The Primrose League was an organisation for spreading Conservative principles in Great Britain. It was founded in 1883.

At a late point in its existence, its declared aims (published in the Primrose League Gazette, vol. 83, no. 2, March/April 1979) were:

 To Uphold and support God, Queen, and Country, and the Conservative cause;
 To provide an effective voice to represent the interests of our members and to bring the experience of the Leaders to bear on the conduct of public affairs for the common good;
 To encourage and help our members to improve their professional competence as leaders;
 To fight for free enterprise.

Foundation
The primrose was known as the "favourite flower" of Benjamin Disraeli, and so became associated with him.  Queen Victoria sent a wreath of primroses to his funeral on 26 April 1881 with the handwritten message: "His favourite flowers: from Osborne: a tribute of affectionate regard from Queen Victoria". On the day of the unveiling of Disraeli's statue all Conservative members of the House of Commons were decorated with the primrose.

A small group had for some time discussed the means for obtaining the support of the people for Conservative principles. Sir Henry Drummond Wolff said to Lord Randolph Churchill, "Let us found a primrose league". A meeting was held at the Carlton Club shortly afterwards, consisting of Churchill, Wolff, Sir John Gorst, Percy Mitford, Colonel Fred Burnaby and some others, to whom were subsequently added Satchell Hopkins, J. B. Stone, Rowlands and some Birmingham supporters of Burnaby, who also wished to return Lord Randolph Churchill as a Conservative member for that city. These founding members assisted in remodelling the original statutes, first drawn up by Wolff. Wolff had for some years perceived the influence exercised in benefit societies by badges and titular appellations, and he endeavoured to devise some quaint phraseology that would be attractive to the working classes. The title of "Knight Harbinger" was taken from an office no longer existing in the Royal Household, and a regular gradation was instituted for the honorific titles and decorations assigned to members. This idea, though at first ridiculed, was greatly developed since the foundation of the order; and new distinctions and decorations were founded, also contributing to the attractions of the league.

The motto was Imperium et libertas; the seal, three primroses; and the badge, a monogram containing the letters PL, surrounded by primroses. Many other badges and various articles of jewellery were designed later, with this flower as an emblem.

A small office was first taken on a second floor in Essex Street, The Strand, but this had soon to be abandoned, as the dimensions of the League rapidly increased. The league had two types of members who paid different annual subscriptions: full members (knights and dames) who were usually charged half a crown, and associate members who paid a few pence.

Ladies were generally included in the first organisation of the League, but subsequently a separate Ladies Branch and Grand Council were formed. The founder of the Ladies Grand Council was Lady Borthwick (afterwards Lady Glenesk), and the first meeting of the committee took place at her house in Piccadilly in March 1885. "The Primrose League was the first political organisation to give women the same status and responsibilities as men". The ladies who formed the first committee were: Lady Borthwick; the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough (first lady president); Lady Wimborne; Lady Randolph Churchill; Lady Charles Beresford; the Dowager Marchioness of Waterford; Julia, Marchioness of Tweeddale; Julia, Countess of Jersey; Mrs (subsequently Lady) Hardman; Lady Dorothy Nevill; the Honorable Lady Campbell (later Lady Blythswood); the Honorable Mrs Armitage; Mrs Bischoffsheim and Meresia Nevill (the first secretary of the Ladies Council).

When the league had become a success, it was joined by Lord Salisbury and Sir Stafford Northcote, who were elected Grand Masters. Between its inauguration and 1910, its numbers gradually increased, as may be seen by the above table.

Sir Winston Churchill, in his book on his father, Lord Randolph Churchill published in 1906, stated that the Primrose League had one million paid up members "determined to promote the cause of Toryism".

Membership of the League was said to be "well over a million by the early 1890s", and at that time enjoyed more support than the British trade union movement. 6,000 people were members of the League in Bolton in 1900, which was as large as the national membership of the Independent Labour Party during the same time. However, by 1912 the League's membership had fallen to just over 650,000 as other leagues emerged, such as the Tariff Reform League and the Budget Protest League.

With the granting of universal suffrage after the First World War, the Conservative Party leadership decided that "A mass membership now seemed a necessary object if the Conservatives were to be on an equal footing with the mass battalions of the trade unions", and so with the scaling up of party membership, the need for ancillary support from organisations such as the Primrose League diminished, particularly as a conduit of female support who had now gained the vote and could be full members of the Conservative Party.

Activities
Members were expected to actively support the league, and to keep up interest, a programme of social events was organised for the membership, "of which the Primrose summer fête, often held in the grounds of stately homes opened for the first time for this purpose, provided the grand annual climax". There were, however, also day excursions and winter evening entertainments for league members, leading Flora Thompson to conclude that "It was no wonder the pretty little enamelled primrose badge, worn as a brooch or lapel ornament, was so much in evidence". At the events, the members would often be addressed by, and have the opportunity to meet members of the Parliamentary Conservative Party.

Part of the attraction of the League was due to its cross-class appeal: workers could enjoy the fêtes; the middle-classes could enjoy meeting the local nobs; while for upper-class women, the League offered an opportunity for political mobilisation, with the new bicycles providing means for them to reach a wide range of country villages.

Twentieth-century decline

By the early 20th century, the League had lost some of its early impetus, but prior to World War II, the League was still able to pack the Royal Albert Hall for its annual Grand Habitation. It continued its activities after the war, and celebrated its centenary in 1983 with its usual round of social and political events.

The League's Gazette carried articles by leading politicians of the day, including even then-leader and future Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (in September/October 1977), but following the resignation of its industrious secretary of 45 years, Evelyn Hawley, C.B.E., at the end of 1988, it went into terminal decline.

Disbandment
The Daily Telegraph reported on 16 December 2004:
"[T]his week saw a significant event for any observers of political history: after 121 years, the Primrose League was finally wound up. The league's aim was to promote Toryism across the country. 'In recent years, our meetings have become smaller and smaller,' says Lord Mowbray, one of the league's leading lights. Its remaining funds have been donated to Tory coffers. 'On Monday, I presented Michael Howard and Liam Fox with a cheque for £70,000,' adds Lord Mowbray proudly."

Twenty-first century and resurrection

Resurrection
On 3 April 2023, The Primrose League was registered with Companies House and, on 12 July 2023, it was publicly resurrected in a Press Release. The next day Henry Bolton OBE, President of the Primrose League, appeared on the UK outlet TalkTV to discuss the League with presenter Mike Graham.

Bolton described the League's role as being to further the interests of the Nation, [Disraelian] One Nation and cultural conservatism. Bolton described the League as being independent of the any political party and intending to exercise political influence through the weight of its members.

The Primrose League website states: "True conservatism advocates the furtherance of the United Kingdom and its interests, respect for our history, culture and customs, preservation of established institutions and traditional principles within a political democracy. We believe in policies designed to benefit the ordinary person as well as the Nation. We believe society should be allowed to evolve in an organic way, rather than being engineered, and that members of society have obligations towards each other.  Our purpose is to pursue the goal of ever greater confidence, optimism, prosperity, security, pride and patriotism in the United Kingdom, preserve our democratic system and constitutional monarchy, the rights of our citizens, and the broad interests of the Nation against socialist attack. For us, now and henceforward, these must be the main purposes of political action and public life."

Administration

Grand Masters:
Lord Salisbury

Sir Stafford Northcote

Stanley Baldwin [1st Earl Baldwin] (1924–1938)

Sir Kingsley Wood (1938–1943)

Sir Winston Churchill (1944–1965)

Alec Douglas-Home Lord Home of the Hirsel, KT, (1966Dec 1983)

Chancellors:
The Lord Mowbray and Stourton (April 1975April 1979), (April 1981April 1984)

The Lord O'Hagan, MEP, (April 1979April 1981)

The Lord Murton of Lindisfarne, OBE, TD, JP, (April 1984Dec 1988)

Sir John Langford-Holt, (1989present)

Hon. Treasurer:
Sir Graham Rowlandson, MBE, JP (1977June 1985)

Mr. W.L.Grant (June 1985August 1988)

Peter Bowring (Sept 1988present)

 President, Ladies Grand Council

Mrs Lucy Baldwin (1935)

Chairman, Churchill Chapter
Geoffrey Johnson-Smith, MP (1977present)

Chairman, Ladies' Churchill Chapter:
Mrs Evelyn King (in 1977June 1986)

Judith, Lady Roberts (June 1985present)

Chairman, General Purposes Committee:
John Heydon Stokes, MP (1971June 1985)

William Cash, MP (June 1985July 1988)

Richard W.L. Smith (July 1988present)

Chairman, Political Committee:
Richard W.L. Smith (from April 19872004)

Secretary:
James McAuslane, Esquire (?-1911-?)

Mrs Evelyn M. Hawley, CBE, OBE (1943–1988)

Hon. Director:
Roger Boaden, MBE, (27 Sept 19882004)

Trustees:
Col. Sir Leonard Ropner, Bt, MC,(1977)

The Lord St. Helens, MC., (1977Dec 1980)

The Lord Tweedsmuir, CBE

Robert Cooke, MP (1977June 1987)

The Lord Mowbray and Stourton, CBE, (March 19802004)

The Lord Denham, PC, (April 19882004)

Following the League's resurrection in 2023

 Presidents:

Henry Bolton OBE (July 2023 – present)

See also
 Primrose Day
 Primrose Club

Notes

References

Further reading

 The Primrose League Gazette (originally bi-monthly, later quarterly). Quality paper, sized in between A4 and A5, some photos. (1989 editions in tabloid newspaper form). Editors: Mr Greenland (retired Dec 1976), William Cash, MP (1977Dec 1979), John Stokes (Jan/Feb, March, & April 1980 editions), Stephen Parker (May 19801989 incl).

Political parties established in 1883
Political parties disestablished in 2004
Political history of the United Kingdom
Organisations associated with the Conservative Party (UK)
1883 establishments in the United Kingdom
2004 disestablishments in the United Kingdom

Primrose League


The Saint and Her Fool (German: Die Heilige und ihr Narr) is a 1935 German drama film directed by Hans Deppe and Paul May and starring Friedrich Ulmer, Lola Chlud and Hansi Knoteck.

The film's sets were designed by the art directors Artur Günther and Hans Kuhnert. It was shot at the Babelsberg Studios in Berlin and on location around Langenburg Castle and Oberstdorf in Bavaria.

It was one of three film adaptations of the novel of the same by title by Agnes Günther along with a 1928 German silent film and a 1957 Austrian film.

Cast
 Friedrich Ulmer as Georg, Fürst v. Brauneck
 Lola Chlud as Charlotte, Fürstin v. Brauneck
 Hansi Knoteck as Prinzessin Rosmarie
 Hans Stüwe as Graf Harro Thorstein
 Carl Ehrhardt-Hardt as Hans Friedrich, Musiker
 F.W. Schröder-Schrom as Medizinalrat
 Werner Pledath as Domprobst
 Beppo Brem as Christoph
 Hanni Weisse
 Petra Unkel as Rosemarie als Kind
 Lillian Berley
 Jeanette Bethge
 Erich Dunskus
 William Huch
 Georg Irmer as Diener
 Hilde Muth
 Erika Nymgau-Odemar as Wirtschafterin
 Erika Raphael

References

Bibliography
 Goble, Alan. The Complete Index to Literary Sources in Film. Walter de Gruyter, 1999.

External links

1935 films
1935 drama films
German drama films
Films of Nazi Germany
1930s German-language films
Films directed by Hans Deppe
Films directed by Paul May
Films based on German novels
Remakes of German films
Sound film remakes of silent films
UFA GmbH films
German black-and-white films
Films shot at Babelsberg Studios
1930s German films

The Saint and Her Fool (1935 film)


Target for Today is a documentary film describing the preparation and mounting of a United States Army Air Forces raid on East Prussia. It contains much combat footage of B-17 and B-24 bombers and named for the phrase used at briefings before air raids. The October 1943 footage was filmed during Eighth Air Force attacks on Nazi Germany industrial targets in Anklam, the 22nd Air Base in Marienburg (on the 9th), and Gdynia in occupied Poland. Prior to the combat footage, the documentary explains Operation Pointblank target selection and depicts planning, briefing, and preparation.

See also
 22nd Air Base

References

External links

1944 films
1944 documentary films
Black-and-white documentary films
Documentary films about military aviation
Films directed by William Keighley
First Motion Picture Unit films
United States government films
World War II aviation films
American documentary films
1940s English-language films
1940s American films

Target for Today


Hōzan Yamamoto (山本 邦山, Yamamoto Hōzan; October 6, 1937 - February 10, 2014 in Ōtsu, Shiga prefecture) was a Japanese shakuhachi player, composer and lecturer.

Yamamoto started playing the Japanese bamboo flute shakuhachi at the age of nine.  He was initially taught by his father and then by Chozan Nakanishi. After graduating from Kyoto Junior College of Foreign Studies in 1958, he participated in UNESCO's World Folk Music Festival and graduated from Seiha Music College in 1962. Together with koto player Shinichi Yuize and Tony Scott, he recorded the album Music for Zen Meditation in February 1964.

After forming the widely acclaimed "Shakuhachi Sanbon Kai" trio in 1966 with Reibo Aoki and Katsuya Yokoyama, he electrified the conservative traditional scene by applying his talents to a variety of crossover collaborations. These have led him to work with such world-renowned musicians as Ravi Shankar, Helen Merrill, Gary Peacock and Karl Berger, and also with flute colleagues Jean-Pierre Rampal and Chris Hinze.

In 1980 he was invited to the renowned Donaueschingen music festival with his trio. He recorded music for the movie Samurai Reincarnation film and the album Masters of Zen: Shakuhachi & Organ with Wolfgang Mitterer. Through the 1970s and 1980s until his death he led the shakuhachi world receiving innumerable honors, including Japanese Ministry of Cultural Affairs and Education Ministerial awards for his performances, recordings (numbering in the hundreds) and compositions. He served as lecturer at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music and as head of the Hozan-kai Shakuhachi Guild.

In 2002 he was designated Living National Treasure of Japan. In 2004, he was awarded a Medal with Purple Ribbon. In 2009, he was awarded an Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette.

On February 10, 2014, he died at a hospital in Tokyo.

Discography
 1964 Music for Zen Meditation
 1968 Oriental Bossa Sounds a Union of Koto, Shakuhachi and Big Band (琴, 尺八, ビッグ・バンドによるスタンダード・ボッサ)
 1969 Harlem Nocturne
 1970 Hibiki - Contemporary Music for Japanese Traditional Instruments (響 - 和楽器による現代日本の音楽)
 1971 Ginkai (銀界) (Philips [Japan]) with Masabumi Kikuchi , Gary Peacock and Hiroshi Murakami. recorded in 1970.
 1974 Keden (怪顛)
 1974 Kyorai (去来)
 1975 Bamboo Suite (竹の組曲)
 1975 Breath
 1978 Kangetsu (寒月)
 1985 Again and Again with Karl Berger
 1986 Saichi
 1986 Hozan Yamamoto vs Four Men
 1990 Sankyoku
 1996 Mugenkai - Ginkai II (夢幻界 - 銀界II)
 1996 Works of Hozan Yamamoto (山本邦山 作品集)
 1997 Otoño
 1998 Amigos
 2000 Fascination of the Shakuhachi (尺八の魅力)

References

1937 births
2014 deaths
20th-century Japanese composers
20th-century Japanese male musicians
21st-century Japanese composers
21st-century Japanese male musicians
Japanese flautists
Japanese male composers
Living National Treasures of Japan
People from Ōtsu, Shiga
Recipients of the Medal with Purple Ribbon
Shakuhachi players
Academic staff of Tokyo University of the Arts
20th-century flautists
21st-century flautists

Hōzan Yamamoto


Lee Gohmann Huber (February 16, 1919 – September 22, 2005) was an American basketball player in the National Basketball League (NBL) of the United States, a forerunner to the National Basketball Association.  A 6'0" guard from Louisville, Kentucky, Huber played college basketball for coach Adolph Rupp at the University of Kentucky from 1938 to 1941, where he was named a first-team All-American by the Helms Athletic Foundation in 1941.  After college, Huber played one season in the NBL for the Akron Goodyear Wingfoots, averaging 6.4 points per game.

Huber left basketball after deciding that it would not be a profession that could support his family.  He served for the United States Navy in World War II, then settled into a private business career.  Huber died on September 22, 2005, in Orlando, Florida.

References

External links
NBL stats

1919 births
2005 deaths
Akron Goodyear Wingfoots players
All-American college men's basketball players
American men's basketball players
United States Navy personnel of World War II
Basketball players from Louisville, Kentucky
Guards (basketball)
Kentucky Wildcats men's basketball players

Lee Huber


Grays Lake is a wetland in Idaho, United States. It lies in Bonneville County and Caribou County. Grays Lake National Wildlife Refuge was established in the area in 1965. Ranching (cattle, sheep, hay production) is the predominant use of surrounding lands.

A variant name was "John Grays Lake". The lake was named after John Gray, a Canadian trapper.

General
Grays Lake lies within the Caribou Range of the Rocky Mountains in southeast Idaho, and is at the western edge of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The valley lies about 30 miles north of Soda Springs, Idaho and about 70 miles southwest of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. At the heart of the valley is a large,  shallow montane marsh, composed primarily of hardstem bulrush and cattail with scattered small ponds. This wetland system provides important habitat for breeding sandhill cranes, trumpeter swans, Franklin's gulls, white-faced ibis, dabbling and diving ducks, a variety of shore- and grassland birds, as well as habitat for molting and fall-staging waterfowl and cranes. The area is significant for its high density of breeding sandhill cranes and as a reintroduction site for trumpeter swans. The rich wet meadow edges of the marsh provide foraging and nesting habitat for a diversity of water birds each year.

Grays Lake National Wildlife Refuge encompasses much of the richest wetland habitat within the valley. It was established in 1965 to protect and restore habitat for waterfowl production, sandhill cranes, and other wildlife. In the 1970s and 1980s the refuge served as the focus of an effort to establish a second wild population of endangered whooping cranes. Currently, the refuge's goals are to enhance natural ecosystem functions to support a diversity of water birds and other wildlife.

Data
 Marsh elevation .
 Caribou Mountain to northeast highest point within watershed ().

Climate

 Average annual precipitation .
 Average annual snowfall ; average accumulations of 40-50 inches (102 – 127 cm).
 Daytime high temperatures average 68-75 °F (20-24 °C) in June and July.
 Hard frosts (<30 °F (<-1 °C) may occur in any month.
 Record high of 103 °F (39 °C) recorded in 1919 and record low of –62 °F (-52 °C) on January 1, 1978.

Habitat and plant communities

 Transitional zone between Great Basin vegetation (south) and Rocky Mountain vegetation (north).
 Within approved refuge boundary, 60% palustrine emergent wetland, 20% wetland semi-wet meadow, 12% brush, grasslands, and grain fields, 5% shallow open water with submergents, and 3% aspen forest and willow thicket.
 Over 170 species of grasses, sedges and forbs in wet meadows and marsh habitat, including 15 species of sedges.
 3 species of exotic, invasive plants.
 7 species of trees and 17 species of shrubs
 No known threatened or endangered plant species.

Wildlife

 128 recorded species of breeding birds present.
 Over 40 bird species nesting in the wet meadow and wetland habitats of the basin.
 20 species of mammals.
 4 species of amphibians.
 6 species of reptiles.
 1 species protected as "threatened or endangered" (trumpeter swan).
 Highest breeding density of sandhill cranes in North America - an important breeding area for Rocky Mountain Population of sandhill cranes.
 700-800 cranes present in May; 1,000 or more cranes stage in the basin in September.
 Nesting colonies of Franklin's gulls and white-faced ibis.

Water

 Located within Willow Watershed, 651.45 mi2 (1,686.5 km2) in size.
 Average water depth 11.5 feet (3.5 m) in spring; <0.5 ft (15 cm) in late July through September.
 Water sources from snowmelt and numerous springs; main inflow via Willow, Eagle, and Gravel Creeks on the east and south, and Crane Creek on the west.
 Original water outlet, Grays Lake Outlet, drains to the north into Snake River via Willow Creek.
 Clark's Cut, a man-made channel completed in 1924, drains into the Blackfoot Reservoir via Meadow creek.
 Water discharge controlled by the Bureau of Indian Affairs for use in Fort Hall Irrigation Project since the early 1920s.
 Drainage canals and drainage ditches were established during various periods (1920s, 1950s, 1960s).

Geology

 Meade Thrust Fault principle structure underlying basin.
 Cretaceous rocks underlie Willow, Eagle, and Bridge Creeks, predominantly sandstones and shales.
 Paleozoic and Triassic rocks underlie Gravel Creek basin, predominantly carbonates with Quaternary alluvium covering lowlands.
 Tertiary volcanics (mainly olivine basalts) underlie most western drainage.
 Bear Island olivine basalt.

Access and wildlife viewing

 Public road perimeter allows excellent bird viewing, particularly in May and early June when water levels are high.
 Viewing opportunities from Beavertail Point (south), refuge observation area (east), and north perimeter road.
 Access into marsh largely closed to the public to minimize disturbance of breeding sandhill cranes, trumpeter swans, and other waterbirds.
 Small Visitors Center at refuge headquarters; no other public facilities available.
 Access during fall waterfowl hunting on north half of basin.

Grays Lake National Wildlife Refuge

 Established 1965 for production of migratory waterfowl and other waterbirds
 Total area within proposed refuge boundary
 Active research program for adaptive management of habitat and wildlife populations.
 Management of grasslands and wet meadow using prescribed fire, grazing, idling, haying, and rotation systems.

References

External links
Map of the area
Images from Grays Lake NWR

Lakes of Bonneville County, Idaho
Lakes of Caribou County, Idaho
Wetlands of Idaho

Grays Lake (Idaho)


The Louisiana Holiday Trail of Lights is eight cities in north Louisiana - Shreveport, Bossier City, Minden, Monroe, West Monroe, Natchitoches and Alexandria, Pineville - that collectively offer festivals, parades, fireworks shows, shopping and dining in each of the cities starting the day after Thanksgiving through the New Year.

One of the most iconic festivals along the Louisiana Holiday Trail of Lights is the Natchitoches Christmas Festival, also called the "Festival of Lights," in Natchitoches. It was started in 1927, making it one of the oldest light festivals in the US. In the largest north Louisiana city on the Trail, Shreveport offer Christmas in Roseland at the American Rose Center, Rockets Over the Red Fireworks, Christmas on Caddo Fireworks, nightly blizzards at the Louisiana Boardwalk Outlets and other events. Minden's big holiday celebration is Fasching. Alexandria/Pineville offers WinterFete and Monroe-West Monroe is known for Antique Alley shopping.

All of the cities are within a one-hour drive of each other on Interstates 20 and 49.

References

External links
Holiday Trail of Lights Official Site

Christmas festivals
Festivals in Louisiana
Winter traditions
Culture of Shreveport, Louisiana
Light festivals

Holiday Trail of Lights


Irving Friedman (January 12, 1920 – June 28, 2005) was a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientist and a pioneer in geochemistry. Born in New York City, New York, he obtained a B.S. degree in chemistry from Montana State University, a M.S. degree in chemistry from Washington State University, and a Ph.D. in geochemistry at the University of Chicago.

University of Chicago
Friedman was a member of the famed group of post doctoral researchers in Nobel laureate Harold Urey's laboratory at the Institute for Nuclear Studies at the University of Chicago. There, Friedman built the first mass spectrometer for routine measurement of the hydrogen isotope composition of water. Hydrogen has two stable isotopes and much can be deduced about the history of water from their proportions. Because of this, Friedman is called the "father of isotope hydrology."

Military
Friedman joined the Navy in 1944. His USGS bio says that he was assigned to the Naval Electronics Laboratory in Washington, D.C., but that organization was formed in 1945. His training may have spanned the difference in time, though.

USGS
In 1952, he joined the USGS in Washington, D.C., and worked for the USGS for more than 43 years. In 1962, he moved to Lakewood, Colorado, when the Isotope Geology Branch of the USGS was created. Friedman retired from the USGS in 1995, and remained active as an emeritus scientist.

Accomplishments
His scientific career was a pursuit of the understanding of every aspect of the water cycle. Throughout his career, he studied water in oceans, rivers, lakes, glaciers, the atmosphere, magmas, minerals, rocks, meteorites, plants, animals and the moon. He made major contributions to a number of fields through application of stable isotope geochemistry. Friedman also made significant contributions to the development of instruments to detect helium in exploring uranium, thorium, petroleum and natural gas and in predicting earthquakes. In the 1940s, he made major contributions to the science of hydrothermal growth of quartz which made possible the development of the synthetic quartz industry.

His work was featured in more than 200 publications. His first was published in 1945 and his last will be published posthumously in 2005 in a USGS Professional Paper on Yellowstone National Park. He was long associated with study of geothermal features and water issues of Yellowstone.

Awards
Friedman received several awards and honors during his lifetime.
The Department of the Interior Meritorious Service Award
The Antarctica Service Medal
 made Honorary Fellow of the Geochemical Society in 2002
 honored by the Society for California Archaeology for his role in the development of obsidian hydration dating, a technique that revolutionized the dating of obsidian artifacts in western North America with the Martin A Baumhoff Special Achievement Award in 2005

References

External links
July 6th, 2006 obituary for Irving Friedman

1920 births
2005 deaths
20th-century American chemists
United States Geological Survey personnel
University of Chicago alumni
United States Navy personnel of World War II
Montana State University alumni
Washington State University alumni

Irving Friedman


Length time bias (or length bias) is an overestimation of survival duration due to the relative excess of cases detected that are asymptomatically slowly progressing, while fast progressing cases are detected after giving symptoms.

Length time bias is often discussed in the context of the benefits of cancer screening, and it can lead to the perception that screening leads to better outcomes when in reality it has no effect. Fast-growing tumors generally have a shorter asymptomatic phase than slower-growing tumors. Thus, there is a shorter period of time during which the cancer is present in the body (and so might be detected by screening) but not yet large enough to cause symptoms, that would cause the patient to seek medical care and be diagnosed without screening.

As a result, if the same number of slow-growing and fast-growing tumors appear in a year, the screening test detects more slow-growers than fast-growers. If the slow growing tumors are less likely to be fatal than the fast growers, the people whose cancer is detected by screening do better, on average, than the people whose tumors are detected from symptoms (or at autopsy) even if there is no real benefit to catching the cancer earlier. That can give the impression that detecting cancers by screening causes cancers to be less dangerous even if less dangerous cancers are simply more likely to be detected by screening.

References

Reference works

Clinical trials
Oncology
Epidemiology
Medical statistics
Bias

Length time bias


The North Fork Double Mountain Fork Brazos River is an intermittent stream about  long, heading at the junction of Blackwater Draw and Yellow House Draw in the city of Lubbock, flowing generally southeastward to its mouth on the Double Mountain Fork Brazos River in western Kent County.  It crosses portions of Lubbock, Crosby, Garza, and Kent counties in West Texas.

The flowing waters of the North Fork carved Yellow House Canyon, one of three major canyons along the east side of the Llano Estacado.

Proper name
In the past, this tributary of the Brazos has been called by various names, including Yellowhouse Creek and Yellow House River.  According to a 1964 decision by the United States Board on Geographical Names, this stream is properly called the North Fork Double Mountain Fork Brazos River. However, due to the unwieldy length of the name, it is often shortened to just North Fork.

Geography
Within the city limits of Lubbock, the North Fork is a minor stream that flows through a narrow and shallow channel with a typical width  less than  and a typical depth not more than .  Here the city of Lubbock has constructed a series of small dams that form a series of narrow lakes, collectively known as Canyon Lakes.

As the North Fork extends outside the city limits, Yellow House Canyon gradually widens and deepens.  At a distance of  to the east-southeast of Lubbock, a dam was constructed to form Buffalo Springs Lake, a recreational lake that now inundates the site of the main springs, though Buffalo Springs continue to flow beneath the waters of the lake.  Immediately downstream of Buffalo Springs Lake is a smaller dam that forms another recreational lake named Lake Ransom Canyon, where numerous single-family homes surround the lake to form the community of Ransom Canyon, Texas.

Downstream of Ransom Canyon, the North Fork flows freely across sparsely populated ranch country as the canyon continues to deepen and widen.  Where the North Fork crosses Farm to Market Road 400, a large portion of Lubbock's treated sewage is pumped into the stream via a pipeline that empties at a point called Outfall 001. The City of Lubbock is permitted to discharge as much as  of treated effluent into the North Fork each day.

At the point where the North Fork crosses Lubbock County Road 3600, the canyon is nearly  wide and  deep.  Further downstream, the walls of the canyon begin to curve sharply outward as the North Fork flows out of Yellow House Canyon and onto the rolling plains of West Texas.

To the east of Slaton, the North Fork enters Crosby County, passing to the southwest of Courthouse Mountain and the ghost town of Canyon Valley.  After traversing only  across the southwest corner of Crosby County, the stream then enters northern Garza County, where it continues to run southeastward, eventually crossing Texas State Highway 207. Passing to the northeast of Post, the stream crosses Farm to Market Road 651 and then  U.S. Highway 380, about  east of Post.  The stream then begins trending in a more easterly direction as it meanders wildly, eventually crossing from Garza into Kent County, where it merges with the Double Mountain Fork.

Overall, the North Fork descends  from its headwaters to its confluence with the Double Mountain Fork, passing through flat to moderately steep terrain along its course.

Proposed Post Reservoir
The City of Lubbock has proposed the construction of a major reservoir that would  impound waters of the North Fork northeast of Post, creating a reservoir roughly 60% of the size of Lake Alan Henry, another city reservoir that impounds waters of the Double Mountain Fork. The proposed Post Reservoir is a key feature in the 2012 State Water Plan for the Llano Estacado Regional Water Planning Area, which encompasses 21 counties on the high plains of the Llano Estacado.  The construction of this controversial reservoir would likely lead to the extinction of two rare species of prairie fish - the smalleye shiner and the sharpnose shiner.

See also

Battle of Yellow House Canyon
Blanco Canyon
Caprock Escarpment
Duffy's Peak

List of rivers of Texas
Mushaway Peak
Robert R. Bruno Jr.
Salt Fork Brazos River

White River (Texas)
Yellow House Draw

References

External links

Brazos River
Rivers of Texas
Rivers of Lubbock County, Texas
Rivers of Crosby County, Texas
Rivers of Garza County, Texas
Rivers of Kent County, Texas
Llano Estacado


Princess Iman bint Al Hussein (born April 24, 1983) is the daughter of the late King Hussein of Jordan and Queen Noor. She is the half-sister of the present Jordanian king, Abdullah II. Princess Iman was educated at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in England.

Jordanian princes and princesses
1983 births
Living people

Princess Iman bint Al Hussein


Draped Reclining Woman 1957–58 (LH 431) is a bronze sculpture by British artist Henry Moore, with a series of six castings (plus an artists cast, 0/6) made by Hermann Noack in Berlin.

The sculpture depicts a female figure in a reclining position on its right side, with its weight supported on its right hand and right leg. The left hand rests on the left thigh, with the left knee slightly raised but feet together. The drapery emphasises the female figure, but the facial features are abstracted and barely picked out, with two holes for eyes.

Background
Henry Moore was a war artist in World War II. He made a series drawings of people sheltering from The Blitz in the London Underground, usually swathed in thick clothes. These drawings sparked an interest in drapery which was renewed by the classical sculptures that Moore saw during a 1951 trip to Greece. He was attracted by the ability of the drapery to draw attention to some parts of the human form by lying tightly on the shoulders, thighs or breasts while concealing other parts where the wrapping falls slack, and also by the varied textures created by small and large folds in the material.

Moore made a series of sculptures of draped human forms in the 1950s after he was commissioned to create a sculpture for the new UNESCO Headquarters building in Paris. He wanted to create a figure in an architectural context, and turned to the seated human form. His Draped Reclining Figure, 1952–53 was a precursor to these later draped figures. He completed the first major work in the series in 1955, with a maquette, Draped Seated Woman: Figure on Steps (LH 427), cast in a series of 10. This became the working model for the full–size sculpture that became his Draped Seated Woman 1957–58. The reclining figure is a dominant theme of Moore's work, with perhaps half of his sculptures in a reclining position. He made a similar work in a reclining position, Draped Reclining Woman 1957–58. Moore ultimately abandoned these ideas for the UNESCO commission, and his UNESCO Reclining Figure 1957-58 (LH 416) is a much more abstract reclining form in travertine.

Sculpture

Moore's sculpture depicts a female figure in a reclining position. It measures approximately  long. It is usually displayed mounted on a flat bronze or stone base.

Seven casts of the completed sculpture were made for sale, numbers 1 to 6, plus an artist's cast (0/6). They are currently displayed in the UK, Germany and the US:
 the Tate Gallery in London (displayed at Glyndebourne) (2/6)
 the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at University of East Anglia in Norwich (formerly at Sir Robert Sainsbury's house in Bucklebury)
 the Pinakothek der Moderne at the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen in Munich
 the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart
 the Norton Simon Museum of Art in Pasadena (0/6)
 a private collection.

The only cast to remain in private hands (5/6) was sold at Christie's in London in June 2008 for nearly £4.3m, from the estate of J. Irwin Miller and his wife Xenia Simons Miller, formerly displayed at the Miller House and Garden in Columbus, Indiana.

The German copies are known as Die Liegende (The Recliner) or Die Grosse Liegende (The Large Recliner).

The original plaster model was given to the Henry Moore Sculpture Center at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto in 1974.

See also
List of sculptures by Henry Moore

References

 Henry Moore (1898–1986), Draped Reclining Woman, Christie's, 24 June 2008
 Draped Reclining Woman 1957–8, Tate Gallery
 Text summary, Tate Gallery
Casts
 Draped Reclining Woman, 1957–58, Norton Simon Museum
 Draped Reclining Woman, 1957–58, State Capital Stuttgart
 Draped Reclining Woman, 1957–58, State Capital Stuttgart
 Draped Reclining Woman, 1957–58, Norwich
 Draped Reclining Woman, 1957–58, Munich
 Draped Reclining Woman, 1957–58, Stuttgart
 Draped Reclining Woman, 1957–58, Norwich
 Draped Reclining Woman, 1957–58, Glyndebourne
 Draped Reclining Woman, 1957–58, Pasadena
 Draped Reclining Woman, 1957–58, Kew
 Henry Moore, Woman Seated in the Underground, 1941, Tate Gallery
 Henry Moore, Maquette for Figure on Steps 1956, Tate Gallery

1957 sculptures
1958 sculptures
Abstract sculptures in California
Bronze sculptures in California
Bronze sculptures in Germany
Bronze sculptures in the United Kingdom
Outdoor sculptures in Greater Los Angeles
Sculptures by Henry Moore
Sculptures in England
Sculptures in the Norton Simon Museum
Sculptures in the Tate galleries
Sculptures of women in England
Sculptures of women in California
Sculptures of women in Germany
Sculptures of women in London
Statues in California
Statues in Germany
Statues in the United Kingdom

Draped Reclining Woman 1957–58


Motivic integration is a notion in algebraic geometry that was introduced by Maxim Kontsevich in 1995 and was developed by Jan Denef and François Loeser. Since its introduction it has proved to be quite useful in various branches of  algebraic geometry, most notably birational geometry and singularity theory. Roughly speaking, motivic integration assigns to subsets of the arc space of an algebraic variety, a volume living in the  Grothendieck ring of  algebraic varieties. The naming 'motivic' mirrors the fact that unlike ordinary integration, for which the values are real numbers, in motivic integration the values are geometric in nature.

References

External links
AMS Bulletin Vol. 42 Tom Hales
 What is motivic measure?
Lecture Notes (2019) Devlin Mallory
Motivic Integration
 math.AG/9911179 A.Craw
An introduction to motivic integration
Lecture Notes (version of 2008) François Loeser
 Seattle lecture notes on motivic integration
Lecture Notes W.Veys
Arc spaces, motivic integration and stringy invariants

Algebraic geometry
Definitions of mathematical integration

Motivic integration


László Mérő (born Budapest, 11 December 1949) is a Hungarian research psychologist and popular science author. He has Jewish ancestry. He is a lecturer at the Experimental Psychology Department of Eötvös Loránd University and at the business school Kürt Academy. He is also a founder and leader of a software company producing computer games. One of his projects is a computer game he is developing with Ernő Rubik, the inventor of the Rubik's Cube. He is also the leader of the Hungarian team at the World Puzzle Championship. His son is Csaba Mérő, an 8-time Hungarian go champion. His daughter, Vera Mérő, is a human rights activist and author.

He represented Hungary in the Tenth International Mathematical Olympiad held in Moscow in 1968, and was awarded a Bronze Medal. He graduated from Eötvös Loránd University with a degree in Mathematics in 1974. He spent the next ten years at the Computer and Automation Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, working on various pattern recognition and artificial intelligence projects. Recognizing the limitations of artificial intelligence, he began investigating human cognition. Since 1984 he has been at the Experimental Psychology Department of Eötvös Loránd University, studying cognitive psychology and psychophysics.

He has written two books, Ways of Thinking (newer translation: Habits of Mind) and Moral Calculations, that aroused the interest of the wider, non-professional public. His books analyze the quasi-rational mechanisms of people and the nature of rationality in general, undermining some common beliefs about our minds' functioning.

He has been publishing in Magyar Narancs a series titled Are you the dance instructor here? (The title refers to a joke: A client enters the dancing school and asks a well-dressed man: "Are you the dance instructor here?" "Fuck no, I'm the etiquette instructor!") Several of these essays were collected in a book in 2005 (see below).
 Picture

Volumes published in English
 Ways of Thinking : The Limits of Rational Thought and Artificial Intelligence (August/October 1990, hardcover: , paperback: )
 A revised (rewritten) edition of the former:
Habits of Mind : The Power and Limits of Rational Thought (February 2002, )
 Moral Calculations : Game Theory, Logic and Human Frailty (July 1998, )

A lesser known book of his is Rubik's Puzzles : The Ultimate Brain Teaser Book (March 2000, ).

Other language editions
His books (originally written in Hungarian) have been published in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Croatian. The Moral Calculations was awarded the second prize as the Scientific Book of the Year in Germany in 1999.

 Ways of Thinking; Habits of Mind – Észjárások (Hungarian); Die Grenzen der Vernunft (German)
 Moral Calculations – Mindenki másképp egyforma (Hungarian); Optimal entschieden?; Die Logik der Unvernunft (German); Les aléas de la raison (French); Calcoli morali (Italian); Los azares de la razón (Spanish)
 Az élő pénz ("The living money", ) – , only in Hungarian
 Maga itt a tánctanár? – Pszichológia, moralitás, játék és tudomány ("Are You the Dance Instructor Here? – Psychology, morality, game and science", ) – a collection of articles; , only in Hungarian
A csodák logikája – A kiszámíthatatlan tudománya ("Logic of Miracles: Making Sense of Rare, Really Rare, and Impossibly Rare Events", ) – Mathematical explanation of the recent phenomena of highly improbable events occurring in a large and turbulent world.

References

See also
 John von Neumann
 Roger Penrose
 Douglas Hofstadter

Hungarian scientists
1949 births
Game theorists
Living people
International Mathematical Olympiad participants
Hungarian people of Jewish descent

László Mérő


Baldness (also known as alopecia) is when someone has no hair on his or her head. Sometimes this is inherited from parents or grandparents, or it can be done on purpose. Improper use of hair extensions can also lead to hair loss. Some people such as monks or South Korean soldiers shave their head.

Baldness is most often caused by a medical condition known as androgenic alopecia. This is found in humans, as well as in some animals. When it occurs, it will mean that those affected will permanently lose some (or all) of their hair. Since some of the factors are linked to the genes on the chromosome, the condition can be seen more often with men, than with women.

Alopecia totalis is the loss of all head hair. Its cause is believed to be autoimmune, but many with the disorder lead relatively low stress lives.

Alopecia areata (AA) is a condition in which hair is lost from some or all areas of the body, usually from the scalp. Because it causes bald spots on the scalp, especially in the first stages, it is sometimes called spot baldness.

References

Hair
Health problems

Baldness


A sedative is a depressant that lowers excitement and irritability. Doctors use sedatives to prevent nervous patients from accidentally hurting themselves or the doctor. They are also used in tranquilizer guns.

There are different kinds of sedatives:
Drugs that make people fall asleep.
Drugs that help people keep sleeping (not to wake up during the night).
Drugs that calm people down, without making them sleep.

Most sedatives act very slowly, usually in 10-15 minutes.  Doctors must know a patient's weight and medical history in order give them the sedatives which are best for them.

People who have been given sedatives may seem dull, and sleepy. Since sedatives act on their ability to react, those who have been given such drugs should not do the following:
Operate any machines
Drive a car
Take other drugs (including alcohol; these may make the effect of the pill bigger and can lead to overdose)
The drugs are given in clinical settings to facilitate medical procedures that would require physical restraint in a conscious patient or otherwise be unfeasible. They are also used to tranquilize dangerous animals. If the animal is in a position where it can't hurt anyone, a slow-acting sedative will be used. If the animal is out-of-control, a fast-acting sedative will be used. Fast-acting sedatives usually take between 3-5 minutes to take effect. Tranquilizer darts are rarely used on humans because there is no way to know which sedative to use and how much to use without performing a pre-anesthetic exam on the patient beforehand. There are only two known cases of a person being intentionally tranquilized, and in both cases the person doing the tranquilizing knew their target's weight and medical history.

Problems
Sedatives usually should not be taken for a longer period of time, as there are problems:
 Many sedatives cause addiction. Trying to stop taking the drug may cause withdrawal symptoms
 If they are taken together with other drugs, this may change their effect.

Psychoactive drugs

Sedative


Dezső Kosztolányi (; March 29, 1885 – November 3, 1936) was a Hungarian writer, journalist, translator, and also a speaker of Esperanto. He wrote in all literary genres, from poetry to essays to theatre plays. Building his own style, he used French symbolism, impressionism, expressionism and psychological realism.  He is considered the father of futurism in Hungarian literature.

Biography

Kosztolányi was born in Szabadka, Austria-Hungary (today Subotica, Serbia) in 1885. The city served as a model for the fictional town of Sárszeg, in which he set his novella Skylark as well as The Golden Kite. He was the child of Árpád Kosztolányi (1859–1926), physics and chemistry professor and headmaster of a school, and Eulália Brenner (1866–1948), who was of French origin.
He started high school in Szabadka but because of a conflict with his teachers he was expelled, and so he graduated as a private student in Szeged. Kosztolányi moved to Budapest in 1903, where he studied at the University of Budapest and met the poets Mihály Babits and Gyula Juhász, and later for a short time in Vienna before becoming a journalist—a profession he continued for the rest of his life.

In 1908, Kosztolányi replaced the poet Endre Ady, who had left for Paris, as a reporter for a Budapest daily. In 1910, his first volume of poems, The Complaints of a Poor Little Child, brought nationwide success and marked the beginning of a prolific period in which he published a book nearly every year.  He met the actress Ilona Harmos in the winter of 1910; they were married on 8 May 1913. They had one son. Kosztolányi died in 1936 from cancer of the larynx.

Writings
The literary journal Nyugat (Hungarian for "West"), which played an invaluable role in the revitalization of Hungarian literature, was founded in 1908 and Kosztolányi was an early contributor, one of what is often called the "first Nyugat generation", publishing mainly poetry.

Starting in the 1920s he wrote novels, short stories, and short prose works, including Nero, the Bloody Poet (to the German edition to which Thomas Mann wrote the introduction), Skylark, The Golden Kite, Kornél Esti and Anna Édes. In 1924 he published a volume of verse harkening back to his early work, entitled The Complaints of the Sad Man.

Kosztolányi also produced literary translations in Hungarian, such as Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, The Winter's Tale, Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Lord Alfred Douglas' memoirs on Oscar Wilde, and Rudyard Kipling's "If—". He was the first authentic translator of Rilke's poetry, and he worked a Hungarian masterpiece after Paul Valéry's Cimetiere Marin.

Bibliography
 Nero, a véres költő (1922). Darker Muses: The Poet Nero (Corvina, 1990).
 Pacsirta (1924). Skylark, trans. Richard Aczel (Chatto & Windus, 1993; New York Review Books, 2010).
 Aranysárkány (1925). The Golden Kite.
 Anna Édes (1926). Trans. George Szirtes (Quartet, 1991; New Directions, 1993).
 Kornél Esti (1934). Trans. Bernard Adams (New Directions, 2011).

External links

 Dawnstruck (translation of his poem)

1885 births
1936 deaths
Writers from Subotica
Hungarians in Vojvodina
Hungarian male poets
Burials at Kerepesi Cemetery
20th-century Hungarian poets
20th-century Hungarian male writers

Dezső Kosztolányi


Muilla maritima is a species of flowering plant known by the common names sea muilla and common muilla. It is native to California and Baja California, where it grows in many types of habitats from the coast to the Mojave Desert and Sierra Nevada foothills and other inland mountains, in grassland, woodland, desert, and forest floras. It is a perennial plant growing from a corm and producing an erect flowering stem up to half a meter tall. The onion-like leaves at the base of the stem may be 60 centimeters long. The flowering stem bears an umbel-shaped array of many flowers on pedicels up to 5 centimeters long. Each flower has six tepals which are green-tinged white in color with brownish midribs and no more than 6 millimeters in length. At the center of the flower are six erect stamens with blue, green, or purplish anthers.

References

External links

Photo gallery

Brodiaeoideae
Flora of California
Flora of Baja California
Plants described in 1879
Flora without expected TNC conservation status

Muilla maritima


The Millennium Problems are 7 big math problems that if answered, could bring change all over math and science education, and may even affect technology.

Whoever solves any one of the Millennium Problems could win $1,000,000, as well as potentially other prizes for it, like the Fields Medal, or even the Nobel Prize.

Some of the problems have a relationship to the de Fermat conjecture called Fermat's Last Theorem or FLT.

As described by the Clay Institute of Massachusetts, the Millennium Problems are:

The Riemann Hypothesis
A 200-year old question that is one of the most famous mathematical problems ever. Solving it will make mathematicians understand a lot more about prime numbers. It has applications in cryptography, number theory, and might even be useful in physics.

Mathematicians want to know when a certain function, called the Riemann Zeta function, written ζ(s), equals zero. There are many well known values of s where ζ(s) is zero, composing the negative even integers. The Riemann Hypothesis says that apart from these, ζ(s) equals zero only when s is a complex number with real part 1/2 or a negative whole number. As to whether this hypothetical is one of pure or applied math, a particular characterization of the machine to measure earthquakes gives real-part-1/2 spikes.

Clay description
Some numbers have the special property that they cannot be expressed as the product of two smaller numbers, e.g., 2, 3, 5, 7, etc. Such numbers are called prime numbers, and they play an important role, both in pure mathematics and its applications. The distribution of such prime numbers among all natural numbers does not follow any regular pattern.  However, the German mathematician G.F.B. Riemann (1826 - 1866) observed that the frequency of prime numbers is very closely related to the behavior of an elaborate function

    ζ(s) = 1 + 1/2^s + 1/3^s + 1/4^s + ...

called the Riemann Zeta function. The Riemann hypothesis asserts that all interesting solutions of the equation

    ζ(s) = 0

lie on a certain vertical straight line.

This has been checked for the first 10,000,000,000,000 solutions. A proof that it is true for every interesting solution would shed light on many of the mysteries surrounding the distribution of prime numbers.

The Yang-Mills Equations
The laws of quantum physics stand to the world of elementary particles in the way that Newton's laws of classical mechanics stand to the macroscopic world. Almost half a century ago, Yang and Mills introduced a remarkable new framework to describe elementary particles using structures that also occur in geometry. Quantum Yang-Mills theory is now the foundation of most of elementary particle theory, and its predictions have been tested at many experimental laboratories, but its mathematical foundation is still unclear. The successful use of Yang-Mills theory to describe the strong interactions of elementary particles depends on a subtle quantum mechanical property called the "mass gap": the quantum particles have positive masses, even though the classical waves travel at the speed of light. This property has been discovered by physicists from experiment and confirmed by computer simulations, but it still has not been understood from a theoretical point of view. Progress in establishing the existence of the Yang-Mills theory and a mass gap will require the introduction of fundamental new ideas both in physics and in mathematics.

The P vs. NP Problem
This is the most famous one in computer science. It would be solved "if" someone discovered
 whether a computer can always find a solution to a problem given, as fast as check it. An ideal solution would contain an accessible how, including machine code.
The metaphor can easily be asked of a pocket calculator: can it always find the solution of a typed equation as easily as it could check multiplication by division, for instance? The heart of the problem is in one-way operators' speed factor.

Clay description
Suppose that you are organizing housing accommodations for a group of four hundred university students. Space is limited and only one hundred of the students will receive places in the dormitory. To complicate matters, the Dean has provided you with a list of pairs of incompatible students, and requested that no pair from this list appear in your final choice. This is an example of what computer scientists call an NP-problem, since it is easy to check if a given choice of one hundred students proposed by a coworker is satisfactory (i.e., no pair taken from your coworker's list also appears on the list from the Dean's office), however the task of generating such a list from scratch seems to be so hard as to be completely impractical. Indeed, the total number of ways of choosing one hundred students from the four hundred applicants is greater than the number of atoms in the known universe! Thus no future civilization could ever hope to build a supercomputer capable of solving the problem by brute force; that is, by checking every possible combination of 100 students. However, this apparent difficulty may only reflect the lack of ingenuity of your programmer. In fact, one of the outstanding problems in computer science is determining whether questions exist whose answer can be quickly checked, but which require an impossibly long time to solve by any direct procedure. Problems like the one listed above certainly seem to be of this kind, but so far no one has managed to prove that any of them really are so hard as they appear, i.e., that there really is no feasible way to generate an answer with the help of a computer. Stephen Cook and Leonid Levin formulated the P (i.e., easy to find) versus NP (i.e., easy to check) problem independently in 1971.

The Navier–Stokes equations
Perhaps the most important equations in fluid mechanics, which studies liquids and gases— to design better cars and jet airplanes, to learn how the atmosphere and water cycle work, among other things.  They are shorthanded in engineering, much used in mathematics, and regarded in applied sciences.

Clay description
Waves follow our boat as we meander across the lake, and turbulent air currents follow our flight in a modern jet. Mathematicians and physicists believe that an explanation for and the prediction of both the breeze and the turbulence can be found through an understanding of solutions to the Navier-Stokes equations. Although these equations were written down in the 19th Century, our understanding of them remains minimal. The challenge is to make substantial progress toward a mathematical theory which will unlock the secrets hidden in the Navier-Stokes equations.

The Hodge Conjecture

In the twentieth century mathematicians discovered powerful ways to investigate the shapes of complicated objects. The basic idea is to ask to what extent we can approximate the shape of a given object by gluing together simple geometric building blocks of increasing dimension. This technique turned out to be so useful that it got generalized in many different ways, eventually leading to powerful tools that enabled mathematicians to make great progress in cataloging the variety of objects they encountered in their investigations. Unfortunately, the geometric origins of the procedure became obscured in this generalization. In some sense it was necessary to add pieces that did not have any geometric interpretation. The Hodge conjecture asserts that for particularly nice types of spaces called projective algebraic varieties, the pieces called Hodge cycles are actually (rational linear) combinations of geometric pieces called algebraic cycles.

The Poincaré Conjecture
The only Millennium Problem that has been conditionally solved, as of 2018. Mathematician Grigori Perelman found it true in certain 4d characterizations of the 3-sphere, but declined the $1M prize.

Because Perelman published his papers over the Internet rather than in a peer-reviewed journal, as required by the Clay Math Institute's rules, he was not initially offered CMI's award, though representatives for the organization indicated they might relax their requirements in his case. Complicating their decision was uncertainty over whether Perelman would accept the money; he publicly stated that he would not decide until the award was offered to him. Finally, in 2010, CMI offered Perelman the reward for proving the Poincaré conjecture, and Perelman refused.

The Poincaré Conjecture states that the sphere is the only 3D object that can be shrunk to a single point, given certain conditions.

By most schools of natural philosophy, this conjecture would be seen immediately as either obviously correct or obviously flawed. For one thing, it is not irreversible. The 3-sphere characterization, like various Happy End boards/Hademard tilings, has higher dimensional characterization, so the most desired solution would be an equation for y per dimension x.

Clay description
If we stretch a rubber band around the surface of an apple, then we can shrink it down to a point by moving it slowly, without tearing it and without allowing it to leave the surface. On the other hand, if we imagine that the same rubber band has somehow been stretched in the appropriate direction around a doughnut, then there is no way of shrinking it to a point without breaking either the rubber band or the doughnut. We say the surface of the apple is "simply connected," but that the surface of the doughnut is not. Poincaré, almost a hundred years ago, knew that a two dimensional sphere is essentially characterized by this property of simple connectivity, and asked the corresponding question for the three dimensional sphere.

This question turned out to be extraordinarily difficult. Nearly a century passed between its formulation in 1904 by Henri Poincaré and its solution by Grigoriy Perelman, announced in preprints posted on ArXiv.org in 2002 and 2003. Perelman's solution was based on Richard Hamilton's theory of Ricci flow, and made use of results on spaces of metrics due to Cheeger, Gromov, and Perelman himself. In these papers Perelman also proved William Thurston's Geometrization Conjecture, a special case of which is the Poincaré conjecture. See the press release of March 18, 2010.

Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture

Mathematicians have always been fascinated by the problem of describing all solutions in whole numbers x,y,z to algebraic equations like

x² + y² = z²

Euclid gave the complete solution for that equation, but for more complicated equations this becomes extremely difficult. Indeed, in 1970 Yu. V. Matiyasevich showed that Hilbert's tenth problem is unsolvable, i.e., there is no general method for determining when such equations have a solution in whole numbers. But in special cases one can hope to say something. When the solutions are the points of an abelian variety, the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture asserts that the size of the group of rational points is related to the behavior of an associated zeta function ζ(s) near the point s=1. In particular this amazing conjecture asserts that if ζ(1) is equal to 0, then there are an infinite number of rational points (solutions), and conversely, if ζ(1) is not equal to 0, then there is only a finite number of such points.

Millennium Prize Problems


Seth Merrill Hammett (born June 24, 1946) is an American educator, politician, and economic development professional who was a member of the Alabama House of Representatives from 1979 to 2011. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as Speaker of the Alabama House of Representatives from 2001 to 2010.

Hammett did not seek reelection in 2010.  Following his retirement, Hammett was selected by Republican Governor Robert Bentley to serve as director of the Alabama Development Office, now known as the Alabama Department of Commerce. Hammett later served as Governor Bentley's chief of staff from 2014 to 2015.

As of 2018, Hammett is vice president of business development for PowerSouth Energy Cooperative and chairman of the Energy Institute of Alabama.

Academic and business career
Hammett was born in Andalusia, Alabama and graduated from Straughn High School in 1964. That same year, he entered Auburn University where he obtained undergraduate and Masters of Business Administration degrees. Between earning his undergraduate and business degrees, Hammett served as a pilot in the United States Air Force. As a second lieutenant in 1969, he earned his air force pilot wings at Laredo Air Force Base, Texas. In 1971, he returned to Andalusia as an economics lecturer at Lurleen B. Wallace Community College, which had opened in 1969. He was made dean of the college's business school in 1974.

In 1973, Hammett was selected as president of the Covington County Chamber of Commerce.  In 1983 he founded First National Bank of Andalusia (now Wells Fargo).  He has since served in numerous business and community positions, most notably returning to Lurleen B. Wallace Community College as its president from 1991 to 2002. In 2002, Hammett was appointed vice president of business development for SouthTrust Bank.  In 2004, he was appointed director of economic development for the Alabama Electric Cooperative.  Since 2014, Hammett has served as vice president of business development for PowerSouth Energy Cooperative and chairman of the Energy Institute of Alabama.

Family
Hammett continues to reside in Andalusia, Alabama with his wife, Nancy, where they are members of the First United Methodist Church of Andalusia. They have two children and two grandchildren. He is the second cousin of Matthew Hammett, also a member of the house for the 92nd district.

Political career
Hammett was first elected to the Alabama House of Representatives in November 1978. He ran against Mike Purnell (now the mayor of Red Level, Alabama) and received 67.7% of the vote. Since 1978, Hammett has run unopposed in three of six elections and never received less than 56% of the vote.

In the  2002 election, he ran against Roger Broxton, president of the Confederate Heritage Fund and an outspoken proponent for the protection of confederate history. Hammett won with more than 70% of the vote.

Hammett also led a delegation on behalf of the governor to South America to encourage trade between Alabama businesses and South American businesses. The trade mission visited Chile and Brazil and was successful in increasing port service and commercial trade between South America and Alabama and in developing educational programs linking South American universities with Alabamian universities (https://web.archive.org/web/20060316071555/http://www.ndgi.com/news/2004/20040927.shtml).

One of the dominant issues in Alabama politics in recent years is the lottery. Hammett supports the idea of a lottery for the state.

Honors
Citizen of the Year and the Distinguished Service Award in Andalusia
Guardian of Small Business, awarded by the National Federation of Independent Businesses
The Legislative Leadership Award, given by the Council for Leaders in Alabama Schools
The Meritorious Service Award, given by The Montgomery Advertiser
The Service to Agriculture Award, given by the Alabama Farmers' Federation
The Children's Hero Award, given by the Alabama Department of Human Resources
The Legislator of the Year Award, given by Alabama Electric Cities
The Legislative Award given by the Alabama Association of School Boards
The Legislator of the Year Award, given by the Alabama Independent Insurance Agents
Alabama Academy of Honor

Affiliations
The board of directors of the State Legislative Leaders Foundation
The executive committee of the National Speakers Conference
The management committee of the Southern Legislative Conference
The executive committee of the Southern Legislative Conference
The executive committee of the Council of State Governments
The executive committee of the National Conference of State Legislatures
Chairman of the Energy Institute of Alabama

Positions
Chairman of the 16-state Southern Legislative Conference
President of the National Speakers Conference
Speaker of the Alabama House of Representatives
Founder and first president of the First National (now Wachovia) Bank of Andalusia
President emeritus of Lurleen B. Wallace Community College
Director of Economic Development for Alabama Electric Cooperative (Now PowerSouth Energy Cooperative)
Vice President of Business Development for PowerSouth Energy Cooperative

References

External links
https://web.archive.org/web/20070928020727/http://www.newsbull.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=28732

1946 births
Living people
Auburn University alumni
Members of the Alabama House of Representatives
Lurleen B. Wallace Community College
United States Air Force officers
People from Andalusia, Alabama
Speakers of the Alabama House of Representatives
Straughn High School alumni

Seth Hammett


A break-open shotgun is a type of shotgun that loads shotgun shells by opening up the barrels, taking out the spent shells, placing a new shell in each chamber, then closing the barrels. Most are either single- or double-barrel. Triple- and quadruple-barrel (four barrel) shotguns also exist, but single- and double-barrel shotguns are easier to make and less likely to jam.

Most double-barrel shotguns are made with their barrels touching side-by-side. However, there are also shotguns where one barrel is on top of the other. Over-and-under shotguns are easier to aim than side-by-side shotguns because you do not need to aim a little to the left or right.

Since the metal cartridge was invented in 1845, most shotguns were break-open shotguns until the repeating shotgun was invented. However, break-open shotguns are still popular with civilians because they are easier to use and less likely to jam than repeating shotguns. Nonetheless, they hold fewer shells than repeating shotguns.
Shotguns

Break-open shotgun


The Ephraim Weston House is a historic house in Reading, Massachusetts.  It is incorrectly listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Ephrain Weston House, at 224 West Street.  It was built in the early years of the 19th century by Ephraim Weston, a local real estate developer and businessman; he operated a local general store and a shoe manufacturing business, one of the early such businesses in the town.  It is a two-story wood-frame structure, with a hip roof and two chimneys.  The main facade faces south (not to the street, which lies to the west), and has a single-story porch extending across its width, supported by square posts.  The building corners are pilastered, and a single-story bay projects from the west side.  The house is locally distinctive as a rare Federal period house with a hip roof and later applied Italianate styling.

See also
National Register of Historic Places listings in Reading, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places listings in Middlesex County, Massachusetts

References

Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Reading, Massachusetts
1800 establishments in Massachusetts

Ephraim Weston House


The waterfall frog or torrent tree frog (Ranoidea nannotis) is a frog from Australia. Scientists have seen it between 180 and 1300 metres above sea level.

The adult male frog is 3.2 to 5.2 cm long and the adult female frog is 4.8 to 5.9 cm long.  This frog lives in fast-flowing streams in rainforests and other forests.  It does not only lay its eggs in fast streams.  It spends most of its time in or near the water.  The adult frog is gray or olive on the back with mottling colors and a white belly.  This frog can lay eggs at any time of year.  The female frog lays her eggs underneath rocks.  The tadpoles have strong tails for swimming and mouths on the underside of their bodies so they can hold onto rocks.  Adult frogs hide in the stream or near waterfalls during the day and look for food at night. They usually do not go more than 35 metres away from the water.

This frog eats almost any animal without bones inside that it can fit into its mouth.  It will eat flies, dragonflies, beetles, true bugs, mites, bees, wasps, ants, insect larvae and millipedes.

This frog is endangered.  Scientists think this might be because feral pigs brought to Australia by humans rip up their streams, but they are not sure.  Some scientists looked at whether habitat loss or or chemicals that humans use to kill insects might be killing the frogs, and they found this is probably not what is killing them.  Some scientists think the fungal disease chytridiomycosis could be killing the frogs

References

Pelodryadidae

Waterfall frog


The 7.5 cm Gebirgskanone Model 1911 was a mountain gun manufactured for export in 1911 by the German firm Rheinmetall. Nine batteries were sold to Norway. During the 1940 Norwegian campaign, a number of these were captured by the Germans, who designated them 7.5 cm GebK 247(n). The crew were protected by an armoured shield.

See also
List of mountain artillery

Notes

75 mm artillery
World War II mountain artillery
World War II artillery of Norway
World War II artillery of Germany

7.5 cm Gebirgskanone Model 1911


Nonoxynol-9, sometimes abbreviated as N-9, is an organic compound that is used as a surfactant.  It is a member of the  nonoxynol family of nonionic surfactants.  N-9 and related compounds are ingredients in various cleaning and cosmetic products.  It is widely used in contraceptives for its spermicidal properties.

Uses

Spermicide
As a spermicide, it attacks the acrosomal membranes of the sperm, causing the sperm to be immobilized.
Nonoxynol-9 is the active ingredient in most spermicidal creams, jellies, foams, gel, film, and suppositories.

Lubricant
Nonoxynol-9 is a common ingredient of most vaginal and anal lubricants due to its spermicidal properties.

A 2004 study found that over a six-month period, the typical-use failure rates for five nonoxynol-9 vaginal contraceptives (film, suppository, and gels at three different concentrations) ranged from 10% to 20%.

Condoms
Many models of condoms are lubricated with solutions containing nonoxynol-9. In this role, it has been promoted as a backup method for avoiding pregnancy and a microbicide for sexually transmitted diseases in the event of condom failure. However, the 2001 WHO / CONRAD Technical Consultation on Nonoxynol-9 concluded that: There is no published scientific evidence that N-9-lubricated condoms provide any additional protection against pregnancy or STDs compared with condoms lubricated with other products.  Since adverse effects due to the addition of N-9 to condoms cannot be excluded, such condoms should no longer be promoted.  However, it is better to use N-9-lubricated condoms than no condoms.

Compared to regular lubricated condoms, condoms containing nonoxynol-9 present another disadvantage — they are limited by the shelf-life of the
spermicide.

Cervical barriers
Almost all brands of diaphragm jelly contain nonoxynol-9 as the active ingredient.  This jelly may also be used for a cervical cap. Most contraceptive sponges contain nonoxynol-9 as an active ingredient.

Shaving cream
Nonoxynol-9 is sometimes included in shaving creams for its properties as a nonionic surfactant; it helps break down skin oils that normally protect hair from moisture, so that they become wet and, hence, softer and easier to shave. Gillette formerly used nonoxynol-9 for this purpose in its Foamy products, but has discontinued the practice.

Sports cream
Nonoxynol-9 is also found in Bengay Vanishing Scent as an inactive ingredient.

Poison ivy creams
Nonoxynol-9 is also found in Zanfel poison ivy cream.  It effectively helps to break up the oil urushiol that causes the rash.

Side effects
From 1996 to 2000, a UN-sponsored study conducted in several locations in Africa followed nearly 1,000 sex workers who used nonoxynol-9 gels or a placebo. The HIV infection rate among those using nonoxynol-9 was about 50% higher than those who used the placebo; those using nonoxynol-9 also had a higher incidence of vaginal lesions, which may have contributed to this increased risk. Whereas these results may not be directly applicable to lower-frequency use, these findings combined with lack of any demonstrated HIV-prevention benefit from nonoxynol-9 use led the World Health Organization to recommend that it no longer be used by those at high risk of HIV infection. The WHO further notes that "Nonoxynol-9 offers no protection against sexually transmitted infections such as gonorrhoea, chlamydia." A 2006 study of a nonoxynol-9 vaginal gel in female sex workers in Africa concluded that it did not prevent genital human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and could increase the virus's ability to infect or persist.

References

External links
 Safety of Nonoxynol-9 when used for contraception World Health Organization (October 2001)
 Vaginal Spermicide: Nonoxynol Family Practice Notebook.com
 Docs: 'Nonoxynol-9 Doesn't Work' Wired News: Lite, Jordan (May 13, 2002)
 Info on microbicides
 ChemSub Online: Nonoxynol-9

Phenol ethers
Glycol ethers
Primary alcohols
Spermicide
Non-ionic surfactants
Drugs acting on the genito-urinary system
Microbicides

Nonoxynol-9


Alfred Edward Stratton (1882-1905) and his brother Albert Ernest Stratton (1884-1905) were the first men to be convicted in Britain for murder based on fingerprint evidence. They were both executed at 9 am on 23 May 1905 at HM Prison Wandsworth. The case, otherwise known as the Mask Murders (due to the black stocking-top masks that had been left at the scene of the crime), the Deptford Murders (due to the location) or the Farrow Murders (the last name of the victims), was one of the earliest convictions using forensic science.

The crime
On Monday 27 March 1905, at 8:30 am, William Jones went to Chapman's Oil and Colour Shop at 34 Deptford High Street, where he worked. When he arrived at the shop he found it closed and shuttered, which he found very unusual. The manager of the paint shop Thomas Farrow, age 71, lived with his wife, Ann, aged 65, in the flat above the shop and he was not in the habit of having the shop still closed at such a late hour. Unable to open the door, Jones tried knocking but since he did not get any response from either Mr or Mrs Farrow he peeked through a window and saw that there were chairs knocked over.

Alarmed at what he saw, he ran for help and found Louis Kidman, a local resident who worked in a nearby store, and the two men forced their way into the shop. It was not long before they found the body of Mr Farrow on the ground dead, while Mrs Farrow was found barely alive but unconscious in the couple's bed in the upstairs flat. Both bore the signs of having been beaten. A doctor and the police were called and Mrs Farrow was taken to hospital.

The investigation
Despite the disarray within the shop, the police found no signs of forced entry. It was shortly determined that robbery was the motive: Jones told the police that Mr Farrow would collect the week's earnings and deposit them to a local bank every Monday, and an empty cash box was found on the floor, which was estimated to have contained about £13, . To ensure the doctor would not trip over it, Sergeant Albert Atkinson pushed it aside with his bare hands. It was at this point that Chief Inspector Frederick Fox and Melville MacNaghten, the Assistant Commissioner (Crime) of the Metropolitan Police and head of the Criminal Investigation Department took over the case.

Aside from the lack of forced entry as well as the empty cash box, it was clear that Mr and Mrs Farrow had been attacked separately and the discovery of two black masks fashioned from stockings that were left at the scene indicated that there were two men involved. Since the victims were in their night clothes, the police had speculated that Mr Farrow was deceived into opening the door while he was still half asleep. He was immediately attacked, but was still conscious enough to go after the robbers, and was hit again. His assailants went up to the upstairs flat, attacked Mrs Farrow, located the cash box, and fled with the money. However, based on the separate pools of blood at the scene, it was determined that Mr Farrow had again regained consciousness, and this time the men killed him and afterwards washed their hands in a nearby basin.

A greasy smudge on the cash box
When MacNaghten was told of the empty cash box, he chose to examine it. He noticed that on the underside of the box's inner tray, there was a greasy smudge which appeared to be a fingerprint. As a member of the Belper Committee which had recommended the use of fingerprints as a method for identification five years before, he wondered if this might be a case to test out this new technique. He used his handkerchief to carefully pick up the cash box, had it wrapped in paper and took it into the fledgling Fingerprinting Bureau at Scotland Yard.

Established on 1 July 1901, the Fingerprint Bureau had proven its worth with the conviction a year later of Harry Jackson for burglary, thanks to fingerprint evidence. It was now headed by Detective Inspector Charles Stockley Collins who was regarded as the foremost English fingerprint expert of his time. Despite its earlier successes, especially in identifying previously convicted criminals who tried to pass themselves off pseudonymously, the technique was still considered unwieldy and both men knew that they were risking public ridicule with the intense scrutiny that a murder case would generate. Furthermore, even if they succeeded in identifying the owner of the fingerprint, they still needed to convince a potential jury sufficiently to convict.

Detective Inspector Collins examined the print thoroughly and determined that the print was made through perspiration and appeared to have been left by the thumb, probably from the right hand. He compared it with those of the Farrows and that of Detective Sergeant Atkinson and was satisfied that the print did not belong to any of those people. Although the Bureau had 80,000-90,000 sets of prints on file, there was no match on any of them as well, which meant that they would need to find a suspect to compare it with. The initial hope of the police was that Mrs Farrow would give a description of her assailants, but she died in hospital on 31 March without regaining consciousness.

Positive identification and arrest
In an effort to identify the robbers, the police resorted to the usual practice of interviewing potential witnesses to the crime. Fortunately there was no shortage of them, for many saw two men — one of them dressed in a dark brown suit and cap, the other in a dark blue serge suit and bowler hat — leave the paint shop at around 7:30 in the morning of 27 March. Two of these witnesses — a professional boxer named Henry John Littlefield and a local girl named Ellen Stanton — positively identified the one in the dark brown suit as Alfred Stratton.

Although he did not have a criminal record, Alfred Stratton was known to the police as being a "vagabond" and was known to have contacts in the criminal underworld. Alfred's brother Albert was also a known police character, and the description of the other man given by the witnesses matched him. The identification of Alfred was apparently confirmed when Alfred's girlfriend Annie Cromarty told the police that he had disposed of his dark brown coat and changed his shoes the day after the murder; she also recalled him asking for a pair of old stockings. Based on this lead, warrants for the arrest of the pair were issued, and they were taken into custody on 2 April and fingerprinted. Based on a tip by Annie Cromarty, police were able to recover £4 that was buried near a local waterworks.

When Detective Inspector Collins received the two sets of fingerprints taken from the Stratton brothers, he compared them to the print on the cash box, and he concluded that it exactly matched with the right thumbprint of Alfred Stratton - the items are now in the Crime Museum in New Scotland Yard. The brothers were charged with murder and the trial set on 5 May 1905 at the Old Bailey.

Trial
When the Stratton brothers were brought to trial, MacNaghten, Collins, and Richard Muir, the prosecutor for the Crown, knew that they would face an uphill battle. Since the fingerprint was the only tangible evidence that they had, the case would stand or fall on that evidence, and the defence would try their best to undermine it. Fingerprinting pioneer Henry Faulds was a vocal detractor, because he had the mistaken notion that one fingerprint match was unreliable; thus the defence retained him as a witness. Also set to testify for the defence was Dr John George Garson, who advocated anthropometry over fingerprinting as a means of identification. Both men were professional rivals of Edward Henry, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, who established the Fingerprint Bureau and was responsible for the acceptance of fingerprinting in the English legal system; he was also in attendance.

The prosecution called over 40 witnesses to the stand. Muir and his team wanted to place the two defendants at the scene of the crime, and despite Muir's inherent distrust of eyewitness testimony, he was counting on their consistency to reinforce the fingerprint evidence. Although some of them like Henry Alfred Jennings, a local milkman, were not able to make a positive identification of the defendants despite being consistent in their general appearance, others like Henry Littlefield and Ellen Stanton were positive in their identification of Alfred Stratton. The Home Office pathologist who did the post-mortem on the Farrows told the court that the injuries on the Farrows were consistent with being inflicted by weapons similar to the tools that the brothers had in their possession.

Kate Wade, Albert Stratton's girlfriend, testified that Albert was not with her during the night of the murder, and he usually stayed with her. In addition, Annie Cromarty, Alfred's girlfriend, testified that Alfred had come home on the morning of 27 March with a good amount of money without explaining where he obtained it; she also added that he threw out the clothes that he wore that day when he saw the newspaper accounts of the murder, and that Alfred asked her to tell the police, or anyone else who asked, that he was with her the night of the murder.

However, the defense counsel, H.G. Rooth, Curtis Bennett and Harold Morris, were able to give plausible alternative explanations, which would tend to cast doubt on the prosecution's witnesses, so much so that they were confident enough to have Alfred Stratton take the stand. He testified that at about 2:30 in the morning of the 27th, he was awakened by his brother Albert who was tapping on the window and wanted to borrow money from him for a night's lodging. He replied that he would check if he had some, and when Alfred came back to tell his brother that he had none, Albert was gone. He went out and found his brother some distance away, in Regent Street. It was there that they were seen by several witnesses who testified having seen them at around that time. He told his brother that he had no money and offered to let him stay for the night. Albert agreed and slept on the floor, and the brothers stayed until 9 in the morning. He explained the £4 that was recovered by the police as money which he won over a boxing contest a couple of months before. He buried the money three weeks prior to the murders and he intended to give the money to Annie Cromarty.

Muir had anticipated this tactic by the defence, and before calling Inspector Collins, he summoned William Gittings, who worked in the jail where the Stratton brothers were confined awaiting trial. Gittings related a conversation that he had with Albert Stratton, who said, "I reckon he (Alfred) will get strung up and I shall get about ten years…He has led me into this." Muir hoped to impress the jury into thinking that that statement would be counted as a confession. Then he called Inspector Collins to the stand.

Expert testimony
It was Muir's intention to first establish Inspector Collins' credentials as an expert in the field of fingerprinting before the jury, then explain, in layman's terms, how fingerprinting worked as a means of identification. Collins was then made to discuss the fingerprint involved in the case. He showed the jury the cash box that was recovered from the scene, the fingerprint that he was able to obtain from the box, and demonstrated how it matched with the right thumb print of Alfred Stratton, for up to twelve points of agreement. At the request of a member of the jury Collins also demonstrated the difference in a print caused by various levels of pressure.

After Collins took the stand, the defence called Dr John Garson to the stand. They were hoping to discredit Collins' testimony by establishing his credentials as one of Inspector Collins' mentors, thus giving to the jury the impression that he was more of an expert than Collins in the study of fingerprinting. As expected, he testified that upon examination of the print taken from the cash box and that of Alfred Stratton, he would say with certainty that they were not in agreement.

However, the defence failed to reckon with the fact that Garson was not an expert of fingerprinting but of anthropometry, its rival field in identification. As a matter of fact, he had spoken against fingerprinting in the Belper Committee. And there was one more thing of which they were unaware, which Muir intended to use to his advantage.

In cross-examination, Muir called into evidence two letters, each written by Garson. One letter was to the Director of Public Prosecutions, the other was to the solicitor for the defence. Each letter said that Garson would be willing to testify for either side in the trial, depending on who would pay him more.

MR. MUIR. — How can you reconcile the writing of these two letters in the same day?

The witness (Dr Garson). — I am an independent witness.

The judge, Mr Justice Channell, remarked that after writing two such letters he would opine that Dr. Garson was an "absolutely untrustworthy" witness.

Having seen the credibility of Dr Garson as a witness shattered, the defence decided not to call Dr Faulds as a witness, fearing that Prosecutor Muir would have something to discredit him as well.

Conviction and execution
After both sides had given their summations and the jury had been given their final instructions, it took them a little more than two hours of deliberation to find the Stratton brothers guilty of murder, and on 6 May 1905 they were sentenced to death by hanging. The sentence was carried out on 23 May the same year.

References

Further reading
Beavan, Colin. Fingerprints: The Origins of Crime Detection and the Murder Case That Launched Forensic Science. New York: Hyperion, 2001.

External links
The Case That Made History
THE HISTORY OF FINGERPRINTING IN CRIMINAL IDENTIFICATION AND THE LAUNCH OF FORENSIC SCIENCE

English people convicted of murder
People convicted of murder by England and Wales
Executed English people
London crime history
People executed for murder
20th-century executions by England and Wales
Fingerprints
Criminal duos
History of the Metropolitan Police

Stratton Brothers case


Data Explorers is a privately owned financial data and software company headquartered in London, UK, with offices in New York, US, Edinburgh and Hong Kong. The company provides financial benchmarking information to the Securities lending Industry and short-side intelligence to the Investment Management community. The company has a global dataset covering $12 trillion of securities in the lending programs of over 20,000 institutional funds.

Data Explorers offers access to quantitative measurement of securities lending, performance, and risk. The company provides analytics and data compiled from trade and inventory data provided by market participants including Lenders, Beneficial Owners, Custodian Banks, Agency Lenders, Borrowers, Hedge Funds and Broker Dealers.

History
Data Explorers was established in 2002 by Charles Stopford Sackville and Mark Faulkner, the author of the Guide to Securities Lending Markets. Donal Smith, formerly of Thomson Reuters, was announced as CEO on 4 March 2008.

It is owned by the private equity firm Bowmark Capital.

Data Explorers was ranked 27th amongst the top 30 fastest growing UK private equity backed companies in The Sunday Times Deloitte Buyout Track 100 on 8 February 2011.

Data Explorers was voted the Best Information/Data Provider at the GSL Securities Lending Industry Awards on 4 November 2011, for the third year in a row.

At the twelfth annual techMARK awards on 17 November 2011, Data Explorers won the Emerging Star Award.

At the Financial World Innovation Awards on 2 December 2011, Data Explorers won the Information Provision Award for the Data Explorers News service.

2 April 2012: Markit, a leading, global financial information services company, announced the acquisition of Data Explorers, a leading provider of global securities lending data, from mid-market private equity firm Bowmark Capital.

Services and products
The Data Explorers database tracks $12 trillion of lendable securities, with $2 trillion of loan balances on average covering 30,000 equities, 40,000 corporate bonds and 80,000 government bonds. The company products include APIs, Data Feeds, Excel Toolkits, Mobile Apps, web-based platforms and channel partners including Bloomberg LLC, Thomson Reuters, Factset, Markit and Capital IQ.

Data Explorers data is used as a proxy for short interest data by the mainstream media, including The Financial Times, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg

Thomson Reuters partnered with Data Explorers on 11 March 2009, to provide short-side intelligence to investor relations professionals.

On 12 June 2009, Data Explorers partnered with Factset to provide short selling analysis and securities finance data to Factset Research System's analytics platform.

Markit announced a new index on September 16 2009, the Markit Data Explorers U.S. Sector Sentiment Index, that reflects sector-level investor sentiment derived from securities lending and short-selling information.

Data Explorers COO, Jonathan Morris, announced a partnership with Bloomberg L.P. on 23 September 2010 providing global long and short fund flow content to users of the Bloomberg Professional Service

On 6 October 2010, the Financial Times website www.ft.com included short selling activity from Data Explorers alongside market data on the Company pages and Stock screener

Nasdaq OMX announced a new index based on Data Explorers stock loan information to replicate return and volatility characteristic of the Nasdaq-100 Index on May 5, 2011. The index screens out stocks with low liquidity or those that are relatively expensive to borrow in the share-lending market.

On 19 September 2011, Data Explorers and Deltix announced that Data Explorers securities lending and repo data is available in the Deltix QuantOffice platform.

Capital IQ, the data and analytics arm of Standard & Poor's announced new content from Data Explorers added to its market data platform and Xpressfeed data management service on September 26 2011.

Data Explorers and Direct Edge announced a partnership on 6 October 2011, after integrating daily securities lending information onto the Direct Edge market data distribution platform.

On 23 January 2012, Data Explorers announced a partnership with Narrative Science to create a securities lending newswire using an artificial intelligence system.

Data Explorers launched the first iPhone app for the securities finance industry on 31 January 2012, for Hedge Funds, Prime Brokers and Custodians to access daily information on 3 million transactions.

On 5 February 2012, Data Explorers was ranked for the second year in a row in the Sunday Times Deloitte Buyout Track 100.

References

External links
 Data Explorers Homepage

Financial services companies of the United Kingdom
Financial data vendors
2002 establishments in the United Kingdom
British companies established in 2002
Financial services companies established in 2002
Privately held companies of the United Kingdom

Data Explorers