The House of Commons of England was the lower house of the Parliament of England (which included Wales) from  the 14th century to the union of England and Scotland in 1707. It was then replaced by the House of Commons of Great Britain. In 1801, with the union of Great Britain and Ireland, that house was in turn replaced by the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.

The first parliament to invite representatives of the major towns was Montfort's Parliament in 1265. At the "Model Parliament" of 1295, representatives of the boroughs (including towns and cities) were admitted. It became the rule that each county send two knights of the shire, and that each borough send two burgesses.   In 1341 the Commons met separately from the nobility and clergy for the first time, creating in effect an Upper Chamber and a Lower Chamber.  The clergy and nobility became the House of Lords.

While they were English possessions Calais, between 1372 and 1558, and Tournai, between 1513 and 1519, were represented in the Parliament.

James I and Charles I came to depend on the parliament for taxation and the disputes  resulted in the English Civil War.  The armed forces of Parliament won the war. In December 1648 the House of Commons was purged by the New Model Army, which was supposed to be under the control Parliament. Pride's Purge was the only military coup in English history. Then Charles I was beheaded and the Upper House was abolished. The unicameral Parliament that was left was later called the Rump Parliament  It  only had a small selection of Members of Parliament approved by the army – some of whom were soldiers themselves. In 1653, when leading figures in this Parliament began to disagree with the army, it was dissolved by Oliver Cromwell. The monarchy and the House of Lords were both restored with the Commons in 1660. The influence of the Crown had been decreased, and was less after James II was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the Bill of Rights 1689 was enacted.

References

House of Commons of England

House of Commons of England


Erica canaliculata, the channelled heath or hairy grey heather, is a species of flowering plant in the family Ericaceae. The species is  native to the East and West Capes of South Africa and naturalised in South Australia. It is an erect evergreen shrub, sometimes described as a tree heath (a term also applied to E. arborea and E. lusitanica). It grows to , with tiny dark green leaves and large sprays of pink or white flowers with prominent brown anthers in winter and spring.

The Latin specific epithet canaliculata means "with channeled or grooved leaves".

Not fully hardy, in frost-prone areas it requires some protection. It has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.

References

canaliculata
Endemic flora of the Cape Provinces
Taxa named by Henry Cranke Andrews

Erica canaliculata


Alberto de Hoyos Maso (pen name Albertoyos) is a Spanish illustrator. Born in Madrid on April 7, 1969, he illustrates children's literature and young adult fiction, school books, comic books, advertising material and press.

Biography
Alberto de Hoyos started as an amateur comic artist in the mid-eighties, and published his work in independent and alternative Spanish comic magazines in the nineties.

After majoring in Fine Arts at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, he began his career as a professional illustrator and designer. His versatile style enables him to work for all ages and in a variety of fields, such as press, advertising, children's and young adult literature, and also school textbooks.

He develops his most interesting work in digital painting, children's literature and young adult fiction, where, from a mixed technique, combining computer software, pencil, painting, engraving, watercolor and collage, it has evolved to a digital technique in which it discards the imitation of traditional tools and reduces expressive resources to more artificial digital effects and textures. He illustrates and designs books, cover art and collections for various publishing companies: Pearson International, Bayard, Oxford University Press, Editorial San Pablo (Spain), Edelvives (Spain).

As for press, he collaborates as illustrator and cover page artist for Spanish newspapers and magazines: ABC, Blanco y Negro, Nuevo Trabajo, Guía de Madrid...

As a school textbook illustrator he has worked for many publishers, both Spanish (Edelvives, Santillana, Anaya, Bruño, ESC, Almadraba, Richmond...) and international (Macmillan, Oxford University Press, Pearson Education, Kumon, Disney...). His work includes all school levels, from children's education up to high school. He has also illustrated the Spanish edition of Strawberry Shortcake (American Greetings) for editorial Bruño.

Since 2018, he combines his professional work with education, teaching higher education courses in painting and digital illustration and comics.

Work

As comic-book artist
1990 Puta Vestruz on TMEO
1992 Jopé (on Conciencia Planetaria, Editorial Heptada).
1993 Antón Gris, Ya  Ves Truz (on Paté de Marrano).
2019 Antón Gris (en La Resistencia, Dibbuks Ediciones).
2020 Antón Gris (en La Residencia de Historietistas, Dibbuks Ediciones).

As illustrator
1996 Baldomero el pistolero y los indios gordinflones. Juan Muñoz Martín. (Edelvives, Spain)
1998 ¡Ahí va una estrella! Albertoyos. (Edelvives, Spain)
2002 El coco. Luisa Villar. (Pearson)
2004 La elefanta Marta. Luisa Villar. (Pearson)
2004 La primavera Ester. Luisa Villar. (Pearson)
2004 Clotilde, la fábrica de chocolate. Luisa Villar. (Pearson)
2005 La luna Viky. Luisa Villar. (Pearson)
2005 Un regalo para Kiko. Luisa Villar. (Pearson)
2005 Yuri, el pincel. Luisa Villar. (Pearson)
2005 La isla del tesoro. Stevenson. (Editorial Aralia XXI, Spain)
2006 Gork y Bemba, polizones. Josep Lorman. (Pearson)
2010 El planeta Piruleta. Juan Carlos Chandro. (Bayard)
2011 Dan y el cometiempo. Paloma Sánchez (Editorial San Pablo, Spain)
2018 El laberinto de las nueve llaves. José Antonio Francés. (Editorial Babidi-Bú)
2018 The Strange Case of Billinghurst Castle (El extraño caso del castillo Billinghurst). David Fernández Sifres. (Editorial Edelvives)
2018 The Inexplicable Appearances on Nolan Island (Las inauditas apariciones de la isla de Nolan). David Fernández Sifres. (Editorial Edelvives)
2019 The Ghostly Happenings at Farrell Mansion (Los espectrales sucesos de la mansión Farrel). David Fernández Sifres. (Editorial Edelvives)

References

Bibliography
 CUADRADO, Jesús (2000). De la historieta y su uso 1873-2000, Ediciones Sinsentido/Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruipérez, Spain.

External links
 Albertoyos's website
 Albertoyos's blog

Spanish illustrators
Living people
1969 births

Albertoyos


Kathryn "Kay" McGee (née Greene, May 6, 1920, in Chicago, Illinois – February 16, 2012 in River Forest, Illinois) was an American activist, recognized for founding two of the first organizations for the benefit of those with Down Syndrome. She worked seeking recognition, rights and opportunities for people with Down Syndrome.

The birth of her fourth child, Tricia McGee, on March 16, 1960, commenced a decades long effort to bring parents of children with Down Syndrome together to create medical and educational options for such children. Tricia McGee was diagnosed as a mongoloid shortly after birth, which is what doctors called a person with Down Syndrome when Tricia was born, but is now considered a slur. Down Syndrome is a genetic disorder that was first described in 1866 by British doctor John L. Down. It was discovered to be caused by an extra chromosome by French pediatrician Jérôme Lejeune in July 1958, less than two years before Tricia was born. Medical advice in 1960 was typically to institutionalize children with Down Syndrome. After Tricia's birth in 1960, the family pediatrician recommended that the McGees place her in an institution rather than bring her home from the hospital. A few years later when he saw her functioning well at the Alcuin Montessori School in River Forest, Illinois, he explained that he had been told in medical school to make that recommendation to people, and said that he would never do so again. After bringing Tricia home and adjusting to the reality that such an infant faces exceptional developmental challenges, Kay and Martin attempted to learn about Down Syndrome and find similarly situated parents in the Chicago area.

Early experience and efforts at organizing parents
Within six months Kay determined that there were children with Down Syndrome in communities but that they were not visible as society was not accepting and parents were protective of their vulnerable family members. In late 1960 Kay invited those parents she was able to contact to her River Forest home to discuss the medical and developmental issues that all such parents faced. Kay notes that obtaining lists of those with the medical condition was challenging but there were no HIPAA laws back then and parents were located and contacted by McGee. She heard about the Dr. Julian D. Levinson Research Foundation for Mentally Retarded Children at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. The Foundation wanted to test a vitamin regimen on people with Down Syndrome and evaluate the results. Delilah White, a psychologist who was a leader at the Levinson Foundation, introduced Kay to a woman who had a 40-year-old daughter with Down Syndrome. The daughter's age surprised Kay, who had been told people with Down Syndrome had short life spans. Kay decided to get a group of similarly situated people together and organize a meeting to hear from this woman, who was scheduled to move away to Florida the following week. She got about 15 parents to attend. They met in downtown Chicago in late 1960, probably at the Pick Congress Hotel. Within the following year the group expanded and Kathryn organized the Mongoloid Development Council  (MDC), and a Certificate of Incorporation was filed by Kay McGee in 1963 with the Illinois Secretary of State. This group was the first known support group for families of children with Down Syndrome.

Parental hopes for a cure or major breakthrough were an initial aspiration of the young organization. Soon the focus turned to the best practices to assist the physical and emotional development of the Down Syndrome infants and children to allow each person to maximize their potential, limited though it might be in some cases. Kay McGee began the work of breaking down the barriers that limited the development of such children. She began to assemble the building blocks that were determined to be necessary by MDC. Those blocks included the ongoing effort to get into the area hospitals to provide initial counsel for new parents, education of doctors to allow greater acceptance that alternatives existed for these children, the push to arrange for preschool education for the children, overcoming the IQ issues that prevented access to the educable classes in public education, and opportunity for involvement for the children in the community. In those days children with Down Syndrome were placed in educational programs for "trainable" mentally retarded children rather than "educable" children. For most of those children that meant attending school in segregated centers hidden away from the non-disabled student population.

Expansion of educational options
As the children of MDC members began to achieve developmental milestones at a delayed but steady pace there was considerable focus on the need to work constantly on discipline and language skills and physical actions that might be accomplished unconsciously by children without a disability. It had become increasingly apparent that early education was needed on basics that other children pick up naturally. At age 3 Tricia began education outside the home at Alcuin Montessori School. The McGees were advised to put Tricia into special education through the public school system. Montessori School was beginning to run grade schools at the time, but many teachers in the public schools had special education degrees which made it a better place for Tricia and other such children. They realized that these children had to learn sociability in order to fit into society. They had to learn discipline. Many are naturally prone to want to hug and kiss everyone they meet.

Public schools were an important place to correct such actions and assimilate those with Down Syndrome in an environment in which they could observe how to conduct themselves with others. Kay determined Tricia's IQ through tests at the Levinson Foundation, and later pressured the public school system not to relegate her daughter to trainable classes. In 1966 Tricia was the first child with Down Syndrome who was put into the educable class in first grade rather than the trainable classes in River Forest. In 1975 the Education for All Handicapped Children Act was passed, stating that all American public schools accepting federal funds must provide equal access to education for children with physical and mental disabilities, including children with Down Syndrome.

Mongolism renamed Down Syndrome
In 1965 the World Health Organization accepted a recommendation to change the name "mongolism" to Down Syndrome. In 1972 Kay formally had the MDC name changed to abandon the pejorative term, mongoloid, from the organization's name. She signed the new articles of association which created the National Association for Down's Syndrome. The apostrophe and "s" were subsequently dropped and the National Association for Down Syndrome (or NADS) continues to assist disabled children and adults.

A national parents organization is created
In 1973 Kay founded the second nationally known support group for Down Syndrome families. When two doctors from California contacted Kay to ask her help in starting the National Down Syndrome Congress (NDSC) she encouraged those that contacted her to call an organizational meeting. She went to California and participated in the startup meeting of the organization.  The NDSC was incorporated in Illinois, which was its headquarters until the 1990s. Today it is headquartered in Atlanta. They have held a national convention for 36 years at different sites throughout the country and international conventions in seven countries.

Later life and legacy
In October 2009 NADS honored Kay McGee as its founder and Kay delivered a speech to over 800 NADS parents and supporters.  Tricia was also introduced and she thanked the assembled audience and confidently left the podium to her mother. Tricia lives in an independent apartment at Misericordia Heart of Mercy on the north side of Chicago. Misericordia is now home to over 550 children and adults with developmental disabilities.

Death
McGee died February 16, 2012, of natural causes at her home in River Forest, Illinois, aged 91.
Kay was honored by a mural in her home town of River Forest, Illinois.

References

1920 births
2012 deaths
Down syndrome
Special education in the United States
American disability rights activists
Activists from Chicago
People from River Forest, Illinois

Kathryn McGee


William Edward Davison (January 5, 1906 – November 14, 1989), nicknamed "Wild Bill", was an American jazz cornetist. He emerged in the 1920s through his work playing alongside Muggsy Spanier and Frank Teschemacher in a cover band where they played the music of Louis Armstrong, but he did not achieve wider recognition until the 1940s. He is best remembered for his association with bandleader Eddie Condon, with whom he worked and recorded from the mid-1940s until  Condon's last concert at the New School for Social Research in New York in April 1972 (Chiaroscuro Records, CRD 110).

His nickname of "Wild Bill" reflected a reputation for heavy drinking and womanizing in his younger years.

Reception
The poet Philip Larkin, a fan, described his playing thus:

"...a player of notable energy, he uses a wide range of conscious tonal distortions, heavy vibrato, and an urgent, bustling attack. At slow tempos he is melting, almost articulate. Humphrey Lyttelton has compared him with the kind of reveler who throws his arm round your neck one moment and tries to knock you down the next."

"All the same, his stylistic mannerisms-the deep hoarse blurrings, the athletic in-front-of-the-beat timing, the flaring shakes-are highly conscious (the 'Wild' is more a personal than a musical sobriquet), and, imposed as they are on a conventional Armstrong basis, make Davison one of the most exciting of white small-band cornetists. His sessions with Sidney Bechet for Blue Note are collisions of two furious jazz talents which at the same time were oddly sympathetic, and prove his ability to play in any kind of milieu; his numerous sides in the Condon tradition show him uniting with (Pee Wee) Russell in the same way. But solo after solo demonstrates that he is not a 'wild' player: each note is perfectly shaped and pitched as if the cornet were his speaking voice, in the style of his favorites (Louis) Armstrong and (Bobby) Hackett, and with an emotional immediacy always hard to parallel."

Richard M. Sudhalter described first seeing Wild Bill at Eddie Condon's club in New York City in the 1950s:
"Up there, incredibly, is Bill Davison himself, looking like anything *but* the standard image of the cornet or trumpet player. Not like Louis Armstrong, horn tilted up and eyes rolled back as the tone takes flight; not like Maxie Kaminsky, so tiny that his instrument seems gigantic in his hands. Not like Bix Beiderbecke, in some old photo or other, dented cornet pointed resolutely to the floor.

"Nope. This guy is seated, one leg crossed casually over the other, drink on an upended barrel in front of him. He sweeps the cornet into the side of his mouth to expel some supercharged phrase, then jerks it away as if it's too hot to keep there. And I realize, awe-struck, he's chewing *gum*! Where in the world does he *keep* that stuff when he's blowing?

"In short, he looked just the way he sounded - like a guy from Ohio (a town named, aptly, Defiance) with a fierce, uninhibited way of attacking the beat, driving a band of whatever size halfway into tomorrow. The music comes out as from a flame-thrower, but with a density and momentum only suggested by even the best (of his) records".

Sources
 Willard, Hal, The Wildest One (1996)
 Armstrong, Doug, Wild Bill Davison:  A Celebration (Leith Music, 1991)

References

External links
 William Edward "Wild Bill" Davison papers, photographs, and ephemera, Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University

Dixieland cornetists
People from Defiance, Ohio
American jazz cornetists
Savoy Records artists
1906 births
1989 deaths
20th-century American musicians
Jazz musicians from Ohio
Black Lion Records artists
Columbia Records artists
London Records artists
Jazzology Records artists
Fontana Records artists
Chiaroscuro Records artists
Philips Records artists
Storyville Records artists

Bill Davison


Bisaya Magasin is a weekly Cebuano magazine now published by the Manila Bulletin Publishing Corporation, Philippines. It has the record of being the oldest magazine in Cebuano which is still published, and "the most successful periodical in Cebuano" (CCP, p. 542).

History
Bisaya Magasin was established by Ramon Roces upon the request of Cebuano poet Vicente Padriga, who became its first editor. Its first issue appeared on August 15, 1930, as part of the magazines published by Liwayway Publishing, Inc.

During the Second World War, the combined U.S. and Philippine Commonwealth ground troops including the local Visayan guerrilla resistance fighters was fought against the Japanese Imperial forces led by General Sosaku Suzuki during the Battle for the Liberation of Visayas in 1945. Bisaya stopped publication; it was revived on August 14, 1946. It had an initial circulation of 5,000, which rose to around 60,000 in the 1960s.

In June 1948, Bisaya started a monthly sister publication, Saloma, a literary pamphlet which carried a complete novel in every issue. Saloma lasted until the late 1950s, with a circulation ranging from 8,000 to 22,000.

Popular writers
Bisaya magazine is considered the barometer for Visayan literary artist. Many Cebuano literary stalwarts made their names in the pages of Bisaya: Natalio Bacalso, Severino Retuya, Marcel Navarra, Piux Kabahar, Sulpicio Osorio, Estrella Alfon, Lina Espina-Moore, and President Carlos P. Garcia.

Contemporary Cebuano writers today, such as Gremer Chan Reyes with his historical novel about Cebu entitled Ang Ugma Walay Pag-abot (English: Tomorrow Will Not Come; Tagalog: Hindi Darating Ang Bukas), currently serialized in Bisaya. From Atty. Ver Quimco's legal column to Prof. Amelia Bojo's opinion pieces, and a host of others, Bisaya offers a variety of reading fare.

Content
Bisaya has a balanced content (40% literary and 60% popular).
Ang Gugma Walay Pag-abot means "Love Can't Wait"

Award
One of the latest accolades Bisaya received together with its sister regional publications Bannawag, Liwayway and Hiligaynon is the Diamond Cultural Award presented by Publishers Association of the Philippines on December 12, 2008, in Baguio, Philippines.

List of editors
 Vicente Padriga (1930-1931)
 Natalio Bacalso (1931-1933)
 Flaviano Boquecosa (1933-1941)
 Maximo Bas (1946-1949)
 Francisco Candia (1949-1966)
 Marcelino Navarra (1966-1973)
 Nazario D. Bas (1973-1986)
 Tiburcio Baguio (1986-1995)
 Santiago R. Pepito, Jr. (1995-2001)
 Mariano Y. Mañus, Jr. (managing editor) (2001-2005)
 Edgar S. Godin (associate editor) (2005-2019)
 Richel G. Dorotan AKA Omar Khalid (associate editor) (2019-

See also
 Hiligaynon
 Bannawag
 Liwayway
 Manila Bulletin

References
 Cultural Center of the Philippines, Encyclopedia of Philippine Art, Vol. IX

External links
 Archive of TOCs and some sample articles and stories

Magazines published in Metro Manila
Literary magazines published in the Philippines
Weekly magazines
Magazines established in 1930
Philippine-language magazines
Manila Bulletin
Cebuano literature
Cebuano-language mass media

Bisaya Magasin


Hamilton Howard "Albert" Fish (May 19, 1870 – January 16, 1936) was an American serial killer, child rapist and cannibal.  He was also known as the Gray Man, the Werewolf of Wysteria, the Brooklyn Vampire, the Moon Maniac, and The Boogey Man.  Fish once boasted that he "had children in every state", and at one time stated his number of victims was about 100. However, it is not known whether he was referring to rapes or cannibalization, nor is it known if the statement was truthful. Fish was a suspect in at least five murders during his lifetime.  Fish confessed to three murders that police were able to trace to a known murder, and he confessed to stabbing at least two other people. He was put on trial for the kidnapping and murder of Grace Budd, and was convicted and executed by electric chair at Sing Sing.  His last words were, "I don't even know why I'm here."

Fish was known to stab himself with pins, as could be seen from X-rays.  He was also known to eat his own feces.  Fish supposedly ate the penis of at least one of his victims.

Due to modus operandi, his crimes were sometimes confused with those of nearby serial killer Peter Kudzinowski.

References

1870 births
1936 deaths
Executed American serial killers
People executed by electric chair
American kidnappers
American rapists
American cannibals
People from Washington, D.C.

Albert Fish


Ballantine Books is a major American book publisher that is a subsidiary of German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. Ballantine was founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. Ballantine was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann in 1998 and remains part of that company.

Ballantine's original logo was a pair of mirrored letter Bs back to back, later changing to two Bs stacked to form an elaborate gate. The firm's early editors were Stanley Kauffmann and Bernard Shir-Cliff.

History
Following Fawcett Publications' controversial 1950 introduction of Gold Medal paperback originals rather than reprints, Lion Books, Avon and Ace also decided to publish originals. In 1952, Ian Ballantine, a founder of Bantam Books, announced that he would "offer trade publishers a plan for simultaneous publishing of original titles in two editions, a hardcover 'regular' edition for bookstore sale, and a paper-cover, 'newsstand' size, low-priced edition for mass market sale."

When the first Ballantine Book, Cameron Hawley's Executive Suite was published in 1952, the publishing industry saw that the simultaneous hardcover and paperback editions were obvious successes. Houghton Mifflin published the $3.00 hardcover at the same time Ballantine distributed its 35¢ paperback. By February 1953, Ballantine had sold 375,000 copies and was preparing to print 100,000 more. Houghton Mifflin sold 22,000 hardback copies in its first printing. Ballantine's sales soon totaled 470,000 copies. Instead of hurting hardback sales as some predicted, the paperback edition instead gave the book more publicity. After the film rights were sold to MGM, Robert Wise directed the 1954 film, nominated for four Academy Awards.

On the heels of that kind of sales and publicity, other Ballantine titles were seen in spinner racks across the country. Executive Suite was followed by Hal Ellson's The Golden Spike (#2), Stanley Baron's All My Enemies (#3), Luke Short's Saddle by Starlight (#4, also with Houghton Mifflin), Ruth Park's The Witch's Thorn (#5, also with Houghton Mifflin), Emile Danoen's Tides of Tide (#6), Frank Bonham's Blood on the Land (#7), Al Capp's The World of Li'l Abner (#8, with Farrar, Straus & Young) and LaSelle Gilman's The Red Gate (#9).

Science fiction and fantasy books

During the early 1950s, Ballantine attracted attention as one of the leading publishers of paperback science fiction and fantasy, beginning with The Space Merchants (#21). The Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth novel had first appeared in Galaxy Science Fiction under the title Gravy Planet. Kauffman scored when he acquired and edited Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 (originally in Galaxy as a shorter version, "The Firemen").

Ballantine's science fiction line also included the unusual Star Science Fiction Stories. With cover paintings by Richard Powers, this innovative anthology series offered new fiction rather than reprints. Edited by Frederik Pohl, it attracted readers by successfully combining the formats of both magazines and paperbacks.

In the early 1960s, the company engaged in a well-known rivalry with Ace Books for the rights to reprint the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and Edgar Rice Burroughs in paperback form. Ballantine prevailed in the struggle for the Tolkien work, with their editions of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings including a message on the back cover from Tolkien himself urging consumers to buy Ballantine's version and boycott "unauthorized editions" (i.e. the version from Ace Books). A separate Canadian edition of the books was published with different front cover art work. Tolkien asked for (and received) permission to add the back cover message. Betty Ballantine recalled: "And we did put a little statement on the back covers saying that Ace was not paying royalties to Professor Tolkien, and everybody who admired Lord of the Rings should only buy our paperback edition. Well, everybody got behind us. There was literally no publication that did not carry some kind of outraged article. And of course, the whole science fiction fraternity got behind the book; this was their meat and drink."

In 1969, Lin Carter edited the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, which brought a number of rare titles back into print, as well as launching Katherine Kurtz's Deryni series. During the mid-1970s, Ballantine published the Star Trek Logs, a ten-volume series of Alan Dean Foster adaptations of the animated Star Trek. In 1968, Ballantine published a non-fiction book related to Star Trek, The Making of Star Trek by Stephen E. Whitfield and Gene Roddenberry.

In 1976, Ballantine published the novelization of a forthcoming science fiction film, Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker by George Lucas (ghostwritten by Alan Dean Foster). The book, like the film Star Wars released the following year, was an enormous success and sold out its initial print run. In the first three months, Ballantine sold 3.5 million copies.

Cartoons, comics and humor books

After publishing The World of Li'l Abner, Ballantine introduced Shel Silverstein in 1956 with his Grab Your Socks! collection of cartoons from Pacific Stars and Stripes.

As an editor at Ballantine during the 1950s and 1960s, Bernard Shir-Cliff handled the Zacherley anthologies, the paperback of Hunter Thompson's Hell's Angels, Harvey Kurtzman's The Mad Reader and other early Mad paperbacks. He made four contributions to Mad and other magazines edited by Kurtzman. In 1956, Shir-Cliff edited a humor anthology, The Wild Reader, for Ballantine, including essays, poems and satirical pieces by Robert Benchley, Art Buchwald, Tom Lehrer, John Lardner, Shepherd Mead, Ogden Nash, S. J. Perelman, Frank Sullivan, James Thurber and others. The 154-page paperback was illustrated with cartoons by Kelly Freas who also did the front cover.

Another contributor to both Ballantine and the Kurtzman magazines was the cartoonist-author Roger Price. He did two humor books for Ballantine. I'm for Me First (1954) details Herman Clabbercutt's plan to launch a revolutionary political party known as the "I'm for Me First" Party. In One Head and Out the Other (1954) popularized the catchphrase "I had one grunch, but the eggplant over there." The nonsense non sequitur was immediately adopted by science fiction fandom, appearing occasionally in fanzines, as noted in Fancyclopedia II (1959).

Ballantine has also been the publisher of books featuring Jim Davis' comic strip Garfield since 1980.

Ballantine authors

 Steve Berry
 Allison Brennan
 Suzanne Brockmann
 Terry Brooks
 Harriet Brown
 Jack L Chalker
 Meg Waite Clayton
 Bill Dedman
 Carol S. Dweck
 Julie Garwood
 Tess Gerritsen
 Emily Giffin
 Tommy Hilfiger
 Linda Howard
 Charlie Huston
 Jonathan Kellerman
 Demetria Martinez
 C. Wright Mills
 Anne Perry
 Elizabeth Rosner
 Jeff Shaara
 Angus Wells

Book series
 Ballantine Adult Fantasy series
 Ballantine Books
 Ballantine's Classic Library of Science Fiction
 Ballantine's Illustrated History of the Car
 Ballantine's Illustrated History of World War II (published in U.K. as: The Pan/Ballantine Illustrated History of World War II); later retitled as: Ballantine's Illustrated History of the Violent Century
 Ballantine Walden Edition
 Beagle Books
 Comstock Editions
 Mockingbird Books
 The Pan/Ballantine Illustrated History of the First World War

Imprints

 Ballantine Books
 Ballantine Reader's Circle
 Comstock Editions
 Del Rey
 Del Rey/LucasBooks
 Fawcett
 Ivy
 Mockingbird Books
 One World
 Presidio Press
 Wellspring

References

Further reading
 J. Grant Thiessen in Science-Fiction Collector #6 offered a detailed listing of all Ballantine science fiction, fantasy and horror titles from 1953 to 1976, including later printings.
 Internet Speculative Fiction Database documents all science fiction, fantasy, and horror publications of specific authors and titles by Ballantine-Del Rey Books. The Internet Speculative Fiction Database

External links

Finding aid to Ian and Betty Ballantine Books and Business Records at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
 Ballantine covers at bookscans.com
 Ballantine Illustrated History of the 2nd WW books list

American speculative fiction publishers
Book publishing companies based in New York (state)
Publishing companies based in New York City
Publishing companies established in 1952
Random House
Fantasy book publishers
Science fiction publishers
Ballantine family

Ballantine Books


Black Mask 2: City of Masks (黑俠II) is a 2002 Hong Kong action film directed by Tsui Hark. Andy On took over the role of Black Mask when original actor Jet Li opted not to return. The film also starred Tobin Bell, Jon Polito, Tyler Mane, Rob Van Dam, Traci Lords, and Scott Adkins.

Overview
Black Mask 2 is the sequel to the 1996 Hong Kong film Black Mask, which was based on the 1992 manhua Black Mask by Li Chi-Tak. However, apart from the main character, the film is largely unrelated in story to the original film and follows Black Mask trying to find a cure for his supersoldier powers, all while being tracked by his creator, a giant brain (a detail at odds with the original film). The film also takes the tone of a fantastical superhero film, being set in a futuristic city, featuring a plot involving stopping a mutative DNA bomb and pitting the main character against a group of human-animal hybrid professional wrestlers.

Unlike the original film, which was in Cantonese and later dubbed into English, Black Mask 2 was predominantly produced in English. The film was later released dubbed into Cantonese in Hong Kong in 2003, with the voice direction being directed by Chapman To and Andy Lau being featured as a narrator for the Hong Kong version.

Plot
Kan Fung had escaped from the clutches of the organization responsible for his superhuman abilities. He plans to find any geneticist who will be able to cure him. Meanwhile, he has decided to use his powers for the greater of good, calling himself Black Mask. Lang, another high-ranking member of the organization, has been hired to find Black Mask and kill him.

Wrestling promoter King is gearing up for a major event and has his top wrestlers Claw, Iguana, Chameleon, Snake, and Wolf ready for battle. However, when the wrestler Hellraiser (real name Ross) is attacked by Iguana, who undergoes a radical transformation into an iguana-human hybrid, Black Mask comes to the rescue. Ross is seriously injured and Black Mask chases Iguana to a nearby Tower. When Iguana falls off, Black Mask catches his hand in hopes that he can help him. Iguana lets himself free of Black Mask's grip and falls to his death. A grief-stricken Chameleon, who was Iguana's girlfriend, witnesses Iguana's remains revert to his human form. It is soon revealed that the wrestlers had been experimented under Dr. Moloch, who gave the wrestlers animal DNA to enhance their skills. However, they soon discover the animal DNA have given them the ability to undergo transformations as animal-hybrids. They now intend to use their newfound abilities to track down Black Mask and kill him to avenge Iguana. Chameleon, whose body can blend in with her surroundings, goes rogue from the group, takes off her clothes so that she can move about fully invisible, and vengefully hunts Black Mask.

Meanwhile, Black Mask has found the geneticist who may be able to cure him, Dr. Marco Leung. Black Mask tries to communicate with Dr. Leung through anonymous phone calls. In the meantime, Black Mask befriends Raymond, Ross's young son who idolizes both his father as well as Black Mask. When Black Mask scuffles with the invisible Chameleon during an investigation of the wrestlers, he is given a dose of animal DNA by Moloch. This turns him into a tiger-hybrid, which gives him the strength to fight-off Chameleon. Locating Dr. Leung, Black Mask warns her of the injected DNA and asks for her help. Dr. Leung learns of a chemical component that could be the key to cure the tiger DNA for Black Mask. Sneaking out, Black Mask has another scuffle with the wrestlers but successfully finds the chemical needed for the animal cure. Black Mask is fully cured of his own injected DNA, but he has a reaction to the cure that at first causes him to react violently and then to stagger out into the city in a stupor.

When he is cornered by a invisible Chameleon, whose body occasionally pulses with light, Black Mask finally reveals how Iguana actually killed himself and that he had intended to help him. Black Mask tells Chameleon that she is unable to control herself and that her body will eventually fade away, leaving her invisible forever. Feeling remorse and worried about disappearing, Chameleon stops her assault, turns semi-visible, and withdraws.

During a climactic showdown the following day, Black Mask learns that his old nemesis Lang has incapacitated Moloch and has planted a bomb that has the capability of changing DNA throughout the city. Snake and Wolf fight Black Mask; Lang's right-hand man General Troy fights Black Mask and then pursues Dr. Leung; Thorn fights Black Mask and is then ambushed by Chameleon, now completely invisible, who snatches the bomb from Thorn and passes it on to Black Mask.  Snake, Wolf, Troy, Thorn, and Chameleon are all destroyed.  Chameleon's head and shoulders reappear, darkly-tanned.

Finally, Lang takes on Black Mask. At first Lang has the upper hand, but Black Mask successfully defeats Lang and stops the bomb from exploding. The next day, Dr. Leung receives a call from Kan Fung. She leaves the lab and gets on the back of Kan's motorcycle, which implies she has finally cured him of his original superhuman abilities.

Cast
 Andy On as Kan Fung / Black Mask
 Teresa Maria Herrera as Dr. Marco
 Tobin Bell as Dr. Moloch
 Tyler Mane as "Thorn"
 Oris Erhuero as "Wolf"
 Scott Adkins as Dr. Lang
 Sean Marquette as Raymond
 Traci Lords as "Chameleon"
 Jon Polito as King
 Andrew Bryniarski as Daniel "Iguana" Martinez
 Rob Van Dam as "Claw"
 Robert Allen Mukes as "Snake"
 Silvio Simac as Troy
 Michael Bailey Smith as "Hellraiser" Ross

Oris Erhuero, Traci Lords, and Jon Polito have all been involved in the Highlander Franchise.

The film was the first on-screen appearance of Andy On, but it was actually the second film On had shot. The first film he worked on, Looking for Mister Perfect, was released after this film in 2003.

Release
Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment released straight to DVD in the United States on December 24, 2002. The film was released theatrically in Hong Kong on January 9, 2003.

Cantonese voice cast
Andy Lau - Narrator
Louis Koo - Thorn
Lau Ching-wan - Wolf
Jordan Chan - Lang
Cecilia Cheung - Raymond
Cherrie Ying - Chameleon
Chapman To - King
Michael Tse - Iguana
Patrick Tam - Claw
Raymond Wong Ho-yin - Snake

References

External links

2002 films
Hong Kong science fiction action films
Hong Kong martial arts films
Hong Kong superhero films
Hong Kong sequel films
China Star Entertainment Group films
Films directed by Tsui Hark
2002 science fiction action films
Martial arts science fiction films
2002 martial arts films
2000s superhero films
2000s Hong Kong films

Black Mask 2: City of Masks


Om Shanti Om (transl. Peace Be With You) is a 2007 Bollywood movie directed and choreographed by Farah Khan. It stars Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone in the lead roles as the protagonists while Shreyas Talpade, Arjun Rampal, and Kirron Kher feature in supporting roles. Arjun Rampal is the antagonist in the movie. This is the Bollywood debut of Deepika Padukone. This movie was released on November 9, 2007, and was a blockbuster. More than forty-two well-known Bollywood stars from yesteryear and today appear in the course of the movie, including thirty-one of them (not including the stars of the movie) in one song alone. The song "Deewangi Deewangi" is also notable for that reason.

Plot

1977

Om Prakash Makhija is a poor young boy who is a junior film artist in Bollywood and lives with his widowed mother Bela Makhija and close friend Pappu Master in a small chawl in Mumbai. He is in love with Shantipriya, a beautiful young woman who is a popular film actress in Bollywood. Om often expresses his feelings before Shanti's film poster and desires to meet her.

One night, he sneaks into the premiere of one of her films "Dreamy Girl" along with Pappu in disguise. Later that night, a drunk Om gives an emotional speech to Pappu as he dreams of becoming a great actor. Om and Pappu take small acting roles in films which are filmed at R.C. Studios, a major filming compound owned by Mukesh Mehra, a charming but egotistical person who is a wealthy and famous film producer.

While shooting one day, Shanti gets trapped in a fire that grows out of control during filming. Risking his life, Om jumps into the fire and rescues her. Shanti is grateful towards him, and the two become friends. Om lies to Shanti that he is a famous South-Indian actor to impress her. He even puts an act of the filming of his South-Indian film, but ultimately tells Shanti the truth of him being a small-time junior actor upon seeing her genuine fondness for him.

Shanti forgives Om and they spend a happy evening with each other, and she gifts him a snow globe. However, things take a turn when Om accidentally ends up overhearing a heated conversation between Shanti and Mukesh. He is shocked to discover that they have been married for two years but have not revealed it in public as that will ruin both of their careers. Shanti reveals to Mukesh that she is also pregnant with his child, leaving Om heartbroken. He avoids Shanti entirely.

The next night, Mukesh takes Shanti to the set of her upcoming film titled Om Shanti Om and tells her that they will cancel its production and have a grand marriage ceremony over there. Om reaches there to meet Shanti for the last time and return her snow globe but is dejected upon seeing her with Mukesh. He leaves from there and throws the snow globe in a fountain pond nearby.

Meanwhile, Mukesh tells Shanti that his marriage with Shanti and the unborn child will destroy his successful career. In order to prevent that, he lights up the set with fire and locks a horrified Shanti in it, in order to kill her and the unborn child. As he exits the set, Om spots Shanti in the flames and attempts to go and rescue her but is attacked by Mukesh's guards, leaving him severely injured. After they leave, he manages to enter the set but is thrown out of the building by a big explosion. Om staggers on the road as the set burns down with Shanti in it.

Om is left devastated upon witnessing this and suddenly gets hit by the car of renowned actor Rajesh Kapoor. He takes him to a hospital with his pregnant wife Lovely Kapoor who is under labor. The serious injuries of Om result in his death while still reminiscing about Shanti.  Rajesh's assistant Nasser asks his surgeon to keep this a secret from Bela and Pappu. Moments later, Rajesh and Lovely are blessed with a baby boy, and they name him Om Kapoor.

2007

30 years later, Om Kapoor is shown as a rich young man who is a superstar in Bollywood and is revealed to be the rebirth of Om Prakash Makhija. He experiences Pyrophobia and often comes across Bela who believes him to be her son and tries to take him to her house. An aged Pappu tries to make her understand that he is someone else but she pays no heed to him. Om also ignores her and leaves upon thinking that she has gone crazy.

He and his assistant Anwar Sheikh subsequently drive to the abandoned R.C. Studios for the filming of one of Om's films. Om recognizes the place and experiences some flashbacks of his previous life. He even finds Shanti's broken snow globe and is confused. That night, Om remembers the emotional speech he had given to Pappu in a drunken state when he wins the Filmfare Award for Best Actor. As he gives the same speech to the audience, Pappu watches his award function on TV and realizes that his friend is reborn as Om Kapoor. Meanwhile, a grand party is thrown for Om's success. Om remembers his whole previous life upon being visited by Mukesh, who now works in Hollywood and wishes to make a film with him.

Later that night, he traces Bela and Pappu to the crawl and has an emotional reunion with them. The three plan to avenge Shanti's death by making Mukesh confess his crime.

The next day, Om manages to convince Mukesh to resume the filming of Om Shanti Om at the same ruined R.C. Studios. He auditions several actresses to find Shanti's look-alike but in vain. However, Om ends up coming across Sandhya aka Sandy, a ditzy but lovely girl who is an exact doppelganger of Shanti. He hires her without revealing his plan and ends up firing her as she is unable to act properly. On Pappu's advice, Om reveals his plan to Sandy who promises him that she will help him according to his plan.

At the inaugural ceremony of the Om Shanti Om set, Bela scares Mukesh in the disguise of an old witch, and Om and Pappu try to light Shanti's photograph on fire to remind him of his crime. Although the setup doesn't work, the photograph is supernaturally lit by fire which disturbs Mukesh and confuses Om and Pappu. Mukesh is more horrified when Sandy appears in front of him dressed as Shanti in a make-up room. Eventually, he decides to leave for America after seeing Shanti in the footage of Om Shanti Om but Om asks him to wait for some days. He eventually performs the story of Shanti's life through a song in front of Mukesh during the music launch of Om Shanti Om. However, Mukesh discovers Sandy's real identity as her body bleeds due to an injury. Mukesh attempts to chase her but is knocked unconscious by a falling chandelier.

After he regains consciousness, Om confronts him over his crime but Mukesh taunts him that he or his "duplicate Shanti" cannot convict him for the murder as there is no proof for it. Just then, Sandy reaches the scene. She reveals that after the fire in the set died down, Mukesh returned to the place. Shanti was still alive then, but he buried her alive under the chandelier. She concludes that Shanti's corpse will be found under the chandelier, which will be proof of her murder for the court. Mukesh denies her revelation and attempts to shoot her but Om attacks him and a fire breaks out on the set. He shoots him in his leg and is about to murder him but Sandy stops him, saying that Mukesh is destined to die but not in his hands. She looks at the chandelier which falls and strikes Mukesh dead.

The next moment, Om is shocked when Pappu and Anwar reach the scene along with "Sandy". As he glances back at the one in front of him, he realizes that the one who had revealed the proof of Shanti's murder and killed Mukesh was the real Shanti, a.k.a. the ghost of Shanti. She was responsible for lighting the photograph with fire and knocking Mukesh unconscious too, helping him in his plan. Om reunites with Sandy and waves at Shanti who tearfully smiles at him and disappears, having finally attained peace.

The film ends with all its cast and crew approaching the set of Om Shanti Om and the credits roll.

Cast
 Shah Rukh Khan as
 Om Prakash Makhija – A junior artist who has a crush on famous actress Shantipriya.
 Om Kapoor aka OK – Reborn Om Prakash, A famous actor and Sandhya's love interest.
 Deepika Padukone as
 Shantipriya aka Shanti – A yesteryear Bollywood actress, Om Prakash's crush.
 Sandhya 'Sandy' Bansal – Shantipriya's doppelgänger, OK's love interest (Mona Ghosh Shetty as the Hindi dubbing voice)
 Arjun Rampal as Mukesh 'Mike' Mehra aka Mikey – A film producer and Shanti's husband
 Shreyas Talpade as Pappu Master – Om Prakash's friend who supported O.K. later.
 Kirron Kher as Bela Makhija – Om Prakash's mother
 Bindu Desai as Kamini Arora – Dolly's mother
 Javed Sheikh as Rajesh Kapoor – O.K.'s father
 Satish Shah as Partho Roy
 Yuvika Chaudhary as Dolly Arora – Kamini's daughter and O.K.'s friend
 Nitesh Pandey as Anwar – O.K.'s assistant
 Asawari Joshi as Lovely Kapoor – O.K.'s mother and Rajesh's wife
 Nasser Abdullah as Nasser
 Shawar Ali as Shawar
 Lin Laishram as Om Kapoor's friend

Cameo appearances

 Amitabh Bachchan as himself
 Anil Kapoor as himself
 Uday Chopra as himself
 Hrithik Roshan as himself
 Abhishek Bachchan as himself
 Akshay Kumar as himself
 Bipasha Basu as herself
 Aishwarya Rai as herself
 Amisha Patel as herself, Om Kapoor's heroine at Filmfare Awards
 Diya Mirza as herself, Om Kapoor's heroine at Filmfare Awards.
 Arshad Warsi as himself
 Gul Panag as herself
 Bappi Lahiri as himself
 Chunky Pandey as himself
 Dhananjay Singh as himself
 Farah Khan as the woman who makes fun of Om Prakash when the show ends.
 Feroz Khan as himself
 Gauri Khan as herself
 Karan Johar as himself
 Koena Mitra as herself
 Malaika Arora as herself
 Mayur Puri as the director of Apahij Pyar
 Vishal Dadlani as the director of Mohabbat Man, a superhero film
 Manikandan Velayutham as the director of Mind It, a parody of action films
 Priya Patil as Natasha, heroine of Apahij Pyar
 Rakesh Roshan as himself
 Rishi Kapoor as himself
 Shabana Azmi as herself
 Soumya Seth as Audience
 Subhash Ghai as himself while shooting his iconic film Karz.
 Yash Chopra as himself

Special appearances during the song "Deewangi Deewangi" (in appearance order)

 Rani Mukherjee
 Zayed Khan
 Vidya Balan
 Jeetendra Kapoor
 Tusshar Kapoor
 Priyanka Chopra Jonas
 Shilpa Shetty Kundra
 Dharmendra Deol
 Shabana Azmi
 Urmila Matondkar
 Karishma Kapoor
 Arbaaz Khan
 Malaika Arora Khan
 Dino Morea
 Amrita Arora
 Juhi Chawla
 Aftab Shivdasani
 Tabu Hashmi
 Govinda Ahuja
 Mithun Chakraborty
 Kajol Devgan
 Bobby Deol
 Preity Zinta
 Rekha Ganesan
 Salman Khan
 Saif Ali Khan
 Sanjay Dutt
 Lara Dutta
 Sunil Shetty
 Rishi Kapoor

Crew
 Producer: Gauri Khan.
 Director: Farah Khan
 Screenplay: Farah Khan
 Story: Farah Khan, Mayur Puri & Mushtaq Sheikh
 Dialogue: Mayur Puri
 Editor: Shirish Kunder
 Music: Vishal-Shekhar
 Choreography: Farah Khan & Prabhu Ramaswamy
 Lyrics: Javed Akhtar, Vishal Dadlani & Kumaar
 Cinematography: V. Manikandan
 Assistant Directors: Vaibhav Mishra, Joyeeta Chatterji, Kanika Dhillon, Pooja Desai, Parag Kalica, Arunabh Kumar, Zoa Morani
 Executive Producer: Sanjiv Chawala
 Director of Photography: V. Manikandan
 Art Director: Sabu Cyril
 Action Directors: Sham Kaushal, Aamar Shetty, Angelo Sahin
 Background Music: Sandeep Chowta
 Visual Effects Studios: Red Chillies VFX

Box office
The film grossed more than 1 billion in India and $287 million in overseas and become All-time blockbuster movie in 2007 for one year. As of 2017, this film is 36th in the list of highest-grossing films.

References

Other websites

2007 movies
2000s Indian movies
2000s Hindi-language movies
Urdu-language movies
Multilingual movies

Om Shanti Om


The International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW), requires that seafarers be provided with familiarization training and basic safety training which includes basic fire fighting, elementary first aid, personal survival techniques, and personal safety and social responsibility. This training is intended to ensure that seafarers are aware of the hazards of working on a vessel and can respond appropriately in an emergency.

According to STCW, The STCW 95 Code requires that you take this 5-day course of instruction. This course has to be renewed every 5 years, or under certain conditions, you have to show that you have at least 1 year of service on board vessels of 200 grt or more within the last 5 years. The components generally includes a Fire Prevention and Fire Fighting (Basic Fire fighting) course of  2 days, a Personal Survival Techniques (PST) course of 1.5 days, a Personal Safety and Social Responsibility (PSSR) course of  half a day, and, First Aid / CPR (Basic First Aid) course of  1 day.

Basic Offshore Safety Induction and Emergency Training or BOSIET is designed for marine personnel intending to work on an offshore installation in the UK maritime sector and forms part of a Common Offshore Safety Induction process.

References

International Maritime Organization
Law of the sea
Maritime education
Safety

Basic Safety Training


Satanas sa Lupa ("Satan on Earth"), subtitled "nobelang pangkasalukuyan" ("Present-day Novel"), is a 1970 Tagalog-language novel by Filipino author and scriptwriter Celso Al. Carunungan, one of the "titans of Philippine literature".  The novel criticizes the Philippine government and society during the early part of the 1970s, a reason why the author had been included among the group known as "Class 1081", Filipinos imprisoned when Martial Law was declared by Ferdinand Marcos in 1972.

Apart from being one of the political novels in the Philippines from 1967 to 1972 that "represented a clamor for change in society" (Filipino: kinatawan ng paghingi ng pagbabago sa lipunan), Satanas sa Lupa was one of the novels in the Philippines that incorporated romanticism in its plot using the "love triangle" (Filipino: tatsulukan ng pag-ibig) genre, a genre that began in the Philippines in  1906 through another novel entitled Juan Masili by another Filipino author named Patricio Mariano.  The love triangle in Satanas sa Lupa is  between the characters Benigno Talavera, Conrado, and Chona.

Description
According to Ruby Gamboa-Alcantara in her "Romantisismo, Estilong Pilipino" Itinatak sa Nobelang Tagalog ("Romanticism, Filipino Style" Stamped on the Tagalog Novel), the character Benigno Talavera was the representative of Philippine politics in Satanas sa Lupa. Talavera was a "formerly good citizen" who was influenced by three other Congressmen (Filipino: Konggresista) Carpio, David, and Balbino.  The three were cheating each other for the sake of climbing up the ladder of power and for gaining wealth.  In Satanas sa Lupa, the reign of greed was ended by the persecution of Senator Morales, the death of Talavera, and the burning of evidence used to blackmail Talavera.  The evidence was burned by Talavera's wife, Virginia.  The other circumstances presented in Satanas sa Lupa were the drug addiction of Ismael, the son of Talavera; the pregnancy out of wedlock and motherhood as a single woman by Esther, the daughter of Talavera; the love affair between Contrado and Chona; and the elopement of Conrado and Chona (Conrado was supposed to become a priest).  According to Gamboa-Alcantara, there is an unrealistic circumstance in Satanas sa Lupa, which is the excessive portrayal of Virginia, the wife of Talavera, as the martyred spouse and mother, due to the use of Philippine-style romanticism.

See also
Mga Anak-Bukid

References

External links
 Pages of Satanas sa Lupa online

Philippine novels
1970 novels
Tagalog-language novels
Political novels
Novels set in the Philippines

Satanas sa Lupa


Phoulloi (), also known as Phoulla or Phoullai (Φοῦλλα[ι]; , , or ), was a Byzantine-era city in the southern Crimea.

The location of Phoulloi remains unknown, and a subject of differing opinions among historians. Proposed identifications with modern settlements include Solkhat and Tepsen in the eastern part of the Crimea, as well as Chufut-Kale and Kyz Kermen near Bakhchysarai in the western part of the peninsula. According to O. Pritsak in the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, "it was
probably located on the trans-Crimean route, approximately halfway between Cherson and Cimmerian Bosporos".

The city is first mentioned by the 6th-century Byzantine historian Menander Protector. It occurs next in the hagiography of the late 8th-century saint John of Gothia, who was held prisoner in the city in 787, and baptized and cured the child of the local lord, before escaping to Amastris. In the 9th century, the hagiography of Constantine the Philosopher mentions the "nation of Phoulloi", who venerated an oak tree and were ruled by an elder.

The Notitiae Episcopatuum of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in the late 8th and 9th centuries record that the bishop of the Khazars (Chotziroi) resided near Phoulloi and another place with the Turkic name Kara Su ("Black Water"), hellenized as Charasion (Χαράσιον) or translated as Mabron Neron (Μάβρον Νερὸν) in the Notitiae. In subsequent Notitiae, Phoulloi itself appears as the sea of an archbishop. By the 14th century, the local see had been merged with that of Sougdaia, and a metropolitan bishopric of Sougdaia and Phoulloi is well attested in 14th–15th century documents. The fate of the city after that is unknown.

References

Sources

Medieval Crimea
Populated places of the Byzantine Empire
Defunct dioceses of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople
Former populated places in Crimea

Phoulloi


Douglas Bruce Lenat (September 13, 1950 – August 31, 2023) was an American computer scientist and researcher in artificial intelligence who was the founder and CEO of Cycorp, Inc. in Austin, Texas.

Lenat was awarded the biannual IJCAI Computers and Thought Award in 1976 for creating the machine-learning program AM.  He has worked on (symbolic, not statistical) machine learning (with his AM and Eurisko programs),  knowledge representation, "cognitive economy", blackboard systems, and what he dubbed in 1984 "ontological engineering" (with his Cyc program at MCC and, since 1994, at Cycorp).  He has also worked in military simulations, and numerous projects for the US government, military, intelligence, and scientific organizations.  In 1980, he published a critique of conventional random-mutation Darwinism.  He authored a series of articles in the Journal of Artificial Intelligence exploring the nature of heuristic rules.

Lenat was one of the original Fellows of the AAAI, and is the only individual to have served on the Scientific Advisory Boards of both Microsoft and Apple.  He was a Fellow of the AAAS, AAAI, and Cognitive Science Society, and an editor of the J. Automated Reasoning, J. Learning Sciences, and J. Applied Ontology. He was one of the founders of TTI/Vanguard in 1991 and member of its advisory board.  He was named one of the Wired 25.

Background and education
Lenat was born in Philadelphia, United States, on September 13, 1950. When he was 5, the family moved to Wilmington, Delaware, where his father, Nathan Lenat, owned a bottling plant.  His father died when he was 13 and the family then returned to Pennsylvania, where he attended Cheltenham High School.  His after-school job was cleaning rat cages and goose pens at Beaver College which motivated him to learn programming as a better occupation.

He attended the University of Pennsylvania, supporting himself by programming, including the design and development of a natural language interface for a United States Navy online operations manual.  He graduated with bachelor's degrees in Mathematics and Physics, and a master's degree in Applied Mathematics, all in 1972.

For his senior thesis, advised in part by Dennis Gabor, was to bounce acoustic waves in the 40 mHz range off real-world objects, record their interference patterns on a 2-meter square plot, photo-reduce those to a 10-mm square film image, shine a laser through the film, and thus project the three-dimensional imaged object—i.e., the first known acoustic hologram. To settle an argument with Dr. Gabor, Lenat computer-generated a five-dimensional hologram, by photo-reducing computer printout of the interference pattern of a globe rotating and expanding over time, reducing the large two-dimensional paper printout to a moderately large 5-cm square film surface through which a conventional laser beam was then able to project a three-dimensional image, which changed in two independent ways (rotating and changing in size) as the film was moved up-down or left-right.

Lenat was a Ph.D. student in Computer Science at Stanford University, where his published research included automatic program synthesis from input/output pairs and from natural language clarification dialogues.

Research
Lenat received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University (published as Knowledge-based systems in artificial intelligence, along with the Ph.D. thesis of Randall Davis, McGraw-Hill, 1982) in 1976. His thesis advisor was Professor Cordell Green, and his thesis/oral committee included Professors Edward Feigenbaum, Joshua Lederberg, Paul Cohen, Allen Newell, Herbert Simon, Bruce Buchanan, John McCarthy, and Donald Knuth.

His thesis, AM (Automated Mathematician) was one of the first computer programs that attempted to make discoveries, i.e., to be a theorem proposer rather than a theorem prover. Experimenting with the program fueled a cycle of criticism and improvement, leading to a slightly deeper understanding of human creativity. Many issues had to be dealt with in constructing such a program: how to represent knowledge formally, expressively, and concretely, how to program hundreds of heuristic "interestingness" rules to judge the worth of new discoveries, heuristics for when to reason symbolically and inductively (and slowly) versus when to reason statistically from frequency data (and hence, quickly), what the architecture—the design constraints—of such reasoning programs might be, why heuristics work (in sum, because the future is a continuous function of the past), and what their "inner structure'' might be. AM was one of the first halting steps toward a science of learning by discovery, toward de-mystifying the creative process and demonstrating that computer programs can make novel and creative discoveries.

In 1976 Lenat started teaching as an assistant professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon and commenced his work on the AI program Eurisko. The limitation with AM was that it was locked into following a fixed set of interestingness heuristics; Eurisko, by contrast, represented its heuristic rules as first class objects and hence it could explore, manipulate, and discover new heuristics just as it (and AM) explored, manipulated, and discovered new domain concepts.

Lenat returned to Stanford as an assistant professor of Computer Science in 1978 and continued his research building the Eurisko automated discovery and heuristic-discovery program. Eurisko made many interesting discoveries and enjoyed significant acclaim, with Lenat's paper "Heuretics: Theoretical and Experimental Study of Heuristic Rules" winning the Best Paper award at the 1982 AAAI conference.

A call for "common sense"
Lenat (working with John Seely Brown at Xerox PARC) published in 1984 an analysis of what were the limitations of his AM and Eurisko lines of research.  It concluded that progress toward real, general, symbolic AI would require a vast knowledge base of "common sense", suitably formalized and represented, and an inference engine capable of finding tens- or hundreds-deep conclusions and arguments that followed from the application of that knowledge base to specific questions and applications.

The successes, and analysis of the limitations, of this AM and Eurisko approach to AI, and the concluding plea for the massive (multi-thousand-person-year, decades-long) R&D effort would be required to break that bottleneck to AI, led to attention in 1982 from Admiral Bob Inman and the then-forming MCC research consortium in Austin, Texas, culminating in Lenat's becoming Principal Scientist of MCC from 1984–1994, though he continued even after this period to return to Stanford to teach approximately one course per year.  At the 400-person MCC, Lenat was able to have several dozen researchers work on that common sense knowledge base, rather than just a few graduate students.

Cycorp
The fruits of the first decade of R&D on Cyc were spun out of MCC into a company, Cycorp, at the end of 1994. In 1986, he estimated the effort to complete Cyc would be at least 250,000 rules and 1,000 person-years of effort, probably twice that, and by 2017, he and his team had spent about 2,000 person-years of effort building Cyc, creating approximately 24 million rules and assertions (not counting "facts").

Lenat continued to work on Cyc as CEO of Cycorp until his death. While the first decade of work on Cyc (1984–1994) was funded by large American companies pooling long-term research funds to compete with the Japanese Fifth Generation Computer Project, and the second decade (1995-2006) of work on Cyc was funded by US government agencies' research contracts, the third decade up through the present (2007–2023) has been largely supported through commercial applications of Cyc, including in the financial services, energy, and healthcare areas.  One of these later projects was a learning by teaching application called Mathcraft.

Personal life and death
Lenat was married to Mary Shepherd. He died of bile duct cancer on August 31, 2023, at the age of 72.

Quotes

 "Intelligence is ten million rules." This refers to the prior and tacit knowledge that authors presume their readers all possess (such as "if person x knows person y, then x's date of death can't be earlier than y's date of birth") not counting the vastly larger number of "facts" such as one might find in Wikipedia or by Googling.
 "The time may come when a greatly expanded Cyc will underlie countless software applications. But reaching that goal could easily take another two decades."
 "Once you have a truly massive amount of information integrated as knowledge, then the human-software system will be superhuman, in the same sense that mankind with writing is superhuman compared to mankind before writing."
 "Sometimes the veneer of intelligence is not enough."
 "If computers were human, they'd present themselves as autistic, schizophrenic, or otherwise brittle. It would be unwise or dangerous for that person to take care of children and cook meals, but it's on the horizon for home robots. That's like saying, 'We have an important job to do, but we're going to hire dogs and cats to do it.'"
 "What we needed, he says, is nothing less than an "AI Manhattan Project", a full frontal assault on common sense: the challenge is to create an Encyclopédia of Common sense", Michiu Kaku citing Lenat.

Writings
 "Why AM and Eurisko Appear to Work," (Lenat and John Seely Brown), Proceedings of National Conference on AI (AAAI–83), Washington, DC, August 1983.

 Lenat, Douglas B. "Computer Software for Intelligent Systems:  An Underview of AI," in Scientific American, September 1984.
 Lenat, Douglas B.; Clarkson, Albert; Kircmidjian, Garo (1983). "An Expert System for Indications & Warning Analysis". Proceedings of the Eighth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence - Volume 1. IJCAI'83. San Francisco, CA, USA: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc.: 259–262.
 Lenat, Douglas B.; Feigenbaum, Edward A. (February 1991). "On the Thresholds of Knowledge". Artif. Intell. 47 (1-3): 185–250. doi:10.1016/0004-3702(91)90055-O. ISSN 0004-3702.
 Lenat, Douglas B.; Guha, R. V. (1990-01-01). Building Large Knowledge-Based Systems: Representation and Inference in the Cyc Project. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley. .
 Lenat, Douglas B.  From 2001 to 2001: Common Sense and the Mind of HAL
 Lenat, Douglas B. (2008-07-10). "The Voice of the Turtle: Whatever Happened to AI?". AI Magazine. 29(2). doi:10.1609/aimag.v29i2.2106. ISSN 0738-4602
 Blackstone E.H., Lenat, D.B. and Ishwaran H. Infrastructure required to learn which care is best: methods that need to be developed,  in (Olsen L., Grossman, C., and McGinnis, M., eds.) Learning What Works: Infrastructure Required for Comparative Effectiveness Research. Institute of Medicine Learning Health System Series, The National Academies Press, pp. 123–144, 2011.
 Lenat DB, Durlach P.  "Reinforcing Math Knowledge by Immersing Students in a Simulated Learning-By-Teaching Experience."   J. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education., 2014
 Lenat, Douglas B. (2016-04-13). "WWTS (What Would Turing Say?)". AI Magazine. 37 (1): 97–101. doi:10.1609/aimag.v37i1.2644. ISSN 0738-4602
 See also many of the References, below.

References

Further reading

External links
 Douglas Lenat bio page at Cyc.com
 "Beyond the Semantic Web" video lecture at NIPS 2008.
 "How David Beats Goliath" article at The New Yorker.
 "Douglas Lenat: Cyc and the Quest to Solve Common Sense Reasoning in AI." Lex Fridman Podcast #221, 2021.

1950 births
2023 deaths
Fellows of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence
Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
Artificial intelligence researchers
Lisp (programming language) people
American computer businesspeople
Fellows of the Cognitive Science Society
Stanford University School of Engineering alumni
University of Pennsylvania alumni
Businesspeople from Philadelphia

Douglas Lenat


The Institute of Mathematical Statistics is an international professional and scholarly society devoted to the development, dissemination, and application of statistics and probability. The Institute currently has about 4,000 members in all parts of the world. Beginning in 2005, the institute started offering joint membership with the Bernoulli Society for Mathematical Statistics and Probability as well as with the International Statistical Institute. The Institute was founded in 1935 with Harry C. Carver and Henry L. Rietz as its two most important supporters. The institute publishes a variety of journals, and holds several international conference every year.

Publications

The Institute publishes five journals:
Annals of Statistics
Annals of Applied Statistics
Annals of Probability
Annals of Applied Probability
Statistical Science

In addition, it co-sponsors:
 The Current Index to Statistics
 Electronic Communications in Probability
 Electronic Journal of Probability
 Electronic Journal of Statistics
 Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics (A joint publication with the American Statistical Association and the Interface Foundation of North America)
 Probability Surveys (A joint publication with the International Statistical Institute and the Bernoulli Society for Mathematical Statistics and Probability)
 Statistics Surveys (A joint publication with the American Statistical Association, the Bernoulli Society for Mathematical Statistics and Probability, and the Statistical Society of Canada)

There are also some affiliated journals:
 Probability and Mathematical Statistics (Wrocław University of Technology)
 Latin American Journal of Probability and Mathematical Statistics

Furthermore, five journals are supported by the IMS:
 Annales de l'Institut Henri Poincaré
 Bayesian Analysis (published by the International Society for Bayesian Analysis)
 Bernoulli (published by the Bernoulli Society for Mathematical Statistics and Probability)
 Brazilian Journal of Probability and Statistics (published by the Brazilian Statistical Association)
 Stochastic Systems''

Fellows

The IMS selects an annual class of Fellows who have demonstrated distinction in research or leadership in statistics or probability.

Meetings
Meetings gives scholars and practitioners a platform to present research results, disseminate job opportunities and exchange ideas with each other. The IMS holds an annual meeting called Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM), and sponsors multiple international meetings, for example, Spring Research Conference (SRC).

See also
 List of presidents of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics

References

External links

Statistical societies
1935 establishments in the United States

Institute of Mathematical Statistics


"The Crystal Ball" () is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 197.  It is Aarne-Thompson type 552A, the girls who married animals.

Origin
The Brothers Grimm indicated the origin of Die Kristallkugel as Friedmund von Arnim's book, as tale nr. 14, Vom Schloss der goldnen Sonne ("The Castle of the Golden Sun").

Synopsis
A sorceress was afraid of her three sons. She turned the oldest into an eagle and the second into a whale, and each could take his human form for only two hours a day. The youngest son fled before he could suffer the same fate and went off to seek the king's daughter, bewitched and held prisoner in the Castle of the Golden Sun. He saw two giants quarreling over a wishing cap and they asked him to settle the dispute. He put on the cap, forgot he had it on, and wished himself to the castle.

The king's daughter told him that only a crystal ball would break the enchantment. She directed him to go down the mountain and fight a wild bull beside a spring. If he killed it, a bird would spring out of it. If the bird was forced to let free an egg in its body, the crystal ball was its yolk, but the egg would light everything about it on fire if dropped on the land.

He fought the bull. The bird sprang free, but his brother the eagle harried it until it dropped the egg. This landed on a fisherman's hut, setting it ablaze, but his brother the whale drowned the hut with waves. The youngest brother took the crystal ball to the enchanter, who admitted himself defeated and told him that the ball would also break the spell on his brothers. The youngest hurried to the princess, and they exchanged rings.

In popular culture
 "The Crystal Ball" was featured in the anime series Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics.

See also

 The Giant Who Had No Heart in His Body
 'Baš Čelik''

References

External links

 The Crystal Ball

Grimms' Fairy Tales
Fictional balls
German fairy tales
Fiction about shapeshifting
Witchcraft in fairy tales
ATU 500-559

The Crystal Ball (fairy tale)


16:9 (1.77:1) is a widescreen aspect ratio with a width of 16 units and height of 9 units.

Once seen as exotic, since 2009 it has become the most common aspect ratio for movie screens, televisions and computer screens. It is the international standard image format for digital television and is also used in many smartphones. In home use and for entertainment it has replaced the old "fullscreen" 4:3 aspect ratio.

References

Display technology

16:9


A coregency is the situation where a monarchical position (such as prince, princess, king, queen, emperor or empress), normally held by only a single person, is held by two or more. It is to be distinguished from diarchies or duumvirates such as ancient Sparta and Rome along with a regency where the monarch in most cases infant or incapacitated particularly has a senior above him and exercises no power whatsoever apart from legally holding the position of Head of State.

Andorra

Co-principality is a distinct but related system employed in contemporary Andorra, where monarchical power is formally divided between two rulers.

Historical examples
Coregencies were common in the Hellenistic period; according to one scholar, they "can usually be explained as a means of avoiding crises of succession or internal conflict, and of strengthening dynastic identity and ideology." Other examples include the coregency of Frederick I of Austria and Louis the Bavarian over the Kingdom of Germany. Jure uxoris Kings in Kingdoms such as Spain and Portugal can also be found (Ferdinand V and Isabella I of Castile, Philip I and Joanna of Castile, Peter III and Maria I of Portugal, etc.). In Navarre, the husbands of queens regnant were styled as co-rulers.

Ancient Egypt

In Ancient Egypt, coregency was quite problematic as the Pharaoh was seen as the incarnation/representation of the god Horus. Therefore, according to the divine order Ma'at, only one King could exist at the same time. Yet, exceptions can be found, mainly in the Middle Kingdom, where the pharaoh occasionally appointed his successor (often one of his sons) as coregent, or joint king, to ensure a smooth succession. "This system was used, from at least as early as the Middle Kingdom, in order to ensure that the transfer of power took place with the minimum of disruption and instability". Coregencies are highly probable for Amenemhat I > Senusret I > Amenemhat II > Senusret II. Most probably the real king in power was the older one (father) adopting the younger ruler (son), while the co-regent had to wait until after the death of the older one to really have access to full royal power. Yet, the years of reigns normally were counted from the beginning of the coregency on. Due to this and to the fragmentary character of known sources, the establishment of Egyptian chronology was quite complicated and remains disputed up to date. Yet, understanding the existence of co-regency reduced the chaos quite a lot.

The institution of coregency is different from that of vice-regency, where an adult person (in Ancient Egypt often the mother of the king) functions as Legal guardian, ruling in the name of the underage king. Some of the female vice-regents of Egypt rose to a status of equal to the God-Kings, becoming co-rulers as can be seen in the famous case of Hatshepsut. After the death of her husband Thutmose II, Hatshepsut ruled in the name of Thutmose III, her nephew and stepson. Then, latest in year 7 of Thutmose III's reign, she took over royal regalia and was then titled King of Egypt under the Throne name (prenomen) Maatkare. For later periods of Pharaonic Egyptian history, the existence of the institution of coregency has been put into question by Egyptologists, while, "the Ptolemaic and Roman period examples being the most securely identified".

Ancient Israel

In the book The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, Edwin R. Thiele proposed co-regency as a possible explanation for discrepancies in the dates given in the Hebrew Bible for the reigns of the kings of Israel and Judah. At least one co-regency is explicitly documented in the Bible: the coronation of King Solomon occurred before the death of his father David.

Roman Empire

It was common during the Principate for a Roman emperor or Augustus to appoint Caesar as designated heir and junior co-emperor, in many cases adopting them as their son, who did not necessarily have to be biologically related to them. This was merely a tradition and not a formal office until the Tetrarchy, which attempted to codify this arrangement, but quickly fell apart. It regained significance, including under Zeno, as well as when Justin I had his nephew Justinian named co-emperor shortly before his own death, Constantine IV was also named co-emperor by his father Constans II and who himself had several other co-emperors, and the practice was common in the centuries to come up through the Palaiologans.

Britain

King Henry II of England installed his eldest surviving son, also named Henry, as junior king. Henry the Young King was not permitted to exercise royal authority and his title as co-king was effectively a sinecure to denote his status as his father's chosen heir. Young Henry predeceased his father without ever ascending to the throne and is not included in the official list of English monarchs.

The Monarchy of England experienced joint rule under the terms of the act sanctioning the marriage of Mary I to Philip II of Spain. Philip notionally reigned as king of England (inclusive of Wales) and Ireland by right of his wife from 1554 to 1558. Similarly, following the Glorious Revolution, Mary II and her husband William III held joint sovereignty over the kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1688 to 1694.

China
Co-regency was common amongst the Chinese ethnics both formally or informally dating far back to the Han dynasty to the Late Qing dynasty, if it happened to be so that a new Emperor ascended the throne and was mature but not well adept with politics, it was a national concern for stability in which the monarch was the head of state de jure whereas a co-regent was its de facto ruler.

The requirements for the position of co-regent depended on the power of an individual along with their ability to command the Confidence of the Parliament and it could be an official in the Imperial Court, a close and trustworthy paternal or maternal relative or the most appropriate being the Most Senior Member of the Imperial family in the Palace which was either the Grand Empress Dowager or the Empress Dowager. The absence of all these specific personalities could rarely pave way for the monarch's wife if she seemed more competent.

The most outstanding co-regencies were those of Empress Wu Zetian during the Tang dynasty in the reign of her husband that Gaozong Emperor even if it was informal, the Empress Dowager Xiang became co-regent for the Emperor Huizong of Song, her adopted son in 1100 while the Grand Empress Dowager Wu became co-regent of the Emperor Guangzong of Southern Song in the year 1189 even if his Empress Li Fengniang later posthumously honored as Ciyi became the de facto ruler, Empress Dowager Yang served as co-regent of the Emperor Lizong from 1224 until her death in 1233 even if she soon surpassed his own influence and ruled ultimately like an Empress Regnant even if she was never actually one. During the Qing dynasty the Empress Dowagers Ci'an of the Manchu Niohuru clan along with Ci'xi of the Manchu Yehenara clan served as Co-regents from 1861 until Ci'an's death in 1881 where Ci'xi became sole regent for the Guanxu Emperor until she was overthrown in 1908, it was more interesting during her time that Ci'an particularly specialized in handling the affairs of the Imperial family and left Ci'xi to dominate the political scene much as contemporary history suggests that Ci'an was more willing to keep Ci'xi as her ally than to make her an enemy given the fact that Ci'xi welded more political power than she ever did she in turn eliminated any form of competition for supremacy with the latter even if she was Senior to her.

France
Following the extinction of the Carolingian dynasty in West Francia, the Western Frankish nobles elected Hugh Capet as their new king. Upon his ascension Hugh secured the election of his only son Robert as his co-king. As such, when Hugh died it did not trigger an election for a new king, nor did Robert necessarily "inherit" the crown, but simply continued his kingship. Subsequent Capetian kings would also name their eldest son or brother as co-ruler, until the tradition of agnatic primogeniture was sufficiently established to transform the King of France from an elected monarch to a hereditary one.

Lithuania

The Lithuanian Grand Dukes typically selected submonarchs from their families or loyal subjects to assist controlling the Grand Duchy. However, the Grand Dukes remained superior.
Vytenis (superior) and Gediminas
Gediminas (superior) and an unknown duke of Trakai, presumably Gediminas's son.
Algirdas (superior) and Kęstutis
Jogaila (superior) and Kęstutis

A slightly different system developed for a brief period after Vytautas became Grand Duke, where nominally Vytautas ruled together with Jogaila, who took the title of  (Supreme Duke), but he has not once used the title to take any action, and in general the powers invested in the title were not clearly stated in any documents, besides the Pact of Horodlo, which guaranteed that Jogaila would have to approve the selection of a Lithuanian Grand Duke. The title was not used by any other king of Poland after Jogaila.

 Vytautas (Grand Duke) and Jogaila (Supreme Duke)
 Švitrigaila (Grand Duke) and Jogaila (Supreme Duke) for a brief period, until Švitrigaila declared war on Poland
 Sigismund I of Lithuania (Grand Duke) and Jogaila (Supreme Duke) until Jogaila's death.

Russia

Following the death of Tsar Feodor III of Russia in 1682, his brother Ivan and half-brother Peter were both crowned autocrats of Russia. This compromise was necessary because Ivan was unfit to rule due to physical and mental disabilities, while Peter's exclusive rule was opposed by Feodor and Ivan's older sister Sofia Alekseyevna, who led a Streltsy uprising against him and his mother's family. Because neither Tsar was of age to rule, Sofia subsequently claimed regency until she was removed from power by Peter in 1689. Ivan V and Peter I's joint reign continued, however, with Ivan maintaining formal seniority despite having little participation in the affairs of the state until his death in 1696, at which point Peter became the sole ruler.

Sweden

The monarchy in Sweden has had several periods of joint rule: Erik and Alrik, Yngvi and Alf, Björn at Hauge and Anund Uppsale, Eric the Victorious and Olof Björnsson, Eric the Victorious and Olof Skötkonung, Halsten Stenkilsson and Inge I, and Philip and Inge II.

Vietnam
Coregency is a special feature of the Trần dynasty, in which a senior king abdicated in favor of his chosen heir. This abdication, however, is only in name, as the abdicated king continued to rule while his successor sat on the throne as a learner.

See also
Condominium (international law)
Diarchy
Jure uxoris
Personal union

References

Monarchy
Collective heads of state

Coregency


Nisin is a polycyclic antibacterial peptide produced by the bacterium Lactococcus lactis that is used as a food preservative. It has 34 amino acid residues, including the uncommon amino acids lanthionine (Lan), methyllanthionine (MeLan), didehydroalanine (Dha), and didehydroaminobutyric acid (Dhb). These unusual amino acids are introduced by posttranslational modification of the precursor peptide. In these reactions a ribosomally synthesized 57-mer is converted to the final peptide. The unsaturated amino acids originate from serine and threonine, and the enzyme-catalysed addition of cysteine residues to the didehydro amino acids result in the multiple (5) thioether bridges.

Subtilin and epidermin are related to nisin. All are members of a class of molecules known as lantibiotics.

In the food industry, nisin is obtained from the culturing of L. lactis on natural substrates, such as dextrose, and it is not chemically synthesized.

It was originally isolated in the late 1930s, and produced since the 1950s as Nisaplin from naturally occurring sources by Aplin and Barrett in laboratories in Beaminster in Dorset (now owned by International_Flavors_%26_Fragrances), and approved as an additive for food use in the US in the late 1960s.

Properties
While in general most bacteriocins inhibit only closely related species, nisin is a rare example of a "broad-spectrum" bacteriocin effective against many Gram-positive organisms, including lactic acid bacteria (commonly associated to avoid food spoilage), Listeria monocytogenes (a known pathogen), Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, Clostridium botulinum, etc. It is also particularly effective against spores. Gram-negative bacteria are protected by their outer membrane but may become susceptible to nisin action after a heat shock or when this is coupled with the chelator EDTA. When used in combination with EDTA, nisin has the ability to inhibit E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella enterica. Nisin, as a class I bacteriocin, is very stable at acidic pHs and is more heat stable at lower pHs. The mode of action of Nisin against pathogens such as L. monocytogenes is to dissipate the membrane potential and pH gradient.

Nisin is soluble in water and can be effective at levels nearing the parts-per-billion range. Nisin concentration can be measured using various techniques such as chromatography or by a simple agar diffusion bioassay.

Applications

Food production
Nisin is used in processed cheese, meats, beverages, etc. during production to extend shelf life by suppressing Gram-positive spoilage and pathogenic bacteria. In foods, it is common to use nisin at levels ranging from ~1-25 ppm, depending on the food type and regulatory approval.  As a food additive, nisin has an E number of E234.

Other
Due to its naturally selective spectrum of activity, it is also employed as a selective agent in microbiological media for the isolation of gram-negative bacteria, yeast, and moulds.

Nisin has also been used in food packaging applications and can serve as a preservative by controlled release onto the food surface from the polymer packaging.

In combination with miconazole it has been studied as a possible treatment for infections of Clostridium difficile.

Further reading

  (Total synthesis)
  (Biosynthesis)
 http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-common-food-tumor-growth.html
 Encyclopedia of Food Microbiology - Page 187 books.google.ae/books?

References

External links
 Nisin A
 Nisin Z
 Nisin Q
 Nisin F
 Nisin U

Bacteriocins
Lantibiotics
Preservatives
Peripheral membrane proteins
Cyclic peptides
E-number additives

Nisin


Yisifu Yinusa is a Ghanaian politician and member of the first Parliament of the Second Republic of Ghana representing Mion-Nanton constituency in the Northern Region of Ghana under the membership of the National Alliance Liberals (NAL).

Early life and education
Yisifu was born in 1941 and lived in Yendi, a town in the Northern Region of Ghana. He attended Yendi Middle School and Local Government Training School, where he obtained a Middle School Certificate and General Certificate of Education (G.C.E) Ordinary level respectively in sales promotion and office management and later worked as a farmer before going into Parliament.

Politics
He began his political career in 1969 when he became the parliamentary candidate to represent his constituency (Mion Nanton) in the Northern Region of Ghana before the 1969 Ghanaian parliamentary election.

He was sworn into the First Parliament of the Second Republic of Ghana on 1 October 1969, after being pronounced the winner at the 1969 Ghanaian election held on 26 August 1969. His tenure of office ended on 13 January 1972. He was succeeded by Oliver Sigli Mahamudu of the Social Democratic Front elected during the 1979 Ghanaian general election.

References

Ghanaian MPs 1969–1972
People from Northern Region (Ghana)
1941 births
Ghanaian farmers
National Alliance of Liberals politicians
Ghanaian Muslims
Living people

Yisifu Yinusa


A folk taxonomy is a vernacular naming system, as distinct from scientific taxonomy. Folk biological classification is the way people traditionally describe and organize the world around them, typically making generous use of form taxa such as "shrubs", "bugs", "ducks", "fish", "algae", "vegetables", or of economic criteria such as "game animals", "pack animals", "weeds" and other like terms.

Folk taxonomies are generated from social knowledge and are used in everyday speech. They are distinguished from scientific taxonomies that claim to be disembedded from social relations and thus more objective and universal. Folk taxonomies exist to allow popular identification of classes of objects, and apply to all subsections of human activity. All parts of the world have their own systems of naming local plants and animals. These naming systems are a vital aid to survival and include information such as the fruiting patterns of trees and the habits of large mammals. These localised naming systems are folk taxonomies. Theophrastus recorded evidence of a Greek folk taxonomy for plants, but later formalized botanical taxonomies were laid out in the 18th century by Carl Linnaeus.

Anthropologists have observed that taxonomies are generally embedded in local cultural and social systems, and serve various social functions. One of the best-known and most influential studies of folk taxonomies is Émile Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Scientists generally recognize that folk taxonomies conflict at times with Linnaean taxonomy or current interpretations of evolutionary relationships, and can tend to refer to generalized rather than quantitatively informative traits in an organism. Some anthropologists say race is a folk taxonomy.

Linnaeus, Theophrastus, and folk taxonomy
Linnaean Taxonomy, which is also more properly called rank-based nomenclature, is a scientifically ranked based nomenclatural system for the classification of living organisms. Developed by Carl Linnaeus, this nomenclatural system allocates taxa (groups of biological organisms recognised by systematists) into categories (absolute ranks). Rank-based nomenclature developed long after Folk Taxonomy and the more scientific classifications developed by Aristotle and Theophrastus. This method of hierarchically ranking taxa was developed before the theory of evolution, and it can be applied to everyday phenomena.

Some cultures use folk taxonomies more or less specific, or in direct correlation with modern Linnaean Taxonomy in reference to biological taxa. In areas that the direct biological distinction of plants are more important, such as crops used for food or firewood, some cultures will have a one to one ratio of plants to their Linnaeus counterpart. The use of each group of taxa (species: words) from 2:1 to 1:1 to 1: many, define the cultural significance of each species and the level of specificity they use is their form of a culturally influenced folk taxonomy. Native Tzeltal speakers in the Mayan region of Mexico were found to have developed such divisions towards the crops they most frequently use in everyday life. The cultural significance determined the number of words that the Tzeltal group had for each crop, such as the leguminose legume (Phaseolus vulgaris L. at its most specific Linnaean taxa) was differentiated in Tzeltal into five specific words. This legume is a large farm crop that is extremely present in day to day life in this region.

Folk taxonomy precedes the Linnaean taxonomy chronologically. For instance, glottochronological evidence suggests that the names of five plants of great societal importance in Mesoamerica are more than 7000 years old. The 9/10 remaining volumes of Historia Plantarum, written by Theophrastus, early philosopher, botanist, and student of Aristotle, describe an initial vernacular naming system of plants. This taxonomy has been developed, but its principal of division was widely accepted until biological theories of evolution evolved. The books list around 500 species of plant native and present in ancient Greece. Theophrastus used sources such as Diocles for herbal information and a naming system similar to Aristotle's classification of animals. The books divide all plants into specific taxa that were used as early folk taxonomies to describe everyday plants in Greece and explain the anatomy of the following groups of taxa: Trees, Wild Trees, Shrubs, Pot-Herbs, Cereals, Legumes, and Herbals (medicinally used plants) as well as the unknown subject of a 10th Volume.

These taxa were used in everyday life as a man-made vernacular naming system for local taxa. Though biologically revolutionary at the time, these taxa were also linguistically revolutionary by defining plants in groups larger than themselves. Theophrastus was influenced by preceding local folk taxonomy in his naming system, but also added biological features to the names of many plants such as phylla(leaves), karpoi (fruits), and poai (seasonal herbs). Terms like phylla are still used in Linnaean and modern naming systems for trees today.

Level of specificity
According to some authors, folk taxonomy includes several absolute levels that have been compared (very broadly) with Linnaean categories. Typically, five such ranks are recognized. The first one, the unique beginner, is extremely broad and has categories like plant or animal. Next is the life form level; life form taxa typically have names composed of a single  word. The generic level is known to be the most important level of biological folk taxonomy. It's the most widely used and the first level to be learned by children. Classifications like maple tree, blue jay or tulip are made at this level. It's a very important stepping stone for all folk taxonomies. Specific and varietal are the final two levels. The categories get far more distinct and at least two words are necessary to describe them. However, the existence of these folk taxonomic ranks (or levels) has been questioned by a number of authors from different fields for more than 20 years. The facts that folk taxonomies are not as neatly hierarchical as previously thought, with taxa of intermediate levels often missing, that no folk taxonomic ranks have been recognized in Aristotle's zoological classification, and that antique Roman folk taxonomy requires at least eight levels (rather than the iconic five), also raise doubts about the objective reality of folk taxonomic ranks.

The number of depth levels and systems for classification can vary for nonbiological folk taxonomy. The first time a folk taxonomy hierarchy was published which did not feature plants or animals was in 1961 by Charles Frake in disease diagnosis of Mindanao in the Philippines. Frake's classification had four levels. The number of levels is often anywhere between three and five.

An example of how these levels of specificity work in day to day life can easily be seen when talking about a car. On the broadest level, it is a vehicle. On the next, it's a car. Sometimes it's even more distinct and it's called a Toyota or a Toyota Highlander. All these words were used to talk about the same thing, the wording just became more and more specific as we went through folk taxonomy levels.

Human taxonomy
In the 18th century, a botanist by the name of Carl Linnaeus proposed what we now know as human taxonomy, the idea that like within botany, human beings could too be classified taxonomically. Linnaeus distinguished groups of human beings upon the basis of their apparent race in addition to several outliers such as wild children (Homo sapiens ferus). However, as anthropology has developed Linnaeus' classifications have proven incompatible with the reality of human differentiation stemming from a cultural basis. Humans tend to be distinguishable, and distinguish themselves, according to their cultural norms, principally language, dress, aesthetics, and social attitudes.

Folk taxonomy and linguistic injustice
Folk taxonomy in the sense of linguistic culture, and thus injustice, is a divided subject built upon a variety of distinct theories and methods of analysis. Still, there is apparent data that some languages, such as those of Native Americans, have tendencies to favor certain folk taxonomic classifications over others giving the speakers false impressions as to the reality of the subject of classifications.

See also
 Glossary of scientific naming
 Parataxonomy
 Baraminology, a taxonomy used in creation science
 Cladistics
 Common name
 Contrast set
 Corporate taxonomy
 Ethnotaxonomy
 Evolutionary taxonomy
 Incertae sedis
 Linnaean taxonomy
 Phylogenetics
 Wastebasket taxon

References

Bibliography
Bailenson, J.N., M.S. Shum, S. Atran, D.L. Medin, & J.D. Coley (2002) "A bird's eye view: biological categorization and reasoning within and across cultures". Cognition 84:1–53
Berlin, Brent (1972) "Speculations on the growth of ethnobotanical nomenclature", Language in Society, 1, 51–86.
Berlin, Brent & Dennis E. Breedlove & Peter H. Raven (1966) "Folk taxonomies and biological classification", Science, 154, 273–275.
Berlin, Brent & Dennis E. Breedlove & Peter H. Raven (1973) "General principles of classification and nomenclature in folk biology", American Anthropologist, 75, 214–242.
Brown, Cecil H. (1974) "Unique beginners and covert categories in folk biological taxonomies", American Anthropologist, 76, 325–327.
Brown, Cecil H. & John Kolar & Barbara J. Torrey & Tipawan Truoong-Quang & Phillip Volkman. (1976) "Some general principles of biological and non-biological folk classification", American Ethnologist, 3, 1, 73–85.
Brown, Cecil H. (1986) "The growth of ethnobiological nomenclature", Current Anthropology, 27, 1, 1–19.

Taxonomy
Scientific folklore

Folk taxonomy