The Book of Nature is a religious and philosophical concept originating in the Latin Middle Ages that explores the relationship between religion and science, which views nature as a book for knowledge and understanding. Early theologians, such as St Paul, believed the Book of Nature was a source of God's revelation to humankind. He believed that when read alongside sacred scripture, the "book" and the study of God's creations would lead to a knowledge of God himself. This type of revelation is often referred to as a general revelation. The concept corresponds to the early Greek philosophical belief that humans, as part of a coherent universe, are capable of understanding the design of the natural world through reason. Philosophers, theologians, and scholars frequently deploy the concept. The phrase's was first used by Galileo, who used the term when writing about how "the book of nature [can become] readable and comprehensible."

History
From the earliest times in known civilizations, events in the natural world were expressed through a collection of stories concerning everyday life. In ancient times, it was believed that the visible, mortal world existed alongside an upper world of spirits and gods acting through nature to create a unified and intersecting moral and natural cosmos. Humans, living in a world that was acted upon by free-acting and conspiring gods of nature, attempted to understand their world and the actions of the divine by observing and correctly interpreting natural phenomena, such as the motion and position of stars and planets. Efforts to analyze and understand divine intentions led mortals to believe that intervention and influence over godly acts were possible - either through religious persuasions, such as prayer and gifts, or through magic, which depended on sorcery and the manipulation of nature to bend the will of the gods. Humans believed they could discover divine intentions through observing or manipulating the natural world. Thus, mankind had a reason to learn more about nature.

Around the sixth century BCE, humanity's relationship with the deities and nature began to change. Greek philosophers, such as Thales of Miletus, no longer viewed natural phenomena as the result of omnipotent gods. Instead, natural forces resided within nature, an integral part of a created world, and appeared under certain conditions that had little to do with personal deities. The Greeks believed that natural phenomena occurred by "necessity" through intersecting chains of "cause" and "effect." Greek philosophers, however, lacked a new vocabulary to express such abstract concepts as "necessity" or "cause" and consequently used words available to them to refer metaphorically to the new philosophy of nature. As such, they began to conceptualize the natural world in more specific terms that aligned with a unique philosophy that viewed nature as immanent and where natural phenomena occurred by necessity.

The Greek concept of nature, metaphorically expressed through the Book of Nature, gave birth to three philosophical traditions that became the wellspring for natural philosophy and early scientific thinking. Among the three traditions inspired by Plato, Aristotle, and Pythagoras, the Aristotelian corpus became a pervasive force in natural philosophy until it was challenged in early modern times. Natural philosophy, which encompassed a body of work whose purpose was to describe and explain the natural world, derived its foremost authority in the medieval era from Christian interpretations of Aristotle, in which his natural philosophy was viewed as a doctrine intended to explain natural events in terms of readily understood causes.

Aristotle reasoned that knowledge of natural phenomena was derived by abstraction from a sensory awareness of the natural world - in short, knowledge was obtained through sensory experience. A world constructed by abstract ideas alone could not exist. In his reasoning, the structures inherent in nature are revealed through a process of abstraction, which may result in metaphysical principles that can be used to explain various natural phenomena, including their causes and effects. Events with no identifiable reason happen by chance and reside outside the boundaries of natural philosophy. The search for causal explanations became a dominant focus in natural philosophy, whose origins lay in the Book of Nature as conceived by the earliest Greek philosophers. Aristotle's influence throughout Europe lasted centuries until the Enlightenment warranted fresh investigations of entrenched ideas.

Christianity and Greek culture
The Greeks constructed a view of the natural world in which all references to mythological origins and causes were removed. Greek philosophers inadvertently left the upper world vacant by abandoning ancient ties to free-acting, conspiring gods of nature. The new philosophy of nature made unseen mythological forces irrelevant. While some philosophers drifted toward atheism, others worked within the new philosophy to reconstitute the concept of a divine being. Consequently, the new outlook toward the natural world inspired the belief in one supreme force compatible with the new philosophy - in other words, monotheistic. However, the path from nature to rediscovering a divine being was uncertain. The belief in causality in nature implied an endless, interconnected chain of causation acting upon the natural world. It is presumed, however, that Greek thought denied the existence of a natural world where causality was infinite, which gave rise to the notion of "first cause," upon which the order of other causes must rely.

The first contact between Christianity and Greek culture occurred in Athens in the first century A.D. The Christian Scriptures note that within a few years of Christ's crucifixion, Paul and Silas were debating with Epicureans and Stoics at the Areopagus. Christian theologians viewed the Greeks as a pagan culture whose philosophers were obsessed with the wonders of the material, or the natural world. Observation and explanation of natural phenomena were of little value to the Church. Consequently, early Christian theologians dismissed Greek knowledge as perishable in contrast to actual knowledge derived from sacred Scripture. At the same time, the Church Fathers struggled with questions concerning the natural world and its creation that reflected the concerns of Greek philosophers.

Despite their rejection of pagan thinking, the Church Fathers benefited from Greek dialectic and ontology by inheriting a technical language that could help express solutions to their concerns. As Peter Harrison observes, "In the application of the principles of pagan philosophy to the raw materials of a faith, the content of which was expressed in those documents which were to become the New Testament, we can discern the beginnings of Christian theology." Eventually, Church Fathers would recognize the value of the natural world because it provided a means of deciphering God's work and acquiring true knowledge of Him. God was believed to have infused the material world with symbolic meaning, which, if understood by man, reveals higher spiritual truths.

What the Church Fathers needed, and did not inherit from the early Greek philosophers, was a method of interpreting the symbolic meanings embedded in the material world. According to Harrison, it was Church Father Origen in the third century who perfected a hermeneutical method that was first developed by the Platonists of the Alexandrian school by which the natural world could be persuaded to give up hidden meanings.

In Christianity, early Church Fathers appeared to use the idea of a book of nature, librum naturae, as part of a two-book theology: "Among the Fathers of the Church, explicit references to the Book of Nature can be found, in St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Augustine, John Cassian, St. John Chrysostom, Ephrem the Syrian, St. Maximus the Confessor." St Augustine suggested that Nature and the Bible were a two-volume set of books written by God and filled with divine knowledge.

Rediscovering the natural world
By the twelfth century, a renewed study of nature was beginning to emerge along with the recovered works of ancient philosophers, translated from Arabic to original Greek. The writings of Aristotle were seen as being among the most important of the ancient texts and had a remarkable influence among intellectuals. Interest in the material world, in conjunction with the doctrines of Aristotle, elevated sensory experience to new levels of importance. Earlier teachings concerning the relationship between God and man's knowledge of material things gave way to a world in which knowledge of the material world conveyed the knowledge of God. Whereas scholars and theologians once held a symbolist mentality of the natural world as expressive of spiritual realities, intellectual thinking now regarded nature as a "coherent entity which the senses could systematically investigate. The idea of nature is that of a particular ordering of natural objects, and the study of nature is the systematic investigation of that order."

The idea of order in nature implied a structure to the physical world whereby relationships between objects could be defined. According to Harrison, the twelfth century marked an important time in the Christian era when the world became invested with its patterns of order - patterns based on networks of likeness or similarities among material things, which led to a pre-modern knowledge of nature. It was believed that "While God has made all things that reside in the Book of Nature, certain objects in nature share similar characteristics with other objects, which delineates the sphere of nature and 'establishes the systematizing principles upon which knowledge of the natural world is based.'" Nature could now be read like a book.

The birth of modern science
By the sixteenth century, discord between traditional authorities was beginning to surface. The European Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment had begun, and many areas of tradition and knowledge were being challenged.

More universities were being built across Europe, and the printing press's invention meant more scientific and artistic ideas could be exchanged more easily. Ancient philosophies and accepted writings such as those of Galen and Ptolemy were set aside, and more theories were being actively investigated. New technology and equipment, such as improved telescopes and microscopes, could be used to explore what had previously been taken for granted. Improved ships meant that, for the first time, the entire globe could be visited, revealing new natural wonders which had never been seen before.

Ancient texts and doctrines were disputed, knowledge of the natural world was incomplete, interpretation of Christian Scripture was challenged, and Greek philosophy, which helped draft the Book of Nature, and Scripture were viewed as fundamentally opposed.

By this time, 'Nature' was moving from being seen as a personified, independent, active being to being seen as an impersonal machine, being seen by  Kepler as a kind of clockwork.

The Book of Nature was acquiring greater authority for its wisdom and as an unmediated source of natural and divine knowledge. 'Hands-on' investigations, whether of the human body, horticulture, or the stars, were encouraged. As a source of revelation, the Book of Nature remained moored to the Christian faith and occupied a prominent location in Western culture alongside the Bible.  Scientific philosophers such as Robert Boyle and Sir Isaac Newton believed that nature could teach humans the breadth of work which God had carried out; Francis Bacon told his readers that they could never be too well-versed in the book of God's Scripture or the book of God's nature. The Book of Nature was seen as a way of learning more about God.

Two books - two worlds?
The view of nature as divine revelation and the need for scientific research continued for several centuries. When the word 'scientist' began to replace the term 'natural philosopher' in the 1830s, the most talked-about scientific books in the UK were the eight-volume Bridgewater Treatises. These books, funded by the last  Earl of Bridgewater, were written by men appointed by the Royal Society to 'explore the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of Gd, as manifested in the Creation'.

At that time, nature and the divine were seen to be parallel. However, the concern that the two books would eventually collide was becoming increasingly evident among scholars, natural philosophers, and theologians, who saw the possibility of two separate and incompatible worlds - one determined to possess nature, and the other determined to uphold Christian faith. Works by scientists such as Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace began to show that nature may not reveal God, but may show that there is no god at all. Discoveries in paleontology led many to question the Christian scriptures and other divine beliefs. Scientists engaged in physical observation of nature separated themselves from spiritual issues. In contrast, the emerging disciplines of psychology and sociology led others to see religious belief as a temporary step in a society's development rather than a central and essential element. By 1841, Auguste Comte proposed that empirical observation was the final culmination of human society.

See also
 The Assayer

Notes

Bibliography

Evernden, Lorne Leslie Neil. The Social Creation of Nature. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.

Further reading
Binde, Per. "Nature in Roman Catholic Tradition." Anthropological Quarterly 74, no. 1 (January 2001): 15-27.
Blackwell, Richard J. Galileo, Bellarmine, and the Bible. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991.
Eddy, Matthew, and Knight, David M. Introduction. Natural Theology. By William Paley. 1802. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. ix-xxix.
Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Findlen, Paula. Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
Henry, John. The Scientific Revolution and the Origins of Modern Science. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Kay, Lily E. Who Wrote the Book of Life?: A History of the Genetic Code. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000.
Kosso, Peter. Reading the book of nature: an introduction to the philosophy of science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Nelson, Benjamin. "Certitude, and the Books of Scripture, Nature, and Conscience." In On the Roads to Modernity: Conscience, Science, and Civilizations. Selected Writings by Benjamin Nelson, edited by Toby E. Huff. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1981.

History of science
Religion and science
God in Christianity
Creationism
Medieval philosophy
Concepts in epistemology

Book of Nature


The Kwahu Plateau is a  long plateau in southern Ghana. It consists of the uplifted southern edge of the Volta River Basin. It forms the main watershed of Ghana, separating rivers in the Volta River system from rivers in the western half of Ghana which flows into the Atlantic Ocean (Birim, Pra, Ankobra). The plateau has an average elevation of 1,500 feet and its highest point is Mount Akmawa at 2,586 feet. The plateau is dissected by several valleys and is marked by towering peaks. To the south it borders dense forest country, which it shields from the harmattan winds of the interior. Cacao cultivation has been introduced in the west, through which traditional trade routes lead to the Atlantic; vegetable cultivation is stressed in the eastern sector. The largest and most important towns on the Kwahu Plateau are Wenchi, Mampong, Mpraeso, and Abetifi.

References

Landforms of Ghana
Plateaus of Africa

Kwahu Plateau


Kotayk Brewery ( ), is a brewing company founded in 1974 in Abovyan, Kotayk Province, Armenia.

History
Kotayk Brewery was founded in 1974, as a state-owned enterprise by the government of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, with a limited scale of production. After the completion of the entire equipment, the factory started large-scale production in 1978.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Gagik Tsarukyan took over the brewery in 1995 and started to produce beer under the brands Kotayk and Artsakh. In 1997, Castel Group became the major shareholders of the brewery through an investment of US$17 million, being one of the earliest foreign investors in Armenia. In March 2006, Tsarukyan sold his 29% share in the brewery to Castel Group for US$4 million. However, the company was sold back to Gagik Tsarukyan's Multi Group Concern in June 2011, to become a limited liability company.

Production
The brewery produces six varieties of beer:
Kotayk Gold (alc. 4.7%)
Kotayk Lager (alc. 4.2%)
Kotayk Tshani (alc. 4.5%)
Erebuni Strong (alc. 6.4%)
Erebuni (alc. 4.7%)
Urartu (alc. 4%)

References

External links
KOTAYK Brewery's Official website
A review

Beer in Armenia
Drink companies of the Soviet Union
Food and drink companies established in 1974
Beer brands
Armenian brands
1974 establishments in Armenia

Kotayk Brewery


The Battle of Virden, also known as the Virden Mine Riot and Virden Massacre, was a labor union conflict and a racial conflict in central Illinois that occurred on October 12, 1898. After a United Mine Workers of America local struck a mine in Virden, Illinois, the Chicago-Virden Coal Company hired armed detectives or security guards to accompany African-American strikebreakers to start production again. An armed conflict broke out when the train carrying these men arrived at Virden. Strikers were also armed: a total of five detective/security guards and eight striking mine workers were killed, with five guards and more than thirty miners wounded. In addition, at least one black strikebreaker on the train was wounded. The engineer was shot in the arm. This was one of several fatal conflicts in the area at the turn of the century that reflected both labor union tension and racial violence. Virden, at this point, became a sundown town, and most black miners were expelled from Macoupin County.

History
After the Illinois District of the UMWA settled with almost every operator, the Chicago-Virden Coal Company and a few others abrogated, and recruited African-American miners as strikebreakers. On September 24, a trainload of potential strikebreaking African-American miners pulled into Virden on the Chicago & Alton Railroad (C&A RR, multiple tracks to the west, right in the photograph). That train did not stop, but continued north to Springfield, Illinois without incident.

On October 12, 1898, another northbound train pulled into Virden, loaded with about over 100 African-American potential strikebreakers, along with their wives and children. The train had brought the recruited workers from Birmingham, Alabama via East St. Louis. There it had taken on detectives from the Thiel Detective Service Company, who were armed with Winchester rifles and orders to protect the strikebreakers. It stopped on the C&A RR tracks just outside the minehead stockade. As the strikers attempted to surrounded  the train, shooting from all sides commenced. The strikebreakers and families were unarmed, and sheltered under the seats, as the windows of the five-car train were blown out.

There were dead and wounded on both sides. Eight UMWA miners were killed, and 30 wounded; four Thiel guards were killed and five wounded. Some black strikebreakers on the train were also wounded but all casualties were not recorded. After twenty minutes of firing on both sides, the train's engineer pulled away from the minehead, keeping the strikebreakers in their cars, and continued northward to Springfield, Illinois. There, the injured and dead were taken off the train. The Alabamians were promised care and transportation by UMWA officials, and were persuaded to come to the union hall. The next day, October 13, the union abruptly announced it would not protect or care for the African Americans beyond six o'clock that evening. A pair of black miners tried to run from the union hall to the train station, but were caught by the white miners and badly beaten. A mob gathered at the union hall threatening to lynch the strikebreakers but Mayor Loren Wheeler of Springfield calmed them down and arranged to send the Birmingham miners to St Louis on the next train. There, they were abandoned without money, food, or warm clothes.

Illinois governor sends the National Guard

Governor Tanner ordered the Illinois National Guard to prevent any more strikebreakers from arriving in the state. He said that if another rail car carried strikebreakers into the state, he would "shoot it to pieces with Gatling guns." In compliance to Tanner's orders, the captain in charge of the Illinois Guard at Pana promised: "If any negros are brought into Pana while I am in charge, and if they refuse orders to retreat when ordered to do so, I will order my men to fire. If I lose every man under my command no negros shall land at Pana."

The governor admitted that he had no legal authority for his action to prevent strikebreakers, but said that he was doing the will of the people. The mine owners capitulated in mid-November and accepted the UMWA unionization of the Virden coal mines. The union and the mine owners agreed to segregate the Virden mines. Virden enforced segregation as a sundown town for decades thereafter. State records show that of 3,123 miners in Macoupin County (where Virden is located) in 1908, only one African-American miner was left.

A monument in the Virden town square commemorates the coal strike of 1898 and the battle of October 12 that was its bitter end. The monument contains a large bronze bas-relief that includes the names of those killed in the battle, and a copy of a recruiting handbill distributed by the Chicago-Virden Company in Birmingham, Alabama, to recruit the Negro miners. The body of the bas-relief is made of symbolic representations of the Chicago & Alton tracks and the assault on the strikers. The guards are shown pointing their Winchesters at the strikers and their families. Atop the bas-relief is a bronze portrait of Mary Harris Jones ("Mother Jones"). Mother Jones is buried in the Union Miners Cemetery in nearby Mount Olive, Illinois, alongside miners who died in the October 1898 conflict. Traditional commemorations of the Battle of Virden have been questioned, however, and the issue of reparations has been raised.

Related conflicts
The UMWA and coal mine owners were involved in similar conflicts in two other towns where the owners hired guards and strikebreakers:  the Pana Massacre in Pana, Illinois on April 10, 1899 and in Carterville, Illinois on September 17, 1899.

Both before and after the events at Virden, Governor John Riley Tanner ordered the state militia to Pana to keep the peace, as the miners tried to unionize the mine. The militia withdrew from Pana in March, and on April 10, 1899, white strikers killed two of their own along with five African-American strikebreakers.  At least 15 people were wounded. .

At Lauder (now Cambria, Illinois), a group of African-American miners traveling by train from Pana were attacked by organized strikers on June 30, 1899. The wife of a strikebreaker, Anna Karr, was shot and killed, and about twenty other persons wounded. At Carterville on September 17, union miners rioted against black strikebreakers, and five non-union miners were killed.  Local juries acquitted all those accused in those attacks.

A month after the  Virden conflict, an African-American, F. W. Stewart, was lynched at Lacon, Illinois by organized miners for refusing to honor the town of Toluca's new sundown rule. There was no active strike or strikebreaking at Toluca.

See also
 Murder of workers in labor disputes in the United States
 List of battles fought in Illinois
 List of incidents of civil unrest in the United States
 List of homicides in Illinois

References

External links
 Lenstra, Noah, The African-American mining experience in Illinois from 1800 to 1920
 "Miners Hang a Negro at Lacon" Chicago Daily Tribune, Nov 8, 1898
 Gutman, Herbert G, "Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America" (Chapter 3), Vintage Books, New York , 1976
 Victor Hicken, "The Virden and Pana Mine Wars of 1898" Originally written for the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, 52, 1959.
 Keiser, John H. "Black Strikebreakers and Racism in Illinois, 1865–1900" Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, vol. 65, no. 3, 1972, pp. 313–326
  Markwell, David. "A Turning Point: The Lasting Impact of the 1898 Virden Mine Riot." Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society , vol. 99, no. 3/4, 2006, pp. 211–227.
 Markwell, David Thomas, "The Best Organized Labor State in America: The People of District 12 and the Illinois Perspective, 1898–1932" [Doctoral dissertation, Southern Illinois University Carbondale]
 "The Battle of Virden (1989)", Sangamon County Historical Society, Sangamon Link website
 Ward, Alonzo, "The Specter of Black Labor: African-American Workers in Illinois Before the Great Migration, 1847 To 1910"] [Doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2017
  Gallie, Dennis, Reparations or Celebrations, The Virden Mine Riot of 1898
 Whatley, Warren C. "African-American Strikebreaking from the Civil War to the New Deal", Social Science History, vol. 17 no. 4, 1993, pp. 525–558]

1890s strikes in the United States
1898 labor disputes and strikes
Macoupin County, Illinois
Labor disputes led by the United Mine Workers of America
Mining in Illinois
1898 in the United States
Coal Wars
1898 in Illinois
Labor-related riots in the United States
Labor disputes in Illinois
October 1898 events
African-American history of Illinois

Battle of Virden


"The Guests" is an episode of the original The Outer Limits television show. It first aired on March 23, 1964, during the first season.

Introduction
A free-spirited, young man is forced against his will to walk up the stairs in an old house to a room where he encounters an alien being.

Plot
Wade Norton, a young drifter, finds an old man dying by the side of a remote country road. He picks up the man's pocketwatch, which contains a large photo of a young woman. Seeking help, he enters a mansion he sees atop the hill, whose inhabitants are surprisingly unhelpful but uncannily curious about the age of the man whom he found.  With the exception of a soulful young woman whose image is in the watch, all seem mean-spirited and uninterested.

Trying to leave through the front door, Norton is forced backward and upstairs by a mysterious compulsion to discover that the house is the lair of an amorphous, gelatinous alien being who is keeping the group of desperate humans suspended in time until it can comprehend the disposition of humanity. It interrogates him then returns him to the group residing in the house where he is to learn the reason for their captivity.

The young woman, knowing the potential fate of the drifter, leads Norton to an escape route, which is through a gate attached to a small cemetery plot accessible from the mansion.  However, she discloses to him that she cannot accompany him through the gate because all her years will catch up with her, and she will die. Thus, the drifter chooses to remain with her in spite of the warnings. As she realizes he will be trapped among them for eternity, she departs through the gate herself and, having eschewed her protection from the passage of time, withers and turns to dust. The observing alien has found the factors missing in its equation: love and self-sacrifice. Releasing Norton, who has discovered in himself hope, it proceeds to deconstruct the house and destroy its tenants. The mansion returns momentarily to its true appearance, that of a rock shaped like an enormous brain, and then disappears.

Notes
This episode has no opening or closing narration by the Control Voice.

Background
Donald S. Sanford was hired by Lou Morheim on the strength of his work on the Boris Karloff anthology series Thriller, for which he had scripted fifteen episodes including 'The Incredible Dr. Markesan' and 'The Cheaters', as Joseph Stefano had been looking for story material with a heavy emphasis on the Gothic to provide director Curtis Harrington with an 'Outer Limits' episode. (Harrington had directed the low-budget film Night Tide, an offbeat version of the Lorelei myth, in 1961 which had impressed Stefano.) A script by Charles Beaumont was given to Sanford for revision, though in the end Sanford came up with his own more Gothic plot, Harrington backed out and Paul Stanley directed.

Charles Beaumont, who had written many memorable episodes of The Twilight Zone, sold Joseph Stefano a script titled "An Ordinary Town" (dated Jan 3 1964), which was quite similar to a Twilight Zone episode he had written the previous year titled "Valley of the Shadow", in which a newspaper man, Philip Redfield, is trapped in an isolated rural town that keeps the benefits of a wondrous technology (possibly brought by aliens) to itself. "An Ordinary Town" substitutes Redfield with two protagonists and makes the alien influence a gigantic brain that controls the town. The only thing carried over from Beaumont's script to Sanford's is the shot of the enormous brain sitting atop a hill where a mansion should be. Everything else in 'The Guests' is Sanford's own story.

Sanford's script needed so little revision that Stefano neglected to add on the customary Control Voice speeches.

Cast

References

External links
 "The Guests" appreciation by Mark Holcomb

The Outer Limits (1963 TV series season 1) episodes
1964 American television episodes

The Guests (The Outer Limits)


Schwing GmbH is a German manufacturer of mobile and stationary concrete pumps and truck mixers, headquartered in Herne, as well as the parent company of Schwing Stetter in Memmingen. The business group is the world's largest concrete pump manufacturer. The company employs more than 3300 people worldwide in seven countries. In addition, there are individual distribution companies in more than 100 countries.

History

The Schwing Group was founded as a medium-sized enterprise on 17 March 1934, by Friedrich Wilhelm Schwing (* 1909; † 1992), a locksmith from Wanne-Eickel. In 1957, Schwing built the world's first oil-hydraulic two-cylinder concrete pump. Starting in 1964, the company also built the first large concrete mixers. In 1965, the company launched its first concrete pump which was mounted on a vehicle, and improved it in 1968 with the addition of a distribution mast. In 1973, the company built a high-speed concrete pump vehicle with a 45-meter-wide large distribution mast, an outstanding innovation at that time. In 1976, Schwing launched the first residual concrete processing plant on the market.

After the company founder handed over the company management to his two sons in 1980, they acquired the company Stetter GmbH in Memmingen in 1982, which produced truck mixers. The company's market domicile and the company's portfolio expanded. The company was now able to offer combined mixers with a concrete pump mounted on it and developed into a market leader.

At the end of the nineties there was a dispute between the owners, the company was about to sell to an American company. With the help of banks, a state guarantee and private assets, Gerhard Schwing succeeded in buying his brothers shares. Until 3 October 2013, he was the sole Managing Director of the GmbH. In 2012 Schwing was taken over by the Chinese producer XCMG for €300 million.

Other companies in the group
(Sorted by year)
since 1971 SCHWING GmbH, St. Stefan (Austria)
since 1974 SCHWING Hydraulik Elektronik GmbH, Herne (Deutschland)
since 1974 SCHWING America Inc., White Bear Township (USA)
since 1976 SCHWING Equipamentos Industriais Ltda., São Paulo (Brazil)
since 1982 SCHWING-Stetter S.A., Souffelweyersheim (France)
since 1982 SCHWING-Stetter B.V., Raamsdonksveer (Netherlands)
since 1982 SCHWING-Stetter Baumaschinen Ges.mbH, Vienna (Austria)
since 1993 Puschkiner Baumaschinenwerk, Saint Petersburg (Russia)
since 1993 SCHWING Stetter Ostrava s.r.o., Ostrava (Czech Republic)
since 1994 SCHWING Shanghai Machinery Company Ltd., Shanghai (China)
since 1997 SCHWING GmbH Korea, Seoul (Korea)
since 1998 M/s SCHWING-Stetter India Pvt. Ltd., Chennai (India)
since 1999 SCHWING-Stetter Skandinavien AB, Mölndal (Sweden)

References

External links
 www.schwing.de
 www.stetter.de
Welt online

1934 establishments in Germany
Construction equipment manufacturers of Germany
German brands

Schwing (company)


Sir Fulque Melville Gerald Noel Agnew, 10th Baronet (6 October 1900, Bangalore, India – 28 August 1975, Mzuzu, Malawi) was the son of Major Charles Hamlyn Agnew (3rd son of Sir Andrew Agnew of Lochnaw, 8th Baronet, and Lady Louisa Noel or Agnew of Lochnaw, daughter of the 1st Earl of Gainsborough) and his wife Lillian Anne Wolfe Murray of Cringltie, daughter of General Sir James Wolfe Murray of Cringltie KCB, married on 30 June 1897 but they divorced in 1908.

Succession
He succeeded as 10th Baronet, of Lochnaw on the death of his uncle Sir Andrew Noel Agnew of Lochnaw, 9th Baronet, on 14 July 1928. He did not use the title in later life. On his death in 1975 he was succeeded in the baronetcy by his son Crispin Agnew.

Education
He attended Harrow School, spent a year at Heidelberg University in the mid-1930s, and graduated as BSc as a mature student at the University of Edinburgh in the 1940s.

Career
In World War I he ran away from school at the age 17 to join the Machine Gun Corps as a private, although he was under age. He later flew in the Royal Flying Corps as a cadet; he recounted that he had a dog fight with the Red Baron, but as both aircraft had run out of ammunition both returned safely. He was commissioned as an Honorary 2nd Lt RFC 14 May 1920 [London Gazette]; he was shot down and wounded, spending a year in hospital and is said to have been Mentioned in Despatches.

After the war in 1921 he joined the 17th (later 17/21st) Lancers as a trooper with a view to obtaining a regular commission, and served in Ireland. He did not obtain a commission due to the post-war reductions in the armed forces and resigned from the 17/21st in November 1922. He joined Roger Pocock's. expedition to cross the Atlantic, and left the ship in San Francisco. He then got work as an extra in Hollywood, including driving a chariot in the first Ben Hur film. He then joined the US cavalry and subsequently the US Marine Corps serving in China. In 1928 on succeeding to the baronetcy he returned to Britain and farmed in Sussex for about a year, later joining the 4th Bn East Sussex Regiment as a lieutenant before again attempting to get a regular commission.  From about 1934 to 1937 he spent time in Europe: studying at Heidelberg University; walking in Southern Germany; canoeing down the Danube and walking in the Balkans. The family understood that he worked for British Intelligence during this period.

During the Second World War he registered as a conscientious objector, and served in the Friends Ambulance Unit in London and Greece. On 29 January 1945 Agnew was in charge of FAU Relief Detachment No 1 which arrived in Simi for relief work.

In 1948 he went to India, but could not obtain a permanent post there after independence. He worked, probably with the Red Cross, in refugee camps during the disruptions caused by the partition of India. He then emigrated to farm in South Africa in 1948 - his wife Swanzie Erskine's family having been in South Africa since 1857. Her grandfather, St Vincent Whitshed Erskine had been Surveyor General of South Africa. In 1952 Agnew was appointed Registrar of Fort Hare University, Cape Province, the only university then awarding degrees to black Africans. Swanzie taught geography and became head of the geography department. They allied with the opponents of apartheid, and in 1960, when the army was sent in to clamp down on unrest, the Agnews protested strongly. As a result, they, and other British staff, were expelled from South Africa.

Back in Britain, Agnew went to work for the University of Cambridge's Department of Education. In 1965 Swanzie Agnew was elected the first Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Malawi, and Agnew joined her as Assistant Registrar at the university for a short period until an African took over. In retirement he indulged his hobby of Bird Watching. He died at Mzuzu, Malawi in 1975 while on a trip to the Nyika National Park.

Family
He married Swanzie Erskine (9 June 1916 – 28 September 2000) in London on 9 October 1937. She was the daughter of Major Esmé Nourse Erskine CMG, MC formerly British Consul in Western Abyssinia (a cadet branch of the Earls of Buchan) and Elizabeth Susan Matilda Reinders (9 October 1937). They had issue:
Crispin Agnew, 11th Baronet (b.13 May 1944)

Swanzie Erskine was a lecturer in Geography at Edinburgh University during World War II and then Head of the Department of Geography, University of Fort Hare University, South Africa (1955 to 1960). Following deportation from South Africa in 1960 she was Headmistress of the lower Royal Ballet School, White Lodge, Richmond Park, London (1960 to 1964). In 1964 she was offered the Professorship of Earth Sciences at the new University of Malawi and served there until she resigned in 1976 in protest at the interference in academic life by the Banda Government. She retired to Edinburgh, Scotland, where she lived until she died in 2000.

References

 A Partnership of Principle: The Lives of Sir Fulque and Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, by James McCarthy, Published by James McCarthy, Edinburgh 2015.
thePeerage.com
'AGNEW, Fulque Melville Gerald Noel', Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2007; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007
 Obituary, Swanzie Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, The Daily Telegraph, 23 August 2001
A Tegla Davies: Friends Ambulance Unit, 1947 - http://ourstory.info/library/4-ww2/Friends/fau13.html.
 Witness to Partition ... 1947–48, Letters of Sir Fulque Agnew of Lochnaw Bt, Edited by Ged Martin http://www.gedmartin.net/index.php/agnew-a

1900 births
1975 deaths
Fulque
Baronets in the Baronetage of Nova Scotia
People educated at Harrow School
British Army personnel of World War I
Machine Gun Corps soldiers
British conscientious objectors
People associated with the Friends' Ambulance Unit
Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
Military personnel from Bangalore
Academic staff of the University of Malawi
United States Marines
20th-century Quakers

Fulque Agnew


Michel Laurin is a Canadian-born French vertebrate paleontologist whose specialities include the emergence of a land-based lifestyle among vertebrates, the evolution of body size and the origin and phylogeny of lissamphibians. He has also made important contributions to the literature on phylogenetic nomenclature.

As an undergraduate, he worked in the laboratory of Robert L. Carroll and earned his Ph.D. at the University of Toronto under the direction of Robert R. Reisz; his thesis concerned the osteology of seymouriamorphs. His 1991 review of diapsid phylogeny provided the broadest review of the subject up to that date. In 1995, Laurin and Reisz coauthored a widely cited article providing evidence that the synapsids are the sister group of all other amniotes. He later worked on untangling the phylogeny of the Stegocephalia, a group with a notoriously difficult phylogeny. He later moved to France; since 1998, he has been a CNRS researcher at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle.

He is an editor-in-chief of Comptes Rendus Palevol, a journal in the Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences family, as well as being a reviewing editor for the Journal of Evolutionary Biology. He has been a key contributor to the International Society for Phylogenetic Nomenclature, where he served as president 2008–2009 and as secretary 2010–2011.

References

Living people
Canadian paleontologists
Year of birth missing (living people)
University of Toronto alumni

Michel Laurin


Giovanni Francesco "Gianni" Rodari (; 23 October 1920 – 14 April 1980) was an Italian writer and journalist, most famous for his works of children's literature, notably Il romanzo di Cipollino. For his lasting contribution as a children's author he received the biennial Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1970. He is considered as Italy's most important 20th-century children's author and his books have been translated into many languages, though few have been published in English.

Biography
Rodari was born in Omegna, a small town on Lake Orta in the province of Verbania-Cusio-Ossola in northern Italy. His father, a baker, died when Rodari was only eight. Rodari and his two brothers, Cesare and Mario (who were younger than him), were raised by his mother in her native village, in the province of Varese. After three years at the seminary in Seveso, Rodari received his teacher's diploma at the age of seventeen and began to teach elementary classes in rural schools of the Varese district. He had an interest in music (three years of violin lessons) and literature (discovered the works of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Lenin and Trotsky which sharpened his critical sense). In 1939, for a short time, Rodari attended the Catholic University of Milan.

During World War II, Rodari had a deferment from the army due to his ill health. Due to his precarious financial situation, he applied for work at the Casa del Fascio and was forced to join the National Fascist Party. Traumatized by the loss of his two best friends and his favourite brother Cesare's incarceration in a German concentration camp, Rodari joined the Italian Communist Party in 1944 and participated in the Italian resistance movement.

In 1948, as a journalist for the Communist periodical L'Unità, he began writing books for children. In 1950, the Party installed him as editor of the new weekly children's magazine Il Pioniere in Rome. In 1951, Rodari published his first books, Il Libro delle Filastrocche and Il Romanzo di Cipollino.

In 1952, he travelled for the first time to the Soviet Union, which he frequented thereafter. In 1953, he married Maria Teresa Feretti, who four years later gave birth to their daughter, Paola. In 1957, Rodari passed the exam to become a professional journalist.

Rodari spent the years 1966–1969 working intensively on collaborative projects with children. In 1970 he received the Hans Christian Andersen Medal for children's literature, which gained him a wide international reputation as the best modern children's writer in Italian. The biennial award by the International Board on Books for Young People is the highest recognition available to a writer or illustrator of children's books. His works have been translated into numerous languages.

In 1979, after another trip to the Soviet Union, his health, never very robust, declined and his productivity diminished. He died in Rome, following a surgical operation, in April 1980.

Works

He is perhaps best known for developing the story of Cipollino. The story of Cipollino was popular enough to have a ballet staged in the Soviet Union in 1973, composed by Karen Khachaturian and choreographed by Henrich  Mayorov. Cipollino, or Little Onion, fights the unjust treatment of his fellow vegetable townfolk by the fruit royalty (Prince Lemon and the overly proud Tomato) in the garden kingdom. The main theme is the "struggle of the underclass and the powerful, good versus evil" and the importance of friendship in the face of difficulties. Rodari's works have continued to be published and re-illustrated by other authors after his death, including Nicoletta Costa.

 Il libro delle filastrocche ("The Book of Children's Poems", 1950)
 Il romanzo di Cipollino ("The Adventures of Cipollino, the Little Onion", 1951)
 Gelsomino nel paese dei bugiardi ("Gelsomino in the Country of Liars", 1958)
 Filastrocche in cielo e in terra ("Nursery Rhymes in the Sky and on Earth", 1960)
 Favole al telefono ("Telephone Tales", 1962)
 Gip nel televisore ("Gip in the Television", 1962)
 La freccia azzurra ("The Blue Arrow", 1964)
 La torta in cielo ("The Cake in the Sky", 1966)
 La grammatica della fantasia ("The Grammar of Fantasy", 1974)
 C'era due volte il barone Lamberto ovvero I misteri dell'isola di San Giulio (Twice Upon a Time there was a Baron called Lamberto or The Mysteries of the Isle of San Giulio, 1978, )
 Novelle fatte a macchina ("Stories written on a typewriter")
 Atalanta
 Piccoli Vagabondi

Tribute
On 23 October 2020 Google celebrated his 100th birthday with a Google Doodle.

See also

2703 Rodari

References

Further reading
 Argilli, Marcello, del Cornò, Lucio, and de Luca, Carmine (eds.), Le provocazioni della fantasia. Gianni Rodari scrittore e educatore (1993).
 Bini, G. (ed.), Leggere Rodari (1981).
 Boero, Pino, Una storia, tante storie: guida all'opera di Gianni Rodari (1992)
 Cambi, Franco, Collodi, De Amicis, Rodari : tre immagini d'infanzia. Dedalo, 1985.
 Gianni Rodari: la letteratura per l'infanzia, a cura di Enzo Catarsi. Pisa: Edizioni del Cerro, 2002
 Petrini, Enzo, Argilli, Marcello, and Bonardi, Carlo (eds.), Gianni Rodari Giunti-Marzocco, 1981.
 Rodari, Gianni, The Grammar of Fantasy, trans. with intro. Jack Zipes (1996).
 Se la fantasia cavalca con la ragione: prolungamenti degli itinerari suggeriti dall'opera di Gianni Rodari : convegno nel decennale della Grammatica della fantasia, organizzato da Comune e Provincia di Reggio Emilia, Regione Emilia Romagna, ARCI, Reggio Emilia, 10-12 novembre 1982 ; a cura di Carmine de Luca. Bergamo: Juvenilia, c1983
 Zagni, Patrizia, Gianni Rodari. Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1975

External links

 A Rodari short story, Polenta Fritta, translated into English
 Rodari-Website (Italian)
 Rodari-Biography (Italian)
 a Russian Chippolino cartoon
answers.com
 The Cafe Irreal: "Trolley Number 75" by Gianni Rodari (English translation)

1920 births
1980 deaths
Hans Christian Andersen Award for Writing winners
Italian children's writers
Italian science fiction writers
Italian male journalists
Italian magazine editors
Italian anti-fascists
Italian resistance movement members
Italian Communist Party politicians
20th-century Italian journalists
20th-century Italian politicians
Italian Marxist journalists
Italian Marxist writers
People from Omegna
20th-century Italian novelists
Italian male novelists
Burials at Campo Verano

Gianni Rodari


The German Bight (; ; ; ; ; sometimes also the German Bay) is the southeastern bight of the North Sea bounded by the Netherlands and Germany to the south, and Denmark and Germany to the east (the Jutland peninsula). To the north and west it is limited by the Dogger Bank. The Bight contains the Frisian and Danish Islands. The Wadden Sea is approximately ten to twelve kilometres wide at the location of the German Bight. The Frisian islands and the nearby coastal areas are collectively known as Frisia. The southern portion of the bight is also known as the Heligoland Bight. Between 1949 and 1956 the BBC Sea Area Forecast (Shipping Forecast) used "Heligoland" as the designation for the area now referred to as German Bight.

Use
The German Bight contains some of Germany's largest national parks by area, the aim of which is to protect the Wadden Sea, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the "nature" category. Due to being divided among three different states of Germany those protected areas fall into three different national parks, namely the Lower Saxon Wadden Sea National Park, the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea National Park and the small Hamburg Wadden Sea National Park mostly around the island of Neuwerk. Despite or maybe because of its unique natural environment, the German Bight is also subject to intense economic and recreational use with the Wadden Sea being one of Germany's most popular tourist destinations. Mudflat hiking is a particularly popular tourist activity usually undertaken with licensed guides employed by the national park service. Fishing and mussel banks (particularly oysters) are other important economic activities with crangon crangon a particularly well regarded product of local fishing. Energy extraction also plays an important role with Germany's only offshore oil rig (Mittelplate) located in the German Bight and an increasing penetration by offshore wind farms such as Alpha Ventus. While offshore wind farms are more expensive to build and require more expensive operations for maintenance and repair than land-based wind turbines the steadier winds out at sea allow for steadier power output and a higher capacity factor. Both these advantages are important enough to justify the higher cost as Germany is in the process of  phasing out nuclear energy and plans to  phase out all fossil fuels thereafter leaving few dispatchable electricity sources.

Traffic
The German Bight has also played an important role as a shipping lane since medieval times with the approach to the Port of Hamburg passing through it and then the Elbe River estuary. Other important ports along the German Bight are Bremerhaven/Bremen, Emden (important for export of motorcars, particularly those made at the local VW plant) and the JadeWeserPort at Wilhelmshaven which is Germany's only deepwater port. Shipping in the German Bight often relies on tidal channels (called "Priel" in German) for shipping lanes, but as the sediment is moved around by tides, wind and waves and as ships reach ever greater draughts extensive dredging is necessary to keep shipping lanes open. Some of the East Frisian Islands can be reached on foot at low tide and the sailing schedules of local ferries are tide-dependent. While the mudflats are usually barred to anything but foot traffic and more heavily protected areas of the national parks are off-limits to all but scientists, there is a scheduled horse drawn carriage service from the mainland to Neuwerk locally known as a Wattwagen (mud flats wagon). The island of Sylt can be reached by the railway-only Hindenburgdamm causeway which was built after World War I when the port on the mainland from which ferries to Sylt had left up to that point came under Danish rule following the 1920 Schleswig plebiscites. Some of the Halligen also have railway connections to the mainland but in some cases those are only usable at low tide. Those lines are the Dagebüll–Oland–Langeneß island railway and the Lüttmoorsiel-Nordstrandischmoor island railway. While there is no scheduled traffic, island residents can use their own (usually self-built) rail vehicles. In the past those were sail bogeys, but nowadays most are diesel driven draisines with battery-electric railcars increasingly gaining ground. The rail lines are also used by the government for coastal protection work and to transport goods and personnel.

See also
Bight (geography)
Frisia
Frisian Islands
Wadden Sea

References

Further reading

External links
Map of the region

Bays of Schleswig-Holstein
Frisia
Bays of Lower Saxony
Shipping Forecast areas
Bays of the Netherlands
Bights (geography)

German Bight


The National League was a political party in Ireland.  It was founded in 1926 by William Redmond and Thomas O'Donnell in support of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, a close relationship with the United Kingdom, continued membership of the British Commonwealth and conservative fiscal policy.

Its broadly Anglophile stance brought it the support of many Unionists. Supporters of the former Irish Parliamentary Party were also a natural target group, given that the party's leader was the son of John Redmond, who had himself been leader of the nationalist party. A third group to which it sought to appeal, according to Manning (1972), comprised middle-class economic sectoral interests whose members were alienated by the policies of the Cumann na nGaedheal government, such as licensed vintners. These groups would not benefit from the more statist economic approach of the Fianna Fáil or Labour parties. However, all these efforts were largely ineffectual. The contemporary political scientist Warner Moss described the League as "a party of malcontents representing nothing fundamental in Irish political divisions."

In the June 1927 general election, the National League won eight seats in Dáil Éireann and entered opposition. In August it supported Fianna Fáil's motion of no confidence in the Cumann na nGaedheal government, in an attempt to form an alternative government under Labour leader Thomas Johnson, with the National League as the junior partner and Fianna Fáil supporting the resulting minority government. However, two League TDs opposed this tactic—Vincent Rice, who defected to Cumann na nGaedheal, and John Jinks, who was absent from the vote. As such the motion failed, and the National League was portrayed as politically opportunist in its attempt at an alliance with two very different parties; National League supporters would have been far more likely to favour a continued Cumann na nGaedheal government than to allow the quasi-revolutionary Fianna Fáil to influence government policy.

The political discord associated with the Cumann na nGaedheal minority government prompted the September 1927 general election. Only two National League TDs, Redmond and James Coburn, were elected. The financial strain of two general elections in four months took its toll on the small parties, and the National League declared bankruptcy in 1928. It was disbanded in 1931.

General election results

References

Sources
 Barberis, Peter, John McHugh and Mike Tyldesley, 2005. Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organisations. London: Continuum International Publishing Group. ,
 Manning, Maurice, 1972. Irish Political Parties: An Introduction. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan.

See also
:Category:National League Party politicians

Defunct political parties in the Republic of Ireland
Political parties established in 1926
Political parties disestablished in 1931
1926 establishments in Ireland
1931 disestablishments in Ireland
Ireland and the Commonwealth of Nations

National League Party


The Chief Noonday Outdoor Center, also known as the Chief Noonday Group Camp Historic District,  is a recreational facility located on Chief Noonday Road (County Road 434), approximately one mile east of Briggs Road in Yankee Springs Township.  It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.

History
The land in what is now the Yankee Springs Recreation Area was originally settled in the 1830s, but by the 1930s the land was eroding and farms were failing.  The US government purchased a wide tract of land in the area and began reforestation.  The National Park Service's Recreation Development Area (RDAs) program was active during the Great Depression, providing jobs and constructing scores of organized camping facilities throughout the nation.  Four of these facilities were constructed in Michigan, and two of those were located in the Yankee Springs Recreation Area: the Long Lake Group Camp and this Chief Noonday Group Camp (originally the Mud Lake Camp).

Construction on the Chief Noonday Group Camp began in 1936. National Park Service architect Ernest F. Hartwick designed many of the buildings, while landscape architect Theodore N. Zaetsch laid out the plans for use of the land.

The camp was used continuously for some time, but recently the decision was made to refurbish the cabins one at a time.  As of 2013, one refurbished cabin, renamed the "Crane House cabin," was available for rental.

Description
The Long Lake Group Camp is located in the Yankee Springs Recreation Area.  The camp contains four villages arranged around a central fire pit, in addition to a central administration area containing a dining hall and kitchen complex and miscellaneous camp service facilities.  The buildings are primarily single-story frame structures with gable roofs, clad with rough-sawn vertical boards.  The buildings sit on concrete foundations with fieldstone veneers. Many of the larger buildings have massive fieldstone chimneys.

References

External links
Yankee Springs home page
Map of Yankee Springs area

Buildings and structures in Barry County, Michigan
Summer camps in Michigan
Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Michigan
National Register of Historic Places in Barry County, Michigan
Temporary populated places on the National Register of Historic Places

Chief Noonday Outdoor Center


The  or KNM is one of the major art museums in Japan.  It is in Higashiyama Ward in Kyoto.

The museum has art works and archaeological objects of Japan.  In the collection, there is an emphasis on material from the Heian period through the Edo period when Kyoto was the capital of Japan.

The Museum is currently undergoing renovation and will reopen in 2013.

History
KMN was established in 1889 as the Imperial Museum of Kyoto.

Construction on the museum building finished in October 1895.

The museum's first exhibition was opened in 1897.

The museum went through a series of name changes.  In 1900, it was called the Imperial Household Museum of Kyoto.

In 1924, the museum was donated to the City of Kyoto in honor of the marriage of Crown Prince Hirohito.  At that time, the name was changed to the Imperial Gift Museum of Kyoto.

The current name was selected upon in 1952.

Related pages
 Kyushu National Museum
 Nara National Museum (NNM)
 National Art Center, Tokyo (NACT)
 National Museum of Art, Osaka (NMAO)
 National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (MOMAK)
 National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (MOMAT)
 National Museum of Western Art (NMWA)
 Tokyo National Museum (TNM)
 List of Independent Administrative Institutes in Japan
 List of national museums

References

Other websites

 http://www.kyohaku.go.jp/eng/index_top.html ,

Art museums in Japan
Kyoto
National museums in Japan

Kyoto National Museum


Sven Selånger (born Sven Ivan Eriksson, 19 March 1907 – 9 November 1992) was a Swedish Nordic skier. He competed at the 1928, 1932 and 1936 Olympics in the Nordic combined and ski jumping events and won a silver in the jumping in 1936. In 1932 he finished fourth in the jumping and fifth in the Nordic combined. He was the Swedish Olympic flag bearer in 1932 and 1936.

Selånger won ski jumping bronze medals at the 1931, 1933, and 1934 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships and a gold medal in the 1933 nordic combined event. He won the Holmenkollen ski festival's ski jumping competition in 1939, the first non-Norwegian to do so. In 1939, Selånger became the first non-Norwegian to receive the Holmenkollen medal. He also won the Svenska Dagbladet Gold Medal in 1939.

Selånger was a bandy player in the 1920s. He competed in skiing as Sven Eriksson until the 1936 Winter Olympics, and then changed his surname to Selånger, after his hometown, to avoid being confused with numerous other Swedes named Eriksson. In retirement he returned to bandy, as a player and coach for IK Viking, and worked as a sporting goods trader.

References

External links
. Nordic combined profile
. Ski jumping profile
Holmenkollen medalists – click Holmenkollmedaljen for downloadable pdf file
Holmenkollen winners since 1892 – click Vinnere for downloadable pdf file

1907 births
1992 deaths
Sportspeople from Sundsvall
Swedish male ski jumpers
Swedish male Nordic combined skiers
Nordic combined skiers at the 1928 Winter Olympics
Nordic combined skiers at the 1932 Winter Olympics
Ski jumpers at the 1928 Winter Olympics
Ski jumpers at the 1932 Winter Olympics
Ski jumpers at the 1936 Winter Olympics
Olympic ski jumpers for Sweden
Olympic Nordic combined skiers for Sweden
Olympic silver medalists for Sweden
Holmenkollen medalists
Holmenkollen Ski Festival winners
Olympic medalists in ski jumping
FIS Nordic World Ski Championships medalists in Nordic combined
FIS Nordic World Ski Championships medalists in ski jumping
Medalists at the 1936 Winter Olympics

Sven Selånger


St Quintins Castle (also known as St Quentins Castle and Llanblethian Castle, ) is a castle located in the village of Llanblethian, Cowbridge, Wales. It is a scheduled monument and a Grade II* listed building and is under the care of Cadw. The site was first occupied with a defensive structure in about 1102 and the gatehouse and further building work took place around 1312. It was later used as a prison and was reported as being in a ruinous state by 1741.

Initial fortifications
Around 1102 Robert Fitzhamon, the first Norman Lord of Glamorgan bequeathed the lands of Llanblethian as a lordship to Herbert de St Quentin who is thought to have built the first fortification at the site of the castle. This initial construct was believed to have been a simple ringwork defence with timber walls, a bank and ditch. A rectangular stone keep was built in the late 12th century, whose remains can now be found within the later gatehouse. This keep may have replaced a similar wooden structure.

14th-century reinforcements
The lordship remained with the St Quentin family until 1233 when the land was seized by Richard Siward, but he then lost it to Earl Richard de Clare in 1245. Richard de Clare seized large areas of this part of Glamorganshire, from Cowbridge to Llantrisant, but it was his grandson, Earl Gilbert de Clare, who began to build the stone structure of St Quintins Castle which stands today. This was thought to have been roughly after 1307, but Gilbert de Clare was killed in the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 before the castle was completed. Modern historians believe that the lack of inner courtyard buildings and the weakness of the curtain wall points to the hypothesis that the castle was never fully completed.

Defensive layout
The castle itself is a rectangular stone walled enclosure, roughly 64 metres East to West. The walls are roughly 120 centimetres in thickness. It is set on a spur above steep slopes on all sides apart from the East side. The weak East side of the fortification is protected by a twin-tower gatehouse and a further two towers East entrance facade. The best defensive side is the southern side which falls away sharply to the River Thaw. It was reported as being ruinous by 1741.

The castle today
The base of a semi-octagonal tower can be seen at the southeast corner of the castle and parts of a tower at the southwest corner. The ivy-clad gatehouse is between these and is a substantial structure where you can see the slits for the two portcullises and the fittings for the sets of strong doors. The remains of the keep are largely rubble and little remains of the bailey walls on the east, north and south sides. It is a scheduled monument and a Grade II* listed building.

See also
 List of castles in Wales

References

External links

Castles of Wales

Virtual Tour

Castles in the Vale of Glamorgan
Grade II* listed buildings in the Vale of Glamorgan
Grade II* listed castles in Wales
Cadw
Llanblethian

St Quintins Castle


The Morane-Saulnier MS.760 Paris is a French four-seat jet trainer and liaison aircraft designed and manufactured by Morane-Saulnier.

The Paris was based upon an earlier proposed trainer aircraft, the MS.755 Fleuret. Following the failure of the French Air Force to select the Fleuret, Morane-Saulnier opted to develop the design into a liaison aircraft and compact business jet. The primary difference between the two designs was the altered seating arrangement, the original side-by-side seating two-seat cockpit was modified to allow for the addition of another row of two seats to accommodate passengers. The Paris retained the flight characteristics of the Fleuret along with the option for installing armaments, which maintained its potential for use as a military trainer as well for civil aviation. On 29 July 1954, the prototype performed the type's maiden flight.

The primary operators of the Paris were the French air services, who used the type for liaison purposes between 1959 and 1997. During 1955, Morane-Saulnier and American aviation company Beech Aircraft formed a joint venture to market the Paris as the first business jet on the North American market, but the venture was dissolved a few years later due to a lack of customer interest. During the 1960s more advanced variants were developed such as the MS.760B Paris II and the six-seat MS.760C Paris III; the latter would not enter production however. While four-seat propeller planes are commonplace, jet-powered aircraft with this seating arrangement, such as the Grumman EA-6B Prowler combat aircraft, have remained comparatively rare.

Design and development

Origins
The Paris has its origins within an earlier jet trainer aircraft developed by French aircraft manufacturer Morane-Saulnier. During the early 1950s, the French Air Force sought a jet trainer suitable to the ab-initio training sector; in response, Morane-Saulnier produced their own submission, designated as the MS.755 Fleuret. However, the military competition was ultimately won by another bid, which was produced in large numbers as the Fouga Magister. Shortly after this failure, Morane-Saulnier decided to embark upon a re-design of the MS.755 to allow it to function as a four-seat liaison aircraft instead; accordingly, the new aircraft was later given the designation of MS.760 Paris.

According to aerospace publication Flight International, the adaption from the earlier Fleuret to the Paris had been largely achieved via the elimination of the former's armament, the re-design of the cabin floor to remove the downward ejection hatch arrangement, and the repositioning of the cabin's rear bulkhead slightly aft. To avoid a reduction of the aircraft's available fuel tankage as a result of the latter change, the tank was re-profiled in other areas to expand it. In spite of these changes, the Paris still retained the favourable flying characteristics and did not entirely foreclose its use as a trainer aircraft.

The Paris differed from the majority of liaison aircraft then in service by its use of jet propulsion, instead of a turboprop or piston engine. According to M. Vichou, the head of the design department of Morane-Saulnier, the decision to adopt a pair of Turbomeca Marboré jet engines had been determined to be the superior option available; studies found that a single turboprop engine capable of providing at least 2,000 hp was necessary to produce a comparable performance, which would have resulted in the additional complications of appropriately accommodating a fairly large propeller in the design. Another alternative in using a pair of small turboprop engines was also less convenient than the Marboré engine, which could be positioned relatively low down in the airframe and in close proximity to the aircraft's centre-line.

The all-up weight of the Paris, including a payload of four passengers and 30 kg (66 lb) of baggage, was 3,397 kg (7,470 lb) and its maximum flight speed was 650 km/h (400 mph). According to the manufacturer, it was able to ascend to an altitude of 7,000m (22,900ft) in 18 minutes; at this altitude and at maximum continuous thrust, the aircraft had a flight endurance of 2 hours 45 minutes and a maximum range of 930 miles. In terms of fuel, the main fuselage tank contained up to 1,000 litres (220 gal), while a further 250 litres (55 gal) could be accommodated in each tip-tank. A feature that was intended to be used in emergency situations was the provisioning of the tip-tanks with electrically actuated valves, which enabled the rapid dumping of any remaining fuel. Actuation of the flaps, dive-brake and undercarriage was provided using electric motors delivering power via flexible shafts and Lear electric motors. The nose of the Paris contained much of the avionics and electrical systems, including the radio, alternators, batteries and motors. Access to the engines was provided via a completely detachable tail unit; the wings could also be similarly detached without the necessity of removing the undercarriage. The sizable main canopy was a one-piece moulding, being 8 mm (0.3 lin) thick. For increased passenger comfort, the cabin was both fully pressurized and air-conditioned.

On 29 July 1954, the prototype MS.760, registered F-WGVO (F-BGVO), took off on its maiden flight. Various features of its design, such as its T-shaped vertical stabilizer, low wing, and two Turbomeca Marboré II 400 kg turbojets internally mounted side by side within the aft fuselage, led to the aircraft being largely characterized for its inherent stability during flight. The French military emerged as a crucial early customer for the Paris, ordering a large batch of 50 aircraft to perform liaison duties for both the French Air Force and the French Navy, replacing older types such as the Nord Noralpha and Nord Norécrin. The securing of this order allowed Morane-Saulnier to proceed with quantity production of the type. On 27 February 1958, the first production aircraft performed its first flight. Early aircraft were provided with a total of four seats, two in the front and two in the back, and a retractable tricycle landing gear.

Production
By the early 1960s, the main production focus of Morane-Saulnier firmly set on the Paris. According to Flight International, by May 1961, 100 aircraft had been completed and the type was being manufactured at a rate of four per month. At the same time, roughly 200 aircraft were reportedly on order; while the French Air Force was still the primary customer for the type, additional export sales arrangements had been achieved with ten separate foreign countries. Flight International also reported that Morane-Saulnier had come to two separate agreements to license manufacturing of the Paris to other companies.

As early as 1955, even prior to the Paris having entered into production, it was known that American manufacturer Beech Aircraft held considerable interest in the programme, and was reportedly considered options for producing the type in North America under licence from Morane-Saulnier. For a time, the Paris was the only twin-jet civil aircraft and there was no direct competitors available. In response to this interest, senior design staff at the French company spent considerable time in the United States during the development phase of the programme. Reportedly, by 1955, Beechcraft had requested that the Paris, installed with the latest model of the Marboré engine, be dispatched to North American to perform demonstration flights totalling 500 flight hours. Later that year, this demonstration was conducted, during which the aircraft visited several major cities across both the United States and Canada.

Detailed production plans were mooted by Beechcraft and Morane-Saulnier; one key difference of the projected American-built aircraft was the adoption of the US-built Teledyne CAE J69 engine, a licence-built development of the Marboré, to take the place of the French-built powerplants. Beechcraft led approaches to both the United States Navy and the Royal Canadian Air Force, offering the Paris to meet their requirements for a jet-propelled trainer aircraft. During January 1958, the company announced a price of $210,000 for a single US-built Paris, spare parts, maintenance tooling, and a training course to familiarise operators with tending to the needs of the relatively unfamiliar jet engine; this measure was due to relatively few private companies, let alone private operators, possessing any experience with jet propulsion. However, American sales of the Paris were not forthcoming, reportedly, only two sales were made during Beechcraft's tenure as the type's distributor; by early 1961, when Beechcraft chose to abandon all distribution activities involving the type, a number of more advanced business jets, such as the Lockheed JetStar and the North American Sabreliner, had become available and gained traction in the market.

During 1961, production commenced on an improved variant of the type, designated as the MS.760B Paris II, fitted with a pair of Marboré VI 480 kg engines, wingtip fuel tanks, air conditioning, and an enlarged luggage compartment. Following the bankruptcy of Morane-Saulnier in 1961, the company was acquired by aviation firm Potez, who continued development on work on the type for a time. On 24 February 1964, a six-passenger version, designated MS.760C Paris III, performed its first flight; however, there was ultimately no production of this variant. Production of the Paris II ceased, and production of the Paris III never started as hopes of a substantial order to support its launch went unfulfilled. During the type's production run, a total of 153 aircraft (of both Paris I and Paris II variants) were manufactured for several different operators, including the French Air Force, the French Navy, the Argentinian Air Force, and the Brazilian Air Force.

Operational history

On 18 July 1956, the French government requisitioned a batch of 50 aircraft, including 14 of which that were destined for the Navy, from Morane-Saulnier. The first plane was delivered on 9 February 1959 to Naval Air Station (N.A.S.) Dugny-Le Bourget, before going to the C.E.P.A. (directly translated as Aeronautical Practical Experiment Center - in English this would probably be "Flight Test Centre") in 1959–60, for the flight tests necessary to develop training programs and materials. The type was also purchased by several countries such as Brazil and Argentina; 36 planes were license-built by Fabrica Militar de Aviones (FMA) in Argentina. The MS.760B Paris II, with various systems improvements and integral fuel tanks in the leading edges of the wing, first flew on 12 December 1960.

Between September 1962 and November 1974, a fleet of six MS.760Bs were flown on training duties by the Rijksluchtvaartschool based at Groningen Airport in the north of the Netherlands. From 1958 to the early 1970s, a single MS 760 was used as a flying classroom at the "College of Aeronautics" at Cranfield, United Kingdom; the aircraft was equipped to study stability and control together with performance as part of the MSc course.

The 14 MS.760 were assigned to Flight 11.S from 9 February 1959 onwards. The last plane, No. 88, was delivered on 27 July 1961. In 1965, MS.760 No. 48 was briefly assigned to Flight 3.S based at N.A.S Hyères. From 1970 onwards, all the 12 remaining MS.760s were assigned to Flight 2.S based at N.A.S. Lann-Bihoué. During May 1972, these aircraft were dispatched to the S.R.L. On 1 September 1981, this unit became Flight 57.S. Their missions were to provide various forms of training, such as Dassault Super Étendard and Vought F-8 Crusader pilot instrument flight rules (IFR) flight, all-weather flights, advanced training for new pilots, proficiency training for other pilots and A.L.P.A. (admirals commanding the carriers and Naval Aviation), and first and second Aerial Regions liaisons. Eight MS.760 Paris were on the unit's flightline. During October 1997, following 40 years of service, the aircraft were retired at Landivisiau Naval Air Station.

The MS.760s of the Argentine Air Force performed active combat operations during the suppression of the 1963 Argentine Navy Revolt, during which they were used to bomb a rebel-held radio station as well as the Punta Indio naval airfield, resulting in the destruction of several aircraft on the ground. During 2007, after 48 years of continuous service, the Argentine Air Force retired their last Paris.

During 2009, a private company, JetSet International Ltd, purchased in excess of 30 retired MS760s from the French and Argentinian governments, along with the acquisition of the type certificate, tooling, components, engineering plans and drawings from SOCATA, the successor company to Morane-Saulnier. The company reportedly had ambitions to refurbish existing airframes and to install current-generation jet engines and avionics for the purpose of selling them on to operators for approximately $550,000. That same year, a new two-ship aerial demonstration team, called Team MS760 Aerobatics, was formed, intending to use a pair of the refurbished aircraft.

Variants
 MS.760 Paris
 MS.760B Paris II
 MS.760C Paris III

Operators

 Argentine Air Force – 48, of which 36 were license-produced at Cordoba by FMA (c/n: 1A to 36A). Used between 1959 and 2007

 Brazilian Air Force - 30 assembled locally. Used between 1960 and 1974.

 French Air Force
 French Army
 French Navy

Specifications (MS.760 Paris I)

See also

References

Citations

Bibliography

 Phillips, Almarin., A. Paul Phillips and Thomas R. Phillips. "Biz Jets: Technology and Market Structure in the Corporate Jet Aircraft Industry." Springer Science & Business Media, 2012. .

Further reading

External links

 "Jet for the Private Pilot - Article in Flying Magazine"

1950s French military trainer aircraft
Morane-Saulnier aircraft
Mid-wing aircraft
Twinjets
T-tail aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1954

Morane-Saulnier MS.760 Paris


Captain of the People (, Lombard: Capitani del Popol) was an administrative title used in Italy during the Middle Ages, established essentially to balance the power and authority of the noble families of the Italian city-states.

History
It was created in the early 13th century when the populares, the increasingly wealthy classes of commoners (merchants, professionals, craftsmen and, in maritime cities, ship-owners) began to acquire roles in the communal administration of various Italian city-states, and needed a municipal officeholder able to counter the political power of the nobles (called potentes), represented usually by the podestà (a title used for chief magistrates and other top administrators in medieval Italian cities). One of the first capitani del popolo was created in Bologna in northern Italy, appointed in 1228.

The capitano del popolo exercised control of the podestà, sometimes flanked by two autonomous councils with representatives of local guilds of artisans and craftsmen () and the gonfalonieri, leaders of military units connected with city's parishes.

In the Republic of Florence, a capitano del popolo existed from 1250 as part of the attempt to free the city from the rule of Frederick II.

Such office also existed in the early stages of the Republic of Genoa, that elected Guglielmo Boccanegra as its first Capitano del popolo in 1257.

Towards the second half of the 13th century, however, the communal title of Capitano del popolo became a breeding ground for despotism and hereditary lordship. By gaining control of the election process for choosing the title-holder, many influential families (including aristocrats that the establishment of this office had contributed to keeping out of power) gained control over their cities and towns of residence, thus assuring their long-lasting influence and progressively transforming the Comune into a Signoria (i.e. lordship).

References

Bibliography

Gubernatorial titles

Medieval Italy
2nd millennium in Italy
Legal history of Italy

Capitano del popolo


Rennie Airth (born 1935) is a South African novelist who currently resides in Italy.  Airth has also worked as foreign correspondent for the Reuters news service.

Novels
His works include Snatch! (1969), Once A Spy (1981), and a series of murder mysteries set in England between 1921 and 1949 featuring Detective Inspector John Madden of Scotland Yard (later retired).  The first of these, River of Darkness (1999), won the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière for best international crime novel in 2000 and was nominated for Edgar, Anthony, and Macavity awards in the States. Airth found inspiration for that tale in a scrapbook about his uncle, a soldier killed in World War I. A sequel, The Blood-Dimmed Tide, was published in 2003, and a third book, The Dead of Winter, in 2009.  Although Airth initially intended to write a trilogy about Madden, in 2014 he produced a fourth entry in the series, The Reckoning, and followed that with The Death of Kings (2017).

Books
 Snatch (1969)
 Once A Spy (1981)
 Detective Inspector John Madden
 River of Darkness (1999)
 The Blood-Dimmed Tide (2004)
 The Dead of Winter (2009)
 The Reckoning (2014)
 The Death of Kings (2017)
 The Decent Inn of Death (2020)

References

External links
 The story behind The Reckoning - Essay by Rennie Airth on Upcoming4.me

1935 births
Living people
South African male novelists
South African expatriates in Italy
Alumni of Michaelhouse

Rennie Airth


The Alabama Governor's Mansion is the official residence of the governor of Alabama and the governor's family in Montgomery, the capital city of Alabama. The current Governor of Alabama, Kay Ivey lives at the governor's mansion.  The original governor's mansion for Alabama was occupied from 1911 until 1950, when the current mansion was acquired.  The current mansion was added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 3, 1972.

First residence
The first official residence for Alabama's governor was acquired in 1911. Prior to that time, governors of the state lived in private homes or local hotels during their terms of office. The first residence was built by Moses Sabel in 1906.  The house, a Beaux Arts brownstone, was located on the southwest corner of South Perry and South Streets in Montgomery.  It was purchased for use as an executive mansion by a special state commission, formed by an act of the Alabama Legislature.  This commission was authorized to contract for the construction, purchase, or improvement of a residence and the acquisition of grounds. The former Sabel home cost the state $46,500. Governor Emmet O'Neal was the first to occupy the mansion and Jim Folsom was the last. The state relocated the official residence from this house to the former Robert Ligon, Jr. house in 1950.  The old residence was then used as state offices for the Adjutant General and the Military Department until May 1959, when the property was sold to Montgomery Academy, a private secondary school. It was subsequently condemned and demolished in 1963 as part of the construction of Interstate 85.

Current residence
The current official residence for the governor replaced the first executive mansion in 1950. Designed in the Classical Revival or Neoclassical style by the architect Weatherly Carter, it was built in 1907 for Robert Fulwood Ligon, Jr., son of General Robert Fulwood Ligon.  The house was purchased by the state for $100,000, with an additional $130,000 spent on renovations and furnishings.  Governor Gordon Persons and his family were the first to occupy the former Ligon home, assuming possession of it the day of his inauguration, January 15, 1951.

The most prominent features of the exterior are a monumental Corinthian composite tetrastyle portico at the front, recessed wrought iron balconies on the second level, and an elaborate Ionic porte-cochère to one side.  The interior features 17 primary rooms, with a double staircase leading from the entrance hall to the second level. A formal garden, surrounded by a high ornamental wall, originally covered the entire rear grounds of the property, which extends through the city block to South Court Street. These grounds now feature gardens, a large pergola, a swimming pool in the shape of the state, a guest house, a stone grotto water feature, and tennis courts.  The entire property is surrounded by a wrought iron fence, with octagonal guard houses at the main gates.

In 2003, Patsy Riley, wife of then-Governor Bob Riley, coordinated an effort to renovate and reopen the Governor's Mansion to tourists.  The mansion had been closed to tourism for almost a decade.  She and her "First Lady and Friends of the Mansion" organization raised private funds and donations to finance this effort. It did not involve any taxpayer money.

References

External links

Alabama Governor's Mansion
"George Wallace, Presidential Contender" from C-SPAN's The Contenders, broadcast from the Alabama Governor's Mansion

National Register of Historic Places in Montgomery, Alabama
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Alabama
Governors' mansions in the United States
State government buildings in Alabama
Historic house museums in Alabama
Neoclassical architecture in Alabama
Beaux-Arts architecture in Alabama
Houses completed in 1907
Museums in Montgomery, Alabama
Houses in Montgomery, Alabama
Government buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Alabama

Alabama Governor's Mansion


교류 전력은 교류 회로의 전력을 말한다. 전기 회로의 일률은 회로의 주어진 지점을 지난 에너지의 흐름 속도이다. 교류 회로에서 유도자와 축전기 같은 에너지 저장 요소는 에너지 흐름의 방향을 주기적으로 반전시킬수 있다.

유효 전력, 무효 전력 과 피상 전력
In a simple alternating current (AC) circuit consisting of a source and a linear load, both the current and voltage are sinusoidal. If the load is purely resistive, the two quantities reverse their polarity at the same time. At every instant the product of voltage and current is positive or zero, the result being that the direction of energy flow does not reverse. In this case, only active power is transferred.

If the load is purely reactive, then the voltage and current are 90 degrees out of phase. For two quarters of each cycle, the product of voltage and current is positive, but for the other two quarters, the product is negative, indicating that on average, exactly as much energy flows into the load as flows back out. There is no net energy flow over each half cycle. In this case, only reactive power flows: There is no net transfer of energy to the load; however, electrical power does flow along the wires and returns by flowing in reverse along the same wires. The current required for this reactive power flow dissipates energy in the line resistance, even if the ideal load device consumes no energy itself. Practical loads have resistance as well as inductance, or capacitance, so both active and reactive powers will flow to normal loads.

Apparent power is the product of the rms values of voltage and current. Apparent power is taken into account when designing and operating power systems, because although the current associated with reactive power does no work at the load, it still must be supplied by the power source. Conductors, transformers and generators must be sized to carry the total current, not just the current that does useful work. Failure to provide for the supply of sufficient reactive power in electrical grids can lead to lowered voltage levels and, under certain operating conditions, to the complete collapse of the network or blackout. Another consequence is that adding the apparent power for two loads will not accurately give the total power unless they have the same phase difference between current and voltage (the same power factor).

Conventionally, capacitors are treated as if they generate reactive power and inductors as if they consume it. If a capacitor and an inductor are placed in parallel, then the currents flowing through the capacitor and the inductor tend to cancel rather than add. This is the fundamental mechanism for controlling the power factor in electric power transmission; capacitors (or inductors) are inserted in a circuit to partially compensate for reactive power 'consumed' ('generated') by the load. Purely capacitive circuits supply reactive power with the current waveform leading the voltage waveform by 90 degrees, while purely inductive circuits absorb reactive power with the current waveform lagging the voltage waveform by 90 degrees. The result of this is that capacitive and inductive circuit elements tend to cancel each other out.

Engineers use the following terms to describe energy flow in a system (and assign each of them a different unit to differentiate between them):
 Active power,<ref>Definition of Active Power in the International Electrotechnical Vocabulary </ref> P, or real power: watt (W);
 Reactive power, Q: volt-ampere reactive (var);
 Complex power, S: volt-ampere (VA);
 Apparent power, |S|: the magnitude of complex power S: volt-ampere (VA);
 Phase of voltage relative to current, φ: the angle of difference (in degrees) between current and voltage; . Current lagging voltage (quadrant I vector), current leading voltage (quadrant IV vector).

These are all denoted in the adjacent diagram (called a Power Triangle).

In the diagram, P is the active power, Q is the reactive power (in this case positive), S is the complex power and the length of S is the apparent power. Reactive power does not do any work, so it is represented as the imaginary axis of the vector diagram. Active power does do work, so it is the real axis.

The unit for power is the watt (symbol: W). Apparent power is often expressed in volt-amperes (VA) since it is the product of rms voltage and rms current. The unit for reactive power is var, which stands for volt-ampere reactive. Since reactive power transfers no net energy to the load, it is sometimes called "wattless" power. It does, however, serve an important function in electrical grids and its lack has been cited as a significant factor in the Northeast Blackout of 2003. Understanding the relationship among these three quantities lies at the heart of understanding power engineering. The mathematical relationship among them can be represented by vectors or expressed using complex numbers, S = P + j Q (where j'' is the imaginary unit).

같이 보기
 변압기

각주

외부 링크
 "AC Power Java Applet"

전력

교류 전력


The Triumph of Bacchus (Greek title is Ο Θρίαμβος του Βάκχου) is a painting by Diego Velázquez, now in the Museo del Prado, in Madrid. It is popularly known as Los borrachos or The Drinkers (politely, also The Drunks).

Velázquez painted The Triumph of Bacchus after arriving in Madrid from Seville and just before his voyage to Italy. The work was painted for Philip IV, who paid Velázquez 100 ducats for it. The painting shows Bacchus surrounded by drunks. In Madrid, Velázquez was able to study the king's collection of Italian paintings and was no doubt struck by the nudity in many paintings as well as the treatment of mythological subjects.

The Triumph of Bacchus has been described as the masterpiece of Velázquez's 1620s paintings.

Description

In the work, Bacchus is represented as a person at the center of a small celebration, but his skin is paler than that of his companions, rendering him more easily recognizable. Unusually, the rest of the group, apart from the figure naked to the waist behind the god, are in the contemporary costume of poor people in 17th-century Spain. The work represents Bacchus as the god who rewards or gifts men with wine, temporarily releasing them from their problems. In Baroque literature, Bacchus was considered an allegory of the liberation of man from the slavery of daily life.

The scene can be divided in two halves. On the left, there is the very luminous Bacchus figure, his dominant but relaxed pose somewhat reminiscent of that of Christ in many Last Judgement scenes, who is often shown seated and naked to the waist. Bacchus and the character behind him are represented in the traditional loose robes used for depictions of classical myth. The idealization of the god's face is highlighted by the clear light which illuminates him in a more classicist style. The right side, however, presents some drunkards, men of the streets that invite us to join their party, with a very Spanish atmosphere similar to José de Ribera in style. There is no idealization present in their large and worn-out faces, though the figure kneeling in front of the god is younger and better dressed than the others, with a sword and tall boots. The light which illuminates Bacchus is absent on this side; the figures are shown with chiaroscuro and have much darker skin.

In this work, Velázquez adopted a realist treatment of a mythological subject, a tendency he would pursue further during the following years.

There are various elements of naturalism in this work, such as the bottle and pitcher which appear on the ground close to the god's feet; Velázquez employed the contrast of the god's bright body to lend relief and texture to the bottle and pitcher, creating something akin to a still life. These jars are very similar to the ones which appear in paintings made by Velázquez during his period in Seville, and the combination of still life elements of naturalistic genre figures relates to the bodegon subjects he painted there.

Influence
The Triumph of Bacchus received a number of rather grand and elaborate idealized treatments in Renaissance art, of which Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne, then in the Spanish royal collection, was an imaginative variant. Usually Bacchus was processing in a chariot drawn by leopards, with a retinue of satyrs and revellers, including his guardian Silenus.  The use of the title for Velázquez's painting is almost ironic given the very different treatment here.

One inspiration for Velázquez is Caravaggio's treatments of religious subjects combining central figures in traditional iconographical robes with subsidiary figures in contemporary dress, and Ribera's naturalistic portraits of figures from antiquity, sometimes depicted as beggars.  Entertainments hosted by Bacchus appear as an occasional subject in art from the Renaissance onwards, as one type of the wider subject of the Feast of the gods in art: around 1550 Taddeo Zuccari painted a large feast at the Wedding of Bacchus and Ariadne in fresco in the Villa Giulia, Rome, Some paintings show Bacchus with revellers in contemporary modern dress, as in the Frangipane illustrated.

Mark Wallinger argued that The Triumph of Bacchus prefigured Las Meninas and stated, "Velázquez presents us with a complexity of focal points. [...] The look [the two liggers on the left of Bacchus] direct at the viewer slices clean through 350 years in the most disconcerting way. [...] However one might describe them, we are made complicit in the meaning of the work."

See also

List of works by Diego Velázquez
Feast of the Gods (art)

References

1629 paintings
Paintings by Diego Velázquez in the Museo del Prado
Mythological paintings by Diego Velázquez
Paintings of Bacchus
Food and drink paintings

The Triumph of Bacchus


Arthur Wellington Ross (25 March 1846 – 25 March 1901) was a Canadian politician, educator and lawyer.

Biography
Born in Nairn, Upper Canada, the son of Donald Ross, he studied at the Toronto Normal School and taught school in Cornwall, becoming headmaster for the local high school and then inspector of schools for Glengarry County. He continued his studies at the University of Toronto and then articled as an attorney and solicitor. In 1873, Ross married Jessie Flora Cattanach. He moved to Winnipeg in 1877, was admitted to the Manitoba bar in 1878 and set up practice with his brother in Winnipeg.

From 1878 to 1882, he was the Manitoba Liberal member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba for the electoral district of Springfield. From 1882 to 1896, he was the Liberal-Conservative member of the House of Commons of Canada for Lisgar.

Ross married Jesse Flora Cattanach and had four children: Dwight, Donald, Gertie, and John Hugo Ross. (John would die in the sinking of  in 1912 at the age of 36.)

Ross invested heavily in land and suffered heavy financial losses when land values crashed in 1882. In 1888, he entered the real estate business in Vancouver but returned to Winnipeg in 1891. After he retired from politics, he moved to Toronto, where he became involved in mining. Around 1899, he moved to Columbia Gardens in British Columbia near the gold mining area of Rossland. Ross suffered a stroke in 1901 and died from a second stroke after returning to Toronto for treatment.

References

1846 births
1901 deaths
Conservative Party of Canada (1867–1942) MPs
Manitoba Liberal Party MLAs
Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Manitoba

Arthur Wellington Ross


Ulex minor, the dwarf furze or dwarf gorse is an evergreen dwarf shrub in the family Fabaceae, native to eastern England, France, Spain and Portugal. It is restricted to lowland heathland habitats.

It normally grows about  tall, although in shaded, ungrazed conditions it may reach . It is a low-growing shrub, forming small bushes or often growing mingled with heather.  The leaves are limited to scales or small spines, and the shoots are modified into rather soft, green, densely crowded spines, about  long.

The flowers are yellow,  long, with the typical pea-flower structure; they are produced principally in the late summer and autumn, rarely before July. The fruit is a legume (pod), partly enclosed by the pale brown remnants of the flower.

Due to its relatively soft spines, dwarf furze is readily grazed by livestock and wild herbivores.

The distributions of dwarf furze and its close relative western gorse (Ulex gallii) hardly overlap, even in similar habitats.

minor
Plants described in 1797

Ulex minor


Mail is a Japanese horror manga series written and illustrated by Housui Yamazaki. The English translation is published by Dark Horse Comics.

The series centers around , a private eye who investigates cases dealing with ghosts. He uses a broomhandle pistol called  and hallowed ammunition to shoot ghosts that may or may not have possessed people and seal them inside the bullets which simply drop to the floor. The bullets are later ritually cleansed at a shrine. The pistol also has the ability to revive the dead by shooting a bullet with a ghost sealed inside into its original body. Akiba does this at the beginning of the third and final volume with the ghost of his childhood friend  and she becomes his sidekick.

The series is organized into short self-contained chapters with no overarching plot, though some chapters explore Akiba's backstory. However, most are simple cases that Akiba solves, usually with an introduction by Akiba talking to the reader at the beginning of the chapter.

A Japanese live-action movie adaption has been created from the series. In the movie version Takamasa Suga plays the role of Akiba while Mikoto is played by Chiaki Kuriyama.

List of chapters

References

External links
 Dark Horse official site

2004 films
2004 manga
Dark Horse Comics titles
Horror anime and manga
Live-action films based on manga
Japanese horror films
Kadokawa Shoten manga
Kadokawa Dwango franchises
Shōnen manga
2000s Japanese films

Mail (manga)