Thomas Sovereign Gates Jr. (April 10, 1906March 25, 1983) was an American politician and diplomat who served as Secretary of Defense from 1959 to 1961 and Secretary of the Navy from 1957 to 1959, both under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. During his tenure as Secretary of Defense, he established a task force to set nuclear target priorities. He also authorized U-2 reconnaissance flights, including the flight of Francis Gary Powers.

Later in his career, he served as the Chief of the U.S. Liaison Office in Beijing, appointed by President Gerald Ford.

Early life and career
Born in Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Gates was the son of Thomas S. Gates Sr., an investment banker and lawyer who was president of the University of Pennsylvania from 1930 to 1944, and his wife, Marie (née Rogers) Gates. Gates graduated from Chestnut Hill Academy, an all-male private preparatory school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1924. He was then accepted into the University of Pennsylvania, where his father was serving on the university's board of trustees. At Penn, Gates managed the Penn Quakers football team and was a member of the school's basketball team, where in March 1928, he was arrested along with 16 other students with charges of inciting a riot after Penn defeated Princeton to become Intercollegiate League champions. A member of Zeta Psi fraternity, and the Phi Beta Kappa Society, Gates graduated with his Bachelor of Arts in English in 1928.

Gates married the former Millicent Anne Brengle on September 29, 1928. They had one son and three daughters. After graduating, he joined his father's Philadelphia-based investment banking firm, Drexel and Company. In the early to mid-1930s he worked as a bond salesman at Drexel, and later moved to New York City for two years where he was an apprentice for J.P. Morgan & Company. Gates became a full partner at Drexel and Company in 1940.

During World War II he served in the Navy, rose to the rank of lieutenant commander, and participated in campaigns in the Pacific and Mediterranean areas. He was released from active duty in October 1945.

Political career
President Eisenhower appointed Gates Under Secretary of the Navy in October 1953 and Secretary on 1 April 1957, positions in which he earned the president's approval. It was a foregone conclusion when Gates became Defense Secretary Neil McElroy's deputy on 8 June 1959 that he would succeed him. He entered office with an impressive background of active military experience and more than six years in the Department of Defense.

As a top-level DoD official since 1953, Gates was familiar with the 1953 and 1958 Defense Department reorganizations. Believing that the Secretary of Defense had all the authority he needed and that time should be allowed for evaluation of the long range effects of the 1958 amendments, he discouraged efforts to further revamp the department. As a former Secretary of the Navy who had observed the gradual downgrading of service secretary positions, he felt that the service secretaries should play a more important role, and he encouraged them to do so.

Relationship with the Joint Chiefs
Gates cultivated a good working relationship with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Less than a month after becoming secretary, he reminded the chiefs of their responsibility to apprise him of disputes and proposed to meet with them in order to expedite settlement or bring the issue to the president's attention for final resolution. Soon Gates and the JCS met on a regular basis, not just in instances when the Chiefs disagreed. Congressional and other sources applauded Gates for taking the initiative in improving both the JCS organization and the secretary's relations with it.

Another important Gates initiative was the creation in August 1960 of the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff (JSTPS). Previously, inadequate coordination of targeting plans between the Strategic Air Command and the Navy led to redundancy and disputed priorities. These differences became especially significant with the advent of the Navy's sea-based Polaris ballistic missiles. Acting on a proposal by SAC Commander in Chief General Thomas S. Power that SAC control strategic weapons targeting, Gates set up the JSTPS. The SAC commander, supported by an integrated joint staff, assumed separate duties as director of strategic target planning, to be, as Gates indicated, "the planning agent for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in developing and keeping up to date the detailed plans which are necessary."

When Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Arleigh A. Burke objected to the new arrangement, Gates encouraged him to argue his case with President Eisenhower, who ultimately upheld Gates's decision. Thereafter Burke supported the JSTPS and assigned to it highly qualified naval officers.

By December 1960 the JSTPS had prepared the first Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP), which specified for various attack options the timing, weapons, delivery systems, and targets to be used by U.S. strategic forces.

Role in defense policy
Gates devoted more time than his predecessors Charles E. Wilson and Neil H. McElroy to the development of basic defense policy, a sphere in which the president remained dominant. While he instituted no radical departure from the New Look approach, the changing nature of nuclear weapons and delivery systems, the related assumed need for continental defense systems, and the pressing question of how to respond to local or "limited" wars, dictated a gradual shift in defense policy.

As Gates pointed out at a congressional hearing in January 1960, the two principal U.S. defense objectives were "to deter the outbreak of general war by maintaining and improving our present capability to retaliate with devastating effectiveness in case of a major attack upon us or our allies" and "to maintain, together with our allies, a capability to apply to local situations the degree of force necessary to deter local wars, or to win or contain them promptly if they do break out."

Gates saw no clear distinction between general war and limited war forces. As he put it, "All forces are a deterrent to and would be employed in a general war. Most of our forces could be employed in a limited war, if required." He noted as an example that aircraft carriers "are probably the country's best limited war capability initially because they are deployed in the world's trouble zones and they have on-the-spot ability to react"; yet, he added, they could contribute to the strategic offensive forces during general war.

Views on strategic weapons
During Gates's tenure, two missile elements—the ICBM and the submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) -- joined the manned bomber to form a "triad" of strategic nuclear delivery systems. Also during this period, there occurred movement toward greater emphasis on counterforce targeting a potential enemy's military installations and forces. Not only was the United States developing or beginning to deploy a variety of missile systems during this period-Atlas, Titan, Minuteman, and Polaris-but so was the Soviet Union.

The USSR's emphasis on the land-based ICBM rather than the manned bomber as its primary strategic delivery system presaged a threat of such magnitude to the United States that, together with the Sputnik shock, it forced an acceleration in the pace of U.S. missile development.

Gates, like McElroy, had to contend with the "missile gap" controversy. He regarded it as a false issue, based on the failure of missile gap believers to distinguish between space and military programs. When the U.S. long-range ballistic missile program began in the early 1950s, Gates observed, the development of small, lightweight nuclear warheads by American scientists made it possible for smaller ballistic missiles to carry them.

The Russians, on the other hand, concentrated on very large boosters that they used to launch space satellites earlier than the United States. Gates told a House committee, "We are not behind the Russians in our military effort overall . . . . It is one thing to admit you are behind in the ability to put big payloads in space for which we have at the moment no military requirement, and another thing to admit that we are behind in our total military posture."

Gates conceded that the Soviets might have more strategic missiles than the United States for a few years, perhaps peaking in 1962, but he denied that there was a real missile or deterrent gap; the Soviets would not "gain a strategic posture which might tempt them to initiate a surprise attack." Gates based his thinking in part on a debatable approach to intelligence estimates, which took account of Soviet intentions as well as capabilities, leading to the conclusion that the disparity between the number of Soviet and U.S. missiles by 1962 or 1963 would not be as great as estimated during the McElroy period.

Views on collective security
Like all of his predecessors, Gates supported U.S. participation in collective security pacts and military assistance programs. He identified NATO as the nucleus of the U.S. "forward strategy." As he put it, "Should we ever abandon our forward strategy in favor of the so-called 'Fortress America' concept, we would retreat forever." He urged Congress to continue adequate funding for military assistance, which had brought very high returns for the money spent.

The U-2 controversy
Perhaps the most spectacular event of Gates's administration occurred on 1 May 1960 when the Soviet Union shot down over its territory a Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft piloted by Francis Gary Powers. When Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev announced the incident four days later and accused the United States of spying, the Eisenhower administration initially suggested that the plane might have strayed into Soviet airspace.

On the recommendation of representatives from the State and Defense departments, including Gates, President Eisenhower later admitted that the U-2 was on an intelligence-gathering mission (actually under CIA control) and assumed responsibility for the flight. In mid-May Gates accompanied Eisenhower to Paris for a summit meeting that had been scheduled prior to the U-2 affair. There Khrushchev demanded termination of all U.S. flights over the Soviet Union, an apology, and punishment of those responsible.

Eisenhower indicated that the flights would not be resumed but rejected the other demands, whereupon Khrushchev refused to proceed with the summit meeting. Gates suggested later that the Russian leader used the U-2 crisis to abort a meeting that he had determined in advance would not result in gains for the Soviet Union.

On the eve of the summit conference, Gates ordered a worldwide alert of U.S. military communications facilities a decision criticized by some as provocative. Stoutly defending his action, Gates later explained that he decided, with the concurrence of Eisenhower and Secretary of State Christian A. Herter, to call the alert when he became aware of the belligerent position Khrushchev intended to take when the summit convened the next day. "Under the circumstances," Gates said, "it seemed most prudent to me to increase the awareness of our unified commanders. Moreover, since the command and individuals concerned in the decision process, including the President, the Secretary of State, and myself, were overseas, it was important to check out our military communications."

Although Gates adhered to the usual budget posture and strategy of the Eisenhower administration, there was 8.2 percent real growth in DoD's fiscal year 1961 budget after Congress completed its work. Total obligational authority amounted to $44.6 billion, almost $4.4 billion over the previous year. The bulk of the increase went to the Navy and the Air Force. Gates pressed for an appropriation of $2 billion for military assistance, most of which Congress provided. To criticism of the Eisenhower administration's continuing efforts to hold down the DoD budget, Gates replied that the department was spending enough money to meet the nation's vital security needs.

Summary of Gates' tenure as defense secretary

In a lengthy statement entitled "Department of Defense, 1953-1960," prepared at the close of Gates's tenure, the Department of Defense summarized its accomplishments during the Eisenhower years, concluding that "today our armed forces have the greatest striking power in our history, many times greater than in 1953."

Among other accomplishments, it cited development of medium- and long-range bombers (including the B-52s put into service during the 1950s) and ICBMs; installation of a continental defense system the Distant Early Warning Line (DEW) Line, the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS), and Nike surface-to-air missile systems; production of several nuclear submarines, beginning with the Nautilus in 1954, and Forrestal-type carriers; and creation of the Defense Communications Agency.

Gates retired from office on 20 January 1961. There were those who regarded him as the first of a new breed of secretaries of defense who would take a more active management approach evidenced by his regular meetings with the JCS and establishment of the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff. Gates, of course, had the advantages of long prior service in DoD and the expanded authority of the office resulting from the 1953 and 1958 reorganizations.

Although President Eisenhower continued to be, as during the Wilson and McElroy periods, the chief author of defense policy and the ultimate decision-maker, Gates appeared to operate with more authority and independence than his immediate predecessors, especially in areas such as strategic policy and planning.

After John F. Kennedy's election to the presidency in 1960, the press speculated that he might include a Republican in his cabinet and that Gates would be high on the list of possible appointees.

Later career and honors
On January 18, 1961, Gates was presented with the Medal of Freedom by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. After he left at The Pentagon, Gates joined Morgan and Company in New York, later the Morgan Guaranty Trust Company, which eventually became the J.P Morgan Bank, becoming president in 1962 and chairman and chief executive officer in 1965. President Richard M. Nixon appointed him chairman of the Advisory Commission on an All-Volunteer Force, which presented its recommendations to end the draft on February 21, 1970. From 1976 to 1977 he served, with the rank of ambassador, as chief of the United States Liaison Office in the People's Republic of China.

Gates served as a Trustee of the University of Pennsylvania, from 1948 to 1983 and received an honorary degree of an LL.D. from Penn, his alma mater, in 1956. He was also a member of the Board of Trustees of the College of the Atlantic during the periods 1972–1976 and 1978–1983. The community center at College of the Atlantic is named in his honor.

Gates died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on March 25, 1983, at the age of 76.

Namesake
The Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Thomas S. Gates (CG-51) is named after the late Secretary of Defense.  It is the only such cruiser named after a person.

References

External links
DoD Biography
The Presidency Project - Citation Accompanying the Medal of Freedom Presented to Thomas S. Gates. January 18, 1961

United States Secretaries of Defense
United States Deputy Secretaries of Defense
United States Secretaries of the Navy
United States Navy officers
United States Navy personnel of World War II
University of Pennsylvania alumni
Politicians from Philadelphia
Military personnel from Philadelphia
1906 births
1983 deaths
Members of the Philadelphia Club
United States Under Secretaries of the Navy
Recipients of the Medal of Freedom
Pennsylvania Republicans
Eisenhower administration cabinet members
20th-century American politicians
University of Pennsylvania people
Chestnut Hill Academy alumni
Ambassadors of the United States to China

Thomas S. Gates Jr.


Thakur Zorawar Singh Barhath (12 September 1883 — 17 October 1939) was an Indian revolutionary and independence activist. He is known for the assassination attempt on the Viceroy of India, Lord Hardinge, by throwing a bomb at him during a procession in New Delhi.

Thakur Zorawar Singh was part of the Barhath family of Shahpura, Bhilwara, several of whose members were prominent opponents of the British Raj. Zorawar Singh spent the last three decades of his life living under the pseudonym Sadhu Amardas Bairagi.

Early life
According to K. C. Yadav, Zorawar Singh was born in the hamlet of Khaira, near to Shahpura, Bhilwara, in 1875; other sources say 12 September 1883 in Devpura (Shahpura State) to father Thakur Krishna Singh Barhath. The Barhath family were affluent jagirdars of Rajputana  In Udaipur, he received primary education and completed secondary education in Jodhpur. Zorawar Singh's childhood was spent in close company of the aristocratic families of Shahpura, Udaipur, and Jodhpur. He was married to Anop Kanwar, the daughter of Thakur Takhtsingh of Atraliya thikana in Kota State.

Kamdar of Maharani of Jodhpur
After the death of his father, Zorawar Singh joined the Marwar royal court as the Kamdar of the Maharani of Jodhpur. It was here that Zorawar Singh met Bhai Balmukund who worked as a tutor for the princes.

Turn to revolution

His elder brother, Thakur Kesari Singh, encouraged Zorawar to join the revolutionaries in Delhi, accompanied by Master Amir Chand and Rash Behari Bose.

Delhi conspiracy case, 1912

In December 1912, Lord Hardinge, the new Governor-General of British India, arrived in Delhi. A royal procession presided by Hardinge was announced to celebrate the shifting of the capital from Calcutta to Delhi. A plan was hatched by revolutionaries, headed by Rash Behari Bose and Thakur Kesari Singh, to assassinate Hardinge. Zorawar Singh was in close touch with revolutionaries such as Bose and was part of the conspiracy to kill Hardinge during the procession, taking responsibility, along with his nephew, Pratap Singh, to throw a bomb. On 23 December 1912, Zorawar Singh and Pratap Singh went to the roof of the Marwari College building in Chandni Chowk, Delhi. From there, Zorawar Singh threw a bomb directed at Hardinge, who was riding on the back of an elephant along with his wife and guards.

Injuries caused by the assassination attempt led to unfounded rumours of Hardinge's imminent death. He suffered from neuritis and hearing loss even months later.A bodyguard died on the spot.

Aftermath
After the bombing, both Zorawar Singh and his nephew, Pratap Singh, fled into hiding. Bose, who co-planned the conspiracy, also disappeared, hiding in Nuddea (West Bengal). Kunwar Pratap Singh and his brother-in-law, Ishwar Dan Ashiya, were arrested but released due to lack of evidence. Awards were announced for those who could give any clues about Zorawar Singh and Pratap Singh.

The princely State of Kota put a reward of Rs.500 for the capture of Zorawar Singh in the Pyarelal Murder case. He was never arrested or found.

Arrah conspiracy case/Nimej murder case
After the Delhi conspiracy case, revolutionaries led by Zorawar Singh committed many dacoities in the United Provinces and Bihar to obtain funds. One of these became known as the Arrah Conspiracy or Nimej murder case, in which Singh was the principal accused. Revolutionaries led by him had attacked a Jain upasar located in Arrah (Bihar) in which a mahant was killed in the encounter. The mahant was believed to be a close confidant of British authorities. A person named Shivnarayan turned informer for the British government. British authorities released a warrant & later kill at sight order for Singh but he evaded them.

Ravines of Central India
Sensing the heat of the Colonial Police force around him increase, Zorawar Singh left for the ravines of Central India and Rajasthan. He made his residence in this region and remained there for the remaining 27 years of his life.

He had changed his name to Sadhu Amardas Bairagi and lived in the guise of a sage.

In the latter years, he lived mostly in Sitamau State.

Death
In 1937, for the first time, Congress won provincial elections in multiple states across British India and formed governments. It was opportune moment so Congress leaders and Thakur Kesari Singh, who had been released from prison in 1920, made efforts to nullify the death warrant issued against Zorawar Singh in Arrah Conspiracy. He met Purshottam Das Tandon, the Bihar Chief Minister Shri Krishna Sinha and the Home Secretary Anugraha Narayan Sinha to cancel the warrant. Zorawar Singh became ill with pneumonia and without proper treatment, he died in 1939 before this could happen.

Legacy

Shaheed Mela
Since 1974, every 23 December sees a celebration in memory of the Barhath family, that being the anniversary of the attack on Hardinge. A fair is organised in their hometown at Shahpura and the event takes place at Shahid Trimurti Memorial, which has statues of Thakur Kesari Singh, Thakur Zorawar Singh, and Kunwar Pratap Singh.

Portraits in Delhi Assembly
In January 2019, the three Barhath revolutionaries were placed in the gallery of Delhi Assembly.

Barhath Haveli of Shahpura
The "Haveli of Late Shri Kesari Singh Barhath" located in Shahpura, Bhilwara, is a State Protected Monument under the Government of Rajasthan. It is now a national museum, in which the family's weapons and armaments are displayed.

References

Indian independence activists from Rajasthan
People from Bhilwara district
1883 births
1939 deaths
Rajasthani people
Indian Hindus
Administrators in the princely states of India
Indian nationalists
Barhath family of Shahpura
People from Rajasthan

Thakur Zorawar Singh Barhath


Malvolio is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's comedy Twelfth Night, or What You Will. His name means "ill will" in Italian, referencing his disagreeable nature. He is the vain, pompous, authoritarian steward of Olivia's household.

Style
In the play, Malvolio is defined as "a kind of Puritan". He despises all manner of fun and games, and wishes his world to be completely free of human sin, yet he behaves very foolishly against his stoic nature when he believes that Olivia loves him. This leads to major conflicts with characters such as Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and Maria, mistress of the household.

Much of the play's humour comes from Maria, Feste, Toby Belch, and Andrew Aguecheek tormenting Malvolio with drinking, joking, and singing. After Malvolio interrupts their party and chastises them for their lewdness, Maria devises a way to gain revenge on the steward, which she proposes to Sir Toby and the others. Maria composes a love letter in Olivia's handwriting, and leaves it so Malvolio will find it. Beforehand, Malvolio had been wishing to marry Olivia. The letter convinces Malvolio that Olivia loves him, and leads Malvolio to think that Olivia wishes him to smile, wear yellow stockings and cross garters. Olivia is in mourning for her brother's death, and finds smiling offensive; yellow is "a colour she abhors, and cross garters a fashion she detests", according to Maria. When Malvolio is imprisoned for being a supposed lunatic after acting out the instructions in the letter, Feste visits him both as himself and in the disguise of "Sir Topas the curate", and proceeds to torment Malvolio by refusing to think him sane no matter what he says. In his guise as the latter, he insists that Malvolio must follow the Pythagorean doctrine of reincarnation, something the steward claims to disapprove of. At the end of the play, Malvolio vows, "I'll be reveng'd on the whole pack of you" for his public humiliation, and Olivia acknowledges that he has "been most notoriously abused."

The role was first played by Richard Burbage at the Globe Theatre. John Marston observed that the actors of his time often played the role with "contemptuous superiority"; by contrast his favourite Malvolio, William Ferrin, performed it with "lofty condescension". Other actors known for their performance of Malvolio include Sir Alec Guinness, Henry Irving, E. H. Sothern, Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Henry Ainley, Sir John Gielgud, Simon Russell Beale, Maurice Evans, Ken Dodd, Richard Briers, Sir Nigel Hawthorne and Sir Derek Jacobi. Richard Wilson took on the role for the Royal Shakespeare Company's 2009 production.  In 2012, Stephen Fry assumed the role at Shakespeare's Globe. In 2017, actress Tamsin Greig portrayed a female version of the character (renamed Malvolia) in Simon Godwin's revival of the play at the National Theatre.

Inspiration

Some Shakespearean scholars hypothesize that the character Malvolio was inspired by Puritan landowner Sir Thomas Posthumous Hoby, who was involved in a well known court case against many of his Yorkshire neighbours in the 1600s. Hoby sued his neighbours when they came uninvited to his house, drank, played cards, mocked his religion, and threatened to rape his wife. Hoby won damages in the case, which may have influenced the scene in Twelfth Night when Malvolio interrupts Sir Toby's late-night reveling.

Famous lines
 "[S]ome are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em." (Act II, Scene v; although Malvolio says this, he does so while reading from the letter that Maria wrote).
"This is my lady's hand these be her very C's, her U's and her T's and thus makes she her great P's."
 "My masters, are you mad?"
The lines would later be repeated, with a slight alteration, by Feste in the final scene of the play as he mocks Malvolio, who afterward storms off.

References

Characters in Twelfth Night
Male Shakespearean characters
Fictional nobility
Male literary villains
Shakespeare villains

Malvolio


North Limited was a diversified mining and resources company. Although based in Australia, its operations eventually extended to six continents. By the late 20th century the company had become the fourth largest iron ore exporter in the world with expansion underway which would have made it equal third. Its biggest asset was a majority stake in Robe River, a major miner of the Pilbara iron ore deposits of Western Australia and the world's lowest cost producer of iron ore.

History
The company was formed in 1888 as North Broken Hill Silver Mining to exploit the rich silver, lead and zinc deposits at Broken Hill in western New South Wales, the name was shortened to North Broken Hill in 1905. Production at the original North Broken Hill mine wound down and it finally closed in 1993.

However over the years the company had diversified into other mining provinces. In 1988 they took over Peko-Wallsend, changing its name to North Broken Hill Peko Limited, then North Limited in 1994. At Broken Hill the company had been known as 'North' to distinguish it from other miners in the area such as Broken Hill South and The Broken Hill Proprietary. The nickname continued long after the company's focus had moved away from Broken Hill, so the new name just formalized what the company had always been known as.

By 2000, while North was a widely diversified resource company, iron ore assets represented 44% of its value and investing to begin production at the new West Angelas iron ore mine in the Pilbara was the company's major focus. However money had also been committed to increase production at the Iron Ore Company of Canada and the Northparkes copper and gold mine..

Takeover
Like its peer Western Mining, North developed into a large diversified resources company with one special world class asset that attracted attention from huge mining companies across the world. In the case of Western Mining it was the Olympic Dam copper, gold and uranium deposit, for North it was Robe River Iron.

In 2000 a bidding war for North broke out when Rio Tinto launched a hostile takeover at $3.80 a share. This was topped by an Anglo American bid of $4.20, Rio Tinto responded with a successful offer of $4.75 per share. The company was delisted and after the takeover, Rio Tinto integrated most of North's assets into its own operations, but sold others such as the Northparkes.

Assets
In 2000 when it was taken over, North's major assets were:
Robe River Iron Associates. A large, low cost iron ore miner in the Pilbara, Western Australia, 53% interest
Iron Ore Company of Canada, an iron ore miner in Labrador, 56.1% interest
Zinkgruvan, a zinc miner in Sweden, 100% ownership
Energy Resources of Australia, a uranium producer in the Northern Territory, 68.4% interest
Northparkes copper and gold mine in New South Wales, 80% interest
Bajo de la Alumbrera mine a large copper and gold producer in Argentina, 25% interest
North Forest Products. Tasmanian producer of plantation woodchips (3.3. million tons annually, and 43% of Australian exports) 100% ownership
Golden Valley Joint Venture, Kanowna Belle Gold Mine, 50% interest
Peak Hill Joint Venture gold mine, 33.33% interest
The company was also exploring resource deposits in Australia, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Peru, Mexico and the United States

Previously North had owned many mines and companies. Some of them were:
North Broken Hill silver lead and zinc mine
Warman slurry pumps
Former Peko zinc assets, mostly those acquired from EZ Industries, Tasmania that were merged with Rio Tinto assets and spun off to form Pasminco in 1988

References

Companies based in Melbourne
Companies formerly listed on the Australian Securities Exchange
Defunct mining companies of Australia
Former Rio Tinto (corporation) subsidiaries
Gold mining companies of Australia
History of mining
Iron ore mining companies of Australia
Non-renewable resource companies established in 1885
Uranium mining companies of Australia
Australian companies established in 1885
Non-renewable resource companies disestablished in 2000
Australian companies disestablished in 2000

North Limited


Kathryn Patricia Cross (March 17, 1926 – May 8, 2023) was an American scholar of educational research. Throughout her career, she explored adult education and higher learning, discussing methodology and pedagogy in terms of remediation and advancement in the university system.

Early life and education
Born in Illinois on March 17, 1926, Cross was raised in the town of Normal. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from Illinois State University in 1948. She then earned an M.A. in psychology and a PhD in social psychology, both from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1951 and 1958 respectively.

Career
Cross was awarded several honorary doctorate degrees throughout her academic career. Before pursuing her education in psychology, she taught math at Harvard Community High School in Harvard, Illinois. Upon completing her PhD, Cross began a career in both administrative and academic duties. From 1959 to 1964, she was a dean of students at Cornell University; in 1964 she became the director of College and University Programs at the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, New Jersey. In 1966, she began working for the University of California, Berkeley, both as a research educator for the Center for Research and Development of Higher Education and as a research scientist and psychologist for Educational Testing Service. In 1980, she started teaching at the Harvard Graduate School of Education as a professor of education. By 1988, she had returned to Berkeley to teach as a professor of higher education, until her retirement in 1995. She held emeritus status at the University of California, Berkeley.

Research
Approaching educational research from the vantage of a mathematician and social scientist, Cross came to conclusions about student ability and experience perhaps different from those of some of her contemporaries. Though as caring for the remedial and new college student as colleagues such as Mina Shaughnessy, Cross found different reasons for these students' underachievement. She noted that much of the discrepancies in the students' incoming test scores lies in lack of effort and motivation. Pointing out that some of these "remedial" students come from privileged backgrounds, she argued that the problem cannot be a mere matter of the school system failing to reach the underprivileged. While Cross upheld the belief that everyone should have access to higher education, she countered that remedial programs used as an effort to "catch up" the students falling behind is not the answer. Instead, she argued that institutions should point students toward excellence in areas perhaps alternative to the traditional academic curriculum of the university setting, such as vocational or semiprofessional training.

K. Patricia Cross Award
From 1996, Cross sponsored the K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award, recognizing graduate students demonstrating promise as future leaders in higher education. The award is currently administered by the Association of American Colleges and Universities.

Death
Cross died on May 8, 2023, at the age of 97.

Bibliography
 Collaborative Learning Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty. (with Elizabeth F. Barkley and Claire Howell Major) San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005.
 Classroom Research: Implementing the Scholarship of Teaching. (with Mimi Harris Steadman) San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996.
 Classroom Assessment Techniques: A handbook for College Teachers, 2nd Ed. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 1993.
 Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for Faculty. (with Thomas A. Angelo) Ann Arbor: National University of Michigan, 1988.
 Adults as Learners. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1981.
 Accent on Learning: Improving Instruction and Reshaping the Curriculum. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1976.
 Planning Non-Traditional Programs: An Analysis of the Issues for Postsecondary Education. (with J.R. Valley and Associates) San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1974.
 Explorations in Non-Traditional Study. (With S.B. Gould, Eds.) San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1972.
 Beyond the Open Door: New Students to Higher Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1971.

References

External links
 Patricia Cross CV
 Association of American Colleges and Universities biography; Future Leaders Award

1926 births
2023 deaths
American education writers
American educational theorists
Cornell University faculty
Harvard Graduate School of Education faculty
University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Education faculty
Illinois State University alumni
University of Illinois College of Liberal Arts and Sciences alumni

K. Patricia Cross


Coolie is a 1983 Indian action comedy film, directed by Manmohan Desai and written by Kader Khan. The film stars Amitabh Bachchan as Iqbal Aslam Khan, a railway coolie, who was separated from his mother Salma (Waheeda Rehman) due to Zafar's (Kadar Khan) obsession with her causes the destruction of her family and her mental breakdown. Years later, fate unites her sons, Iqbal and Sunny (Rishi Kapoor) and they set out to save Salma from Zafar's captivity.  It also starred Rati Agnihotri, Shoma Anand,  Suresh Oberoi and Puneet Issar.

The film was released on 2nd December 1983 and became the highest-grossing film of the year. It did  in gross revenue. It made over  per territory, a rare achievement for the time and was a huge blockbuster.

The film is also infamous for a fight scene with co-star Puneet Issar, during which Bachchan had a near-fatal injury due to a miscalculated jump. In the final cut of the film, the fight scene during which he got injured was frozen and a message appears marking the scene as the one in which he was injured. The original script showed Bachchan dying after Kader Khan shot him. But later on, after the injury-and-recovery episode, Desai thought that this would have a negative impact on the movie as well as a bad feeling in the audience, decided to change the ending. The modified ending has the hero recover after his operation.

Plot
A wealthy, but evil man named Zafar Khan, has fallen in love with a girl named Salma and wants to marry her, but she and her father did not let him. Zafar was arrested for various crimes and was imprisoned for 10 years, but when he is released, he sees that Salma is married to a good man named Aslam Khan. Zafar Khan wants to convince Salma to marry him but Salma refuses. Zafar murders Salma's father and plots his revenge by flooding the region in which Salma lives, nearly killing Aslam and injuring Salma, causing her to lose her memory. During this catastrophe, Salma is also separated from her young son Iqbal. On a railway platform, Iqbal attempts to go after her on foot while Salma is on a train, but he slips and the train leaves the platform. Zafar abducts Salma and tells the world she is his wife. He also adopts an infant from an orphanage in Kanpur, a boy named Sunny, for Salma to raise on the advice of a psychiatrist. Meanwhile, Iqbal is reunited with his uncle, who has lost his wife and son in the flood. In the process of a heated fight, Iqbal's uncle has lost his right arm, to which Iqbal tells him he will serve as his uncle's right arm from the present onward. The uncle will raise Iqbal as his own, as they have no more family.

Years pass, and Iqbal and his uncle work as coolies. Iqbal has grown up to be a dashing, confident young man, and is considered the leader of the local coolies. During an incident with a man named Mr. Puri, a coolie is beaten up badly, to which Iqbal is infuriated. Mr. Puri is beaten up, but Iqbal is wrongfully imprisoned for his actions. On the same day, however, he is set free. He organizes a labor strike, which brings the station to its knees. Sunny, a young, budding reporter, is covering the story. While speaking to Sunny, Iqbal sees a picture of Sunny's mother who turns out to be Salma. In another attempt to get Salma back, Iqbal rushes to her house to bring her back after all these years, but, to his horror, Salma does not recognize him. Zafar is infuriated at Iqbal's trespass. His crooks, disguised as police officers, near-fatally beat Iqbal, while he takes Salma to the psychiatrist to administer electric shocks on her so that her memory never returns. Sunny threatens to publish all of Zafar's crimes in the newspapers the following day if he does not return Salma to him.

Iqbal and Sunny become friends, and both find love; Iqbal with a Christian girl Julie D'Costa and Sunny with his childhood sweetheart, Deepa. Meanwhile, Aslam has been imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. When he is finally let out, Julie tries to kill him in a graveyard because she thought he had murdered her father, John D'Costa, but, as the revolver is empty, she cannot fire. Aslam explains that Zafar had murdered her father, and framed Aslam, to which Julie believes him. Things are looking up, but the coolies uncover a banking and housing scandal against them. After a series of run-ins with the corrupt parties, Iqbal finds himself in a fight to the death with Zafar. Salma returns at a very pivotal scene in the film, during the election standoff between the communist workers under Iqbal and the capitalist lords under Zafar with her old memories intact and she publicly testifies against Zafar and how he destroyed her family. In the crowd is an old man, who turns out to be Iqbal's long-lost father Aslam. Also, Iqbal's uncle recognizes a birthmark on Sunny, proving that Sunny was indeed the son he thought he had lost in the great flood. The family is reunited, much to the fury of Zafar, who then proceeds to shoot Aslam but accidentally shoots and kills Iqbal's beloved mamu (maternal uncle) who cared for him in his youth. Zafar then abducts Salma. Iqbal and Sunny both chase after the evildoers, killing Mr. Puri (who dies from a heart attack due to the mental pressure of the chase) and Vicky (who falls out of Zafar's car and is run over by an oncoming truck) in the process, until Iqbal corners Zafar in a masjid. The holy shroud from the dargah shrine flies onto Iqbal's chest, and Iqbal defiantly faces Zafar with the belief in God's protection from harm with His name on his chest. He is shot several times by Zafar, but he continues to chase Zafar up the minaret, saying a part of the azaan with each shot. With the last of his strength, he cries the takbir and pushes Zafar off the parapet, killing him instantly, and Iqbal collapses into his mother's arms. Coolies from all faiths pray hard for his recovery, and Iqbal recovers from his injuries to the joy of all.

Cast
 Amitabh Bachchan as Iqbal Khan / Lambuji
 Rishi Kapoor as Sunny Khan / Tinguji
 Rati Agnihotri as Julie D' Costa
 Shoma Anand as Deepa Iyengar
 Kader Khan as Zafar Khan
 Waheeda Rehman as Salma Khan
 Puneet Issar as Bob
 Satyendra Kapoor as Aslam Khan (Iqbal's Father)
 Suresh Oberoi as Vicky Puri
 Om Shivpuri as Om Puri
 Nilu Phule as Nathu
 Mukri as Deepa's Father
 Tun Tun as Mother of 7 babies
 Goga Kapoor as Goga
 Amrish Puri as John D' Costa (Julie's father)
 Ballu Eagle as Allah Rakha

Shabbir Kumar was used for the first time to provide playback for Amitabh Bachchan.

Production
The script was written by Kader Khan, who also stars as the film's antagonist. In addition to having Bachchan play a Muslim protagonist, Khan incorporated elements of Islamic Sufi mysticism into the script, including various Sufi motifs and references.

Before the film started Bachchan asked Kannada legendary actor Rajkumar to make his cameo in the film. There was mutual respect between Amitabh and Rajkumar and they were both admirers of each other.

Accident during filming
The film became famous even before its release when Amitabh Bachchan was critically injured on 26 July 1982 in the intestines while filming a fight scene with co-star Puneet Issar at the Bangalore University campus, which almost cost him his life.

In the fight scene, Bachchan was supposed to fall onto a table but mistimed his jump. This resulted in an internal abdominal injury. He was transferred to a Mumbai hospital, where according to the actor, he went into a "haze and coma-like situation", and was "clinically dead for a couple of minutes".

While he was in the hospital, there were reports of widespread mourning, and prayers were offered by many Indians in the country and abroad. According to reports, Rajiv Gandhi cancelled a trip to the United States to be with him.

Bachchan received 60 bottles of blood from 200 donors, one of whom was carrying the Hepatitis B virus. Bachchan recovered from the accident but discovered in 2000 that the virus had resulted in cirrhosis of the liver, which damaged about 75% of his liver. Bachchan later spoke out about his experience to raise awareness about the Hepatitis B vaccine.

Despite the critical injury, Bachchan recovered remarkably and resumed shooting on 7 January 1983. In the final cut of the film, the fight scene during which he got injured was frozen and a message appears marking the scene as the one in which he was injured. Manmohan Desai did this on Amitabh's wish.

Due to Bachchan's injury, the ending was also changed. The original script showed Amitabh dying after Kader Khan shot him. But later on, after the injury-and-recovery episode, Manmohan Desai, thinking that this would have a negative impact on the movie as well as a bad feeling in the audience, decided to change the ending. The modified ending has the hero recover after his operation.

Soundtrack
The music was by Laxmikant-Pyarelal and the lyrics were penned by Anand Bakshi. Manmohan Desai put Shabbir Kumar as a singer for multiple songs in the soundtrack due to the fact that his voice sounded like Mohammed Rafi's voice, who Manmohan admired as a singer.

Box office
It was the highest grossing Bollywood film of 1983, with  in gross revenue. It was declared "super-hit" by Boxoffice India in 2009. The film made over  per territory, a rare achievement for the time and was a huge blockbuster.  In 1984, it was estimated that the film had sold 70million tickets.

See also

Amar Akbar Anthony
Muqaddar Ka Sikander
Muslim social

References

External links

1983 films
1980s Hindi-language films
Films scored by Laxmikant–Pyarelal
Films directed by Manmohan Desai
Indian action comedy films
Films shot in Bangalore
1980s action comedy films
Hindi-language action comedy films

Coolie (1983 Hindi film)


The Swiss Propulsion Laboratory (SPL) is a rocket laboratory that runs integrated programs focusing on research and development of space-technology and space tourism. It is located in Langenthal, Switzerland and was founded in 1998. The company develops, builds and runs rocket systems that transport small payloads into low Earth orbit (LEO).

The company works and coordinates with external facilities and other organizations such as universities, graduate schools and Switzerland's precision industry. It is a partner of the White Label Space team, which is currently competing in the Google Lunar X PRIZE.

References

External links

Space technology research institutes
Langenthal
Organizations established in 1998

Swiss Propulsion Laboratory


A logistic function or logistic curve is a common S-shaped curve (sigmoid curve) with the equation

where

For values of  in the domain of real numbers from  to , the S-curve shown on the right is obtained, with the graph of  approaching  as  approaches  and approaching zero as  approaches .

The logistic function finds applications in a range of fields, including biology (especially ecology), biomathematics, chemistry, demography, economics, geoscience, mathematical psychology, probability, sociology, political science, linguistics, statistics, and artificial neural networks. A generalization of the logistic function is the hyperbolastic function of type I.

The standard logistic function, where , is sometimes simply called the sigmoid. It is also sometimes called the expit, being the inverse of the logit.

History

The logistic function was introduced in a series of three papers by Pierre François Verhulst between 1838 and 1847, who devised it as a model of population growth by adjusting the exponential growth model, under the guidance of Adolphe Quetelet. Verhulst first devised the function in the mid 1830s, publishing a brief note in 1838, then presented an expanded analysis and named the function in 1844 (published 1845); the third paper adjusted the correction term in his model of Belgian population growth.

The initial stage of growth is approximately exponential (geometric); then, as saturation begins, the growth slows to linear (arithmetic), and at maturity, growth stops.

Verhulst did not explain the choice of the term "logistic" (), but it is presumably in contrast to the logarithmic curve, and by analogy with arithmetic and geometric. His growth model is preceded by a discussion of arithmetic growth and geometric growth (whose curve he calls a logarithmic curve, instead of the modern term exponential curve), and thus "logistic growth" is presumably named by analogy, logistic being from , a traditional division of Greek mathematics.

The term is unrelated to the military and management term logistics, which is instead from  "lodgings", though some believe the Greek term also influenced logistics; see  for details.

Mathematical properties

The  is the logistic function with parameters , , , which yields

In practice, due to the nature of the exponential function , it is often sufficient to compute the standard logistic function for  over a small range of real numbers, such as a range contained in [−6, +6], as it quickly converges very close to its saturation values of 0 and 1.

The logistic function has the symmetry property that

Thus,  is an odd function.

The logistic function is an offset and scaled hyperbolic tangent function:

or

This follows from

Derivative

The standard logistic function has an easily calculated derivative. The derivative is known as the density of the logistic distribution:

The logistic distribution has mean x0 and variance π/3k

Integral
Conversely, its antiderivative can be computed by the substitution , since , so (dropping the constant of integration)

In artificial neural networks, this is known as the softplus function and (with scaling) is a smooth approximation of the ramp function, just as the logistic function (with scaling) is a smooth approximation of the Heaviside step function.

Logistic differential equation
The standard logistic function is the solution of the simple first-order non-linear ordinary differential equation

with boundary condition . This equation is the continuous version of the logistic map. Note that the reciprocal logistic function is solution to a simple first-order linear ordinary differential equation.

The qualitative behavior is easily understood in terms of the phase line: the derivative is 0 when the function is 1; and the derivative is positive for  between 0 and 1, and negative for  above 1 or less than 0 (though negative populations do not generally accord with a physical model). This yields an unstable equilibrium at 0 and a stable equilibrium at 1, and thus for any function value greater than 0 and less than 1, it grows to 1.

The logistic equation is a special case of the Bernoulli differential equation and has the following solution:

Choosing the constant of integration  gives the other well known form of the definition of the logistic curve:

More quantitatively, as can be seen from the analytical solution, the logistic curve shows early exponential growth for negative argument, which reaches to linear growth of slope 1/4 for an argument near 0, then approaches 1 with an exponentially decaying gap.

The logistic function is the inverse of the natural logit function

and so converts the logarithm of odds into a probability.  The conversion from the log-likelihood ratio of two alternatives also takes the form of a logistic curve.

The differential equation derived above is a special case of a general differential equation that only models the sigmoid function for . In many modeling applications, the more general form

can be desirable. Its solution is the shifted and scaled sigmoid .

The hyperbolic-tangent relationship leads to another form for the logistic function's derivative:

which ties the logistic function into the logistic distribution.

Rotational symmetry about (0, 1/2)
The sum of the logistic function and its reflection about the vertical axis, , is

The logistic function is thus rotationally symmetrical about the point (0, 1/2).

Applications

Link created an extension of Wald's theory of sequential analysis to a distribution-free accumulation of random variables until either a positive or negative bound is first equaled or exceeded. Link derives the probability of first equaling or exceeding the positive boundary as , the logistic function. This is the first proof that the logistic function may have a stochastic process as its basis. Link provides a century of examples of "logistic" experimental results and a newly derived relation between this probability and the time of absorption at the boundaries.

In ecology: modeling population growth

A typical application of the logistic equation is a common model of population growth (see also population dynamics), originally due to Pierre-François Verhulst in 1838, where the rate of reproduction is proportional to both the existing population and the amount of available resources, all else being equal. The Verhulst equation was published after Verhulst had read Thomas Malthus' An Essay on the Principle of Population, which describes the Malthusian growth model of simple (unconstrained) exponential growth. Verhulst derived his logistic equation to describe the self-limiting growth of a biological population. The equation was rediscovered in 1911 by A. G. McKendrick for the growth of bacteria in broth and experimentally tested using a technique for nonlinear parameter estimation. The equation is also sometimes called the Verhulst-Pearl equation following its rediscovery in 1920 by Raymond Pearl (1879–1940) and Lowell Reed (1888–1966) of the Johns Hopkins University. Another scientist, Alfred J. Lotka derived the equation again in 1925, calling it the law of population growth.

Letting  represent population size ( is often used in ecology instead) and  represent time, this model is formalized by the differential equation:

where the constant  defines the growth rate and  is the carrying capacity.

In the equation, the early, unimpeded growth rate is modeled by the first term . The value of the rate  represents the proportional increase of the population  in one unit of time. Later, as the population grows, the modulus of the second term (which multiplied out is ) becomes almost as large as the first, as some members of the population  interfere with each other by competing for some critical resource, such as food or living space. This antagonistic effect is called the bottleneck, and is modeled by the value of the parameter . The competition diminishes the combined growth rate, until the value of  ceases to grow (this is called maturity of the population).
The solution to the equation (with  being the initial population) is

where

where  is the limiting value of , the highest value that the population can reach given infinite time (or come close to reaching in finite time). It is important to stress that the carrying capacity is asymptotically reached independently of the initial value , and also in the case that .

In ecology, species are sometimes referred to as -strategist or -strategist depending upon the selective processes that have shaped their life history strategies.
Choosing the variable dimensions so that  measures the population in units of carrying capacity, and  measures time in units of , gives the dimensionless differential equation

Integral
The antiderivative of the ecological form of the logistic function can be computed by the substitution , since

Time-varying carrying capacity
Since the environmental conditions influence the carrying capacity, as a consequence it can be time-varying, with , leading to the following mathematical model:

A particularly important case is that of carrying capacity that varies periodically with period :

It can be shown that in such a case, independently from the initial value ,  will tend to a unique periodic solution , whose period is .

A typical value of  is one year: In such case  may reflect periodical variations of weather conditions.

Another interesting generalization is to consider that the carrying capacity  is a function of the population at an earlier time, capturing a delay in the way population modifies its environment. This leads to a logistic delay equation, which has a very rich behavior, with bistability in some parameter range, as well as a monotonic decay to zero, smooth exponential growth, punctuated unlimited growth (i.e., multiple S-shapes), punctuated growth or alternation to a stationary level, oscillatory approach to a stationary level, sustainable oscillations, finite-time singularities as well as finite-time death.

In statistics and machine learning
Logistic functions are used in several roles in statistics. For example, they are the cumulative distribution function of the logistic family of distributions, and they are, a bit simplified, used to model the chance a chess player has to beat their opponent in the Elo rating system. More specific examples now follow.

Logistic regression

Logistic functions are used in logistic regression to model how the probability  of an event may be affected by one or more explanatory variables: an example would be to have the model

where  is the explanatory variable,  and  are model parameters to be fitted, and  is the standard logistic function.

Logistic regression and other log-linear models are also commonly used in machine learning. A generalisation of the logistic function to multiple inputs is the softmax activation function, used in multinomial logistic regression.

Another application of the logistic function is in the Rasch model, used in item response theory. In particular, the Rasch model forms a basis for maximum likelihood estimation of the locations of objects or persons on a continuum, based on collections of categorical data, for example the abilities of persons on a continuum based on responses that have been categorized as correct and incorrect.

Neural networks
Logistic functions are often used in neural networks to introduce nonlinearity in the model or to clamp signals to within a specified interval.  A popular neural net element computes a linear combination of its input signals, and applies a bounded logistic function as the activation function to the result; this model can be seen as a "smoothed" variant of the classical threshold neuron.

A common choice for the activation or "squashing" functions, used to clip for large magnitudes to keep the response of the neural network bounded is

which is a logistic function.

These relationships result in simplified implementations of artificial neural networks with artificial neurons. Practitioners caution that sigmoidal functions which are antisymmetric about the origin (e.g. the hyperbolic tangent) lead to faster convergence when training networks with backpropagation.

The logistic function is itself the derivative of another proposed activation function, the softplus.

In medicine: modeling of growth of tumors

Another application of logistic curve is in medicine, where the logistic differential equation is used to model the growth of tumors. This application can be considered an extension of the above-mentioned use in the framework of ecology (see also the Generalized logistic curve, allowing for more parameters). Denoting with  the size of the tumor at time , its dynamics are governed by

which is of the type

where  is the proliferation rate of the tumor.

If a chemotherapy is started with a log-kill effect, the equation may be revised to be

where  is the therapy-induced death rate. In the idealized case of very long therapy,  can be modeled as a periodic function (of period ) or (in case of continuous infusion therapy) as a constant function, and one has that

i.e. if the average therapy-induced death rate is greater than the baseline proliferation rate, then there is the eradication of the disease. Of course, this is an oversimplified model of both the growth and the therapy (e.g. it does not take into account the phenomenon of clonal resistance).

In medicine: modeling of a pandemic

A novel infectious pathogen to which a population has no immunity will generally spread exponentially in the early stages, while the supply of susceptible individuals is plentiful.  The SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 exhibited exponential growth early in the course of infection in several countries in early 2020. Factors including a lack of susceptible hosts (through the continued spread of infection until it passes the threshold for herd immunity) or reduction in the accessibility of potential hosts through physical distancing measures, may result in exponential-looking epidemic curves first linearizing (replicating the "logarithmic" to "logistic" transition first noted by Pierre-François Verhulst, as noted above) and then reaching a maximal limit.

A logistic function, or related functions (e.g. the Gompertz function) are usually used in a descriptive or phenomenological manner because they fit well not only to the early exponential rise, but to the eventual levelling off of the pandemic as the population develops a herd immunity. This is in contrast to actual models of pandemics which attempt to formulate a description based on the dynamics of the pandemic (e.g. contact rates, incubation times, social distancing, etc.). Some simple models have been developed, however, which yield a logistic solution.

Modeling early COVID-19 cases

A generalized logistic function, also called the Richards growth curve, has been applied to model the early phase of the COVID-19 outbreak. The authors fit the generalized logistic function to the cumulative number of infected cases, here referred to as infection trajectory. There are different parameterizations of the generalized logistic function in the literature. One frequently used forms is

where  are real numbers, and  is a positive real number. The flexibility of the curve  is due to the parameter : (i) if  then the curve reduces to the logistic function, and (ii) as  approaches zero, the curve converges to the Gompertz function. In epidemiological modeling, , , and  represent the final epidemic size, infection rate, and lag phase, respectively. See the right panel for an example infection trajectory when  is set to .

One of the benefits of using a growth function such as the generalized logistic function in epidemiological modeling is its relatively easy application to the multilevel model framework, where information from different geographic regions can be pooled together.

In chemistry: reaction models
The concentration of reactants and products in autocatalytic reactions follow the logistic function.
The degradation of Platinum group metal-free (PGM-free) oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalyst in fuel cell cathodes follows the logistic decay function, suggesting an autocatalytic degradation mechanism.

In physics: Fermi–Dirac distribution
The logistic function determines the statistical distribution of fermions over the energy states of a system in thermal equilibrium. In particular, it is the distribution of the probabilities that each possible energy level is occupied by a fermion, according to Fermi–Dirac statistics.

In optics: mirage
The logistic function also finds applications in optics, particularly in modelling phenomena such as mirages. Under certain conditions, such as the presence of a temperature or concentration gradient due to diffusion and balancing with gravity, logistic curve behaviours can emerge.

A mirage, resulting from a temperature gradient that modifies the refractive index related to the density/concentration of the material over distance, can be modelled using a fluid with a refractive index gradient due to the concentration gradient. This mechanism can be equated to a limiting population growth model, where the concentrated region attempts to diffuse into the lower concentration region, while seeking equilibrium with gravity, thus yielding a logistic function curve.

In material science: Phase diagrams
See Diffusion bonding.

In linguistics: language change
In linguistics, the logistic function can be used to model language change: an innovation that is at first marginal begins to spread more quickly with time, and then more slowly as it becomes more universally adopted.

In agriculture: modeling crop response
The logistic S-curve can be used for modeling the crop response to changes in growth factors. There are two types of response functions:  positive  and negative growth curves. For example, the crop yield may increase with increasing value of the growth factor up to a certain level (positive function), or it may decrease with increasing growth factor values (negative function owing to a negative growth factor), which situation requires an inverted S-curve.

In economics and sociology: diffusion of innovations
The logistic function can be used to illustrate the progress of the diffusion of an innovation through its life cycle.

In The Laws of Imitation (1890), Gabriel Tarde describes the rise and spread of new ideas through imitative chains. In particular, Tarde identifies three main stages through which innovations spread: the first one corresponds to the difficult beginnings, during which the idea has to struggle within a hostile environment full of opposing habits and beliefs; the second one corresponds to the properly exponential take-off of the idea, with ; finally, the third stage is logarithmic, with , and corresponds to the time when the impulse of the idea gradually slows down while, simultaneously new opponent ideas appear. The ensuing situation halts or stabilizes the progress of the innovation, which approaches an asymptote.

In a Sovereign state, the subnational units (constituent states or cities) may use loans to finance their projects. However, this funding source is usually subject to strict legal rules as well as to economy scarcity constraints, specially the resources the banks can lend (due to their equity or Basel limits). These restrictions, which represent a saturation level, along with an exponential rush in an economic competition for money, create a public finance diffusion of credit pleas and the aggregate national response is a sigmoid curve.

In the history of economy, when new products are introduced there is an intense amount of research and development which leads to dramatic improvements in quality and reductions in cost.  This leads to a period of rapid industry growth. Some of the more famous examples are: railroads, incandescent light bulbs, electrification, cars and air travel. Eventually, dramatic improvement and cost reduction opportunities are exhausted, the product or process are in widespread use with few remaining potential new customers, and markets become saturated.

Logistic analysis was used in papers by several researchers at the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). These papers deal with the diffusion of various innovations, infrastructures and energy source substitutions and the role of work in the economy as well as with the long economic cycle. Long economic cycles were investigated by Robert Ayres (1989). Cesare Marchetti published on long economic cycles and on diffusion of innovations. Arnulf Grübler's book (1990) gives a detailed account of the diffusion of infrastructures including canals, railroads, highways and airlines, showing that their diffusion followed logistic shaped curves.

Carlota Perez used a logistic curve to illustrate the long (Kondratiev) business cycle with the following labels: beginning of a technological era as irruption, the ascent as frenzy, the rapid build out as synergy and the completion as maturity.

See also

 Cross fluid
 Hyperbolic growth
 Heaviside step function
 Hill equation (biochemistry)
 Hubbert curve
 List of mathematical functions
 STAR model
 Michaelis–Menten kinetics
 r/K selection theory
 Rectifier (neural networks)
 Shifted Gompertz distribution
 Tipping point (sociology)

Notes

References

 Published as:

External links

 L.J. Linacre, Why logistic ogive and not autocatalytic curve?, accessed 2009-09-12.
 https://web.archive.org/web/20060914155939/http://luna.cas.usf.edu/~mbrannic/files/regression/Logistic.html

 Online experiments with JSXGraph
 Esses are everywhere.
 Seeing the s-curve is everything.
 Restricted Logarithmic Growth with Injection

Special functions
Differential equations
Population
Population ecology
Logistic regression
Growth curves

Logistic function


Violette Reine Elizabeth Szabo GC (née Bushell; 26 June 1921 –  February 1945) was a French/British agent during the Second World War. Her role was known as Special Operations Executive (SOE). She was twice parachuted into France to help the French resistance activity against German forces (the Wehrmacht).

During her second mission, Szabo was caught by the Germans. She was interrogated, and sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany, where she was treated harshly. Like most other prisoners, she had to perform hard work in freezing cold conditions with few clothes. She was shot near the end of the war. After her death, she was awarded the George Cross, the Croix de Guerre and the Medaille de la Resistance.

Szabo's father was British, and her mother was French.

Early life
Violette Szabo was born Violette Reine Elizabeth Bushell in Paris on 26 June 1921. Her father was a taxi-driver and car salesman, and her mother was a dressmaker. During her childhood, Violette lived in both France and England at different times. She could speak both languages well. When the Second World War broke out, she was working at Le Bon Marché, a Brixton department store.

Szabo married Étienne Szabo in 1940. He was a Hungarian non-commissioned officer in the French Foreign Legion. Violette was 19, Étienne was 31.

After her marriage, Violette became a switchboard operator for the General Post Office in central London, working throughout the blitz. Bored by the job, she joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) on 11 September 1941. Szabo found within weeks that she was pregnant, so she left the ATS to return to London for the birth.

Violette sent her baby to childminders while she worked at the South Morden aircraft factory where her father was stationed. Then she was told of her husband's death in action. Étienne had died on 24 October 1942 at the beginning of the Second Battle of El Alamein; he had never seen his daughter. It was Étienne's death that made Violette accept an offer to train as a field agent in the British Special Operations Executive (SOE). It was her best way to fight the enemy.

Special Operations Executive
Szabo was sent to the SOE "finishing school" at Beaulieu, Hampshire, where she learnt escape and evasion, uniform recognition, communications and cryptography. She had training in weaponry. The final stage in training was parachute jumping. On her first attempt, Szabo badly sprained her ankle and was sent home to recover (it was this ankle that was to fail her later in France). She was able to take the parachuting course again and passed with a second class in February 1944.

In 2012 Max Hastings wrote that Szabo was "adored by the men and women of SOE both for her courage and endless infectious Cockney laughter", while Leo Marks remembered her as "A dark-haired slip of mischief....She had a Cockney accent which added to her impishness".

Awards
Szabo was only the second woman to be awarded the George Cross. Both Violette and Étienne Szabo were awarded the French Croix de Guerre for their bravery in the field. On 17 December 1947 their five-year-old daughter Tania received the George Cross from King George VI on behalf of her late mother. Violette and Étienne Szabo are believed to be the most decorated married couple of World War II.

References

1921 births
1945 deaths
People from Paris
George Cross holders
Victims of Nazism
British people
Spies

Violette Szabo


Yaqubzai () are a Pashtun tribe of Gandapur living in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

History
Yaqubzais are the descendants of Yaqub, the eldest son of Gandapur. Yaqub though the eldest one, was not the most brilliant of his four sons and hence the whole family of Gandapur was led by Ibrahim Khan the second son. The descendants of Ibrahim Khan are known as Ibrahim Zai(sons of Ibrahim). Yaquzai are a small segment of the whole tribe of Gandapurs. They have played no worth mentioning role in the Gandapur tribe struggle to establish themselves at Kulachi, Dera Ismail Khan in the 16th century A.D.

The original name of Gandapur was Tairi Khan. He had four sons and a daughter. The names of the sons and daughter are as follows;
 Yaqub Khan (His descendants known as Yaqub Zai)
 Ibrahim Khan (His descendants known as Ibrahim Zai)
 Hussain Khan (His descendants known as Hussain Zai)
 Dre Plaara (His descendants are not known)
 Khubai the daughter of Gandapur. The descendants of her son Kamal are known as Kamal Khel.

Gandapur Pashtun tribes
Pashto-language surnames
Pakistani names

Yaqubzai


Il Cromuele (The Cromwell) is a tragedy in five acts, released in 1671. It was conceived and written by Girolamo Graziani, through the sixties of the 17th century, in Modena, during the troubled reign of Laura Martinozzi.

Genesis
The first information on the composition of the Il Cromuele appears in the preface to Graziani's Varie Poesie e Prose (1662).

Since 1666 the writing of Il Cromuele is accompanied by an extensive correspondence with Jean Chapelain, as Graziani was waged by Colbert on behalf of Louis The Great.

Plot
Henrighetta, Queen of England has escaped from Cromuele, the tyrant usurper who imprisoned her husband king Carlo in the Tower of London.
After useless petitions to the Government of Edinburgh and to the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, she has sailed towards France in order to ask for help by her nephew Louis XIV.

She is with Delmira, a young Irish girl just known during the trip. The two women, for their security, are travelling with male clothes, as Dutch Merchants. During the voyage, their ship has been wrecked, and their lifeboat was pushed by the wind to English coast, from where they reached London under the identities of Henrico (Henry) and Edmondo (Edmund).

In this guise, they have been housed in the Palace of Odoardo (Edward) and Anna Hide, a family in pectore still loyalist despite it shows fidelity to the usurper Cromuele. The beauty and the singing qualities of Edmondo/Delmira, have meant that the two women were both introduced in Whitehall to attend a major Costume party that Cromuele has ordered, to distract Londoners from the consequences of his despotic government and a looming plague.

So far the Backstory. With the arrival at Palace Edmondo/Delmira and Henrico/Henrighetta tragedy begins.

It's the eve of King's decapitation. The death sentence has not yet been issued. Elisabetta (Elizabeth), the wife of Cromuele, wants her husband to postpone the decision because she's secretly in love with the King.
Her confidant Orinda, an elder widow sensitive to love affairs, combines her clandestine meeting with Carlo within the prison, where Elisabetta will be able to offer him clemency in change of love.

To arrange such an encounter, Orinda asks for help to Edmondo/Delmira (of which, thinking she's a boy, fell in love) and to Henrico/Henrighetta, reassured by their seeming foreigner.

The two heroines take this opportunity to free Carlo, with the help of Odoardo and Anna Hide,
to which in the meantime have revealed their true identities. But the discovery of the conspiracy precipitates the fate of Carlo which is executed at dawn as well as Edmondo/Delmira who, dying, has time to prove her identity, and through some details of her story, Orinda supposes to recognize her daughter, sent abroad when very young, to save her from a prophecy of die at home by relatives. Overwhelmed with grief, Orinda commits suicide on what she believes to be her daughter's corpse.

After the regicide. Cromuele can finally sleep, but his sleep is interrupted by a nightmare in which Mary Stuart heralds the end of his power. Upon awakening, Cromuele receives the glad tidings of the existence of a newborn daughter believed dead, but actually still alive because exchanged with Orinda's one while in bassinet.

But his happiness is short-lived because the anagnorisis plunges him into utter turmoil, when he discovers that his beloved daughter
was actually the Edmondo/Delmira he has just executed.

Il Cromuele between history and fiction
 With the Restoration,  on the anniversary of the regicide the corpse of Oliver Cromwell had been exhumed and subjected to Posthumous execution.  In the  year of the publication of  Il Cromuele,  his head was still exposed in Westminster. The event is evoked through the premonition of  Mary Stuart.
 Along with Oliver Cromwell (Cromuele), Charles I (Carlo) and their respective wives Elizabeth Bourchier (Elisabetta) and Henrietta Maria of France (Henrighetta), we find Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon (Odoardo) which after giving initial support for Commonwealth, changed his party back to Cavaliers, and his daughter  Anne Hyde (Anna), first wife of James II of  which in fact in the  drama appears in love. Also appearing in the play, or are mentioned in their proper political position, generals of  the New Model Army such as  John Lambert (Lamberto), Henry Ireton (Iretone), Thomas Harrison (Harrisone) and Thomas Fairfax (Farfasse).
 Even the two characters only required by the fiction, and therefore presented only with their first name, have a precise reference to history or to contemporary chronicle. The death of Delmira caused by her father Cromuele, plunges him in total despair, and Orinda elderly widow but hypersensitive to matters of love, becomes herself a victim of love, even if Platonic, for a woman. They both recalled the viewer and the contemporary reader to real people: The first is a direct quote to the favorite daughter of Cromwell, Elizabeth Claypole that had broken off relations with her father not forgiving him his murderous methods. Elizabeth died when she was 29, as well as Delmira, and her death after a long and painful illness, seemed having given the fatal blow to the health of her father, who actually died a month later. The episode struck the imagination of his contemporaries who found in it a form of nemesis for regicide committed. The second, Orinda is a direct reference to the Welsh poet Katherine Philips, whose poetic production concerned only about love, marriage, on love relationships in general, arousing interest and scandal for her theories on Love between women, and whose pen name was The Matchless Orinda.

Performance history
The Preface to the second edition of Il Cromuele (1673), shows no trace of its premiere. There is also no trace in the rich documentation in the Este's National Archives in Modena.

The cause of the probable non-representation is the dynastic marriage which occurred in 1673 (then only two years after the first publication) between Maria Beatrice d'Este and James Stuart, the latter newly widowed by that Anne Hyde with whom, in the Il Cromuele, he appears in love. A presence unwieldy for Graziani, who as Secretary of State, was keeping the interests of the House of Este in the marriage.

In contemporary times, Il Cromuele has been represented in Piacenza in the theatre season 1996–97 by Piacenza's Company Gli Infidi Lumi,  directed by Stefano Tomassini, music by Massimo Berzolla.

Editions
 Bologna, Manolessi, 1671 in -4°
 Modena, Soliani, 1671 in -12°
 Bologna, Manolessi, 1673 in -4°
 [Piacenza], Infidi Lumi Edizioni, 1997 (out of print edition, theater adaptation by Stefano Tomassini)
 Pisa, Edizioni della Normale, 2011, in: Storie Inglesi, l'Inghilterra vista dall'Italia tra storia e romanzo (XVIII sec.) edited by Clizia Carminati e Stefano Villani, pagg. 297 - 470.

Bibliography
 Emilio Bertana, L'irregolarità del teatro profano: il «Cromuele» di Girolamo Graziani, in: Storia dei generi letterari italiani, la Tragedia, Milano, Vallardi, [1916?], pages 200–10.
 Piero Di Nepi, Girolamo Graziani e la politica come arte: «Cromuele», "F.M. Annali dell'Istituto di Filologia Moderna dell'Università di Roma, 2-1979, Roma, 1981, pages 113-24 (see Fulvio Bianchi in: "La Rassegna della Letteratura italiana" diretta da Walter Binni, sept.dec. 1982, pages 620–1).
 Rosa Galli Pellegrini, La Tragédie Italienne à l'école du classicisme Français: le rôle de Chapelain dans la genèse du "Cromuele" de Graziani, "Quaderni del Dipartimento di Lingue e Letterature Straniere Moderne, Università di Genova",  2–1987, peges 35–57.
 Maurizio Fasce, Introduzione e note alle edizione de Il Cromuele, con la collaborazione di Carlo Alberto Girotto, Storie Inglesi, l'Inghilterra vista dall'Italia tra storia e romanzo (XVIII sec.), edited by Clizia Carminati e Stefano Villani, Edizioni della Normale, Pisa, 2011, pagg. 297 - 330.

References

1671 plays
Plays about the English Civil War
Italian plays
Cultural depictions of Oliver Cromwell
Cultural depictions of Charles I of England
Cultural depictions of Mary, Queen of Scots
Tragedy plays
Anne Hyde
Henrietta Maria of France

Il Cromuele