Jessie Mary Hayward (née Donaghy, born 7 December 1939) is a former New Zealand high jumper and long jumper. She represented her country at the 1956 Summer Olympics and 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games, winning a silver medal in the high jump at the latter event.

Early life and family
Hayward was born Jessie Mary Donaghy in Thames on 7 December 1939, the daughter of Nona Jessie Donaghy (née Baverstock) and James Stanly Donaghy. She grew up on her parents' farm at Waitakaruru, near Ngatea. After leaving school she worked in Ngatea for a motor company, before moving to Auckland in 1960 where she worked for a bank. In 1963, she married a dairy and poultry farmer, John Clive Hayward, and they lived on their farm at Netherton, near Paeroa.

Athletics
Donaghy took up high jumping at the age of 14, when she entered a competition in Hamilton "just for fun", and cleared a height of . At an athletics meet in Te Aroha in January 1955, Donaghy jumped  at an event won by the national champion, Noelene Swinton, who suggested that Hayward should seek coaching from Frank Sharpley. For the next four years, Hayward had weekly training sessions with Sharpley at the Papakura Military Camp, where Sharpley was a physical trainer.

After just one session with Sharpley, Hayward leapt  at the Thames Valley children's championships in February 1955, breaking the New Zealand women's high jump record. She went on to win the New Zealand national high jump title six times, winning every year from 1955 to 1961 except 1960. She recorded her personal best of  in winning the 1961 championship. Donaghy also competed in the long jump, winning the national title in 1959 with a distance of .

At 16 years old, Donaghy competed in the high jump at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne. Her best height of 1.67 m was the same as that of the silver medallists, but she finished in seventh place on a countback.

At the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff, Donaghy cleared a height of , the same as the winner, Michele Brown of Australia, but was awarded the silver medal on a countback. Donaghy also competed in the long jump, placing fifth with a distance of , and was part of the New Zealand women's 4 x 110 yard relay team (with Beverly Weigel, Margaret Stuart and Marise Chamberlain) that finished fourth in the final.

Donaghy retired from athletics competition after the 1961 New Zealand national championships. She was the first woman to jump over her own height; she was .

Following her retirement and marriage, Hayward coached at the Paeroa Amateur Athletics Club.

References

1939 births
Living people
Sportspeople from Thames, New Zealand
New Zealand female high jumpers
New Zealand female long jumpers
New Zealand female sprinters
Commonwealth Games silver medallists for New Zealand
Athletes (track and field) at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games
Athletes (track and field) at the 1956 Summer Olympics
Commonwealth Games medallists in athletics
Olympic athletes for New Zealand
Medallists at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games

Mary Donaghy


Bec is a book by Darren Shan in The Demonata series. It is the fourth book of the series released but it is the first chronologically. The protagonist of the book is the central character Bec. It is set in Ireland around 1600 years ago. The last line of the book, "Screams in the dark," is also the first line of the book, as well as the tagline for the novel. Bec is the end of the first part of the Demonata books, where the three protagonists are introduced.

Plot
When a "simple child" named Bran who can run incredibly fast comes to Bec's demon-besieged rath, she and a small consignment of warriors go with him, including the chief's son, Connla, who is "largely untested" in battle; Goll, an old warrior; Lorcan and Ronan, two teenage twins; Fiachna the blacksmith; and Orna, a female warrior. During the journey, the group is attacked by demons, but luckily manage to hide near some ancient lodestones which protect them with powerful Old Magic. Eventually, Bran leads them to a crannóg, where everyone is dead except a druid, Drust. The druid tells them about a tunnel to the demons' world, and how he aims to destroy it. They go with him.

The group finds some horses which help them reach their destination in time, but Fiachna is soon abandoned after his wound becomes life-threatening.

Bec manages to force Bran through the closing tunnel at the last moment with the last of her magic, but is trapped as a result. Soon after, Lord Loss appears and tells Bec that when she appeared to absorb power from him several days earlier, Lord Loss had actually intended for that to happen so that she could close the tunnel. This is because Lord Loss is unique among demons, in that instead of wishing to slaughter all the humans in the world, he actually prefers to prolong the suffering for as long as possible. If the tunnel had remained open, countless other demons would have passed through and destroyed all of mankind within a matter of weeks, which would have ruined Lord Loss' "sport". After telling Bec this, Lord Loss reminds her of the geis that he had placed on her, and that he is bound by his word to kill her. Lord Loss sets his familiars upon Bec, and without any magic to defend herself with, she is easily overwhelmed and killed.

References
 Shanville Monthly 68

External links
Official Darren Shan Site
Official Darren Shan Blog
Demonata website

2006 novels
The Demonata novels
Demon novels
Novels about orphans
Novels set in Ireland
HarperCollins books
Little, Brown and Company books

Bec (novel)


The term "offshore company" or "offshore corporation" is used in at least two distinct and different ways.  An offshore company may be a reference to:
 a company, group or sometimes a division thereof, which engages in offshoring business processes.
 International business companies (IBC) or other types of legal entities, which are incorporated under the laws of a jurisdiction, that prohibit local economic activities.

The former use (companies formed in offshore jurisdictions) is probably the more common usage of the term. In isolated instances, the term can also be used in reference to companies with offshore oil and gas operations.

Companies from offshore jurisdictions

In relation to companies and similar entities which are incorporated in offshore jurisdictions, the use of both the words "offshore" and "company" can be varied in application.

The extent to which a jurisdiction is regarded as offshore is often a question of perception and degree.  Classic tax haven countries such as Bermuda, British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands are quintessentially offshore jurisdictions, and companies incorporated in those jurisdictions are invariably labelled as offshore companies.  Thereafter, there are certain small intermediate countries or areas such as Hong Kong, Singapore and Mauritius (sometimes referred to as "mid-shore" jurisdictions) which, whilst having oversized financial centres, are not zero tax regimes.  Finally, there are classes of industrialised economies which can be used as part of tax mitigation structures, including countries like Ireland, the Netherlands and particularly the United Kingdom, in commentary relating to corporate inversion and the use of British Overseas Territories for this purpose.  Furthermore, in Federal systems, states which operate like a classic offshore centre can result in corporations formed there being labelled as offshore, even if they form part of the largest economy in the world (for example, Delaware in the United States).

Similarly, the term "company" is used loosely, and at its widest can be taken to refer to any type of artificial entity, including not just corporations and companies, but potentially also LLCs, LPs, LLPs, and sometimes partnerships or even offshore trusts.

Classifying offshore companies

Historically, offshore companies were broadly divided into two categories.  On the one hand were companies which were statutorily exempt from taxation in their jurisdiction of registration, provided that they did not undertake business with persons resident in that jurisdiction.  Such companies were usually called International Business Companies, or IBCs.  Such companies were largely popularized by the British Virgin Islands, but the model was copied widely.  However, in the early 2000s the OECD launched a global initiative to prevent "ring fencing" of taxation in this manner, and many leading jurisdictions (including the British Virgin Islands and Gibraltar) repealed their International Business Companies legislation.  But IBCs are still incorporated in a number of jurisdictions today including Belize, Seychelles, BVI Anguilla and Panama.

Separately from IBCs, there are countries which operate tax regimes which broadly achieve the same effect: so long as the company's activities are carried on overseas, and none of the profits are repatriated, the company is not subject to taxation in its home jurisdiction.  Where the home jurisdiction is regarded as an offshore jurisdiction, such companies are commonly regarded as offshore companies.  Examples of this include Hong Kong and Uruguay.  However, these tax regimes are not limited to conventional offshore jurisdictions: the United Kingdom operates on broadly similar principles in relation to taxation of companies.

Separately, there are offshore jurisdictions which simply do not impose any form of taxation on companies, and so their companies are de facto tax-exempt.  Historically the best example of these countries were the Cayman Islands and Bermuda, although other countries such as the British Virgin Islands have now moved to this model.  These could arguably fit into either of the previous two categories, depending on the fiscal point of view involved.

To the Offshore Company definition, applies five (non-cumulative) limiting conditions:
(1) The government in the country of incorporation does not levy an indirect tax on the OAC (however, the OSC must pay an annual fee to the government).
(2) Separate laws and regulations apply.
(3) The OSC doesn't have its own physical office (address), personnel, means of communication etc. This means that the OAC must have a representative (registered agent) and office address (registered office) in the county of the incorporation.
(4) The OSC must be managed and governed by (an employee of) a local trust or law office.
(5) There is an instance of elements that benefit anonymity such as bearer shares and no or limited filing obligations.

Characteristics of offshore companies

Although all offshore companies differ to a degree depending upon the corporate law in the relevant jurisdiction, all offshore companies tend to enjoy certain core characteristics:
 They are broadly not subject to taxation in their home jurisdiction.(UAE)
 The corporate regime will be designed to promote business flexibility.
 Regulation of corporate activities will normally be lighter than in a developed country.

The absence of taxation or regulation in the home jurisdiction does not exempt the relevant company from taxation or regulation abroad.  For example, Michael Kors Holdings Limited is incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, but is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, where it is subject both the U.S. taxation and to financial regulation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Another common characteristic of offshore companies is the limited amount of information available to the public.  This varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.  At one end of the scale, in the Cayman Islands and Delaware, there is virtually no publicly available information. But at the other end of the scale, in Hong Kong companies file annual returns with particulars of directors, shareholders and annual accounts.  However, even in jurisdictions where there is relatively little information available to the public as of right, most jurisdictions have laws which permit law enforcement authorities (either locally or from overseas) to have access to relevant information, and in some cases, private individuals.

In relation to flexible corporate law, most offshore jurisdictions will normally remove corporate fetters such as thin capitalisation rules, financial assistance rules, and limitations on corporate capacity and corporate benefit.  A number have also removed or watered down rules relating to maintenance of capital or restrictions on payment of dividends.  Beyond the common themes, a number of jurisdictions have also enacted special corporate provisions to try to attract business through offering corporate mechanisms that allow complex business transactions or reorganisations to occur more smoothly.

Uses of offshore companies

Offshore companies are used for a variety of commercial and private purposes, some legitimate and economically beneficial, whilst others may be harmful or even criminal.  Allegations are frequently made in the press about offshore companies being used for money laundering, tax evasion, fraud, and other forms of white collar crime.  Offshore companies are also used in a wide variety of commercial transactions, from generic holding companies, to joint ventures and listing vehicles.  Offshore companies are also used widely in connection with private wealth for tax mitigation and privacy.  The use of offshore companies, particularly in tax planning, has become controversial in recent years, and a number of high-profile companies have ceased using offshore entities in their group structure as a result of public campaigns for such companies to pay their "fair share" of Government taxes.

Detailed information in relation to the use of offshore companies is notoriously difficult to come by because of the opaque nature of much of the business (and because, in many cases, the companies are used specifically to preserve the confidentiality of a transaction or individual).  It is a commonly held view that most uses of offshore companies are driven by tax mitigation and/or regulatory arbitrage, although there are some suggestions that the amount of tax structuring may be less than commonly thought.  Other commonly cited legitimate uses of offshore companies include uses as joint ventures financing SPVs, stock market listing vehicles, holding companies and asset holding structures, and trading vehicles.

Popularity of offshore company jurisdictions
In the three-year period from 2017 to 2019, the following jurisdictions saw the following numbers of new company registrations:

See also
Corporate inversion
Global sourcing
Low-cost country sourcing
Offshore Financial Centres
Offshore bank
Offshore outsourcing
Offshore software R&D
Offshoring
Tax avoidance and tax evasion
Tax haven
Conduit and Sink OFCs

References

External links
 Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes, OECD

Offshoring
International taxation
Offshore finance
Legal entities
Types of business entity

Offshore company


Pedro María Piqueras Gómez (May 6, 1955) is a Spanish journalist and news anchor, currently is news director of Telecinco.

Biography

Early life
Piqueras graduated from the Complutense University of Madrid during the mid-1970s.

RNE (1977–1988)
In 1977 Piqueras joined at the RNE crew as news reader of the Foreign Radio of Spain and the international area of RNE. Some years later was director of the weekend news programs and other shows as "Al Cabo de la Calle" and "Abrimos los Sábados".

Televisión Española (1988–1993)
In 1988 entered at the news staff of Televisión Española as main director of Telediario in its two editions. Also was anchor of the news magazine Buenos Días (1989–90).

Antena 3 (1993–2004)
In 1993 joined the news division of Antena 3 Television as anchor and director of the second edition of Antena 3 Noticias. In September 1996 is named as anchor of the -then weekly magazine- Espejo Público. Later, in 1998 assumes the direction of the weekend editions of "A3N" until 2002.

After that he occupied some TV specials as Diario de Guerra and the late-night news program 7 Días, 7 Noches. In March 2004 he anchored the morning magazine La Respuesta.

Back to RNE (2004–2006)
Piqueras left Antena 3 in May 2004 after being named as news director of Radio Nacional de España with target of make RNE a pluralist radio. He left the radio network in 2006 "by a non-professional reason".

Telecinco (2006–present)
On January 25, 2006 Telecinco confirms that Piqueras was named news director of the private channel and news anchor of the 21:00 Edition. Since 2013 the news program its leader of ratings on Spain's evening news

Awards and nominations
 1990: TP de Oro as best news anchor for Telediario (Nominated)
 1997: Two Antena de Oro awards by Espejo Público (Won)
 2003: Premio ATV as best communicator for news programs (Nominated)
 2009: Antena de Oro as best news anchor for Informativos Telecinco.

References

External links

1955 births
Living people
People from Albacete
Spanish television journalists
Complutense University of Madrid alumni

Pedro Piqueras


The Portable People Meter (PPM), also known as the Nielsen Meter, was a system developed by Arbitron (now Nielsen Audio) to measure how many people are exposed, or listening to individual radio stations and television stations. This also includes cable television. The PPM is worn like a pager and detects hidden audio tones within a station or network's audio stream, logging each time it finds a signal.

There are several parts to the PPM system:
An encoder that inserts the tones subliminally into a station's or broadcast network's airchain via psychoacoustic masking.
A monitor that checks that the encoder is working properly.
The wearable Portable People Meter carried by each panelist.
A base station for each PPM, where each panelist in the household places it overnight to recharge the battery.
A portable charger for vacations and other trips away from the home base.

The original PPM concept required the base station to be connected to a telephone line to transmit panelists' listening data from the PPM to the collection point. The PPM 360, introduced in 2010, uses cellular telephone technology to accomplish this without the need for a wired telephone service. They also have a motion sensor to detect when the PPM is being worn by an active person. After a period of 30 minutes of inactivity, they go into a low-power "sleep" mode to conserve battery life.

History

The original concept for the PPM can be traced to a brainstorming session at Arbitron in November 1988. Concerns over the forthcoming move from analog video to high-definition digital television had engineers concerned that the technology then in use would become obsolete overnight. Drawing upon his experience in testing laboratories, Dr. Gerald Cohen proposed embedding an identifying signal in the audio and later decoding it. Dr. Cohen argued that audio was less likely to undergo as drastic a change in content and technology as would video, hence any technology developed would likely not become obsolete in a few years.

The concept was presented to the company and also written up in a short concept document. A preliminary investigation was undertaken, but the technology was never given serious consideration. The concept was written off and forgotten, as Arbitron had larger issues in its competition with the Nielsen Company for television ratings. After losing to Nielsen Company, Arbitron went back to its core business—radio ratings.

Dr. Cohen's idea lay dormant until 1992, when Dr. Richard Schlunt and Dr.Patrick Nunally approached Arbitron. Meeting with Ronald Kolessar the Director of Technology, Dr. Cohen and others presented a new variation of the idea—selectively embed a code into the frequency spectrum of the baseband audio stream and use digital signal processing in a small wearable device to recover the embedded code buried in what a person watches or hears.

Convinced that the concept could be achieved, Mr.Kolessar obtained denial from Arbitron's management to undertake a fast-track effort to determine feasibility. Lacking the internal expertise to do so, additional outside help from the company, Martin Marietta, was sought. Facing cutbacks in the defense industry, Martin Marietta agreed to take on commercial business even to the point of signing away all rights to the technology they were to develop. Engineers at Martin Marietta decided that the best approach was to employ the principle of psychoacoustics to mask the embedded code signal, an approach described in .

Now that Dr. Cohen's idea was a full-fledged project with management support, engineers at Arbitron focused on improving the encoding and detection methodology and miniaturization into a hand-held device. Additional capabilities such as motion detection were added later on.

In 2008, EE Times, as part of their Great Minds, Great Ideas project, profiled Mr. Kolessar as the "Inventor of the Portable People Meter".

Research reports
Arbitron, as well as other firms that provide research and consulting services to radio stations, have begun publishing numerous studies based on analysis of PPM data.

Although the PPM delivers empirical, verifiable audience measurement data, these results are sometimes at odds with the results generated with the diary method. (The diary method asks listeners to note each change of their radio dial.) Some minority diarists may have used their diaries as a way to support and show loyalty for stations that targeted their communities. Around 2008, the Spanish Radio Association (SRA) and a number of politicians challenged Arbitron and the PPM's accuracy in measuring minority listening.

Criticism
Although the makers of the PPM claim that it is more accurate than traditional alternatives like handwritten logs or wired meters, critics have raised issues about its accuracy. Another sales argument is that the device is immune to human forgetfulness, something that can be an issue in studies that rely on self-reporting by test subjects.

Some radio producers have seen their audience numbers plummet in cities where Arbitron adopted the PPM. Arbitron settled with five states that brought discrimination suits and promised more representative sampling. Radio host Delilah blamed the device for "horrendous" damage to her measured audience numbers. One potential culprit raised by critics is the psychoacoustic masking techniques used to embed the signal; Delilah, for example, has suggested that the masking causes the signal to get lost in certain styles of music, thus not getting picked up by the PPM and artificially lowering the radio station's listenership.Nielsen introduced eCBET in 2016, which they touted as an enhancement for the tone encoding process. Consequently, there have been some complaints from some in the radio industry that the upgrade caused the audio to sound harsh and unlistenable.

See also
 Numeris
 Single-source data

References

External links
PPM at Arbitron (archived version at the Wayback Machine, 2011)
Nielsen Audio
Study on the impact of commercials on radio audiences on the Coleman Insights site

Audience measurement
Broadcasting
Market research
American inventions

Portable People Meter


Zebedee was a fisherman from Galilee who was the father of James and John who were disciples (followers) of Jesus. A story in the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Mark says he was in a boat with his two sons when Jesus called them to follow him. He stayed in the boat with other men who worked for him. This could mean he was rich enough to hire others to help in his fishing work. The two sons were also fishermen when Jesus called them. Other than this short report, not much can be known for sure about Zebedee.

1st-century BC births
1st-century deaths
New Testament people

Zebedee


Bartholomew was one of the twelve apostles of Jesus according to the New Testament. Most scholars today identify Bartholomew as Nathanael or Nathaniel, who appears in the Gospel of John (1:45–51; cf. 21:2).

New Testament references
The name Bartholomew (, transliterated "Bartholomaios") comes from the  bar-Tolmay "son of Talmai" or "son of the furrows". Bartholomew is listed in the New Testament among the Twelve Apostles of Jesus in the three Synoptic Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and in Acts of the Apostles.

Tradition

Eusebius of Caesarea's Ecclesiastical History (5:10) states that after the Ascension, Bartholomew went on a missionary tour to India, where he left behind a copy of the Gospel of Matthew. Tradition narrate that he served as a missionary in Mesopotamia and Parthia, as well as Lycaonia and Ethiopia in other accounts.
Popular traditions say that Bartholomew preached the Gospel in India and then went to Greater Armenia.

Mission to India
Two ancient testimonies exist about the mission of Saint Bartholomew in India. These are by Eusebius of Caesarea (early 4th century) and by Saint Jerome (late 4th century). Both of these refer to this tradition while speaking of the reported visit of Saint Pantaenus to India in the 2nd century. The studies of Fr A.C. Perumalil SJ and Moraes hold that the Bombay region on the Konkan coast, a region which may have been known as the ancient city Kalyan, was the field of Saint Bartholomew's missionary activities. Previously the consensus among scholars was at least skeptical about an apostolate of Saint Bartholomew in India. Stallings (1703), Neander (1853), Hunter (1886), Rae (1892), Zaleski (1915) supported it, while scholars such as Sollerius (1669), Carpentier (1822), Harnack (1903), Medlycott (1905), Mingana (1926), Thurston (1933), Attwater (1935), etc. do not. The main argument is that the India that Eusebius and Jerome refer to should be identified as Ethiopia or Arabia Felix.

In Armenia

Along with his fellow apostle Jude "Thaddeus", Bartholomew is reputed to have brought Christianity to Armenia in the 1st century. Thus, both saints are considered the patron saints of the Armenian Apostolic Church. According to these traditions, Bartholomew is the second Catholicos-Patriarch of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

Christian tradition offers three accounts of Bartholomew's death: "One speaks of his being kidnapped, beaten unconscious, and cast into the sea to drown. Another account states that he was crucified upside down, and another says that he was skinned alive and beheaded in Albac or Albanopolis, near Baku, Azerbaijan or Başkale, Turkey."

The most prominent tradition, namely that Bartholomew was executed in Albanopolis in Armenia, has it that he was martyred for having converted Polymius, the king of Armenia, to Christianity. Enraged by the monarch's conversion, and fearing a Roman backlash, King Polymius's brother, Prince Astyages, ordered Bartholomew's torture and execution. However, there are no records of any Armenian king of the Arsacid dynasty of Armenia with the name "Polymius". Current scholarship indicates that Bartholomew is more likely to have died in Kalyan in India, where there was an official named "Polymius".

The 13th-century Saint Bartholomew Monastery was a prominent Armenian monastery constructed at the presumed site of Bartholomew's martyrdom in Vaspurakan, Greater Armenia (now in southeastern Turkey).

In Azerbaijan

Saint Bartholomew Church (Baku) was built in 1892 with donations from the local Christian population on the site where the Apostle Bartholomew was believed to have been martyred. It is believed that in this area near the Maiden Tower, the apostle Bartholomew was crucified and killed by pagans around 71 AD. The church continued to operate until 1936, then it was demolished as a part of the Soviet campaign against religion.

Veneration
The Armenian Apostolic Church honours Saint Bartholomew and Saint Thaddeus as its patron saints.

The Eastern Orthodox Church venerates Bartholomew on June 11. Bartholomew is also venerated on August 25 in commemoration of the transfer of Bartholomew's relics. He is also venerated as one of the twelve apostles on June 30.

Hence, the Russian Orthodox Eparchy of Baku and Azerbaijan honour Saint Bartholomew as the Patron Saint of Azerbaijan and regards him as the bringer of Christianity to the region of Caucasian Albania, modern-day Azerbaijan. The feast day of the Apostle is solemnly celebrated there on 24 August by the Christian laity and the Church officials alike.

In the Synaxarium of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, Bartholomew's martyrdom is commemorated on the first day of the Coptic calendar (i.e., the first day of the month of Thout), which currently falls on 11 September (corresponding to 29 August in the Julian calendar).

In the current Roman General Calendar Saint Bartholomew's feast occurs on 24 August. Accordingly, the Catholic Church of Azerbaijan.

Bartholomew the Apostle is remembered in the Church of England with a Festival on 24 August.

Relics

The 6th-century writer Theodorus Lector averred that in about 507, the Byzantine emperor Anastasius I Dicorus gave the body of Bartholomew to the city of Daras, in Mesopotamia, which he had recently refounded. The existence of relics at Lipari, a small island off the coast of Sicily, in the part of Italy controlled from Constantinople, was explained by Gregory of Tours by his body having miraculously washed up there. A large piece of his skin and many bones that were kept in the Cathedral of St. Bartholomew in Lipari, were translated to Benevento in 838, where they are still kept now in the Basilica San Bartolomeo. A portion of the relics was given in 983 by Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor, to Rome, where it is conserved at San Bartolomeo all'Isola, which was founded on the site of the temple of Asclepius, in pagan times an important Roman medical centre. This association with medicine caused Bartholomew's name to become associated in course of time with hospitals. A part of Bartholomew's alleged skull was transferred to the Frankfurt Cathedral, while an arm was venerated in Canterbury Cathedral.
In 2003, Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople brought some of the remains of St. Bartholomew to Baku as a gift to Azerbaijani Christians, and these remains are now kept in the Holy Myrrhbearers Cathedral.

Miracles

Saint Bartholomew has been credited with several miracles.

Art and literature
In artistic depictions, Bartholomew is most commonly depicted holding his flayed skin and the knife with which he was skinned. Of this a well known example is featured in Michelangelo's Last Judgement.

Not rarely, Bartholomew is shown draping his own skin around his body. Moreover, representations of Bartholomew with a chained demon are common in Spanish painting.

St. Bartholomew is the most prominent flayed Christian martyr; During the 16th century, images of the flaying of Bartholomew were popular and this detail came to become a virtual constant of iconography.  An echo of concentration on these details is found in medieval heraldry regarding Bartholomew, which depicts "flaying knives with silver blades and gold handles, on a red field."

Saint Bartholomew is often depicted in lavish medieval manuscripts. Bearing in mind that manuscripts are in fact made from flayed and manipulated skin, they hold a strong visual and cognitive association with the saint during the medieval period.

Florentine artist Pacino di Bonaguida, depicts his martyrdom in a complex and striking composition in his Laudario of Sant'Agnese, a book of Italian Hymns produced for the Compagnia di Sant'Agnese . In the five-scene, narrative-based image, three torturers flay Bartholomew's legs and arms as he is immobilised and chained to a gate. On the right, the saint wears his own skin tied around his neck while he kneels in prayer before a rock, his severed head lying on the ground.

A further depiction is that of the Flaying of St. Bartholomew in the Luttrell Psalter –1340. There, Bartholomew is depicted lying on a surgical table, surrounded by tormentors while he is flayed with golden knives.

Due to the nature of his martyrdom, Bartholomew is the patron saint of tanners, plasterers, tailors, leatherworkers, bookbinders, farmers, housepainters, butchers, and glove makers. In works of art the saint has been depicted being skinned by tanners, as in Guido da Siena's reliquary shutters with the Martyrdoms of St. Francis, St. Claire, St. Bartholomew, and St. Catherine of Alexandria. Popular in Florence and other areas in Tuscany, the saint also came to be associated with salt, oil, and cheese merchants.

The Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew (1634) by Jusepe de Ribera depicts Bartholomew's final moments before being flayed alive. The viewer is meant to empathize with Bartholomew, whose body seemingly bursts through the surface of the canvas, and whose outstretched arms embrace a mystical light that illuminates his flesh. His piercing eyes, open mouth, and petitioning left hand bespeak an intense communion with the divine; yet this same hand draws our attention to the instruments of his torture, symbolically positioned in the shape of a cross. Transfixed by Bartholomew's active faith, the executioner seems to have stopped short in his actions, and his furrowed brow and partially illuminated face suggest a moment of doubt, with the possibility of conversion. The representation of Bartholomew's demise in the National Gallery painting differs significantly from all other depictions by Ribera. By limiting the number of participants to the main protagonists of the story (the saint, his executioner, one of the priests who condemned him, and one of the soldiers who captured him), and presenting them half-length and filling the picture space, the artist rejected an active, movemented composition for one of intense psychological drama. The cusping along all four edges shows that the painting has not been cut down: Ribera intended the composition to be just such a tight, restricted presentation, with the figures cut off and pressed together.

Although Bartholomew's death is commonly depicted in artworks of a religious nature, his story has also been used to represent anatomical depictions of the human body devoid of flesh. An example of this can be seen in Marco d'Agrate's St Bartholomew Flayed (1562) where Bartholomew is depicted wrapped in his own skin with every muscle, vein and tendon clearly visible, acting as a clear description of the muscles and structure of the human body.

This idea has influenced some contemporary artists to create an artwork depicting an anatomical study of a human body is found amongst with Gunther Von Hagens's The Skin Man (2002) and Damien Hirst's Exquisite Pain (2006). Within Gunther Von Hagens's body of work called Body Worlds a figure reminiscent of Bartholomew holds up his skin. This figure is depicted in actual human tissues (made possible by Hagens's plastination process) to educate the public about the inner workings of the human body and to show the effects of healthy and unhealthy lifestyles. In Exquisite Pain 2006, Damien Hirst depicts St Bartholomew with a high level of anatomical detail with his flayed skin draped over his right arm, a scalpel in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other. The inclusion of scissors was inspired by Tim Burton's film Edward Scissorhands (1990).

Bartholomew plays a part in Francis Bacon's Utopian tale New Atlantis, about a mythical isolated land, Bensalem, populated by a people dedicated to reason and natural philosophy. Some twenty years after the ascension of Christ the people of Bensalem find an ark floating off their shore. The ark contains a letter as well as the books of the Old and New Testaments. The letter is from Bartholomew the Apostle and declares that an angel told him to set the ark and its contents afloat. Thus the scientists of Bensalem receive the revelation of the Word of God.

Culture
The festival in August has been a traditional occasion for markets and fairs, such as the Bartholomew Fair which was held in Smithfield, London, from the Middle Ages, and which served as the scene for Ben Jonson's 1614 homonymous comedy.

St Bartholomew's Street Fair is held in Crewkerne, Somerset, annually at the start of September. The fair dates back to Saxon times and the major traders' market was recorded in the Domesday Book.  St Bartholomew's Street Fair, Crewkerne is reputed to have been granted its charter in the time of Henry III (1207–1272).  The earliest surviving court record was made in 1280, which can be found in the British Library.

In Islam
The Qur'anic account of the disciples of Jesus does not include their names, numbers, or any detailed accounts of their lives. Muslim exegesis, however, more or less agrees with the New Testament list and holds that the disciples included Peter, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, Andrew, James, Jude, James the Less, John and Simon the Zealot.

See also

 Gospel of Bartholomew
 Questions of Bartholomew
 Acts of Andrew and Bartholomew
 St. Bartholomew's Day massacre
 St Bartholomew's Hospital
 Bertil
 Saint Bartholomew the Apostle, patron saint archive

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

Further reading

External links

 The Martyrdom of the Holy and Glorious Apostle Bartholomew, attributed to Pseudo-Abdias, one of the minor Church Fathers
 St. Bartholomew's Connections in India
St. Bartholomew at the Christian Iconography web site.'
 "The Life of St. Bartholomew the Apostle" in the Caxton translation of the Golden Legend

1st-century Christian martyrs
Catholicoi of Armenia
Christian saints from the New Testament
People executed by crucifixion
Saints from the Holy Land
Twelve Apostles
Year of birth unknown
Anglican saints

Bartholomew the Apostle


The NJI&I was originally created by the Singer Sewing Machine Company in order to transport their products from South Bend, Indiana, to a connection with the Wabash Railroad in Pine, Indiana. The line began service in 1905 and officially operated on only 11.4 miles of track.

Up until and through World War I the line offered two passenger trains round trip daily to Detroit. In the 1930s passenger service was discontinued. The Wabash had purchased the line in 1926 but continued to operate it as a separate railroad.

The major customers included Singer Manufacturing and The Studebaker Company. The NJI&I continued in service until 1982 when the Norfork Southern absorbed the line. Despite both manufacturers going out of business in the early 1960s and early 1970s, the line continued to operate for several other smaller customers.

The name is derived from the three states Singer had plants in at the time of charter. The railroad was eventually taken over by the Wabash and operated through the Norfolk and Western takeover.  The line continued to service several customers until the NS-Conrail takeover allowed NS to access their customers via the former New York Central Chicago line. The line was abandoned and removed in the late 1990s.

Rolling stock
NJI&I was a steam railroad until the late 1940s. The line was dieselized with an Alco S1 and a EMD NW2 (ex-Indiana Northern RR) switcher locomotive.  The latter currently is stored in Ohio. Operations now are handled by Norfolk Southern.

Buildings and structures
NJI&I is unique in having most of the main line torn up but many significant structures remaining. The headquarters at 1508 W. Western Avenue in South Bend still stands and is used as a daycare. The two stall roundhouse remains on Olive Street and is easily accessible for pictures, although trespassing is discouraged. The former Singer plant is no longer connected by rail but is still standing as a senior citizen's home on Western Avenue. This plant was the main reason for creation of NJI&I. As of 10-18-2018, the round house at 1625 South Olive Street has been torn down, as Norfolk Southern built a small yard next to the former site that is being used to house cars.

Current operations
NS operates locals to customers along the former NYC Kankakee Belt Line and NJI&I from the office along the Kankakee Belt beneath the overpass at Sample and Olive Streets in South Bend. Customers include Steel Warehouse (steel coils) and an Ethanol plant (corn) as well as a scrap yard. Were the former PRR Vandalia line to be active still (tracks remain) this local would service those customers too. The PRR Vandalia line is remaining from a connection with NJI&I down to Eckman Street, site of former Sibley Foundry. The spur to Sibley is no longer.

References

External links

 Tom Kepshire's NJI&I Page

Predecessors of the Wabash Railroad
Railway companies established in 1902
Railway companies disestablished in 1983
Defunct Indiana railroads

New Jersey, Indiana and Illinois Railroad


A Prize Bond is a lottery bond, a non-interest bearing security issued on behalf of the Irish Minister for Finance by the Prize Bond Company DAC. Funds raised are used to offset government borrowing and are refundable to the bond owner on demand. Interest is returned to bond owners via prizes which are distributed by random selection of bonds.  Similar prize bonds are also offered in Pakistan, by the Ministry of Finance, and in the UK, under the name Premium Bonds.

Background
The 1956 Finance (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act is the primary legislation under which the bonds are authorised; the similar concept of Premium Bonds were introduced in the United Kingdom at the same time. Bonds were first sold in March 1957, with the first draw held in September of that year. Originally the Bank of Ireland, as the government's banker, was the operator of the scheme. When the scheme commenced, the biannual draws were in September and March where by means of six drums the winning serial number was drawn randomly; in 1972 the serial number was increased from six to seven digits for bonds issued after that time. In 1993 regulation was made for the conduct of the draws on a weekly basis using a computer-driven random number generator to determine winning numbers.

Organization
The Prize Bond Company is a joint venture between the founders An Post and FEXCO and is based in Killorglin, County Kerry. The company was created in 1989 with issued share capital between the founders of 50% each and will operate the scheme under its current (as of 2011) contract until the end of 2019. Employees of the Prize Bond Company are seconded from the respective partner, FEXCO is responsible for administration, whilst An Post is responsible for accounting and marketing in addition to conducting the draws.

The National Treasury Management Agency is responsible for the regulation of the company, since the Agency was established in 1990.

Finance
Originally bonds could be purchased as in units of five Irish pounds, with a minimum purchase of £10. Today the unit price is 6.25 Euros (equivalent to IR£4.92 at the final fixed exchange rate) and a minimum purchase of €25 is required. In September 2009 the Prize Bond fund exceeded €1bn for the first time.

The weekly draw is held on Fridays at 12:30 in the General Post Office, Dublin. Prizes range from €75 to a jackpot of €50,000 except for the last draw of each month, when the jackpot is €500,000. , the prize fund will almost treble in size to c. €48m and the size of the fund is now almost €4.7 billion

Winnings are tax-free within Ireland.

There have been some concerns that the bonds do not represent value for money for the government. Of particular concern is the cost of administration relative to the cost of interest on borrowings.

References

Bonds (finance)
Securities (finance)
Economy of the Republic of Ireland

Prize Bond


A CAPTCHA ( ) is a type of challenge–response test used in computing to determine whether the user is human in order to deter bot attacks and spam.

The term was coined in 2003 by Luis von Ahn, Manuel Blum, Nicholas J. Hopper, and John Langford. It is a contrived acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart." A historically common type of CAPTCHA (displayed as Version 1.0) was first invented in 1997 by two groups working in parallel. This form of CAPTCHA requires entering a sequence of letters or numbers in a distorted image. Because the test is administered by a computer, in contrast to the standard Turing test that is administered by a human, CAPTCHAs are sometimes described as reverse Turing tests.

Two widely used CAPTCHA services are hCaptcha, an independent company, and reCAPTCHA, offered by Google. It takes the average person approximately 10 seconds to solve a typical CAPTCHA.

Purpose
CAPTCHAs' purpose is to prevent spam on websites, such as promotion spam, registration spam, and data scraping, and bots are less likely to abuse websites with spamming if those websites use CAPTCHA. Many websites use CAPTCHA effectively to prevent bot raiding. CAPTCHAs are designed so that humans can complete them, while most robots cannot. Newer CAPTCHAs look at the user's behaviour on the internet, to prove that they are a human. A normal CAPTCHA test only appears if the user acts like a bot, such as when they request webpages, or click links too fast.

History
Since the 1980s–1990s, users have wanted to make text illegible to computers. The first such people were hackers, posting about sensitive topics to Internet forums they thought were being automatically monitored on keywords. To circumvent such filters, they replaced a word with look-alike characters. HELLO could become  or , and others, such that a filter could not detect all of them. This later became known as leetspeak.

One of the earliest commercial uses of CAPTCHAs was in the Gausebeck–Levchin test. In 2000, idrive.com began to protect its signup page with a CAPTCHA and prepared to file a patent. In 2001, PayPal used such tests as part of a fraud prevention strategy in which they asked humans to "retype distorted text that programs have difficulty recognizing." PayPal co founder and CTO Max Levchin helped commercialize this use.

A popular deployment of CAPTCHA technology, reCAPTCHA, was acquired by Google in 2009. In addition to preventing bot fraud for its users, Google used reCAPTCHA and CAPTCHA technology to digitize the archives of The New York Times and books from Google Books in 2011.

Invention
Eran Reshef, Gili Raanan and Eilon Solan who worked at Sanctum on Application Security Firewall first patented CAPTCHA in 1997. Their patent application details that "The invention is based on applying human advantage in applying sensory and cognitive skills to solving simple problems that prove to be extremely hard for computer software. Such skills include, but are not limited to processing of sensory information such as identification of objects and letters within a noisy graphical environment".

Characteristics
CAPTCHAs are automated, requiring little human maintenance or intervention to administer, producing benefits in cost and reliability.

Modern text-based CAPTCHAs are designed such that they require the simultaneous use of three separate abilities—invariant recognition, segmentation, and parsing to complete the task.

 Invariant recognition refers to the ability to recognize letters despite a large amount of variation in their shapes.
 Segmentation is the ability to separate one letter from another, made difficult in CAPTCHAs.
 Parsing refers to the ability to understand the CAPTCHA holistically, in order to correctly identify each character.

Each of these problems poses a significant challenge for a computer, even in isolation. Therefore, these three techniques in tandem make CAPTCHAs difficult for computers to solve.

Whilst primarily used for security reasons, CAPTCHAs can also serve as a benchmark task for artificial intelligence technologies. According to an article by Ahn, Blum and Langford, "any program that passes the tests generated by a CAPTCHA can be used to solve a hard unsolved AI problem." They argue that the advantages of using hard AI problems as a means for security are twofold. Either the problem goes unsolved and there remains a reliable method for distinguishing humans from computers, or the problem is solved and a difficult AI problem is resolved along with it.

Accessibility

CAPTCHAs based on reading text—or other visual-perception tasks—prevent blind or visually impaired users from accessing the protected resource. However, CAPTCHAs do not have to be visual. Any hard artificial intelligence problem, such as speech recognition, can be used as CAPTCHA. Some implementations of CAPTCHAs permit users to opt for an audio CAPTCHA, such as reCAPTCHA, though a 2011 paper demonstrated a technique for defeating the popular schemes at the time.

Blind or visually impaired people have problems with CAPTCHAs. Because CAPTCHAs are designed to be unreadable by machines, common assistive technology tools such as screen readers cannot interpret them. Since sites may use CAPTCHAs as part of the initial registration process, or even every login, this challenge can block access. In certain jurisdictions, site owners could become targets of litigation if they are using CAPTCHAs that discriminate against certain people with disabilities. For example, a CAPTCHA may make a site incompatible with Section 508 in the United States.

The use of CAPTCHA thus excludes a small percentage of users from using significant subsets of such common Web-based services as PayPal, Gmail, Orkut, Yahoo!, many forum and weblog systems, etc.

It has been reported that the new generations of graphical CAPTCHAs, designed to overcome sophisticated recognition software, can be very hard or impossible to read for general internet users and not those who experience low vision or blindness.

A method of improving CAPTCHA to ease the work with it was proposed by ProtectWebForm and named "Smart CAPTCHA". Developers are advised to combine CAPTCHA with JavaScript. Since it is hard for most bots to parse and execute JavaScript, a combinatory method which fills the CAPTCHA fields and hides both the image and the field from human eyes was proposed.

One alternative method involves displaying to the user a simple mathematical equation and requiring the user to enter the solution as verification. Although these are much easier to defeat using software, they are suitable for scenarios where graphical imagery is not appropriate, and they provide a much higher level of accessibility for blind users than the image-based CAPTCHAs. These are sometimes referred to as MAPTCHAs (M = "mathematical"). However, these may be difficult for users with a cognitive disorder, such as dyscalculia.

Challenges such as a logic puzzle, or trivia question can also be used as a CAPTCHA. There is research into their resistance against countermeasures.

Circumvention

Two main ways to bypass CAPTCHA include using cheap human labor to recognize them, and using machine learning to build an automated solver. According to former Google "click fraud czar" Shuman Ghosemajumder, there are numerous services which solve CAPTCHAs automatically.

Machine learning-based attacks
There was not a systematic methodology for designing or evaluating early CAPTCHAs. As a result, there were many instances in which CAPTCHAs were of a fixed length and therefore automated tasks could be constructed to successfully make educated guesses about where segmentation should take place. Other early CAPTCHAs contained limited sets of words, which made the test much easier to game. Still others made the mistake of relying too heavily on background confusion in the image. In each case, algorithms were created that were successfully able to complete the task by exploiting these design flaws. However, light changes to the CAPTCHA could thwart them. Modern CAPTCHAs like reCAPTCHA rely on present variations of characters that are collapsed together, making them hard to segment, and they have warded off automated tasks.

In October 2013, artificial intelligence company Vicarious claimed that it had developed a generic CAPTCHA-solving algorithm that was able to solve modern CAPTCHAs with character recognition rates of up to 90%. However, Luis von Ahn, a pioneer of early CAPTCHA and founder of reCAPTCHA, said: "It's hard for me to be impressed since I see these every few months." 50 similar claims to that of Vicarious had been made since 2003.

In August 2014 at Usenix WoOT conference, Bursztein et al. presented the first generic CAPTCHA-solving algorithm based on reinforcement learning and demonstrated its efficiency against many popular CAPTCHA schemas.

In October 2018 at ACM CCS'18 conference, Ye et al. presented a deep learning-based attack that could consistently solve all 11 text captcha schemes used by the top-50 popular websites in 2018. An effective CAPTCHA solver can be trained using as few as 500 real CAPTCHAs.

Human labor
It is possible to subvert CAPTCHAs by relaying them to a sweatshop of human operators who are employed to decode CAPTCHAs. A 2005 paper from a W3C working group said that they could verify hundreds per hour. In 2010, the University of California at San Diego conducted a large scale study of CAPTCHA farms. The retail price for solving one million CAPTCHAs was as low as $1,000.

Another technique consists of using a script to re-post the target site's CAPTCHA as a CAPTCHA to the attacker's site, which unsuspecting humans visit and solve within a short while for the script to use.

In 2023, the generative AI chatbot ChatGPT, tricked a TaskRabbit worker to solve a CAPTCHA by telling the worker it was not a robot and had impaired vision.

Outsourcing to paid services
There are multiple Internet companies like 2Captcha and DeathByCaptcha that offer human and machine backed CAPTCHA solving services for as low as US$0.50 per 1000 solved CAPTCHAs. These services offer APIs and libraries that enable users to integrate CAPTCHA circumvention into the tools that CAPTCHAs were designed to block in the first place.

Insecure implementation
Howard Yeend has identified two implementation issues with poorly designed CAPTCHA systems: reusing the session ID of a known CAPTCHA image, and CAPTCHAs residing on shared servers.

Sometimes, if part of the software generating the CAPTCHA is client-side (the validation is done on a server but the text that the user is required to identify is rendered on the client side), then users can modify the client to display the un-rendered text. Some CAPTCHA systems use MD5 hashes stored client-side, which may leave the CAPTCHA vulnerable to a brute-force attack.

Alternative CAPTCHAs
Some researchers have proposed alternatives including image recognition CAPTCHAs which require users to identify simple objects in the images presented. The argument in favor of these schemes is that tasks like object recognition are more complex to perform than text recognition and therefore should be more resilient to machine learning based attacks.

Chew et al. published their work in the 7th International Information Security Conference, ISC'04, proposing three different versions of image recognition CAPTCHAs, and validating the proposal with user studies. It is suggested that one of the versions, the anomaly CAPTCHA, is best with 100% of human users being able to pass an anomaly CAPTCHA with at least 90% probability in 42 seconds. Datta et al. published their paper in the ACM Multimedia '05 Conference, named IMAGINATION (IMAge Generation for INternet AuthenticaTION), proposing a systematic way to image recognition CAPTCHAs. Images are distorted so image recognition approaches cannot recognise them.

Microsoft (Jeremy Elson, John R. Douceur, Jon Howell, and Jared Saul) claim to have developed Animal Species Image Recognition for Restricting Access (ASIRRA) which ask users to distinguish cats from dogs. Microsoft had a beta version of this for websites to use. They claim "Asirra is easy for users; it can be solved by humans 99.6% of the time in under 30 seconds. Anecdotally, users seemed to find the experience of using Asirra much more enjoyable than a text-based CAPTCHA." This solution was described in a 2007 paper to Proceedings of 14th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS). It was closed in October 2014.

See also
 Defense strategy (computing)
 NuCaptcha
 Proof of personhood
 Proof-of-work system
 reCAPTCHA

References

Further references
 von Ahn, L;  M. Blum and J. Langford. (2004) "Telling humans and computers apart (automatically)". Communications of the ACM, 47(2):57–60.

External links

 Verification of a human in the loop, or Identification via the Turing Test, Moni Naor, 1996.
 Inaccessibility of CAPTCHA: Alternatives to Visual Turing Tests on the Web, a W3C Working Group Note.
 CAPTCHA History from PARC.
 Reverse Engineering CAPTCHAs Abram Hindle, Michael W. Godfrey, Richard C. Holt, 2009-08-24

Turing tests
Internet forum terminology
Computer vision
2003 neologisms
20th-century inventions

CAPTCHA


Homo is the genus that includes modern humans and species closely related to them. The genus is estimated to be about 2.3 to 2.4 million years old,  evolving from australopithecine ancestors with the appearance of Homo habilis.
Specifically, H. habilis is assumed to be the direct descendant of Australopithecus garhi which lived about 2.5 million years ago. The most salient physiological development between the two  species is the increase in cranial capacity, from about  in A. garhi to  in H. habilis. Within the Homo genus, cranial capacity again doubled from H. habilis to H. heidelbergensis by 0.6 million years ago. The cranial capacity of H. heidelbergensis overlaps with the range found in modern humans.

The advent of Homo coincides with the first evidence of stone tools (the Oldowan industry), and thus by definition with the beginning of the Lower Palaeolithic. The emergence of Homo also coincides roughly with the onset of Quaternary glaciation, the beginning of the current ice age.

All species of the genus except Homo sapiens (modern humans) are extinct. Homo neanderthalensis, traditionally considered the last surviving relative, died out about 24,000 years ago, while a recent discovery suggests that another species, Homo floresiensis, discovered in 2003, may have lived as recently as 12,000 years ago.  The discovery of Denisova hominin, announced in March 2010, may reveal it to be yet another species in the genus.

Itokasi

Human evolution
Hominina

Homo


Kebili (or Qibilī; ) is a desert toun in central Tunisie. It is locatit at aroond , sooth o the Chott el-Jerid. It is the caipital o the Kebili Govrenorate.

History

Kebili or in correct spellin Gibili is ane o the auldest Oasis in Tunisie an North Africae. Kebili haulds the earliest haurd evidence o human habitation in Tunisie (foond near the toun) an dates back aboot 200,000 years. Kebili, as mony ithers Tunisian touns, entered unner the control o Roman Empire efter the Punic Wars.

Demographics

The Kebili population is diverse compared tae ither Tunisian governorates. There are three main race/ethnic groups:

Arabs: They came tae Kebili in early days o Islamic Conquest. Maist came frae the Soothren Arabian Peninsula (kent today as Saudi Arabie an Yemen). They still hauld the names o their ancestor's tribes.
Berbers: They are the native inhabitants o Tunisie an North Africae. Berbers are considered minorities acause they prefer tae live in muntains (the maist famous site is Matmata).
Blacks: They came tae the ceety when it wis a famous slavery trade center. See economy for mair information.

Leid an Releegion

Arabic is the dominant leid in the region. The awday Arabic differs frae literal Arabic tae varyin degrees. The maist noticeable difference is in the pronunciation o the letter Qäf; it is pronoonced Gä. See an aa Tunisian Arabic.
Islam is the dominant releegion. Kebili, as mony ither Tunisian touns, haulds a great number o Soofiat Maqams (Saleheen).

Economy

The Kebilian economy haes seen diverse orientations through its history. Kebili wis ane the main hubs o the African slavery trade tae satisfy European needs at that time. Slaves wur taken tae Europe through the port o Gabès. Nouadays, Kebili relies hivily on agricultur an tourism.

Agricultur

The main agricultural product in the region is dates, or deglets. Kebili produce a vera hie quality date, exportit aroond the warld an contributin significantly tae the local an naitional economy.

Tourism

Beginnin wi naitional unthrildom, the government o Tunisie haes encouraged tourism projects an resorts in the Saharan region. O these Douz, sooth o Kebili, is the maist famous Saharian destination o Tunisie (kent as the Sahara Gate).

Freemit airtins
 Lexicorient
 Kebili Guide
 Collection of photos

Populatit places in Kebili Govrenorate
Oases o Tunisie
Communes o Tunisie

Kebili


Solid-phase extraction (SPE) is a solid-liquid extractive technique, by which compounds that are dissolved or suspended in a liquid mixture are separated, isolated or purified, from other compounds in this mixture, according to their physical and chemical properties. Analytical laboratories use solid phase extraction to concentrate and purify samples for analysis. Solid phase extraction can be used to isolate analytes of interest from a wide variety of matrices, including urine, blood, water, beverages, soil, and animal tissue.

SPE uses the affinity of solutes, dissolved or suspended in a liquid (known as the mobile phase), to a solid packing inside a small column, through which the sample is passed (known as the stationary phase), to separate a mixture into desired and undesired components. The result is that either the desired analytes of interest or undesired impurities in the sample are retained on the stationary phase.  The portion that passes through the stationary phase is collected or discarded, depending on whether it contains the desired analytes or undesired impurities. If the portion retained on the stationary phase includes the desired analytes, they can then be removed from the stationary phase for collection in an additional step, in which the stationary phase is rinsed with an appropriate eluent.

It is possible to have an incomplete recovery of the analytes by SPE caused by incomplete extraction or elution. In the case of an incomplete extraction, the analytes do not have enough affinity for the stationary phase and part of them will remain in the permeate. In an incomplete elution, part of the analytes remain in the sorbent because the eluent used does not have a strong enough affinity.

Many of the adsorbents/materials are the same as in chromatographic methods, but SPE is distinctive, with aims separate from chromatography, and so has a unique niche in modern chemical science.

SPE and chromatography
SPE is in fact a method of chromatography, in the sense of having a mobile phase, carrying mixtures through a stationary phase, packed inside a column. The chromatographic process is harnessed to be an extractive technique, a solid-liquid extractive technique—taking advantage of large differences in the Keq, or equilibrium constant, of mixture components between the solid stationary phase and the mobile phase resulting, for a well-designed and executed separation. It is in fact a bulk separation of one or more components from the mixture, so that it is significantly enriched as a result of the rapid extractive procedure. Many of the adsorbents/materials are the same as in Liquid column Chromatography methods, where similar materials are packed into long columns.  When similar materials are packed into longer columns and smaller particle sizes, the separation efficiency is increased, i.e., the number of theoretical plates increases by orders of magnitude. The chemistry considerations for the selection of stationary phases and the mobile phases are very similar in SPE and in chromatography. The differences are clear enough to differentiate SPE as an extractive technique, with theory, procedures, and aims derived from liquid chromatography, therefore, it has a unique niche in modern chemical science.

Normal phase SPE procedure

A typical solid phase extraction involves five basic steps. First, the cartridge is equilibrated with a non-polar or slightly polar solvent, which wets the surface and penetrates the bonded phase. Then water, or buffer of the same composition as the sample, is typically washed through the column to wet the silica surface. The sample is then added to the cartridge. As the sample passes through the stationary phase, the polar analytes in the sample will interact and retain on the polar sorbent while the solvent, and other non-polar impurities pass through the cartridge. After the sample is loaded, the cartridge is washed with a non-polar solvent to remove further impurities. Then, the analyte is eluted with a polar solvent or a buffer of the appropriate pH.

A stationary phase of polar functionally bonded silicas with short carbons chains frequently makes up the solid phase.  This stationary phase will adsorb polar molecules which can be collected with a more polar solvent.

Reversed phase SPE
Reversed phase SPE separates analytes based on their polarity. The stationary phase of a reversed phase SPE cartridge is derivatized with hydrocarbon chains, which retain compounds of mid to low polarity due to the hydrophobic effect. The analyte can be eluted by washing the cartridge with a non-polar solvent, which disrupts the interaction of the analyte and the stationary phase.

A stationary phase of silicon with carbon chains is commonly used.  Relying on mainly non-polar, hydrophobic interactions, only non-polar or very weakly polar compounds will adsorb to the surface.

Ion exchange SPE
Ion exchange sorbents separate analytes based on electrostatic interactions between the analyte of interest and the positively or negatively charged groups on the stationary phase. For ion exchange to occur, both the stationary phase and sample must be at a pH where both are charged.

Anion exchange
Anion exchange sorbents are derivatized with positively charged functional groups that interact and retain negatively charged anions, such as acids. Strong anion exchange sorbents contain quaternary ammonium groups that have a permanent positive charge in aqueous solutions, and weak anion exchange sorbents use amine groups which are charged when the pH is below about 9. Strong anion exchange sorbents are useful because any strongly acidic impurities in the sample will bind to the sorbent and usually will not be eluted with the analyte of interest; to recover a strong acid a weak anion exchange cartridge should be used. To elute the analyte from either the strong or weak sorbent, the stationary phase is washed with a solvent that neutralizes the charge of either the analyte, the stationary phase, or both. Once the charge is neutralized, the electrostatic interaction between the analyte and the stationary phase no longer exists and the analyte will elute from the cartridge.

Cation exchange
Cation exchange sorbents are derivatized with functional groups that interact and retain positively charged cations, such as bases. Strong cation exchange sorbents contain aliphatic sulfonic acid groups that are always negatively charged in aqueous solution, and weak cation exchange sorbents contain aliphatic carboxylic acids, which are charged when the pH is above about 5. Strong cation exchange sorbents are useful because any strongly basic impurities in the sample will bind to the sorbent and usually will not be eluted with the analyte of interest; to recover a strong base a weak cation exchange cartridge should be used. To elute the analyte from either the strong or weak sorbent, the stationary phase is washed with a solvent that neutralizes ionic interaction between the analyte and the stationary phase.

Cartridges
The stationary phase comes in the form of a packed syringe-shaped cartridge, a 96 well plate, a 47- or 90-mm flat disk, or a microextraction by packed sorbent (MEPS) device, a SPE method that uses a packed sorbent material in a liquid handling syringe. These can be mounted on its specific type of extraction manifold. The manifold allows multiple samples to be processed by holding several SPE media in place and allowing for an equal number of samples to pass through them simultaneously. In a standard cartridge SPE manifold up to 24 cartridges can be mounted in parallel, while a typical disk SPE manifold can accommodate 6 disks. Most SPE manifolds are equipped with a vacuum port, where vacuum can be applied to speed up the extraction process by pulling the liquid sample through the stationary phase. The analytes are collected in sample tubes inside or below the manifold after they pass through the stationary phase.

Solid phase extraction cartridges and disks can be purchased with several stationary phases, each of which separates analytes depending on different chemical properties. The basis of most stationary phases is silica that has been bonded to a specific functional group. Some of these functional groups include hydrophobic alkyl or aryl chains chains of variable length (for reversed phase), quaternary ammonium or amino groups (for anion exchange),  and aliphatic sulfonic acid or carboxyl groups (for cation exchange).

Solid-phase microextraction
Solid-phase microextraction (SPME), is a solid phase extraction technique that involves the use of a fiber coated with an extracting phase, that can be a liquid (polymer) or a solid (sorbent), which extracts different kinds of analytes (including both volatile and non-volatile) from different kinds of media, that can be in liquid or gas phase. The quantity of analyte extracted by the fibre is proportional to its concentration in the sample as long as equilibrium is reached or, in case of short time pre-equilibrium, with help of convection or agitation.

References

Further reading
E. M. Thurman, M. S. Mills, Solid-Phase Extraction: Principles and Practice, Wiley-Interscience, 1998,
Nigel J.K. Simpson, Solid-Phase Extraction: Principles, Techniques, and Applications, CRC, 2000,
James S. Fritz, Analytical Solid-Phase Extraction, Wiley-VCH, 1999,

Analytical chemistry
Extraction (chemistry)

Solid-phase extraction


ASG Vorwärts Cottbus was an East German football club from the city of Cottbus in Brandenburg. The club was established in 1955 through the wholesale transfer of players from Vorwärts Leipzig to the local airforce club known as Sport Club Vorwärts der Luftstreitkräfte Cottbus.

Following World War II Germany was occupied by the victorious Allies and a separate state – the German Democratic Republic (German: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, DDR; commonly in English, East Germany) – emerged in the Soviet-held eastern part of the country. The formation of an independent East German football competition soon followed. The name Vorwärts was used in East Germany by those clubs associated with the armed forces, paramilitary organizations, and police.

History
Now playing as Sportvereinigung Vorwärts Cottbus, the former airforce side was part of the Bezirksliga Cottbus (IV) and the arrival of the Leipzig players contributed to a title win there and promotion to the 2.DDR-Liga (III). The team was renamed Armee-Sportklub Vorwärts Cottbus in 1957. They spent five seasons in third-tier play before advancing to the DDR-Liga (II) through a promotion playoff following a divisional title win in 1959.

The Cottbus side missed promotion to first-division play when they finished second to Lok Stendal in 1963. In 1966, the club was degraded from a sports club to a sports community and again renamed, becoming Armeesportgemeinschaft Vorwärts Cottbus.  They became a DDR-Liga fixture spending 14 seasons in second-tier play until slipping to the Bezirksliga after a 10th-place finish in 1974.

Cottbus made its first appearance in play for the FDGB-Pokal (East German Cup) in 1962 and appeared in each subsequent cup tournament until 1974.  However, the team was never able to make its way out of the early rounds.

In 1975 the club was transferred to Kamenz, Saxony near Dresden where they would play for the next ten seasons as Armee-Sportgemeinschaft Vorwärts Kamenz until folding in 1985.

Honours
 Bezirksliga Cottbus champions: 1955
 2.DDR-Liga divisional champions: 1959

References

Defunct football clubs in Germany
Defunct football clubs in Brandenburg
Football clubs in East Germany
Association football clubs established in 1955
Association football clubs disestablished in 1974
ASG Vorwärts
1955 establishments in East Germany
1974 disestablishments in Germany
Military association football clubs in Germany

ASG Vorwärts Cottbus


Imaginary Landscape No. 2 (March No. 1) is a composition for five percussionists by American composer John Cage and the second in the series of Imaginary Landscapes. It was also the first march in the set, the second being Imaginary Landscape No. 4 (March No. 2). It was composed in 1942.

Composition

The title Imaginary Landscape No. 2 was first used in 1940, after Cage composed Bacchanale and premiered it on April 28, 1940, for a solo recital at the Repertory Playhouse given by Bonnie Bird's student Syvilla Fort. The piece that was meant to be played at the recital was a piece for percussion ensemble. However, given the small space left on stage for performers, it seemed impractical and Cage decided to write Bacchanale, which is scored for a solo prepared piano. Two weeks after this recital, Bird presented a new series of recitals to take place between May 7 to 11, 1940, and they would feature Cage's Imaginary Landscape No. 2, a composition for four percussionists.

This piece was recorded in a radio studio by four players, two assistants, and a technician. As in Imaginary Landscape No. 1, this work would feature two turntables, a tom-tom, chinese cymbal and a prepared piano, and the turntables would shift speeds as specified in the score. The two assistants would just regulate the dynamics of the piece, raising or lowering the volume of the microphones where necessary. However, this piece was recorded and withdrawn shortly afterwards. It was not until 1942, when Cage moved to San Francisco and started working with Lou Harrison, that Cage wrote the piece entitled Fourth Construction. This piece was scored for five percussionists and featured no turntables nor pianos. It was composed in San Francisco in 1942 and premiere exactly two years later, on May 7, 1942, merely two months after premiering his Imaginary Landscape No. 3 in Chicago. After its premiere, Cage changed its title to March (Imaginary Landscape No. 2) and, subsequently, Imaginary Landscape No. 2 (March No. 1). It was dedicated to Lou Harrison and was eventually published by Edition Peters.

Structure

This piece consists of only one movement and has a total duration of seven minutes. It is scored for five percussionists playing tin cans, a conch shell, a ratchet, a bass drum, a buzzers, a water gong, a metal wastebasket, a lion's roar and an amplified coil of wire attached to a phonographic tone arm. This latter technique was first used in Imaginary Landscape No. 2, composed just two months before. Cage learned to use it after talking to a sound effects producer. According to Cage himself, "when I got to Chicago, I had a commission to do a piece for CBS and I worked with a sound effects engineer at the radio station in Chicago, and he showed me the thunderous sound of the coil wire in contact with the microphone - which I loved". As was the case of Imaginary Landscape No. 4 (March No. 2), this is no conventional march and offers no recognizable traits as such to the listener.

Recordings

The following is an incomplete list of recordings of Imaginary Landscape No. 2:

 The Maelström Percussion Ensemble recorded of the piece. The recording took place between May 28 and June 1, 1995 and was released by Hat Hut.
 The Italian Ensemble Prometeo recorded this piece in 2009. The recording was later released in 2012 by Stradivarius.
 The Percussion Group Cincinnati also performed this piece in 2011. It was recorded and released by Mode Records both on CD and DVD.

References

1942 compositions
Compositions by John Cage

Imaginary Landscape No. 2 (March No. 1)


A stretched verb is a complex predicate composed of a light verb and an eventive noun.  An example is the English phrase "take a bite out of", which is semantically similar to the simple verb "bite". The concept has been used in studies of German and English.

Other names for a stretched verb include "supported verb", "expanded predicate", "verbo-nominal phrase", and "delexical verb combination".  Some definitions may place further restrictions on the construction: restricting the light verb to one of a fixed list; restricting the occurrence of articles, prepositions, or adverbs within the complex phrase; requiring the eventive noun to be identical or cognate with a synonymous simple verb, or at least requiring the stretched verb to be  synonymous with some simple verb.

In English, many stretched verbs are more common than a corresponding simple verb: for example "get rid [of X from Y]" compared to the verb "rid [Y of X]"; or "offer (one's) condolences [to X]" vs "condole [with X]".   Correct use of stretched verbs is about as difficult for EFL students as other types of collocation.

See also
Light verb
Phrasal verb

References

Verb types
Lexical units

Stretched verb


Umma (which means Mum in the Korean language) is a 2022 American supernatural horror movie. It is written and directed by Iris K. Shim and it stars Sandra Oh, Fivel Stewart, MeeWha Alana Lee, Tom Yi, Odeya Rush, and Dermot Mulroney. Sam Raimi serves as a producer on the film. The film follows Amanda (Oh), a single mother who lives with her daughter in a isolated farm being haunted by her mother's ghost.

Umma was released in the United States on March 18, 2022 by Sony Pictures Releasing. The movie had mixed-to-negative reviews from critics, who liked Oh's performance and the movie's themes, but criticized its as cliché, its screenplay, many jump scares and no tension.

Plot
Korean immigrant Amanda and her homeschooled daughter Chrissy "Chris" live on a rural farm, raising bees, selling honey, raising chickens, and living without modern technology as Amanda has an "allergic reaction" to electronics and electricity. She's upset to learn that Chrissy wants to leave the farm in order to pursue college, as Amanda had wanted her to remain on the farm. When Amanda receives the cremated ashes of her recently deceased estranged mother, who she called Umma, in a suitcase from her uncle visiting her from Korea, she is confronted with memories of her abusive childhood.

Umma had been left to raise Amanda alone in the United States, unable to speak English and surrounded by those who did not understand or practice her culture. It is revealed that Amanda fabricated her "allergy" to electronics after being electrically shocked multiple times by Umma as punishment. When Amanda cut ties with her mother she also cut ties with her Korean heritage as a whole, including giving up her family name. As her uncle left, he shamed Amanda for abandoning her own mother and heritage, and for not teaching Chrissy Korean language and culture.

Soon after the ashes arrive a vicious spirit appears, intent on claiming Amanda's body for itself. As the supernatural phenomena following the delivery of her mother's ashes progress, from visions of tormented Korean spirits (including Umma's spirit) to an encounter with a kumiho that was eating her chickens, Amanda suddenly becomes more paranoid and fearful that she's slowly becoming her own mother. This fear becomes realized when Umma successfully possesses her daughter when Amanda tries to bury the ashes.

Chrissy finds her mother performing the Jesa and wearing a mask and hanbok. She's attacked by Amanda, but manages to avoid being killed after pleading for her life. Amanda decides to confront her mother. She forgives her for the abuse. Amanda acknowledges that it was unfair that Umma had been expected to raise a child all alone in a country far from home and in her circumstances, but that it was not an excuse for the abuse. This compassion and understanding allows Umma to finally move on and be at peace, as she had also come to understand that what she did to Amanda was unfair. The film ends with Amanda rediscovering her family heritage and sharing it with her daughter, as well as coming to terms with Chrissy's need to live her own life.

Cast
 Sandra Oh as Amanda
 Fivel Stewart as Chris
 Dermot Mulroney as Danny
 Odeya Rush as River
 MeeWha Alana Lee as Amanda's Mom / Umma
 Tom Yi as Amanda's Uncle

2022 horror movies
American supernatural movies
American horror movies

Umma (2022 movie)


Nicole Petignat (born October 27, 1966, in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland) is a Swiss former football referee. In August 2003 she became the first female referee of a men's football match organized by UEFA; AIK Fotboll (SWE) versus Fylkir (ISL) in the preliminary round of the UEFA Cup.

Career
Petignat passed her youth in the canton of Jura. She started to take courses of arbitration in 1983 and consecutively climbed all the levels leading to the arbitration in the national League A (later the Swiss Super League). Petignat is one of only few female referees to work in professional male football with matches in the first Swiss and Austrian Bundesliga league. Altogether, Petignat refereed 91 Swiss first league matches and in May 2007 the final of the Swiss Cup – FC Basel versus FC Lucerne. Her experience was also recognized when she became the first woman to referee a male UEFA Cup tie in 2003.

In July 1999 in Los Angeles she refereed the final of the FIFA Women's World Cup between the United States and China. She controversially failed to penalise American goalkeeper Brianna Scurry for moving forward off her goal-line during the penalty shoot-out. In September 2000, she refereed in the women's football tournament at the Olympic Games of Sydney and in 2001 she was in charge of the UEFA Women's Euro final; Germany versus Sweden. Later she refereed at the 2003 FIFA Women's World Cup, the Women's Euro 2005 and the Women's World Cup 2007.

As a player, Petignat played up to second division level in Switzerland. She lives in Watt, in the canton of Zurich, where she is a medical masseuse. From 2000 to 2006 she lived together with the Swiss referee Urs Meier. In December 2008, Petignat resigned as a referee.

Literature
 Pierre-André Marchand: Nicole Petignat. La fille que siffle les garçons. Éditions Favre, Lausanne 2006,

External links
 Breaking the Grass Ceiling
 Nicole Petignat at www.fifa.com
 Video excerpt of Nicole Petignat working 2007 WWC semi final game: US vs. Brazil

1966 births
Living people
People from La Chaux-de-Fonds
Swiss football referees
FIFA Women's World Cup referees
Women association football referees
FIFA Women's World Cup finals match officials
Women referees and umpires

Nicole Petignat


This is a list of dissenting academies in England and Wales, operating in the 19th century. Over this period the religious disabilities of English Dissenters were lifted within the educational system, and the rationale for the existence of a system of general education parallel to that requiring Church of England beliefs therefore fell away. This provision of general education for Dissenters was one of two functions of the academies, the other being the training of ministers (Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Baptist, Methodist and Unitarian). As the century progressed, there were the administrative changes and migrations seen in the 18th century, but also a gradual merging of some of the stronger dissenting academies into the developing university system. Colleges that were in effect nonconformist seminaries could also become theological institutions within universities. By the end of the century the remaining independent "dissenting" system in practical terms had become a network of nonconformist theological colleges.

See List of dissenting academies (1660–1800) for the earlier history. See also List of English and Welsh endowed schools (19th century) for the parallel system of grammar schools.

List

References

19th century
History of education in England
United Kingdom religion-related lists
United Kingdom education-related lists
Lists of schools in England
Lists of schools in Wales

List of dissenting academies (19th century)