna and Rourea thomsoni.

References

Moths described in 2005
Tortricini
Moths of Africa
Taxa named by Józef Razowski

Paraccra mimesa


Domenico Cunego (Verona,1727 – Rome, 8 January 1803) was an Italian printmaker.

Cunego was born in Verona.  Having studied under the otherwise-unknown painter Francesco Ferrari, he began his artistic career as a painter, producing several works, all of which are now lost or untraceable. At age 18, however, he switched to engraving (a field in which he was possibly self-taught).  He died in Rome.

The engravings he made depicting Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling, published in Gavin Hamilton's Schola Italica Picturae (1773), were an important source for the artists of his time.
He is notable not only for reproducing paintings by his famous fellow-countrymen like Guido Reni and Italian contemporaries such as Antonio Balestra, Francesco Solimena, and Felice Boscaratti, but also works by British artists in Italy catering to Grand Tourists. The latter included Gavin Hamilton's cycle of 6 works on the Iliad   and David Allan's Origin of Portraiture.

His sons Luigi (b. 1750, d. 1823 ) and Giuseppe (b. 1760) were also engravers.

Works

Illustrations for the 3-volume catalogue of Giacomo Muselli's coin collection, in collaboration with Dionigi Valesi (1752, 1756, 1760). Internet Archive
Views of Verona after drawings by T. Majeroni (1750s)
St Thomas of Villanova (1757), after a painting by Antonio Balestra (a frequent source for Cunego)
Some of the engravings for Ruins of the palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalato in Dalmatia. by Robert Adam, 1764

Notes

Sources
Art Encyclopedia. The Concise Grove Dictionary of Art.
Bryan, Michael (1903). Bryan's dictionary of painters and engravers, Volume 1. A-C. ; G. Bell and sons

1724 births
1803 deaths
Italian printmakers
Artists from Verona
18th-century Italian artists

Domenico Cunego


Performance audit refers to an independent examination of a program, function, operation or the management systems and procedures of a governmental or non-profit entity to assess whether the entity is achieving economy, efficiency and effectiveness in the employment of available resources. The examination is objective and systematic, generally using structured and professionally adopted methodologies.

In most countries, performance audits of governmental activities are carried out by the external audit bodies at federal or state level. Many of these audit bodies have established guides for conducting performance audits which explain how performance audits are planned, conducted and its results reported.

INTOSAI, the International Association of Supreme Audit Institutions, has published generally accepted principles of performance auditing in its implementation guidelines. In the United States, the standard for government performance audits is the Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards (GAGAS), often referred to as the "yellow book", maintained by the federal Government Accountability Office (GAO). Similarly, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) has developed a performance audit methodology for its audits of the sound financial management of the European Commission and the programmes funded through the EU budget.

Performance audits may also be conducted by internal auditors who are employees of the entity being audited. However, some national governments require agencies, departments and branches to periodically retain outside auditors to conduct them.

In the US, all auditors who follow GAGAS standards are required to maintain independence, supervision, continuing professional education, and conduct the audit using a specific process designed to increase the quality of the audit and reduce the politicization of audit work. Although there are separate professional credentials and certifications for Financial Auditors, the persons that conduct Performance Audits in the USA are often Certified Public Accountants, Certified Internal Auditors, Certified Responsible Government Auditors, or have a broad background in public policy, business or public administration.

The scope of performance audits may include the detection of fraud, waste and abuse, although often these are not included in the scope. Prior to engaging in a performance audit, the auditor must have a scope and plan defined which will be used to guide the audit process.

Performance auditing differs from performance measurement, the latter being the responsibility of management of the entity. In addition, performance measurement may include a broad variety of activities that do not meet the rigour of an independent external assessment.

See also
 Government performance auditing
 Total quality management

References

Sources
 Managerial Auditing Journal, , Emerald Publishing Group
 Performance Measurement and Metrics, , Emerald Publishing Group
 Benchmarking, , Emerald Publishing Group

Types of auditing

Performance audit


The Skilly Hills are a range of hills which make up part of the Mount Lofty Ranges in South Australia's Mid North region.

They comprise several long parallel ridges of low hills which run generally north south, parallel to the Horrocks Highway, forming part of the western geographical boundary of the Clare Valley. For government administration, they are in the Hundred of Upper Wakefield, County of Stanley.

The most prominent peaks are Tower Hill and Mount Oakden, the latter being named after local pioneer John Oakden.

History
The name Skilly Hills is a slang derivation from nearby Skillogalee Creek, a watercourse that rises near Penwortham and flows southward, generally parallel to the Skilly Hills, to become a tributary of the Wakefield River.  The creek itself was named by a government survey party of 1840 (perhaps with a certain irony concerning their rations) after skillogalee (usually spelt skillygalee), a traditional thin broth, simple in composition, once typically consumed throughout the British Isles, especially in Ireland and Scotland, particularly by the working class, as well as by soldiers and seafarers.

By the 1860s the creek was often called Skilly Creek, there then being districts called Upper (later Higher) Skilly and Lower Skilly, with schools in each. Upper Skilly also became called the Skilly Hills, a name recorded in common usage by at least 1877. The high rainfall in the Skilly Hills contributes to the Skillogalee Creek being one of the few permanently flowing watercourses in the region.

Land use
There are no towns of significance within the Skilly Hills but there are several towns and townships nearby which service the area, including Penwortham, Leasingham, Watervale, and Auburn. The town of Clare serves many of the commercial needs of the district. Land use is mainly mixed farming and sheep grazing. In recent decades wine and olive oil production have become important elements of local commerce. These attractions, plus the picturesque hills, support a tourism industry, resulting from which there are quite a few bed and breakfast establishments in the region.

References

Mid North (South Australia)
Mountain ranges of South Australia

Skilly Hills


Advertising research is a systematic process of marketing research conducted to improve the efficiency of advertising. Advertising research is a detailed study conducted to know how customers respond to a particular ad or advertising campaign.

History
The highlighted events of the history of advertising research include:

1879 – N. W. Ayer conducts custom research in an attempt to win the advertising business of Nichols-Shepard Co., a manufacturer of agricultural machinery.

1895 – Harlow Gale of the University of Minnesota mails questionnaires to gather opinions about advertising from the public.

1900s – George B. Waldron conducts qualitative research for Mahin's Advertising Agency.

1910s – 1911 can be considered the year marketing research becomes an industry. That year, J. George Frederick leaves his position as editor of Printers' Ink to begin his research company, the Business Bourse with clients such as General Electric and the Texas Co. Also in 1911, Kellogg's ad manager, R. O. Eastman creates the Association of National Advertisers which is now known as the Association of National Advertising Managers. The group's first project is a postcard questionnaire to determine magazine readership. The results introduce the concept of duplication of circulation. In 1916, R. O. Eastman starts his own company, the Eastman Research Bureau which boasts clients such as Cosmopolitan, Christian Herald, and General Electric.

1920s – In 1922, Dr. Daniel Starch tests reader recognition levels of magazine and newspaper advertisements and editorial content. In 1923, Dr. George Gallup begins measuring advertising readership.

1930s – In 1936, Dr. George Gallup validates his survey methodology by using the same tools polling voters during public elections. This allows him to successfully compare and validate his study's results against the election's results.

1940s – Post World War II, the U.S. sees a large increase in the number of market research companies.

1950s – Market researchers focus on improving methods and measures. In their search for a single-number statistic to capture the overall performance of the advertising creative, Day-After-Recall (DAR) is created.

1960s – Qualitative focus groups gain in popularity. In addition, some advertisers call for more rigorous measurement of the in-market effectiveness of advertising in order to provide better accountability for the large amounts being spent on advertising. In response, Seymour Smith and Associates, using Advertising Research Foundation data as a jumping-off point, develops the Communicus System, a comprehensive approach to isolating the in-market impact of advertising across media.

1970s – Computers emerge as business tools, allowing researchers to conduct large-scale data manipulations. (Honomichl p. 175) Multiple studies prove DAR (Recall) scores do not predict sales. The measure, persuasion, also known as motivation, is validated as a predictor of sales.  The measure known as "breakthrough" is re-examined by researchers who make a distinction between the attention-getting power of the creative execution (attention) and how well "branded" the ad is (brand linkage). Herbert Krugman seeks to measure non-verbal measures biologically by tracking brain wave activities as respondents watch commercials. (Krugman) Others experiment with galvanic skin response, voice pitch analysis, and eye-tracking.

1980s – Researchers begin to view commercials as a "structured flow of experience" rather than a single unit to be rated on the whole, creating moment-by-moment systems  such as the dial-a-meter.

1990s – Ameritest Research creates Picture Sorts to provide accurate non-verbal measurements in a moment-by-moment system. Picture Sorts results are graphed to visually represent commercial viewers' moment-by-moment image recognition (Flow of Attention), positive and negative feelings (Flow of Emotion), and brand values (Flow of Meaning).  Trends in in-market tracking include a greater focus on the multimedia nature of entire advertising campaigns.

2000s – Global advertisers seek an integrated marketing research system that will work worldwide so they can compare results across countries. For a look at trends predicted for advertising research in the 21st century, see Seven Trends for the Future.  Dr. Robert Heath publishes the seminal and controversial monograph "The Hidden Power of Advertising" which challenged the traditional models used in advertising research and shows how most advertising is processed at an emotional level (not a rational level).  His monograph leads to re-examination of in-market research approaches that compare the behaviors of those who have seen advertising versus those who have not, such as the Communicus System, and the development of brand new pretesting systems such as the OTX AdCEP system.

Types
There are two types of research, customized and syndicated. Customized research is conducted for a specific client to address that client's needs. Only that client has access to the results of the research. Syndicated research is a single research study conducted by a research company with its results available, for sale, to multiple companies.
Pre-market research can be conducted to optimize advertisements for any medium: radio, television, print (magazine, newspaper or direct mail), outdoor billboard (highway, bus, or train), or Internet. Different methods would be applied to gather the necessary data appropriately.
Post-testing is conducted after the advertising, either a single ad or an entire multimedia campaign has been run in-market. The focus is on what the advertising has done for the brand, for example increasing brand awareness, trial, frequency of purchasing.

Pre-testing
Pre-testing, also known as copy testing, is a specialized field of marketing research that determines an ad's effectiveness based on consumer responses, feedback, and behavior.
Pre-testing is conducted before implementing the advertisement to customers. The following methods can be followed to pre-test an advertisement:
 Focus group discussion
 In-depth interview
 Projective techniques
 Checklist method
 Consumer jury method
 Sales area test
 Questionnaire method
 Recall test
 Readability test
 Eye movement test

Campaign pre-testing
A new area of pre-testing driven by the realization that what works on TV does not necessarily translate in other media.  Greater budgets allocated to digital media in particular have driven the need for campaign pre-testing. The addition of a media planning tool to this testing approach allows advertisers to test the whole campaign, creative and media, and measures the synergies expected with an integrated campaign.

Post-testing
Post-testing/Tracking studies provide either periodic or continuous in-market research monitoring a brand's performance, including brand awareness, brand preference, product usage and attitudes. Some post-testing approaches simply track changes over time, while others use various methods to quantify the specific changes produced by advertising—either the campaign as a whole or by the different media utilized.

Overall, advertisers use post-testing to plan future advertising campaigns, so the approaches that provide the most detailed information on the accomplishments of the campaign are most valued. The two types of campaign post-testing that have achieved the greatest use among major advertisers include continuous tracking, in which changes in advertising spending are correlated with changes in brand awareness, and longitudinal studies, in which the same group of respondents are tracked over time. With the longitudinal approach, it is possible to go beyond brand awareness, and to isolate the campaign's impact on specific behavioral and perceptual dimensions, and to isolate campaign impact by media.

Attention
In advertising research, attention is the qualitative measure of an advertisement's effectiveness in arousing interest in a viewer. Qualitative is a measurement that is based on peoples emotions and opinions of the advertisement.

Focus Group based methodologies can be used to collect qualitative responses which inform a measure of attention to an advertisement in a simulated environment. One example of this is a "dummy advertising vehicle test," in which a test Television Advertisement is shown with control ads in a controlled environment designed to simulate a commercial break on television. The test ad is embedded alongside either directly competitive advertising, or ads from non-competing product categories, depending on the advertiser's preference. Respondents are asked the question "Which of these ads did you find interesting?" If the test ad is spontaneously mentioned, then that response is counted toward the attention score.

Quantitative techniques such as Eye Tracking are used to measure attention and spontaneous response to marketing messages.  Quantitative measurements are based on data and numbers that are gathered from studies based on how people react to the advertisements . Attention data using this methodology can be collected in a variety of simulated environments such as at home or work, as well as across a variety of different screens and devices. In addition to measuring attention, this data can be used by advertisers to optimize the design and placement of advertisements.

Attention grabbers
Advertisers like to make people feel things in order to gain their attention. This can be done in a number of ways;

 Association – Using images that you associate with something good or a good feeling.
 Call to action – "Buy today" a way to remove doubt about the next step
 Claim – Letting you know how to products helps you and works
 Color – Different colors are said to bring out different emotions in people. Companies carefully choose the colors they use in their logos and advertisement based on the feeling they want to portray.
 Games and activities – A commercial that is in the form of a game for you to experience in a more fun way. This helps you understand it better.
 Humor – Using ads to make you laugh and so that it will be a funny memory that you remember.
 Hype – Words like amazing and incredible making products seem "hyped"
 Language – Companies use language to get attention. Words that induce humor, fear, excitement are memorable.
 Must-have – A product that you must have and is popular
 Fear – Solving something that you have to worry about like smelly shoes
 Prizes, sweepstakes, and gifts – The chance of winning something for free to attract attention
 Repetition – Repeating your idea or message so that consumers remember it.
 Sales and price – Discounts prices so that a product looks like a better deal
 Sense appeal – Using content that appeals to your 5 senses.
 Size – Larger images will attract attention more than smaller images.
 Special ingredients – Showing that this product works better than others because of this special ingredient.
 Testimonials and endorsements – Using the power of celebrities and their following to grab attention and be convincing.

Measurements
Eye-tracking techniques can be measured by observing the eye movement and pupil dilation when looking at an advertisement.

Terminology
Adcept
Advertising
Awareness
Brand preference
Shockvertising

See also

Advertising research methods
Ad tracking
AttentionTracking
Copy testing

Notes

Further reading
 Banks, Ivana Bušljeta, Patrick De Pelsmacker, and Shintaro Okazaki, eds. Advances in Advertising Research (Vol. V): Extending the Boundaries of Advertising (Springer, 2014)
 Cheng, Hong, ed. The Handbook of International Advertising Research (2014)
Honomichl, J. J. Honomichl on Marketing Research, Lincolnwood, IL: NTC Business Books, 1986.
 Kim, Kyongseok, et al. "Trends in Advertising Research: A Longitudinal Analysis of Leading Advertising, Marketing, and Communication Journals, 1980 to 2010." Journal of advertising 43#3 (2014): 296-316.
Thorson, Esther and Moore, Jeri.  Integrated Communication: Synergy of Persuasive Voices. (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 1996)
 Verlegh, Peeter, Hilde Voorveld, and Martin Eisend, eds. Advances in Advertising Research (Vol. VI): The Digital, the Classic, the Subtle, and the Alternative (Springer, 2015)
Young, Charles E., The Advertising Research Handbook, Ideas in Flight, Seattle, WA, April 2005,

External links
Advertising Educational Foundation, streamed video of Good-Bye Guesswork: How Research Guides Today's Advertisers

Market research
Advertising
Social impact of advertising

Advertising research


"Shield volcanoes" redirects here.
A shield volcano is a large volcano with shallowly-sloping sides. The name derives from a translation of "Skjaldbreiður", an Icelandic shield volcano whose name means "broad shield," from its resemblance to a warrior's shield.

Shield volcanoes are usually formed by lava that flows easily. Consequently, a volcanic mountain having a broad profile is built up over time by flow after flow of relatively fluid basaltic lava issuing from vents or fissures on the surface of the volcano. Many of the largest volcanoes on Earth are shield volcanoes.

The largest is Mauna Loa on the Big Island of Hawaii. Shield volcanoes can be so large they are sometimes considered a mountain range, such as the Ilgachuz Range and the Rainbow Range, both of which are in Canada. These shield volcanoes formed when the North American Plate moved over a hotspot similar to the one feeding the Hawaiian Islands, called the Anahim hotspot. There are also shield volcanoes, for example, in Washington, Oregon, and the Galapagos Islands. The Piton de la Fournaise, on Réunion Island, is one of the more active shield volcanoes on earth, with one eruption per year on average.

Shield volcanoes are known to form on other planets. The largest known mountain in the solar system, Olympus Mons on Mars, is a shield volcano. Shield volcanoes on Mars are higher and much more massive than those on Earth.

On Earth, because of plate tectonics, hotspot volcanoes eventually move away from the source of their magma and the volcanoes are individually less massive than might otherwise be the case. Shield volcanoes usually occur along constructive boundaries or above hotspots. However, the many large shield volcanoes of the Cascade Range of northern California and Oregon are over a more complex environment.

On other planets

Shield volcanoes are not only found on Earth, they can also be found on Mars, Venus, and Io, which is a moon of Jupiter. The volcanoes on Mars are bigger than those on Earth.

Related pages

 Volcano
 Magma

References

 Douglas Harper (2010). "Shield volcano". Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper. Retrieved February 13, 2011.
 "How Volcanoes Work: Basaltic Lava". San Diego State University. Archived from the original on 8 October 2018. Retrieved 2 August 2010.

Other websites

 Media related to Shield volcanoes at Wikimedia Commons
 "Shield volcano" at Oxford English Dictionary

Volcanoes

Shield volcano


Richard Arrington Jr. (born October 19, 1934 in Livingston, Alabama) was the first Black mayor of the city of Birmingham, Alabama (U.S.), serving 20 years, from 1979 to 1999. He replaced David Vann and, upon retiring after five terms in office, installed then-City Council president William A. Bell as interim mayor. Bell went on to lose the next election to Bernard Kincaid.

Early life
Arrington's father moved his family to the steel-town of Fairfield, Alabama from rural Sumter County, Alabama when Richard Jr. was five years old to take a job with U.S. Steel. The steady work was an improvement over sharecropping, but Richard Sr. still had to supplement the family income by working off-hours as a brick mason.

His parents emphasized self-reliance, choosing to rent a home rather than stay in workers' housing and shopping at a black-owned cooperative store rather than accept credit at the company commissary. Richard's mother, Ernestine, kept the table filled with home-grown vegetables and made sure that her children made use of the opportunities given them through church and school.

Richard, while still a teenager, served as secretary of the Sunday School at Crumbey Bethel Primitive Baptist Church. Soon he was Sunday School superintendent, a member of the choir, and eventually elected to the Board of Deacons. He was also a standout student at Fairfield Industrial High School, where he had first decided to study tailoring. With those classes full, he instead learned dry cleaning, graduating in 1951 at the age of 16 he took a job at a cleaner and applied to Fairfield's Miles College.

Academic career
Arrington majored in biology at Miles and excelled in the classroom and as a leader, rising to the presidency of his chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. He was also an officer in the Honor Society and the Thespian Club. In his third year of college, while still living at home, he married Barbara Jean Watts. He graduated cum laude in 1955 and took a position as a graduate assistant at the University of Detroit in Detroit, Michigan. While there he first experienced an integrated social environment and gained the perspective necessary to effectively critique the established segregation of his home town. He earned a master's degree in 1957 and returned to Miles as an assistant professor of science where he taught for six years before entering the University of Oklahoma doctoral program in zoology in 1963, in the midst of Birmingham campaign between African-American protesters and city authorities in Birmingham. He earned his doctorate at Oklahoma in 1966, completing a dissertation on the "Comparative Morphology of Some Dryopoid Beetles", and, at the urging of President Lucius Pitts, returned to Miles as acting dean and director of the summer school. He was quickly promoted to chair of the Natural Sciences Department and eventually was named Dean of the College.

Political career
In 1971, Arrington began campaigning for election to the Birmingham City Council with the pledge to make Birmingham "a city of which all her people can be proud." He placed third among 29 at-large candidates and faced five opponents in a runoff election for three remaining seats. He won his seat easily, becoming, after Arthur Shores (who had been appointed to a vacant seat by Mayor George Siebels in 1968), the second African American to serve on the council. After two years of quiet service, he introduced an ordinance requiring city departments to formulate hiring plans that included affirmative action goals and to contract business to companies that hired minorities. With opposition in the business community, the latter action failed, but the departmental hiring ordinance made it out of council to be vetoed by Siebels. Revised proposals that established recruitment programs and prohibited contracting with openly discriminatory firms, were later passed. His next major controversy was to push for a formal investigation of the shooting of an African American suspect while he was under police custody. The hearing was inconclusive, but opened the door to a more serious look at police procedure.

Arrington also co-founded and served as the first president of the Alabama New South Coalition, a liberal advocacy organization which split off from the Alabama Democratic Conference over strategic and leadership differences.

In 1979 Arrington became the first black mayor of the city. In 1992 he appointed the city's first black chief of police, Johnnie Johnson Jr.

References

Mark Kelly. "Toward a New Birmingham: A Four Part Series on the Life and Times of Richard Arrington Jr." Birmingham Weekly. October 19 – November 10, 2005

External links
Oral History Interview with Richard Arrington from Oral Histories of the American South

1934 births
Living people
African-American mayors in Alabama
African-American city council members in Alabama
American entomologists
People from Livingston, Alabama
Mayors of Birmingham, Alabama
Miles College alumni
University of Detroit Mercy alumni
20th-century African-American politicians

Richard Arrington Jr.


Irishtown () is a village in County Mayo, Ireland, located on the southern county border with County Galway about halfway between Claremorris and Tuam on the R328 regional road. Irishtown is in the Civil Parish of Crossboyne, Barony of Clanmorris and the Catholic Diocese of Tuam. It is sometimes referred to as 'The Cradle of the Land League' due to its connections with the founding of the Irish National Land League.

Irishtown was designated as a census town by the Central Statistics Office for the first time in the 2016 census, at which time it had a population of 129 people.

Land League
Local tenant farmers were threatened with eviction from their holdings on the estate of the local parish priest, The Very Rev. Geoffrey Canon Burke, and in response a meeting took place on 20 April 1879 that brought about a reversal of the potential evictions as well as a 20 percent reduction in rent. The meeting was the genesis of what would later that year become the Land League.

Amenities and sport
There are several facilities situated in the village, including the national (primary) school, community centre, church, corner shop, one pub, playground and playing fields, the former being renovated in 2010. The primary school, Irishtown National School, had an enrollment of over 60 children as of 2021.

Gaelic football is the predominant sport in the area. In 1973, Irishtown and its neighbouring village, Ballindine, amalgamated to form Davitts GAA club. The club won two Mayo Intermediate titles in 1981 and 2011, and were crowned Connacht Intermediate Football Champions in 2011.

See also
 James Daly (1838–1911), activist known for work with the Irish National Land League.

References

Towns and villages in County Mayo

Irishtown, County Mayo


The vichitra veena () is a stick zither, a plucked string instrument used in Hindustani music. Similar to the Carnatic gottuvadhyam (chitra vina) it has no frets and is played with a slide.

The structure
The Vichitra Veena is the modern form of ancient Ekatantri Veena. It is made of a broad, fretless, horizontal arm or crossbar (dand) around three feet long and six inches wide, with two large resonating gourds (tumba), which are inlaid with ivory and attached underneath at either end. The narrow ends of the instrument are fashioned into peacock heads, the national bird of India.

The strings

There are four main playing strings and five secondary strings (chikaris), which are played openly with the little finger for a drone effect. Underneath them are 13 sympathetic strings tuned to the notes of the appropriate raag. The veena has a five-octave range. Two plectrums (mizrab) identical to those used for sitar are worn on the middle and index fingers of the right hand to pluck the strings, and a glass ball (batta) is moved with the left across the main strings to create melody (there can be a distance of up to two inches between notes). Coconut oil is put on the strings to minimize the friction of the sliding hand holding the batta.

The veena was often used to accompany the Dhrupad style of singing and this did not allow for much intricacy or embellishment around the notes. It was rescued from oblivion by Lalmani Misra who developed technique of playing and created Misrabani compositions; his son Gopal Shankar Misra made the repertoire universal.

Artists
 Gopal Krishan, (1926 - 2004) disciple of Nand Kishore Sharma. A deep understanding of the raga and a depth presentation by weaving of various intricate musical patterns and its rhythmic synchronisation is his speciality. He specialised in a technique called "Jhala" (very difficult to play on this instrument),which gives a climactic effect to the performance for the grand finale.
 Lalmani Misra, (1924 - 1979) A perfectionist, he modified the instrument for better quality of renditions of Khayals and Thumris. He even played Dadras on the Veena. He created numerous Ragas, Madhukali being the most famous. He was inspired by Ustad Abdul Aziz Khan.
 Gopal Shankar Misra, (1957 - 1999) Son and student of Lalmani Mishra.
 Ragini Trivedi (b. 1960)
 Brahm Sarup Singh, (1940 - 1998) was a renowned player of vichitra veena. In his early age Brahm Sarup Singh was trained by his father Shri Harnam Singh in music. He had participated in several music conferences in the North and his Vichitra Veena recital has been broadcasting from All India Radio, Jalandhar since 1958.
Anurag Singh (b. 1966) is a renowned player of vichitra veena. He was born in the city of Amritsar, India to the Late Shri Brahm Sarup Singh. He has given numerous public concerts at Hissar, Kurukshetra, Yamunanagar, Ambala, Gujarat, Panchkula, Gurgaon, Kolkata, Lucknow, Jamshedpur and Patna.
Radhika Veena Sadhika, known as world's first woman vichitra veena player.
Mondar Mukherjee , known for his creation hindustani vichitra veena. specially Designed for North Indian classical music.

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References

External links

Vichitra vina page
Online Music Education Articles on Vichitra Veena
Hindustani Rag Sangeet Online Vichitra Veena audio & video archives
Music on Veena - Raga Sameshwari
Lessons on Vichitra Veena -  Raga Yaman

Hindustani musical instruments
String instruments

Vichitra veena


Indian Rock Park is a  public park at 950 Indian Rock Avenue in the city of Berkeley, California, on the slope of the Berkeley Hills.  It is located in the northeast part of the city, about two blocks north of the Arlington/Marin Circle, and straddles Indian Rock Avenue.  The central feature of the park is a large rock outcropping on the west side of Indian Rock Ave. The larger portion of the park, on the opposite side of the street, has several much smaller rock outcroppings, grass fields, and a small barbecue and picnic area. The rock is composed of Northbrae rhyolite.

History

Volcanic in origin, Indian Rock is the largest of a number of similar rhyolite rock formations in the vicinity, including the smaller rocks in the portion of the park on the east side of Indian Rock Ave. For example, only one block farther up the east side of Indian Rock Avenue is the  Mortar Rock Park, which has its own complex of granite outcroppings.  Many remains of acorn-grinding pits carved into solid rock can be found in all these outcroppings, especially the aptly named Mortar Rock. These pits were made by the local indigenous people, the Huichin band of the Ohlones.

The land for Indian Rock Park was donated to the City of Berkeley by Duncan McDuffie, a real estate mogul, Sierra Club president and mountaineer, during Mason McDuffie's development of the Northbrae area. It was dedicated for park purposes in 1917. Indian Rock has long been used as a practice site for serious rock climbing, particularly bouldering. Members of the Sierra Club began climbing there regularly on weekends at least as early as the 1950s. Richard M. Leonard, the "father of modern rock climbing", and noted environmentalist David Brower, founder of Friends of the Earth, learned rock climbing and developed their mountaineering techniques at Indian Rock. Brower used this special knowledge to prepare training manuals during World War II, which proved critical in enabling the 86th Regiment of the U.S. Army to surprise the Germans at Riva Ridge in the North Apennines in Italy, the major action disrupting German lines in southern Europe.

Description
The top of the main outcropping, Indian Rock, has views that encompass sights from downtown Oakland and the University of California, Berkeley campus to the south; central Berkeley,  San Francisco Bay, and San Francisco to the west; and Marin County and Richmond, California to the northwest and north. All three of the bay's largest bridges can be seen from the rock.

Indian Rock Path, a public walkway, connects the park to the intersection of Solano Avenue and The Alameda. The main part of Indian Rock itself has two sets of steps leading to its summit that were carved into the rock during the Depression years.

Indian Rock Park has been featured in the New York Times on at least two occasions, once each in 2010 and 2018.

References

External links

Indian Rock Park, City of Berkeley website

Parks in Berkeley, California
Berkeley Hills
Landforms of Alameda County, California
Rock formations of California
Climbing areas of California
Tourist attractions in Berkeley, California

Indian Rock Park


The eclectus parrot (Eclectus roratus)  is a parrot that lives in the Solomon Islands, Sumba, New Guinea and nearby islands, northeastern Australia, and the Maluku Islands (Moluccas). The parrot is about 35 cm (14 in) long.

Colours
The male is mostly bright green with a yellow-tinge on the head. It has blue flight feathers, and red flanks and underwing coverts. Its tail is creamy yellow, and is dark grey edged with creamy yellow underneath. The tail feathers are green and blue. The upper beak of the adult male is orange.

The female is mostly bright red with a darker hue on the back and wings. The mantle and underwing coverts darken to a more purple in colour. The tail is edged with yellowish-orange above, and is more orange tipped with yellow underneath.  The beak of the adult female is all black. The upper beak of the young ones are brown and yellow.

General principles of bird colouration
The colours are interesting because they are the reverse of normal. In most birds the females are "self-coloured" (all one colour, and usually quite dull). Males, who compete for females, are usually brightly coloured. The essential idea is that the female should be dull or camouflaged because she carries the "precious package", the eggs. Parrots are often native to  tropical forests, where green is camouflage. The males, on the other hand, need to signal their excellent health and general fitness. An extreme case would be the Twelve-wired bird-of-paradise. The implication of colouring in the Eclectus must be that the selection pressure is somehow different from that experienced by most bird species.

Feeding
The birds eats fruits, wild figs, unripe nuts, flower and leaf buds, and some seeds. In captivity, they mostly eat fruit.

The eclectus has an unusually long digestive tract, so it tolerates food with lots of fiber. In captivity, the eclectus parrot benefits from specially made pellets, fruits, vegetables, and a small amount of seeds and nuts such as almonds and walnuts.

Breeding
In its natural habitat, the eclectus parrot builds its nests in holes in large rainforest trees. Males may travel up to 20 km to find food. Eclectus parrots are polygynandrous, which means that females may mate with different males, and males may travel from nest to nest to mate with females.

Two white eggs are laid. They are incubated for 28–30 days. Young fledge at about 11 weeks. Although eclectus parrots usually reach sexual maturity between 2–3 years.

Eclectus hens have a strong maternal instinct, which is shown in captivity. It is often possible to place abandoned eggs from other types of parrot under a female eclectus hen, which she will always accept. She will then incubate the egg until it hatches. She will even raise the chick until it grows big enough to leave the nest.

Captivity
Eclectus parrots are one of the popular birds kept in captivity. Unlike many other types of parrot they are easy to breed but are difficult to feed with the hand. Eclectus parrots are generally calm birds in captivity.

The average lifespan of the eclectus parrots in captivity is not known, because these birds are not kept in captivity in big numbers until the 1980s. Some sources say that the lifespan is 30 years. The longest lifespan officially recorded is 28.5 years, but a life of 40.8 years has also been reported.

References

Parrots
Birds of Oceania

Eclectus parrot


The Catalina Island Marine Institute (CIMI) is a non-profit educational program founded in 1979 and run by Guided Discoveries on Santa Catalina Island, California.

It is the host to approximately 15,000 students a year, who visit it in school-organized trips and summer camps. Students at CIMI learn marine biology through activities such snorkeling, scuba diving, sailing, hiking, marine science labs, kayaking and squid dissections.

CIMI operates out of three facilities on Catalina Island: Toyon Bay (a private beach three miles northwest of Avalon), Fox Landing, and Cherry Cove (a camp owned by the Boy Scouts of America). In addition to this, Guided Discoveries also owns and operates AstroCamp California, AstroCamp Virginia, and Camp Motorsport.

References

External links

Santa Catalina Island (California)
Environmental organizations based in California
Organizations based in Los Angeles County, California
Education in Los Angeles County, California
Natural history of the Channel Islands of California

Catalina Island Marine Institute


The Plaza de Oriente is a plaza in the historic center of Madrid, Spain. It has a shape like a rectangle and is very big and noticeable. It was designed in 1844 by Narciso Pascual y Colomer. It was opened by King Joseph I after he said that the houses originally in the area should be destroyed.

It is located between some very well known and important places in Madrid. To the west is the Royal Palace, the Teatro Real, to the east, and the Royal Monastery of the Incarnation to the north.

Madrid
Town squares in Europe

Plaza de Oriente


Back in Blood is the ninth studio album from Finnish goth rock band The 69 Eyes and their first to be released via Nuclear Blast in Europe and The End Records in North America. The album was recorded in both Helsinki and Los Angeles and produced by Matt Hyde. The cover art was designed by Estevan Oriol.  Lyrically, the whole album deals with themes of vampires and blood.

Track listing
"Back in Blood" – 4:30
"We Own the Night" – 4:03
"Dead N' Gone" (feat. Benji Madden) – 3:40
"The Good, the Bad & the Undead" – 3:28
"Kiss Me Undead" – 3:58
"Lips of Blood" – 4:21
"Dead Girls Are Easy" – 3:55
"Night Watch" – 4:33
"Some Kind of Magick" – 3:43
"Hunger" – 4:34
"Suspiria Snow White" – 3:34
"Eternal" – 4:19

Bonus DVD Vampire Edition
"Dead Girls Are Easy" (Music Video)
"Devils" (Live)
"Don't Turn Your Back on Fear" (Live)
"Betty Blue" (Live)
"Christina Death" (Live)
"Crashing High" (Live)
"The Chair" (Live)
"Feel Berlin" (Live)
"Gothic Girl" (Live)
"Sister of Charity" (Live)
"Framed in Blood" (Live)
"Lost Boys" (Live)
"I Just Want to Have Something to Do" (Live)
"Brandon Lee" (Live)
"Back In Blood" (Electronic Press Kit)
"Extra Video Material And Web Links"

Charts

Singles
Dead Girls Are Easy
"Dead Girls Are Easy" – 3:51

Dead N' Gone
"Dead N' Gone" – 3:36

We Own the Night
"We Own the Night" – 3:59

Kiss Me Undead
"Kiss Me Undead" – 3:54

Miscellaneous
 The song "Dead Girls Are Easy" world-premiered at the Sirius radioshow Radio Bam on 8 June 2009, where the 69 Eyes appeared. The song was later uploaded to the band's Myspace on 17 June.
 The music video for first single for the album, "Dead Girls Are Easy", was directed by Bam Margera, and was filmed in June 2009. The video features an appearance by Missy Margera and premiered on playboy.com on 17 July 2009.
 The second single from the new 69 Eyes album will be "Dead N' Gone". The band shot a video for it with Bam Margera directing in San Francisco on the weekend before the tour. "This is the coolest video we're ever done, San Francisco is such an amazing background for it!" says Jyrki. The video also features Benji Madden who also contributed backing vocals on the song.
 The third single "We Own the Night" was released March 2010. It was featured as a bonus track on the digital version of the soundtrack for Saw VI.
 For the fourth single, "Kiss Me Undead," the band held a contest for their fans to create original music videos for the single and vote for their favorite video. The contest began May 2010 and ended a few months later in October. The winner received a merchandise package and got to chat with Jyrki69 via Skype.

References

The 69 Eyes albums
2009 albums
Albums produced by Matt Hyde

Back in Blood (The 69 Eyes album)