The Sandfontein Artillery Regiment (formerly the Transvaal Horse Artillery) is a reserve artillery regiment of the South African Army.

The Sandfontein Artillery Regiment is currently located in Johannesburg. The main ordnance of the regiment is the G6 self-propelled 155mm gun/howitzer. It consists of four batteries: Regimental Headquarters Battery, 7 Battery, 8 Battery and 9 Battery.

History

Origins
The Transvaal Horse Artillery was formed on 17 March 1904 as Lys' Volunteer Corps (after its first commanding officer, Major Godfrey Lys) and was a regiment dependent on horse transport from the start.  His adjutant was Brevet-Major J.W.F Lamont, Royal Field Artillery. Lys would resign in January 1905 and Major A. Langebrink took over command. The uniform was in the style of the Royal Household Artillery with the silver substituted by gold. Its first honorary colonel was Thomas Cullinan. The regiment's name was changed six months later to the Transvaal Horse Artillery Volunteers, which it retained until 1911, when the volunteers designation was dropped, to become the Transvaal Horse Artillery.

In 1913, the unit was embodied in the citizen force of the new Union Defence Forces as the 7th Citizen Battery (THA).

World War I

German South-West Africa Campaign
The regiment was part of the Northern Force sent to invade (the then) German South-West Africa at the outbreak World War I. It first saw action in September 1914 at Sandfontein and later distinguished itself at Riet and Namutoni.

Europe
Volunteers from the Transvaal Horse Artillery also later fought as part of the South African Heavy Artillery in Palestine, Egypt and Europe.

Inter-war

In the inter-war period the regiment grew from a single battery to a three battery brigade; it was also mechanised by the introduction of trucks. During the 1922 Rand Rebellion the THA took part in the Battle of Brixton Bridge and in the clearing of Fordsburg.

The unit was renumbered as the 3rd Citizen Battery (THA) in 1926, and reverted to the name Transvaal Horse Artillery in 1932.  On the outbreak of World War II in 1939, it became the 3rd Field Brigade (THA).

World War II
During World War II, the THA first saw action against the Italians in Abyssinia.

The regiment's most memorable action during the war was during the battle of Sidi Rezegh in the Western Desert on 23 November 1941. As a part of 5 South African Infantry Brigade Group, the THA suffered considerable losses during heavy action which saw it firing over open sights at the panzers of the Afrika Korps.

After the collapse of Tobruk in June 1942, the regiment lost its headquarters unit as well as its 8th and 9th batteries, except for one troop of 8th Battery. This troop, together with the Coldstream Guards, were the only units to drive out in formation. The remaining (7th) battery of the regiment was first attached to 7 Field Regiment and took part in the fighting at El Alamein in October 1942. It subsequently joined 4/22nd Field Regiment, South African Artillery and saw action throughout the Italian Campaign.

Post-war
From 1960 to 1968, the THA was affiliated to the University of the Witwatersrand and was known as the Witwatersrand University Regiment.

South African Border War

During the post-war period, the regiment was often mobilised with 7 South African Infantry Division's 72 Brigade, to take part in South Africa's Border War. The regiment was called up in 1976 for three months active service in Angola and South West Africa and followed this up with two months in the operational area in 1979. Other operations included:

Name change
In August 2019, 52 Reserve Force units had their names changed to reflect the diverse military history of South Africa. The Transvaal Horse Artillery became the Sandfontein Artillery Regiment, and had three years to design and implement new regimental insignia.

Leadership

Freedom of Entry
The Freedom of Entry into the City of Johannesburg was bestowed on the Regiment in 1964.

Current
The regiment celebrated their 110th Anniversary in 2014.

On 11 June 2007 the THA shared a Royal Salute alongside the Honourable Artillery Company, (HAC) at the traditional saluting base, the Tower of London, in honour of the official birthday of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, consort to Queen Elizabeth II. It was the first time that any non-Commonwealth troops participated in such an event in the United Kingdom.

On 16 December 2013 the THA had the honour of firing a 21 gun national salute for the president at the official parade to commemorate the Day of Reconciliation and also in honour of the late President Nelson Mandela at the occasion of the unveiling of this statue at the Union Buildings.

Regimental symbols
 Cap badge: a field gun in the centre, with the word "Transvaal" above it and the words "horse artillery" below, with a laurel branch on a curved scroll in between.
 Helmet Flash: The Helmet Flash has the red W on a background of Blue. This flash is the opposite way around from all the other artillery units. Orpen explains that the flash was worn on the left side of the helmet and the flash was orientated so that the point of the W pointed to the front.
 The Transvaal Horse Artillery was formally affiliated with the Honourable Artillery Company from 1937 to 1961 and then again from 1994 to the present.
 The regiment received the Freedom of the City of Johannesburg in 1964.

Battle honours

Alliances
  - Honourable Artillery Company

Notes

References

External links

Artillery regiments of South Africa
Military units and formations in Johannesburg
Military units and formations established in 2019

Sandfontein Artillery Regiment


Steeping may mean:
Soaking in liquid until saturated with a soluble , as in, for example, the steeping of tea and coffee.  In the case of herbal tea, it is referred to as , and may also be called .
Soaking to remove an ingredient; Example: salt from smoked ham or salted cod.

One example is the steeping of corn, part of the milling process. As described by the US Corn Refiners Association, harvested kernels of corn are cleaned and then steeped in water at a temperature of 50 degrees for 30 to 40 hours. In the process their moisture content rises from 15% to 45% and their volume more than doubles. The gluten bonds in the corn are weakened and starch is released.

The corn is then ground to break free the germ and other components, and the water used (steepwater), which has absorbed various nutrients, is recycled for use in animal feeds.

References

Cooking methods

Steeping


The computer desk and related ergonomic desk are furniture pieces designed to comfortably and aesthetically provide a working surface and house or conceal office equipment including computers, peripherals and cabling for office and home-office users.

Computer desk
The most common form of the computer desk is an ergonomic variant of the office desk, which has an adjustable  and sufficient desktop space for handwriting.  Provisions for a monitor shelf and holes for routing cables are integrated in the design, making it easier to connect the computer components together.  The typical armoire desk provides space for a keyboard, mouse, monitor, printer and speakers. cubicle desk designs for business and government workplaces include a range of shelves, trays and cable-routing holes for computer systems. In some computer desks, the cabling is affixed to the modesty panel at the back of the desk, to create a neater appearance.

There are a great variety of computer desk shapes and forms.  Large multiple student computer desks configured in rows are designed to house dozens of computer systems while facilitating wiring, general maintenance, theft prevention and vandalism reduction.  Small rolling lectern desks or computer carts with  tiny desktops provide just enough room for a laptop computer and a mouse pad. Computer desks are typically mass-produced and require some self-assembly.

The computer itself is normally separate from the desk, which is designed to hold a typically sized computer, monitor and accessories. Cabling must be routed through the channels and access openings by the user or installer. A small number of computers are built within a desk made specially for them, like the British i-desk.  Various proposals for the "Office of the future" suggested other integrated designs, but these have not been taken up.

A rolling chair table configuration offers mobility and improved access in situations where a desk is not convenient. Gyratory computer tables can be used over a bed. Modular computer tables separate user interface elements from the computing and network connection, allowing more placement flexibility. The modules are connected via wireless technology.

Ergonomic desk
The ergonomic desk is a modern desk form which, like the adjustable drawing table or drafting table, offers mechanical adjustments for the placement of its elements in order to maximize user comfort and efficiency. The ergonomic desk is usually a "stand-alone" piece of furniture allowing access to the adjustment mechanisms. Some ergonomic desks have a sufficiently large desktop height adjustment to create either a common "sit-down" desk or a less common standing desk, which allows the user to work while standing. The ergonomic desk is usually a close companion to the ergonomic chair.

The ergonomic desk originated with the beginning of the field of human factors or ergonomics after World War II.  Legislation stating minimal requirements for furniture used by office workers referred to ergonomic desk standards.

The desk area should be deep enough to accommodate a monitor placed at least 20 inches away from your eyes.

Health and safety

Some research has indicated that the placement of computer desks in an office environment can influence workers' happiness and productivity. Having an appropriate chair increases comfort and can reduce work-related injuries and pain.

See also
 List of desk forms and types

References

Durfee, Charles. Build a Computer Desk. Fine Woodworking. No. 164. July–August 2003. pp. 42–49.
Lauziere, Stephen. A Laptop Computer desk Doubles as a Side Table. Fine Woodworking. No. 133. July–August 2003. pp. 58–63.
Grandjean, E. Ergonomics In Computerized Offices .  CRC, 1986. PP 135–149

Desks
Ergonomics

Computer desk


A composite image filter is an electronic filter consisting of multiple image filter sections of two or more different types.

The image method of filter design determines the properties of filter sections by calculating the properties they would have in an infinite chain of identical sections. In this, the analysis parallels transmission line theory on which it is based. Filters designed by this method are called image parameter filters, or just image filters. An important parameter of image filters is their image impedance, the impedance of an infinite chain of identical sections.

The basic sections are arranged into a ladder network of several sections, the number of sections required is mostly determined by the amount of stopband rejection required. In its simplest form, the filter can consist entirely of identical sections. However, it is more usual to use a composite filter of two or three different types of section to improve different parameters best addressed by a particular type. The most frequent parameters considered are stopband rejection, steepness of the filter skirt (transition band) and impedance matching to the filter terminations.

Image filters are linear filters and are invariably also passive in implementation.

History
The image method of designing filters originated at AT&T, who were interested in developing filtering that could be used with the multiplexing of many telephone channels on to a single cable. The researchers involved in this work and their contributions are briefly listed below;

 John Carson provided the mathematical underpinning to the theory.  He invented single-sideband modulation for the purpose of multiplexing telephone channels. It was the need to recover these signals that gave rise to the need for advanced filtering techniques. He also pioneered the use of operational calculus (what has now become the theory of Laplace transforms in its more formal mathematical guise) to analyse these signals.
 George Campbell worked on filtering from 1910 onwards and invented the constant k filter. This can be seen as a continuation of his work on loading coils on transmission lines, a concept invented by Oliver Heaviside. Heaviside, incidentally, also invented the operational calculus that Carson used.
 Otto Zobel provided a theoretical basis (and the name) for Campbell's filters. In 1920 he invented the m-derived filter. Zobel also published composite designs incorporating both constant  and -derived sections.
 R. S. Hoyt also contributed.

The image method

The image analysis starts with a calculation of the input and output impedances (the image impedances) and the transfer function of a section in an infinite chain of identical sections. This can be shown to be equivalent to the performance of a section terminated in its image impedances. The image method, therefore, relies on each filter section being terminated with the correct image impedance. This is easy enough to do with the internal sections of a multiple section filter, because it is only necessary to ensure that the sections facing the one in question have identical image impedances. However, the end sections are a problem. They will usually be terminated with fixed resistances that the filter cannot match perfectly except at one specific frequency. This mismatch leads to multiple reflections at the filter terminations and at the junctions between sections. These reflections result in the filter response deviating quite sharply from the theoretical, especially near the cut-off frequency.

The requirement for better matching to the end impedances is one of the main motivations for using composite filters.  A section designed to give good matching is used at the ends but something else (for instance stopband rejection or passband to stopband transition) is designed for the body of the filter.

Filter section types
Each filter section type has particular advantages and disadvantages and each has the capability to improve particular filter parameters. The sections described below are the prototype filters for low-pass sections. These prototypes may be scaled and transformed to the desired frequency bandform (low-pass, high-pass, band-pass or band-stop).

The smallest unit of an image filter is an L half-section. Because the L section is not symmetrical, it has different image impedances () on each side. These are denoted  and  The T and the Π in the suffix refer to the shape of the filter section that would be formed if two half sections were to be connected back-to-back. T and Π are the smallest symmetrical sections that can be constructed, as shown in diagrams in the topology chart (below). Where the section in question has an image impedance different from the general case a further suffix is added identifying the section type, for instance

Constant  section

The constant  or -type filter section is the basic image filter section. It is also the simplest circuit topology. The -type has moderately fast transition from the passband to the stopband and moderately good stopband rejection.

-derived section

The -derived or -type filter section is a development of the -type section. The most prominent feature of the -type is a pole of attenuation just past the cut-off frequency inside the stopband. The parameter   adjusts the position of this pole of attenuation. Smaller values of  put the pole closer to the cut-off frequency. Larger values of  put it further away. In the limit, as  approaches , the pole approaches  of infinity and the section approaches a -type section.

The -type has a particularly fast cut-off, going from fully pass at the cut-off frequency to fully stop at the pole frequency. The cut-off can be made faster by moving the pole nearer to the cut-off frequency. This filter has the fastest cut-off of any filter design; note that the fast transition is achieved with just a single section, there is no need for multiple sections. The drawback with m-type sections is that they have poor stopband rejection past the pole of attenuation.

There is a particularly useful property of -type filters with =0.6 . These have maximally flat image impedance  in the passband. They are therefore good for matching in to the filter terminations, in the passband at least, the stopband is another story.

There are two variants of the -type section, series and shunt. They have identical transfer functions but their image impedances are different. The shunt half-section has an image impedance which matches  on one side but has a different impedance,  on the other. The series half-section matches  on one side and has  on the other.

-type section

The -type section has two independent parameters ( and ) that the designer can adjust. It is arrived at by double application of the -derivation process. Its chief advantage is that it rather better at matching in to resistive end terminations than the -type or -type. The image impedance of a half-section is  on one side and a different impedance,  on the other. Like the -type, this section can be constructed as a series or shunt section and the image impedances will come in T and Π variants. Either a series construction is applied to a shunt -type or a shunt construction is applied to a series -type. The advantages of the -type filter are achieved at the expense of greater circuit complexity so it would normally only be used where it is needed for impedance matching purposes and not in the body of the filter.

The transfer function of an -type is the same as an -type with  set to the product . To choose values of  and  for best impedance match requires the designer to choose two frequencies at which the match is to be exact, at other frequencies there will be some deviation. There is thus some leeway in the choice, but Zobel suggests the values =0.7230 and =0.4134 which give a deviation of the impedance of less than 2% over the useful part of the band. Since =0.3, this section will also have a much faster cut-off than an -type of =0.6 which is an alternative for impedance matching.

It is possible to continue the -derivation process repeatedly and produce -types and so on. However, the improvements obtained diminish at each iteration and are not usually worth the increase in complexity.

Bode's filter

Another variation on the -type filter was described by Hendrik Bode. This filter uses as a prototype a mid-series m-derived filter and transforms this into a bridged-T topology with the addition of a bridging resistor.  This section has the advantage of being able to place the pole of attenuation much closer to the cut-off frequency than the Zobel filter, which starts to fail to work properly with very small values of  because of inductor resistance. See equivalent impedance transforms for an explanation of its operation.

Zobel network

The distinguishing feature of Zobel network filters is that they have a constant resistance image impedance and for this reason are also known as constant resistance networks. Clearly, the Zobel network filter does not have a problem matching to its terminations and this is its main advantage. However, other filter types have steeper transfer functions and sharper cut-offs. In filtering applications, the main role of Zobel networks is as equalisation filters. Zobel networks are in a different group from other image filters. The constant resistance means that when used in combination with other image filter sections the same problem of matching arises as with end terminations. Zobel networks also suffer the disadvantage of using far more components than other equivalent image sections.

Effect of end terminations

A consequence of the image method of filter design is that the effect of the end terminations has to be calculated separately if its effects on response are to be taken into account. The most severe deviation of the response from that predicted occurs in the passband close to cut-off. The reason for this is twofold. Further into the passband the impedance match progressively improves, thus limiting the error. On the other hand, waves in the stopband are reflected from the end termination due to mismatch but are attenuated twice by the filter stopband rejection as they pass through it. So while stopband impedance mismatch may be severe, it has only limited effect on the filter response.

Cascading sections
Several L half-sections may be cascaded to form a composite filter. The most important rule when constructing a composite image filter is that the image impedances must always face an identical impedance; like must always face like. T sections must always face T sections, Π sections must always face Π sections, -type must always face -type (or the side of an -type which has the -type impedance) and -type must always face -type. Furthermore, -type impedances of different values of  cannot face each other. Nor can sections of any type which have different values of cut-off frequency.

Sections at the beginning and end of the filter are often chosen for their impedance match in to the terminations rather than the shape of their frequency response. For this purpose, -type sections of  = 0.6 are the most common choice. An alternative is -type sections of =0.7230 and =0.4134 although this type of section is rarely used. While it has several advantages noted below, it has the disadvantages of being more complex and also, if constant  sections are required in the body of the filter, it is then necessary to include -type sections to interface the -type to the -types.

The inner sections of the filter are most commonly chosen to be constant  since these produce the greatest stopband attenuation. However, one or two -type sections might also be included to improve the rate of fall from pass to stopband. A low value of  is chosen for -types used for this purpose. The lower the value of , the faster the transition, while at the same time, the stopband attenuation becomes less, increasing the need to use extra -type sections as well. An advantage of using -types for impedance matching is that these type of end sections will have a fast transition anyway (much more so than =0.6, -type) because =0.3 for impedance matching. So the need for sections in the body of the filter to do this may be dispensed with.

Another reason for using -types in the body of the filter is to place an additional pole of attenuation in the stopband. The frequency of the pole directly depends on the value of . The smaller the value of , the closer the pole is to the cut-off frequency. Conversely, a large value of  places the pole further away from cut-off until in the limit when =1 the pole is at infinity and the response is the same as the -type section. If a value of  is chosen for this pole which is different from the pole of the end sections it will have the effect of broadening the band of good stopband rejection near to the cut-off frequency. In this way the -type sections serve to give good stopband rejection near to cut-off and the k-type sections give good stopband rejection far from cut-off. Alternatively, -type sections can be used in the body of the filter with different values of  if the value found in the end sections is unsuitable. Here again, the -type would have some advantages if used for impedance matching. The -type used for impedance matching places the pole at =0.3 . However, the other half of the impedance matching section needs to be an -type of =0.723 . This automatically gives a good spread of stopband rejection and as with the steepness of transition issue, use of -type sections may remove the need for additional -type sections in the body.

Constant resistance sections may also be required, if the filter is being used on a transmission line, to improve the flatness of the passband response. This is necessary because the transmission line response is not usually anywhere near perfectly flat. These sections would normally be placed closest to the line since they present a predictable impedance to the line and also tend to mask the indeterminate impedance of the line from the rest of the filter. There is no issue with matching constant resistance sections to each other even when the sections are operating on totally different frequency bands. All sections can be made to have precisely the same image impedance of a fixed resistance.

See also

References

Bibliography

Linear filters
Image impedance filters
Filter theory
Analog circuits
Electronic design

Composite image filter


The Duchy of Holstein (, ) was the northernmost state of the Holy Roman Empire, located in the present German state of Schleswig-Holstein. It originated when King Christian I of Denmark had his County of Holstein-Rendsburg elevated to a duchy by Emperor  Frederick III in 1474. Members of the Danish House of Oldenburg ruled Holstein – jointly with the Duchy of Schleswig – for its entire existence.

From 1490 to 1523 and again from 1544 to 1773 the Duchy was partitioned between various Oldenburg branches, most notably the dukes of Holstein-Glückstadt (identical with the Kings of Denmark) and Holstein-Gottorp. The duchy ceased to exist when the Kingdom of Prussia annexed it in 1866 after the Austro-Prussian War.

History
The northern border of Holstein along the Eider River had already formed the northern border of the Carolingian Empire, after Emperor Charlemagne upon the Saxon Wars reached an agreement with King Hemming of Denmark in 811. The lands of Schleswig beyond the river remained a fief of the Danish Crown, while Holstein became an integral part of East Francia, the Kingdom of Germany and the Holy Roman Empire.

Establishment

Adolf VIII, the last Count of Holstein-Rendsburg and Duke of Schleswig had died without heirs in 1459. As Schleswig had been a Danish fief, it had to fall back to King Christian I of Denmark, who, himself a nephew of Adolf, also sought to enter into possession of Holstein. He was backed by the local nobility, who supported the continued common administration of both lands and by the 1460 Treaty of Ribe proclaimed him as the new Count of Holstein.

Nevertheless, the comital Holstein lands south of the Eider River officially remained a mediate fief held by the Ascanian dukes of Saxe-Lauenburg. In 1474 Emperor Frederick III conferred Imperial immediacy to Christian by elevating him to a Duke of Holstein.

Partition
In 1544, the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein were partitioned in three parts between Christian's grandson Christian III of Denmark and his two younger half-brothers (who had to renounce the Danish throne), as follows:

The royal part, held by Christian III and his successors (identical with the Kings of Denmark). From 1648 the royal parts of Schleswig and Holstein were administered out of Glückstadt and became known as the Duchy of Schleswig-Holstein-Glückstadt. Before 1773 its Holstein territory consisted of the following Ämter: Rendsburg, South Dithmarschen, Steinburg, Segeberg, and Plön.
The Duchy of Schleswig-Holstein in Haderslev, held by Duke Hans the Elder. Hans had no issue and after his death in 1580, his territories were divided among his brothers.
The Duchy of Schleswig-Holstein in Gottorp, held by Duke Adolf and his successors.

In addition, significant parts of Holstein were jointly administered by the dukes of Holstein-Glückstadt and the dukes of Holstein-Gottorp, mainly on the Baltic Sea coast.

In 1640, the County of Holstein-Pinneberg, whose ruling house was extinct, was merged in the royal part of the Duchy of Holstein.

Reunification

In 1713, during the Great Northern War, the estates of the dukes of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp in Schleswig including Schloss Gottorf were conquered by royal Danish troops. In the 1720 Treaty of Frederiksborg, Duke Charles Frederick of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp ceded them to his liege lord the Danish crown.

His remaining territories formed the Duchy of Holstein-Gottorp, administered from Kiel. In 1773, Charles Frederick's grandson, Emperor Paul I of Russia finally gave his Holstein lands to the Danish king, in his function as duke of Holstein, in exchange for the County of Oldenburg, and Holstein was reunited as a single state.

With the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the Duchy of Holstein gained sovereignty.

After the 1815 Congress of Vienna, the Duchy of Holstein became a member of the German Confederation, resulting in several diplomatic and military conflicts about the so-called Schleswig-Holstein question. Denmark defended its rule over Holstein in the First Schleswig War of 1848-51 against the Kingdom of Prussia. However, in the Second Schleswig War (1864) Prussian and Austrian troops conquered Schleswig. Christian IX of Denmark had to renounce both Schleswig and Holstein in the Treaty of Vienna (1864) on October 30.

At first placed under joint rule in a condominium, Prussia and Austria then assumed administration of Schleswig and Holstein, respectively, under the Gastein Convention of August 14, 1865. However, tensions between the two powers culminated in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. Following the Peace of Prague (1866), the victorious Prussians annexed both Schleswig and Holstein by decree of December 24, 1866, and later established the unified Province of Schleswig-Holstein.

List of statholders in Holstein
The Danish king in his function as duke of Holstein, and duke of Schleswig, appointed statholders (German: Statthalter; Latin: produx) to represent him in the duchies. The statholders fulfilled the tasks related to the ducal power as patrimonial lords in the royal shares of Holstein and Schleswig, as well as the royal part in the condominial government with the houses of Gottorp and Haderslev (the latter extinct in 1580) for all the duchies of Holstein (until retreat of Gottorp in 1773) and Schleswig (until Gottorp's deposal from dukedom there in 1720).

1523/45–1550: Johan Rantzau
1550–1556: Count Bertram von Ahlefeldt
1556–1598: Heinrich Rantzau
1598–1600: vacancy?
1600–1627: Geerd Rantzau (1558–1627)
1627–1647: vacancy
1647–1648: Prince Frederick of Denmark
1648–1663: Christian zu Rantzau
1663–1685: Friedrich von Ahlefeldt, Count of Langeland (1623–1686), vice-statholder since 1660
1685–1697: Detlev zu Rantzau (1644-1697)
1697–1708: Friedrich von Ahlefeldt, Count of Langeland (1662–1708), vice-statholder since 1686
1708–1722: Carl von Ahlefeldt, Count of Langeland (1708–1722)
1722–1730: ?
1730–1731: Margrave Charles Augustus of Brandenburg-Kulmbach (1663–1731), uncle of the next
1731–1762: Margrave Frederick Ernest of Brandenburg-Kulmbach (1703–1762), brother-in-law of King Christian VI
1762–1768: Count Friedrich Ludwig von Ahlefeldt-Dehn (1697–1771)
1768–1836: Prince Charles of Hesse-Kassel
1836–1842: Prince Frederick of Hesse-Kassel
1842–1851: Prince Frederick of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg
1851–1864: Christian zu Rantzau?

See also
Peace of Prague (1866)
List of rulers of Schleswig-Holstein

Notes

External links
 Schleswig-Holstein at Worldstatesmen

1866 disestablishments
States and territories established in 1474
Duchies of the Holy Roman Empire
Lower Saxon Circle
States of the German Confederation
 Holstein
Holstein
1470s establishments in the Holy Roman Empire
1474 establishments in Europe
Former monarchies of Europe

Duchy of Holstein


Nick Venet (born Nikolas Kostantinos Venetoulis, 3 December 1936 – 2 January 1998) was an American record producer, who began his career at age 19 with World Pacific Jazz. He is best known for signing The Beach Boys to Capitol Records and producing the band's earlier material including the song "Surfin' Safari". Brian Wilson has credited Venet with helping him learn the craft of production.

Career
Mentored by Lee Gillette, John Hammond, and Richard Bock, he worked with such musicians as Chet Baker, Lord Buckley, Nat "King" Cole, Stan Getz, Chico Hamilton, Stan Kenton, Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross, Peggy Lee, Gerry Mulligan, Ravi Shankar, and Kay Starr. In his early twenties, he joined Capitol Records. As well as being a producer, he was head of A&R at Capitol.

Venet produced a number of important Capitol clients, including Ray Anthony, The Buddies, Glen Campbell, Cashman, Pistilli, and West, Jim Croce, Ingrid Croce, King Curtis, Karen Dalton, Bobby Darin, The Four Preps, George Gerdes, Jimmie Haskell, Hearts & Flowers with Bernie Leadon, Hedge and Donna, The Hondells, The Honeys, The Kingston Trio, The Leaves, the Lettermen, Lothar and the Hand People, Mad River, Maffit & Davies, Ian Matthews and Matthews Southern Comfort, Onzie Matthews, Les McCann, Fred Neil, Vince Martin, Ricky Nelson, Dinsmore Payne, Lou Rawls, Billy Lee Riley, Murray Roman, Linda Ronstadt, Jack Scott, Maxine Sellers, Serendipity Singers, John Stewart, the Stone Poneys, Allan Taylor, Guthrie Thomas, The Vettes, Wendy Waldman, The Walker Brothers, Sammy Walker, and Timi Yuro.

He was executive producer on spoken word albums such as John G. Neihardt's Black Elk Speaks produced and recorded by William McIntyre, the Odyssey Theater Players in The Chicago Conspiracy Trial, Carl Reiner & Mel Brooks' 2000 Year Old Man series, and Orson Welles' The Begatting of the President. When Capitol Vice President Alan W. Livingston left to start Mediarts Records, he took Venet with him. There Venet produced Dory Previn (who wrote about their romantic relationship in "Lemon Haired Ladies") and Don McLean. He stayed on a few years when the company was acquired by United Artists. He also recorded artists including Sam Cooke and the Pilgrim Travelers, Ivory Joe Hunter, Sarah Kernochan, Vince Martin and the Tarriers, the Nashville Street Singers, Ted Neeley, Wayne Newton, Jack Nitzche, Shorty Rogers, Bonnie Murray Tamblyn, Harriet Schock, Gene Vincent, Waddy Wachtel, Clara Ward, Sarah Kim Wilde, Bobby Womack, and Frank Zappa. He also produced the original cast albums for the Broadway musical Salvation and the off-Broadway hit The Last Session by Steve Schalchlin - ironically, Venet's last session.

Venet shares credits for the music in the skateboard film, Skaterdater (1965).

Later life and death
He later changed his name to Nik Venet in honor of his grandfather. He died on 2 January 1998 of Burkitt's lymphoma. Just over one month before Beach Boy Carl Wilson. He was survived by his wife, actress Valerie Kairys Venet, and their son, filmmaker Nik Venet III.

References

External links

1936 births
1998 deaths
American record producers
American people of Greek descent
Deaths from non-Hodgkin lymphoma
20th-century American businesspeople
Deaths from cancer in California

Nick Venet


Thread seal tape (also known as PTFE tape, Teflon tape, or plumber's tape) is a polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) film tape commonly used in plumbing for sealing pipe threads. The tape is sold cut to specific widths and wound on a spool, making it easy to wind around pipe threads. Thread seal tape lubricates allowing for a deeper seating of the threads, and it helps prevent the threads from seizing when being unscrewed. The tape also works as a deformable filler and thread lubricant, helping to seal the joint without hardening or making it more difficult to tighten, and instead making it easier to tighten. It also protects the threads of both pieces from direct contact with each other and physical wear and helps seal and prevent leaks from the connection.

Typically the tape is wrapped in the same direction the male threads go for tightening and is commonly used commercially in applications including pressurized water systems, central heating systems, and air compression equipment.

Types

There are two US standards for determining the quality of any thread seal tape. MIL-T-27730A (an obsolete military specification still commonly used in industry in the US) requires a minimum thickness of 3.5 mils and a minimum PTFE purity of 99%. The second standard, A-A-58092, is a commercial grade which maintains the thickness requirement of MIL-T-27730A and adds a minimum density of 1.2 g/cm3. Relevant standards may vary between industries; tape for gas fittings (to UK gas regulations) is required to be thicker than that for water. Although PTFE itself is suitable for use with high-pressure oxygen, the grade of tape must also be known to be free from grease.

Thread seal tape used in plumbing applications is most commonly white, but it is also available in various colors. It is often used to correspond to color coded pipelines (US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand: yellow for natural gas, green for oxygen, etc.). These color-codes for thread sealing tape were introduced by Bill Bentley of Unasco Pty Ltd in the 1970s. In the UK, the tape is used from coloured reels, e.g. yellow reels for gas, and green for oxygen.

 White: used on NPT threads up to  inch
 Yellow: used on NPT threads  inch to 2 inch, often labeled "gas tape"
 Pink: used on NPT threads  inch to 2 inch, safe for potable water
 Green: oil-free PTFE used on oxygen lines and some specific medical gasses
 Gray: contains nickel, anti-seizing, anti-galling, and anti-corrosion, used for stainless pipes
 Copper: contains copper granules and is certified as a thread lubricant but not a sealer

In Europe, the BSI standard BS-7786:2006 specifies various grades and quality standards of PTFE thread sealing tape.

Uses

Thread seal tape is appropriate for use on tapered threads, where the sealing force is a wedge action. Parallel threads may not seal effectively with or without tape, as they are intended to be sealed by a gasket.

Thread seal tape is almost always applied by hand, although at least one machine is available for production wrapping of fittings.

Thread seal tape is also commonly used in the stretching of body piercings, through a process known as taping, because it is inert and safe for this use. The wearer wraps a layer of tape around a plug and uses the jewelry, adding another layer every few days, thus gradually stretching the piercing.

Hazards

Overuse or misapplication of thread seal tape may be a hazard. Excess application of tape can prevent mating threads from fully engaging, reducing the shear point of the threads.  Combining thread seal tape with a pipe dope compound can also overload threads.  Also, internal overhangs of loose material may constrict a joint or slough off and form a foreign body that could jam a valve seat.  Therefore, use of tape as a thread sealant is generally not considered appropriate in fluid power (hydraulic) systems. Overheating and subsequent decomposition of Teflon can produce perfluoroisobutene which is 10 times as toxic as phosgene. Inhalation of even a minute amount can be fatal.

Use of names
Familiarity with the Teflon brand of fluoropolymers has led to the name becoming a generic trademark, and the practice of any PTFE-based thread seal tape being referred to as "Teflon tape". Chemours, owner of the Teflon trademark, no longer manufactures any thread seal tape,  and objects to this practice.

Most references to "plumber's tape" nowadays refers to thread seal tape; however, the original use in the plumbing trade describes a strap of material with holes in it used for supporting pipes and fixtures.

References

External links

Dry lubricants
Plumbing

Thread seal tape


Stewart Angus MacFarlane (born November 1953, Adelaide, South Australia), is an Australian figurative painter.  His style is a pared-down realism (with expressionistic touches) combined with a surreality of lighting and perspective. He often, though not always, places a female or male nude in a situation of erotic enigma.   He paints the Australian scene representative of Western society as a whole.

Career
When aged 16 he enrolled at the South Australian School of Art, where he was influenced by the Adelaide painters, David Dridan and David Dallwitz.  He gained a Diploma of Fine Arts (Painting) in 1974. The next year he travelled to America where he had group and solo exhibitions, as well as pursuing his other love, music. In 1977 he graduated with a Bachelor in Fine Arts (Painting) from the School of Visual Arts, New York City.
He was a studio assistant of Janet Fish. Since returning to Australia in 1983, MacFarlane has earned his living as a professional painter, exhibiting several times a year, either in Australia or internationally.

MacFarlane is also a musician. His band, "Stew Lane and The Untouchables", performed and recorded in New York City from 1979 to 1981.  The Album, Harder Than Wax was released by AZ International, France, in 1980. The band's independent release, "U.N.Rap Song" (Private Ear Records, 1980) was acknowledged by Freddy Fresh as one of the earliest rap records and one of the first examples of a group, outside the hip-hop genre, to incorporate rap into their music.

References

Bibliography
Monographs
 Helmridge-Marsillian, Veronique, Stewart MacFarlane. Riddles of Life, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1996
 Jose, Nicholas & Morrell, Timothy,  "Stewart MacFarlane, Paintings", Wei-Ling Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, 2012

Books
 Aland, Jenny, Australian Artlook, Heinemann, Melbourne, 1997
 Drury, Nevill, Images 2, Contemporary Australian Painting, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1994
 Drury, Nevill, Images 3, Contemporary Australian Painting, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1998
 McCulloch, Alan, (rev. by Susan McCulloch), The Encyclopedia of Australian Art, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1994
 McCulloch, Alan, McCulloch, Susan, and McCulloch, Emily, The New McCulloch's Encyclopedia of Australian Art, Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 2006
 Pickett, Charles, Cars and Culture. Our Driving Passions, HarperCollins and Powerhouse Publishing, Sydney, 1999
 Williams, Donald, and Simpson, Colin, Art Now. Contemporary Art Post-1970, McGraw-Hill, Sydney, 1994

Articles
 Adam, Rosemary, "Stewart MacFarlane: 'Roswell'", Art Monthly, September 1990
 Adam, Rosemary, "Stewart MacFarlane", Tension, March 1992
 Heathcote, Christopher, "Summer Famine", Art Monthly, March 1989
 Helmridge-Marsillian, Veronique, "Work and Sex. Three Paintings by Stewart MacFarlane", Art Monthly, July 1994
 Morrell, Timothy, "The Function", Artlines, Queensland Art Gallery Society, August–September 1997

Catalogues
 Katz, Vincent, Compulsion: Stewart MacFarlane, Brisbane City Gallery, 2001
 Leong, Roger, The Painted Self. Rick Amor, Peter Churcher, Kevin Lincoln, Stewart MacFarlane and Lewis Miller, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, 2006
 MacFarlane, Stewart, Door of Memories, Roswell Museum and Art Center, New Mexico, USA, 1987
 MacFarlane, Stewart, Screenplay, Galerie Carlos Hulsch Berlin, Germany, 2000
 MacFarlane, Stewart, and Helmridge-Marsillian, Veronique, Stewart MacFarlane. Small Observations. A Survey of Small Oil Paintings 1967–2005, Carnegie Gallery, Hobart, 2006
 Rufe, Laurie, and Fleming, Stephen, Beyond a Gift of Time. Current Work by Former Fellows of the Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program, Roswell Museum and Art Center, New Mexico, USA, 2008
 Smith, Jason, So You Wanna Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star, NGV Shell Collection, 2005
 Wei-Ling, Lim, Private Life. Stewart MacFarlane, Wei-Ling Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2006

Video
 Nedelkopolous, Nicholas. Private View (2004, 49 mins, Mini Digital Video) Documentary on artist Stewart MacFarlane.

External links
 stewartmacfarlane.com , official site
 Private View by Nicholas Nedelkopoulos

Australian painters
Realist artists
Australian musicians
Living people
1953 births
Archibald Prize finalists
Visual artists in late 20th-century Australia

Stewart MacFarlane


Østerlars is a village in the northeast of the Danish island of Bornholm,  south of Gudhjem and  northwest of Østermarie. It is best known for its round church, the largest on the island. 1. January 2023 it had a population of 294.

Etymology
The village takes its name from Østerlars Church which is dedicated to St Laurentius (St Lawrence). The Danish equivalent, Lars, was also the church's original name but around 1600 the prefix "øster" (eastern) was added to avoid confusion with nearby Nylars. Earlier names for the village were Østerlarsker (meaning Østerlars church) and Nybro (new bridge) as a result of the bridge over the stream known as Præstebækken which runs through the village.

History
In the area of the farm buildings next to Østerlars Church, there are traces of buildings from the early Middle Ages. Rune stones and gravestones from the Middle Ages have also been found nearby. To the east of the village, Bækkegård and Rytterbakken have provided evidence of communities living during the Iron Age and the Viking period. At the top of the hill near Bækkegård, Bornholm's largest burial site has been found with over 220 graves from 525–850.  Østerlars Church, built around 1160, is one of Denmark's oldest Romanesque churches. Today's village grew up around the railway station on the Aakirkeby–Gudhjem line which operated from 1916 to 1952. For a period, it had numerous facilities including a hotel, a bank, a post office, two butchers, a baker, a library and various agricultural interests but today there is only one food store. The old station building designed by Kay Fisker and Aage Rafn at No. 42 Nybrovej is now used as a school.

The village today
Stretching some  on either side of the main road, the village is principally a residential area with two schools. It is one of the island's few villages where the population is expected to increase in the coming years. The church and Bornholm's Medieval Centre (Middelaldercenter), just north of the village, attract large numbers of tourists each year, especially in the summer months.

See also
Østerlars Church

References

Bornholm
Cities and towns in the Capital Region of Denmark

Østerlars


Bacchanalia is a  oil painting of Bacchus, Silenus, bacchantes and satyrs by Peter Paul Rubens. Originally painted on panel, it was transferred to canvas by A. Sidorov in 1892.

Rubens frequently returned to the theme of Bacchus, such as in his Drunken Hercules (1612-1618, Gemäldegalerie, Dresden) Young Bacchus Supported by Two Satyrs (post 1614, now lost but known through the engraving of Jonas Suyderhoef CG Voorhelm-Schneevoogt's engraving in Catalog des estampes gravees d'apres PP Rubens, Haarlem 1875, p.133.), Sylvester's Retinue (1618, Alte Pinakothek, Munich) and the studio work Bacchanalia (1612-1614, Palazzo Durazzo-Pallavicini, Genoa). They all draw on classical art, particularly a relief sculpture of a drunken Hercules and Bacchic sarcophagi scenes - one of the latter is now in Moscow and was known to Rubens, who based a sketch entitled Drunken Heracles with a Faun on it.

It was recorded in 1735 in Robert Walpole's collection at Houghton Hall until was bought for the Hermitage Museum in 1779. It would be transferred to the Pushkin Museum in 1930.

References

Mythological paintings by Peter Paul Rubens
1615 paintings
Paintings in the Pushkin Museum
Paintings of Bacchus
Silenus

Bacchanalia (Rubens)


Sokora Refugees was an amerimanga webcomic by Segamu and Melissa DeJesus started on 31 December 2004 as an ongoing webcomic, updated every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. It has not appeared since 10 November 2006. All comic strips on its website were available free along with some fanservice contents to amuse and excite readers.

This webcomic is also published as a trade paperback by Tokyopop. According to Nielsen BookScan, Sokora Refugees is one of the publisher's best-selling amerimanga. The relevancy of this sales success was called into question in March 2005 in the comics newsblog The Beat, due to a perceived conflict-of-interest involving the author. In its 21 March 2005 issue, Publishers Weekly identified the writer of Sokora Refugees as Kurt Hassler, who was the Borders and Waldenbooks buyer for graphic novels; "Segamu" is presumably Hassler's pseudonym. Hassler left this position in November 2006.

The website for this webcomic was offline from 13 January 2007 to 29 March 2007, then back online with no new content. It went back offline on 18 April 2007 and, since 2 March 2009 the domain name redirects to a cybersquatter.

Plot
Kana's life is normal if not bad due to her bad habits. Her life only changes for the worse when elf boy Tien comes along and he thinks Kana is an elf too. Tien gets Kana into a trap in the girls' bathroom, which is a portal to his home world Sokora. It is under siege by a demonic army. Then she gets herself into more mishaps, when her body is time-shared by a powerful elf sorceress. Along the way, Kana meet Tien's brother and the Nymph girl, Salome. She now has the job of saving Sokora. She did not really want to, but Kana may be the only hope for Sokora, if only she can stop being so lazy.

Characters
Kana : She is the main character of the story. Known for over-sleeping, lack of homework completion, and junk food eating habits, she will do anything to get her old life back. She "time-shares" her body with Veila. Blushing turns her into the much more attractive elf.
Tamara : One of Kana's roommates, this athletic girl will take any challenge that crosses her path.
Veila : A powerful elf sorceress forced to enter and time-share Kana's body. Veila is also extremely attractive and wears scanty clothing. Veila's goal is to save Sokora from evil forces. She is very mature and sensible, the direct opposite to Kana, and is often of no help in difficult situations.
Tien : An arrogant, talented elf refugee from Sokora. Tien thinks Kana is an elf too. Tristan envies his magical talents. He is very self-centered and has made it very clear he dislikes the human girls and Salome. He is constantly put down by others, who are very aware of his magical talents.
Griever : This goyle serves the demonic army that invaded Sokora. He wears bandages around his hands. If his hands touch the bare skin of any mortal, the mortal turns to stone.
Julie: Another one of Kana's roommates, she is patient, intelligent and prone to have an unusually positive attitude, even in bad situations. Julie is almost a mother figure to her roommates.
Salome: A raccoon nymph girl who only wanted to cozy up to Tien's older brother, Tristan. Unfortunately for her, he does not seem to return the love. She is very protective of Tristan, and will attack any girl who acts too friendly towards him, even if they are trying to help him. She usually ends her sentences with the sound "tk".
Tristan: He is a rather weak elf compared to his enemies, though he can use a sword and a bow. He prefers to die than lose his "honor". He is the older, bossy brother of Tien. He saw Kana (in Veila's body) topless and has since done all he can to win the affection of his 'Lady Veila'. Kana has led him to believe that Viela is creating a master spell to save Sokora.
Kogurai: A vampire who wants to return to his homeland. Has an interest in Kana.
Horink, Xhel, Sklos: Three demons who want to get the Heart of Sokora, which is the source of all of Sokora's power. To get it, they have to open a door that holds it

Books
On 2 November 2004, Tokyopop announced plans to publish Sokora Refugees before the comic was actually a webcomic. The first volume was published on 12 March 2005 and reached No. 7 in the BookScan list of graphic novels.
 Sokora Refugees, Volume 1
 Sokora Refugees, Volume 2

References

External links
Sokora Refugees website (offline since 5 October 2009)
TOKYOPOP's Sokora Refugees page
Tokyopop's Characters Summary (Retrieved 6 July 2005)
Sokora Characters Summary (Retrieved 7 July 2005)
Tokyopop's Volume One plot summary (Retrieved 13 July 2005)
Sokora Plot summary (Retrieved 13 July 2005)

2000s webcomics
Anime and manga inspired webcomics
Comedy webcomics
Original English-language manga
Tokyopop titles
Webcomics in print
2004 webcomic debuts

Sokora Refugees


Carlo Mario Francesco Pompedda (18 April 1929 – 18 October 2006) was an Italian cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church and the Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura for the Roman Curia.  He spent nearly fifty years in a variety of posts within the Catholic Church's ecclesiastical court system, from 1955 to 2004.

Biography
Pompedda was born in Ozieri in Sardinia.  He studied at seminaries in Sassari and Cuglieri and was ordained a priest in Rome on 23 December 1951. He obtained a doctorate in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University, and a doctorate in utroque iure (in civil law and canon law) from the Pontifical Lateran University.  He became an officer of the Roman Rota, the general appellate court of the Catholic Church, in 1955, serving as a defender of the bond.  He joined the tribunal as an auditor in 1969 and served in that capacity until he became Dean of the Roman Rota in 1993.  He was appointed Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the highest tribunal in the church, in 1999. He resigned this position, as is customary, upon reaching the age of 75, on 18 April 2004, and his resignation was accepted on 27 May 2004.

Pompedda was appointed titular Archbishop of Bisarcio on 29 November 1997 and consecrated on 6 February 1998.  He was proclaimed a Cardinal-Deacon of Santissima Annunciazione della Beata Vergine Maria a Via Ardeatina by Pope John Paul II on 21 February 2001. He was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 2005 papal conclave that selected Pope Benedict XVI.  It was suspected that he may have been the source of information about the conclave published in the Italian journalist Lucio Brunelli in the journal Limes in September 2005; many also suspected that the information was false.

Cardinal Pompedda also served as president of the appellate court of Vatican City and, from 1999, as president of the Court of Cassation of Vatican City. He is credited with drafting Universi Dominici Gregis.

Pompedda taught canon law at the Pontifical Gregorian University.  He was also involved in the revision of the code of canon law in 1983, the first substantial revision since 1917.  He was also the principal editor of Universi Dominici Gregis, the apostolic constitution of Pope John Paul II published in 1995, which set the rules for the sede vacante and papal conclave. He supported proposals to make it easier to obtain an annulment of marriage, and gave several public lectures in 2003 outlining the changes.  He retired before the changes were implemented, and the final document, Dignitas connubii, did not go as far he had expected, reaffirming existing doctrine instead.

Pompedda was appointed as the Cardinal Grand Prior of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George by order of the Grand Master, the Duke of Castro. In November 2003, he became the Ecclesiastical Counsellor of the Order by appointment of Pope John Paul II.  This position continued under Pope Benedict XVI.

Cardinal Pompedda died in Rome of a brain hemorrhage. He was buried in a tomb in the cathedral in Ozieri.

On 18 February 2010, his remains were reinterred in a specially constructed sarcophagus in the cathedral of Ozieri at the chapel of the Most Holy Sacrament. The requiem mass was celebrated at 5 pm, presided by Bishop Sergio Pintor of Ozieri. At the end of the mass, Mgr Giuseppe Sciacca, judge of the Roman Rota and a long time collaborator of Cardinal Pompedda, read a special message sent for the occasion by Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone, S.D.B., secretary of State, in the name of Pope Benedict XVI.

References

External links

Bio from ewtn.com
Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church
News article about Pompedda's resignation, 28 May 2004
Obituary, ''The Times, 3 November 2006

1929 births
2006 deaths
Sardinian Roman Catholic priests
People from Ozieri
21st-century Italian cardinals
Almo Collegio Capranica alumni
Prefects of the Apostolic Signatura
Cardinals created by Pope John Paul II
Pontifical Gregorian University alumni
20th-century Italian Roman Catholic priests

Mario Francesco Pompedda


Novelty is the characteristic of being new or heretofore unseen. It may also refer to:

Science and technology
 Novelty seeking, psychological stance
 Novelty effect, tendency for human performance to briefly improve simply due to the increased interest in new technology rather than due to the technology itself
 Novelty (patent), part of the legal test to determine whether an invention is patentable
 Apomorphy, evolutionary novelty, a characteristic that is different from the form of an ancestor

Arts
 Novelty (album) by Jawbox
 Novelty dance, a type of dance that is popular for being unusual or humorous
 Novelty song, a musical item that capitalizes on something new, unusual, or a current fad
 Novelty architecture, a building or other structure that is interesting because it has an amusing design

Commerce
 Novelty item, a small manufactured adornment, toy or collectable
 Promotional item, novelties used in promotional marketing

Places
 Novelty, Missouri, a place in the United States
 Novelty, Ohio, an unincorporated community in the United States

Other
 Novelty (chess), a chess term for a move in chess which has never been played before in a recorded game
 Novelty (locomotive), one of the first steam locomotives which was due to compete at the Rainhill Trials of 1829. Also the name of loco 86235 appearing in the 150th Cavalcase celebrating the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.
 Novelty theory, an eschatological theory promoted by Terence McKenna

Novelty (disambiguation)


A near-Earth supernova is an explosion resulting from the  death of a star that occurs close enough to the Earth (roughly less than 10 to 300 parsecs [30 to 1000 light-years] away) to have noticeable effects on Earth's biosphere.

An estimated 20 supernova explosions have happened within 300 pc of the Earth over the last 11 million years. Type II supernova explosions are expected to occur in active star-forming regions, with 12 such OB associations being located within 650 pc of the Earth. At present, there are six near-Earth supernova candidates within 300 pc.

Effects on Earth
On average, a supernova explosion occurs within  of the Earth every 240 million years. Gamma rays are responsible for most of the adverse effects that a supernova can have on a living terrestrial planet. In Earth's case, gamma rays induce radiolysis of diatomic N2 and O2 in the upper atmosphere, converting molecular nitrogen and oxygen into nitrogen oxides, depleting the ozone layer enough to expose the surface to harmful solar and cosmic radiation (mainly ultra-violet). Phytoplankton and reef communities would be particularly affected, which could severely deplete the base of the marine food chain.

Historically, nearby supernovae may have influenced the biodiversity of life on the planet. Geological records suggest that nearby supernova events have led to an increase in cosmic rays, which in turn produced a cooler climate. A greater temperature difference between the poles and the equator created stronger winds, increased ocean mixing, and resulted in the transport of nutrients to shallow waters along the continental shelves. This led to greater biodiversity.

Odenwald discusses the possible effects of a Betelgeuse supernova on the Earth and on human space travel, especially the effects of the stream of charged particles that would reach the Earth about 100,000 years later than the initial light and other electromagnetic radiation produced by the explosion.

Risk by supernova type
{| class="wikitable" style="float: right; margin: 0.5em; text-align: center"
|+Candidates within 300 pc
|-
! Star designation
! Distance(pc)
! Mass()
|-
|style="text-align: left;"| IK Pegasi
| 46
| 1.65/1.15
|-
|style="text-align: left;"| Spica
| 80
| 10.25/7.0
|-
|style="text-align: left;"| Alpha Lupi
| 141
| 10.1
|-
|style="text-align: left;"| Antares
| 169
| 12.4/10
|-
|style="text-align: left;"| Betelgeuse
| 197
| 7.7–20
|-
|style="text-align: left;"| Rigel
| 264
| 18
|}

Speculation as to the effects of a nearby supernova on Earth often focuses on large stars as Type II supernova candidates. Several prominent stars within a few hundred light years of the Sun are candidates for becoming supernovae in as little as 1,000 years. Although they would be extremely visible, if these "predictable" supernovae were to occur, they are thought to pose little threat to Earth.

It is estimated that a Type II supernova closer than eight parsecs (26 light-years) would destroy more than half of the Earth's ozone layer. Such estimates are based on atmospheric modeling and the measured radiation flux from SN 1987A, a Type II supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Estimates of the rate of supernova occurrence within 10 parsecs of the Earth vary from 0.05–0.5 per billion years to 10 per billion years. Several studies assume that supernovae are concentrated in the spiral arms of the galaxy, and that supernova explosions near the Sun usually occur during the approximately 10 million years that the Sun takes to pass through one of these regions. Examples of relatively near supernovae are the Vela Supernova Remnant ( ly,  years ago) and Geminga ( ly,  years ago).

Type Ia supernovae are thought to be potentially the most dangerous if they occur close enough to the Earth. Because Type Ia supernovae arise from dim, common white dwarf stars, it is likely that a supernova that could affect the Earth will occur unpredictably and take place in a star system that is not well studied. The closest known candidate is IK Pegasi. It is currently estimated, however, that by the time it could become a threat, its velocity in relation to the Solar System would have carried IK Pegasi to a safe distance.

Past events
Evidence from daughter products of short-lived radioactive isotopes shows that a nearby supernova helped determine the composition of the Solar System 4.5 billion years ago, and may even have triggered the formation of this system. Supernova production of heavy elements over astronomic periods of time ultimately made the chemistry of life on Earth possible.

Past supernovae might be detectable on Earth in the form of metal isotope signatures in rock strata. Subsequently, iron-60 enrichment has been reported in deep-sea rock of the Pacific Ocean by researchers from the Technical University of Munich. Twenty-three atoms of this iron isotope were found in the top 2 cm of crust (this layer corresponds to times from 13.4 million years ago to the present). It is estimated that the supernova must have occurred in the last 5 million years or else it would have had to happen very close to the solar system to account for so much iron-60 still being here. A supernova occurring so close would have probably caused a mass extinction, which did not happen in that time frame. The quantity of iron seems to indicate that the supernova was less than 30 parsecs away. On the other hand, the authors estimate the frequency of supernovae at a distance less than D (for reasonably small D) as around (D/10 pc)3 per billion years, which gives a probability of only around 5% for a supernova within 30 pc in the last 5 million years. They point out that the probability may be higher because the Solar System is entering the Orion Arm of the Milky Way. In 2019, the group in Munich found interstellar dust in Antarctic surface snow not older than 20 years which they relate to the Local Interstellar Cloud. The detection of interstellar dust in Antarctica was done by the measurement of the radionuclides Fe-60 and Mn-53 by highly sensitive accelerator mass spectrometry, where Fe-60 is again the clear signature for a recent near-Earth supernova origin.

Gamma ray bursts from "dangerously close" supernova explosions occur two or more times per billion years, and this has been proposed as the cause of the end-Ordovician extinction, which resulted in the death of nearly 60% of the oceanic life on Earth.

In 1998 a supernova remnant, RX J0852.0-4622, was found in front (apparently) of the larger Vela Supernova Remnant. Gamma rays from the decay of titanium-44 (half-life about 60 years) were independently discovered emanating from it, showing that it must have exploded fairly recently (perhaps around the year 1200), but there is no historical record of it. Its distance is controversial, but some scientists argue from the flux of gamma rays and X-rays that the supernova remnant is only 200 parsecs (650–700 light-years) away. If so, its occurring 800 years ago is a statistically unexpected event because supernovae less than 200 parsecs away are estimated to occur less than once per 100,000 years.

See also
 List of supernova candidates

Footnotes

References

Supernova
Supernovae
Space hazards
Cosmic doomsday

Near-Earth supernova


The Sonoran pronghorn (Antilocapra americana sonoriensis) is an endangered subspecies of pronghorn that is endemic to the Sonoran Desert.

Conservation
Around 200 animals currently are believed to exist in Arizona in the United States, up from an estimated 21 individuals in 2002. The number of individuals in Mexico is estimated to be even lower. It is considered extirpated from California.

In 2012, announcements of two reintroductions were published in the Federal Register. One of the reintroductions was to take place at the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range (BMGR) in Yuma, Arizona, and the second was to be at Kofa National Wildlife Refuge.

Obstacles to recovery
Numerous and ongoing threats exist to the survival of the Sonoran pronghorn. Not the least of these threats is the fact that much of their habitat is occupied by the BMGR, which is an active United States Air Force bombing range.

Adjacent to the BMGR is the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge (CPNWR), also a critical breeding area for this species. Parts of the CPNWR are off limits to visitors between mid-March and mid-July, during the fawning season, so as to minimize disturbance to herds with fawns, which can result in the loss of fawns. Despite this fact, this area too is subject to constant environmental pressure. The accompaniments of illegal trafficking of people and drugs from Mexico (such as the construction of illegal roads and trails, reckless disposal of trash, destruction of vegetation, and contamination of water sources) have significantly degraded the habitat. The response from law enforcement agencies (such as the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Drug Enforcement Administration) has also exacerbated this problem.

Mortality
Living in open areas, pronghorns in general must rely on their eyesight to avoid predators, and with population numbers so low, the Sonoran pronghorn must avoid mortality at all costs. Sources of mortality come from predators, drought, and lack of feed; these sources usually affect fawns most often, and adult mortality also occurs in drought situations. Controlling this situation is very difficult because drought is at the hand of the weather. Things that can be done are predator control on coyotes and bobcats, but this is yet to be studied with enough detail to be proven effective.

Habitat
The Sonoran pronghorn is endemic to the Sonoran Desert. They live in open spaces and primarily forage grasses and shrubs for food. Desert pronghorn are more adapted to desert conditions, and can go longer without water.

References

Further reading
 Border Patrol: Along the Devil's Highway
 Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge
 Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge – Arizona
 Vehicle Trails Associated with Illegal Border Activities on Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge – July 2011
 Protecting the Sonoran pronghorn from extinction, National Parks Traveler – January 2020

Endangered fauna of the United States
Fauna of Mexico
Pronghorns
ESA endangered species
Taxa named by Edward Alphonso Goldman

Sonoran pronghorn


Paulette Kay Jiles (aka Paulette K. Jiles, Paulette Jiles-Johnson) (born 4 April 1943) is an American poet, memoirist, and novelist.

Personal life
Paulette Kay Jiles was born in 1943 in Salem, Missouri. She attended college at the University of Missouri–Kansas City, graduating in 1968 with a major in Romance Languages. Jiles moved to Toronto, Canada in 1969, where she worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and, subsequently, helped set up native language, FM radio stations with indigenous peoples in the far north of Ontario and Quebec for the next 10 years. In the process, she learned the Ojibwe language
spoken by the Anishinaabeg peoples in Ontario and elsewhere.

After marrying Jim Johnson, she moved with him to San Antonio in 1991. After several years of travel, including living in Mexico, the couple resettled in San Antonio in 1995, buying a house in the historical district. Since her divorce in 2003, Jiles has lived on a 36-acre ranch near Utopia, Texas, about 80 miles west of San Antonio.

Writing career

Her 2016 novel News of the World was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction.

Selected bibliography

 Waterloo Express (1973)
 Celestial Navigation (1984, winner of the 1984 Governor General's Award for English Poetry, the Pat Lowther Award, and the Gerald Lampert Award)
 The Golden Hawks (Where We Live) (1985)
 Sitting in the Club Car Drinking Rum and Karma Kola (1986, nominated for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize)
 The Late Great Human Road Show (1986, nominated for the Books in Canada First Novel Award)
 The Jesse James Poems (1988)
 Blackwater (1988)
 Song to the Rising Sun (1989)
 Cousins (1992)
 Flying Lesson: Selected Poems (1995)
 North Spirit: Sojourns Among the Cree and Ojibway Nations and Their Star Maps (1995)
 Enemy Women (2002, winner of the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize)
 Stormy Weather (2007)
 The Color of Lightning (2009)
 Lighthouse Island (2013)
 News of the World (2016)
 Simon the Fiddler (2020)

References

External links
Her blog is Paulette Jiles, Author. <accessdate=7 October 2017>

American women poets
American women novelists
Novelists from Missouri
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni
People from Salem, Missouri
1943 births
Living people
Governor General's Award-winning poets
20th-century American novelists
21st-century American novelists
20th-century American poets
21st-century American poets
20th-century American women writers
21st-century American women writers
Poets from Missouri

Paulette Jiles


The Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism of Peru or MINCETUR is the ministry in charge of issues pertaining to foreign trade of the Government of Peru and the promotion of Tourism in Peru. , the minister of foreign trade and tourism is Juan Carlos Mathews Salazar.

Objectives
The Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism defines, directs, executes, coordinates, and supervises the policies of foreign trade and tourism. It has responsibility in issues pertaining to exportation and international business agreements, which is manages in coordination with the Ministry of Foreign Relations, and the Ministry of the Economy and Finances as well as other sectors of the Peruvian government within their respective jurisdictions.

Additionally it is in charge of regulating foreign trade. The ministry directs international trade negotiations for the Peruvian government and is empowered to sign agreements within its jurisdiction. In the Tourism sector, it promotes, orients, and regulates tourist activity with the goal of promoting sustainable development for tourism, and it includes the promotion, orientation, and regulation of arts and crafts directed towards tourists.

Accomplishments
It promotes free trade agreements, as well as manages the tourism entity PromPeru, a government organization responsible for promoting Tourism to Peru around the world. The ministry has signed the following treaties:

Canada-Peru Free Trade Agreement
Chile-Peru Free Trade Agreement
Thailand-Peru Free Trade Agreement
United States-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement

References

External links
 Official Website

Foreign Trade
Peru

Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism (Peru)


Philadelphia Slick is a live hip hop band, fronted by rapper Noesis, formed in 2005. El Smooth and Noesis handle production for the band, which also includes saxophonist Matt Schwartz, bassist Mike Polinsky, and Ishmael Quintero.

In 2007 Philadelphia Slick won Philadelphia City Paper's Reader's Choice award for Top Local Band.

As of 2013, Philadelphia Slick is signed to Stoupe the Enemy of Mankind's Badtape Music label.

History
In 2006, Philadelphia Slick played the Emergenza Festival with performances at The Fire, The Five Spot, and The North Star Bar. The finals were held at the Theater of the Living Arts, where Noesis was named "Best Vocalist".

The group's first venture came out in late 2007, though Noesis himself has released five solo albums. In 2007 Philadelphia Slick took home first prize in the Philly Sound Clash, a competition sponsored by PhillyCarShare at World Café Live.
In 2007 the band was the winner of the Philadelphia City Paper's Reader's Choice award for Top Local Band.

In 2010, the group released The Everything's Game EP, recorded at Bobby Eli's Studio E, displaying a vast difference in sound quality between Everything's Game and their last album, Oil. Only six tracks and 20 minutes long, it's their most concise release.

In June 2012 the track Gun 'Em Down from 2007's Culture Industry was used in a scene in Episode 4 of Sky Atlantic's Hit & Miss.

The Way Things Work, a solo album from Noesis independently released on July 6, 2012. Noesis's flow on the first single released, "A Picture," has drawn comparisons to Mos Def and Nas The album contains twenty tracks and features in house production from Noesis and drummer Elliot Garland (El Smooth).  The Way Things Work won the Independent Music Award for best hip hop/rap album of the year in 2012-2013 and topped out at #4 on the CMJ urban radio charts.

In May 2012, it was announced that Philadelphia Slick would be performing on The Vans Warped Tour, in Uniondale, NY.

On November 5, 2013 it was announced that the band had formerly joined music label/production collective Badtape Music. Badtape was co-founded by Stoupe the Enemy of Mankind most known for his work with Jedi Mind Tricks and Philly Slick's own Noesis.

Discography

Affiliates
With Noesis, Stoupe, Ish Quintero:

With Noesis, El Smooth:

With Noesis:

References

External links
 Official Site
 Badtape Music page
 Philly Slick's "Everything's Game" on Phrequency.com
 Philadelphia Slick MySpace Page
 Philadelphia City Paper article
 Emergenza

Alternative hip hop groups
Hip hop groups from Philadelphia
Musical groups established in 2005
Underground hip hop groups

Philadelphia Slick


Master of the Books is the second novel in a fantasy series by James Moloney. It is the sequel to The Book of Lies, which was released on 25 May 2004.

Plot
The book mostly deals with Fergus's attempts to kill Damon, who tracks Damon all over the Mortal Kingdoms. When Marcel puts a curse over Elster to prove that Fergus would never kill his father, the curse backfires on Fergus, putting him in mortal danger, and Marcel journeys to Noam to try and undo the curse. However, along the way, he discovers that Fergus is not the only person that needs Marcel's help.

Main characters
Prince Marcel [Robert]
Princess Catherine [Nicola]
Prince Edwin [Fergus]
King Pelham,
Damon &
Termagant

External links
HarperCollins page about the book

2007 Australian novels
Children's fantasy novels
Australian children's novels
Australian fantasy novels
Novels by James Moloney
HarperCollins books
2004 children's books

Master of the Books


Laurence Alexander "Laurie" Green (born 26 December 1945) is a retired British Anglican bishop. He was the Bishop of Bradwell from 1993 to 2011.

Early career and ministry
Laurie Green was born in Newham in the East End of London, the son of a bus driver and factory worker. As a young man he worked in a jellied-eel factory and then as a hairdresser. He was educated at East Ham Grammar School and King's College London (BD, AKC) and then at the New York Theological Seminary (STM, DMin). There he studied the dynamics of East Harlem gangs and attained his master's degree in psychology and pastoral studies. After further studies at St Augustine's College, Canterbury, he was ordained in 1970. He was a curacy at St Mark's Kingstanding, Birmingham, after which he was vicar of St Chad, Erdington, where he set up an ecumenical parish at Spaghetti Junction with local Methodists.

During his time in Birmingham he initiated work in urban theology, worked with Hell's Angels and Skinheads and had his own BBC Radio programme, 'The Green Machine'. He also worked as Assistant Youth Officer for the diocese and as Industrial Chaplain to the British Steel Corporation (Bromford Tubes Division). At the same time he became an honorary lecturer at the Urban Theology Unit, Sheffield University; For seven years, he was the principal of the Aston Training Scheme for Anglican ordinands, before returning to East London to become, before his ordination to the episcopate, team rector of All Saints, Poplar. Poplar is situated in London's East End, where his parish had the new financial quarter of Canary Wharf being built at one end, in close proximity to the tower-blocks of abject poverty at the other.

Episcopal ministry
In 1993, Green moved to Essex to become the Bishop of Bradwell, where he served for eighteen years before retiring to Bexhill in Sussex. He was consecrated a bishop on 23 February 1993, by George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury, at Westminster Abbey.

Within the Diocese of Chelmsford, Green's Episcopal Area of Bradwell covered such towns as Basildon, Tilbury Docks, Southend, Maldon, Brentwood and Chelmsford as well as the deep rural areas of the Dengie peninsula where a stone chapel was built by St Cedd in 654 AD in Bradwell. Green then lived near to the River Thames, by the Dartford Tunnel & Bridge.
He was a member of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Urban Theology Group, served on the Urban Bishops' Panel of the Church of England and as chair of the Church of England's Urban Strategy Consultative Group. He was instrumental in the setting up of an International Anglican Commission and Network on Global Urbanisation.

On 11 February 2017, Green was one of fourteen retired bishops to sign an open letter to the then-serving bishops of the Church of England. In an unprecedented move, they expressed their opposition to the House of Bishops' report to General Synod on sexuality, which recommended no change to the Church's canons or practices around sexuality. By 13 February, a serving bishop (Alan Wilson, Bishop of Buckingham) and nine further retired bishops had added their signatures; on 15 February, the report was rejected by synod. Green has continued to campaign for full equality for practising homosexuals in the Church of England.

Theology
Green has written extensively on the nature of theology, international debt and urban mission. His Let's Do Theology (revised in 2009) was described by Leonardo Boff{ as an authentic liberation theology for the English-speaking world, and by Elaine Graham as "a classic text". Another two of his books, "Power to the Powerless" and "Urban Ministry and the Kingdom of God", were named by the Church Times among its "Books of the Year", whilst others have been translated into many languages. In 2015 he published Blessed are the Poor? Urban Poverty and the Church which seeks to demonstrate that the incarnation of Christ amongst the poor suggests that it is amongst the poor that we will learn the lessons of God's kingdom. In 2023, at the age of 77, he published his autobiography, "Jesus and Jellied Eels - making sense of my life".

Family and retirement
A jazz devotee, blues and classical guitar player and lover of folk music, Green continues to give public concerts and produce CDs. He is married with two children.

Green remains founding-chair of the National Estate Churches Network (NECN) and in retirement, works alongside the Church Urban Fund as Chair and Development Officer for the NECN in the support of the church's work on the poorer housing estates and projects of the UK. He also continues to work as a founding trustee of the charity Building Better Futures International. He is also the bishop visitor to the Anglican Benedictine community of religious sisters at Malling Abbey, Kent.

Styles
 The Reverend Laurie Green (24 May 19701982)
 The Reverend Doctor Laurie Green (198223 February 1993)
 The Right Reverend Doctor Laurie Green (23 February 1993present)

References

1945 births
Alumni of St Augustine's College, Canterbury
Alumni of King's College London
Associates of King's College London
Academics of the University of Sheffield
Bishops of Bradwell
20th-century Church of England bishops
21st-century Church of England bishops
Living people
People from the London Borough of Newham
People from Bexhill-on-Sea

Laurie Green


I Take This Woman is a 1931 American pre-Code romance film directed by Marion Gering and starring Gary Cooper and Carole Lombard.

Based on the novel Lost Ecstasy (1927) by Mary Roberts Rinehart, the film is about a wealthy New York socialite who falls in love and marries a cowboy while staying at her father's ranch out West. After her father disinherits her, and after a year of living as a cowboy's wife, she leaves her husband and returns to her family in the East. The film was released by Paramount Pictures.

The film has no connection to the 1940 film I Take This Woman starring Spencer Tracy and Hedy Lamarr, which is based on the Charles MacArthur story "A New York Cinderella".

Plot
After causing yet another scandal, Kay Dowling (Carole Lombard), the spoiled daughter of wealthy New Yorkers, is given a stark choice by her fed-up father (Charles Trowbridge): go to his ranch in Ursula, Wyoming, (to avoid being named a co-respondent in a divorce case) or be disinherited. Kay's fiance, Herbert Forrest (Lester Vail), proposes getting married immediately, but she chooses the ranch.

Later, while spending her days on the ranch with her good-humored aunt Bessie, Kay falls reluctantly in love with one of her father's cowhands, Tom McNair (Gary Cooper), and impulsively marries him. When her father learns of the union, he disowns her. Kay and Tom are forced to live in a one-room shack while Tom tries to expand his cattle herd.

One year later, Kay is unhappy with life on the ranch, and longs for the comforts of her family's palatial mansion. One day, she receives a telegram from home, and tells Tom that her father is sick and that she must be with him. Back in New York, Kay writes a letter to Tom, asking for a divorce. Soon after, Tom arrives at the estate and explains that he left the ranch to become a professional bronco rider in a rodeo. Kay assumes that he never received the letter, and Tom never mentions it. One night during a party, Tom overhears the guests making fun of him and he confronts Kay, telling her that he *did* receive her letter, and made the trip to determine whether or not she still loved him. Satisfied with what he has learned, he tells her she can have her divorce. Later, as she realizes that life with Herbert would amount to a life of playing golf, Kay visits Tom at the rodeo. During his performance, he is thrown from a bronco and hurt. Kay rushes to Tom's side, and the two reconcile and decide to return to the ranch.

Cast
 Gary Cooper as Tom McNair
 Carole Lombard as Kay Dowling
 Helen Ware as Aunt Bessie
 Lester Vail as Herbert Forrest
 Charles Trowbridge as Mr. Dowling
 Clara Blandick as Sue Barnes
 Gerald Fielding as Bill Wentworth
 Al Hart as Jake Mallory
 Guy Oliver as Sid
 Syd Saylor as Shorty
 Mildred Van Dorn as Clara Hammell
 Leslie Palmer as Phillips
 Ara Haswell as Nora
 Frank Darien as Station agent
 David Landau as Circus boss
 Flora Finch (uncredited)
 Lew Kelly as Foreman (uncredited)
 Robert Parrish as Boy (uncredited)
 Lon Poff (uncredited)

Production
I Take This Woman marked the film debut of Russian-born director Marion Gering, who had previously directed stage plays.

Produced under the working titles Lost Ecstasy, Rodeo Romance, Half Angel, and In Defense of Love, the film was ultimately titled I Take This Woman by Paramount studio heads in order to "emphasize the romance rather than the western setting, and reflect more of the boy's role than the girl's".

Cooper and Lombard reportedly had an affair during the filming.

Release
The film was released on June 27, 1931.

Preservation status
This film apparently became an "orphan film" when the rights reverted to author Mary Roberts Rinehart. The original 35mm camera negative and all supporting material was shipped back to her, but she had no interest in (or appropriate storage for) the material. She disposed of the 35mm camera negative and retained only a 16mm print. A single surviving 35mm nitrate studio print became the basis for a restoration, funded by the Louis B. Mayer Foundation. The restored print was screened in March 2017 at the Festival of Preservation at the UCLA Film and Television Archive.

References

External links

1931 films
1930s romance films
American black-and-white films
American romance films
Films based on American novels
Films directed by Marion Gering
Films set in Wyoming
Paramount Pictures films
Films based on works by Mary Roberts Rinehart
1930s English-language films
1930s American films

I Take This Woman (1931 film)


James Pieronnet Pierce (c. 1825–1897) was a California pioneer entrepreneur.

Family
James Pieronnet Pierce's father Henry Miller Pierce was born in Axminster, Devonshire, England.  His mother, Susan Pieronnet, whose parents were both French, was born in Wayford, England.  In 1820, she, with her parents, moved from England to Friendsville, Pennsylvania, and was soon followed by Henry Miller Pierce, whose father, John Harvey Pierce, had offered $10,000 to any of his sons who would go to America to live.

Early life
James P. Pierce was born on 25 Aug 1825 in Friendsville, Pennsylvania, where he remained until he reached his majority when he moved west and there engaged in the business of general merchandising at Constantine, Michigan.  There he met Miss Amelia Ann Pease, a native of Ann Arbor, whom he married in Jackson, Michigan 25 Aug 1852; he was then just twenty-seven years of age, and she seventeen, and together they came to California in 1854, reaching San Francisco, California by way of the Isthmus. Almost immediately, they went to Yuba County, and there at Smartsville, California, Mr. Pierce engaged in hydraulic mining becoming a leading operator before he sold out in 1878.

San Francisco Sea Wall
He might have continued uninterruptedly in that important field, had not the death of a brother-in-law, A. H. Houston, drawn him back to San Francisco to take charge of an entirely different enterprise. Mr. Houston, as early as 1867, had undertaken to build part of the seawall along the San Francisco waterfront, under contract with the board of state harbor commissioners, and when he died he had finished only a part of that great undertaking and had gone to great expense in quarrying and cutting granite. Mr. Pierce succeeded to Mr. Houston's interests and completed 1130 feet of the new sea wall under a new and enlarged contract, receiving as his compensation $240 per linear foot.

Mining Interests
From 1868, for seven or eight years, Mr. Pierce's family lived in San Francisco, and during that time he established general offices there, although his main interests continued to be the exploitation of hydraulic mining properties in Yuba County, which he still operated for many years after finishing the sea wall. He continued to own and operate the Blue Gravel Mine, which was enlarged to include a water proposition and a large lot of land, and renamed it The Excelsior Water and Mining Company, under which title it was conducted until sold in 1881 to a syndicate composed of James Ben Ali Haggin & Lloyd Tevis, and others.  His interest in this deal amounted to $600,000.

New Park Estate, Santa Clara
In 1866, he purchased from Mr. Lent a very beautiful country home, occupying eighty-eight acres on the west side of Santa Clara, California naming the place "New Park," after the country home of his grandfather in England.  The price paid to Mr. Lent was $48,500, a very large sum for those days.  It abutted Franklin Street and included what is now the country home of R.T. Pierce. Pierce had the property managed for a period of this time by Harry Pickstone an Englishman who later migrated to South Africa where he engaged at Boschendal in the fruit business with Cecil Rhodes. It also included New Park House a fruit orchard nursery, a vineyard and winery, servant's quarters, pasture, and stables. Upon his death, this property was sold to Judge Hiram Bond who continued to operate it. After Judge Bond's death, the property was sold to Senator James D. Phelan who constructed a Discalced Carmelite Nunnery which is still there as of 2022. The winery operation was sold to a family of British immigrants named the Braces. While they were living there the Bonds hosted the author Jack London who had been their tenant handyman during the 1897 and 1898 Klondike Gold Rush. London used the estate as the opening scene of the novel The Call of the Wild.

Pacific Manufacturing Co.
In 1877 Mr. Pierce bought a small planing mill in Santa Clara and changed its name from Enterprise Mill to the Pacific Manufacturing Company, and incorporated it in 1879.  He purchased some timber lands in the Santa Cruz Mountains and built a sawmill at Ben Lomond, California, and put in the first band saw to be operated in California.  Mr. Pierce at one time owned the Empire Gold Mine in Grass Valley, California which he sold in 1872 to the father of W.B. Bourn for $150,000.  This mine was developed by the Bourns into one of the largest and most profitable in the state.  Soon after organizing the Pacific Manufacturing Company, Mr. Pierce became quite active as a lumberman and in addition to the Ben Lomond Mill, he purchased timber lands and built a sawmill at Ash Creek at the foot of Mount Shasta.  At this time he was a pioneer in the sugar and white pine industry.  He founded the Bank of Santa Clara County and erected the building that it occupied on the corner of Main and Franklin streets.  He served as a trustee of Mills Seminary, afterward Mills College, for many years, devoting a great deal of time to its interests and making it many gifts.

Descendants
Seven children survived Mr. and Mrs. Pierce—all were born in California.

(1) The eldest son, James Henry Pierce, was born on 25 Apr 1856. He was president of the Pacific Manufacturing Company, and resided at a house he had Julia Morgan design at 1650 the Alameda) in San Jose, California. James married Marion Percy Thurston, and they had two daughters, Edith Pierce, the wife of John Graeff Kennedy Jr. of Palo Alto, California, and Mildred T. Pierce, who was the wife of George Corner Fenhagen, a prominent architect in Baltimore, Maryland.

(2) Richard Thurston Pierce, born 04 Aug 1857, married Mary Grace O'Brien. He was the treasurer of the Pacific Manufacturing Company and resided on one of the finest fruit ranches in the Santa Clara Valley and has a beautiful home.

(3) Caroline Louise Pierce, born in Jun 1860, became Mrs. William J. Casey, an attorney who resided in Palo Alto. They had one adopted daughter, Ruth, who married Arthur G. Brown, with whom she had two daughters, Caroline Louise and Florence Pierce, both born in California. William Casey died in 1908, and Caroline in 1910.

(4) Anna A. Pierce, known as Annie, was born in Jan 1863. She married  Frank D. Goodhue, with whom she had two daughters, Elizabeth and Ann, both born in Cincinnati, Ohio. The family later resided in Pasadena, California.

(5) Grace Isabel Pierce, born in Jun 1869, became Mrs. Frank Delano Madison, one of the founding partners of the law firm Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro (now Pillsbury Winthrop). They had three children: Marshall Pierce Madison (Elena Atherton Eyre), Margaret (Wakefield Baker), and Caroline (Charles O. Martin). Grace died young. Frank died in San Francisco on 30 Jun 1941.

(6) Florence Pierce, born in Mar 1868, became Mrs. Frederick Hope Beaver Sr., with whom she had four children, Grace, Frederick Jr., Miriam, and Peter, all born in San Francisco.

(7) Frances Pierce was born on 12 Nov 1871. She married Lester Langford Morse, son of the co-founder of the Ferry-Morse Seed Company.  Frances and Lester had two children. Lester Morse died in Santa Clara, California 05 Nov 1953. Frances (Pierce) Morse died on 29 May 1955, also in Santa Clara.

Amelia (Pease) Pierce died in 1886. James P. Pierce died on February 26, 1897, and was buried beside his wife in Laurel Hill Cemetery, San Francisco, now defunct. Markers for Amelia and James were placed at Lone Mountain Cemetery, San Francisco.

References

 Attribution:

Santa Clara Biographies 1922:; James Pieronnet Pierce
James Pieronnet Pierce and New Park
Bank of Santa Clara, James P. Pierce President

1897 deaths
American manufacturing businesspeople
Year of birth uncertain
1825 births
People from Constantine, Michigan
19th-century American businesspeople
Burials at Laurel Hill Cemetery (San Francisco)

James Pieronnet Pierce


The Delta IV oil field is an oil field located on the continental shelf of the Black Sea. It was discovered in 2007 and developed by Petrom. It began production in 2009 and produces oil. The total proven reserves of the Delta IV oil field are around 30 million barrels (4.1×106tonnes), and production is centered on .

References

Black Sea energy
Oil fields in Romania

Delta IV oil field


In mathematics, an equivalence relation  on a set is a mathematical relation that is symmetric, transitive and reflexive. For a given element  on that set, the set of all elements related to  (in the sense of ) is called the equivalence class of , and written as .

With an equivalence relation, it is possible to partition a set into distinct equivalence classes. As an example, consider the set of all animals on a farm and define the following relation: two animals are related if they belong to the same species. Under this relation, a cow is related to an ox, but not to a chicken. In fact, this relation is an equivalence relation because:
It is reflexive: each animal is of the same species as itself
It is symmetric: if a first animal is in the same species as a second animal, then the second animal is also in the same species as the first animal.
It is transitive: if a first animal is in the same species as a second animal, and the second animal is in the same species as a third animal, then the first animal is in the same species as the third animal.
In this example, the set of all animals related to a particular ox forms an equivalence class—it is the set of cattle. In fact, the set of all animals on this farm can be partitioned into different equivalence classes (in this case species).

Related pages

 Congruence
 Equality (mathematics)

References

Mathematics

Equivalence relation