Bowden Housteads Woods are situated between Darnall and Handsworth, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The woods are encircled by Sheffield Outer Ring Road, Sheffield Parkway and Handsworth Road and are classified as ancient woodlands, having been in existence since the 17th century. The Car Brook flows through the wooded area. Spring brings a carpet of bluebells. The woods are a Local Nature Reserve.

History
The 1853 Ordnance Survey map of the area shows a sandstone quarry within the woods. Many of Handsworth's older buildings were constructed using the yellow sandstone from this quarry and two others in the district. A well ("Shilling Well") is also shown on maps, close to the junction of the woods with Clifton Square and what is now Handsworth Road (originally Main Road). The 1900 map, however, shows neither of these features.

From the mid 19th century to the mid 20th century, part of the woods (now the site of an Asda supermarket) was occupied by the Fisher Son and Sibray Nurseries and the land upon which the adjacent Triangle Estate now stands, was also once part of the woods, and many of its streets are named after types of trees; Larch Hill, Willow Drive, Maple Grove, Alder Lane and Chestnut Avenue.

Local miners built an open-air swimming pool in the woods in 1926. It was fed by waters from a natural spring and surrounded by a fence made of old railway sleepers. Alterations to the Sheffield Parkway, with the addition of the Mosborough link in 1990, included the construction of a new roundabout on the site of the old pool.

The statue, Parkway Man, created by Jason Thomson, is located in the woods, close to the Sheffield Parkway.

References

External links

Parks in Sheffield
Local Nature Reserves in South Yorkshire
Forests and woodlands of South Yorkshire

Bowden Housteads Woods


The Mind Robber is the second serial of the sixth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in five weekly parts from 14 September to 12 October 1968.

The serial is set outside of time and space in a world where fictional characters and mythological creatures including Medusa and the Minotaur exist. In the serial, the English fiction writer "the Master" (Emrys Jones) tries to recruit the time traveller the Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) to replace the Master's role as the creative power in this realm because of the Master's advancing age.

Plot
After defeating the Dominators and starting off a volcanic eruption, the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe find themselves and the TARDIS in the path of a lava flow. Upon trying to dematerialise out of the way, the TARDIS experiences a fault in the fluid link. At the insistence of Zoe and Jamie, the Doctor uses an emergency unit that takes the TARDIS into another dimension outside of reality. Upon their arrival into an empty white void, the travellers find themselves assaulted, first subtly then overtly, by an unseen force. The attack results in the TARDIS breaking apart and the travellers being scattered.

The Doctor, after experiencing a series of curious encounters, manages to find Jamie and Zoe. He soon deduces that they are in a world filled with fictional and mythological characters. They finally meet a person called "The Master" who seems to be in charge. It turns out that he is in fact an Earth man abducted and brought to the land of fiction in order to provide creative energies for the unseen aliens who are really in charge. Everything that the Doctor has experienced was a series of tests to prepare him for his role as replacement. The aliens' plan is to control everyone on Earth and bring them to the land of fiction, leaving the Earth itself empty for easy colonisation.

The Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe manage to foil the aliens' plans and to rescue the Master, freeing him of his mind control. As the central computer is destroyed, the Doctor hypothesises that everyone will be returned whence they came. In the end, the Doctor, Jamie, Zoe and the Master fade out of the world of fiction and the TARDIS appears to reform itself.

Production

Working titles for this story included Man Power, Another World and The Fact of Fiction. The Mind Robber was originally composed of four episodes, but the preceding serial, The Dominators, was reduced from six to five episodes. This resulted in a sparse first episode being written, as they had to use the limited budget of the replaced episode. This stretching of the story also resulted in the first four episodes only running between 19 and 22 minutes in length, and Episode 5 being the shortest Doctor Who episode ever at slightly over 18 minutes.

During production, actor Frazer Hines contracted chickenpox and was hurriedly replaced by Hamish Wilson for episode 2.  This also meant that a scene had to quickly be written to explain Jamie's sudden change in appearance. On both occasions before Jamie gets turned into a cut-out, he shouts, "creag an tuire". Frazer Hines joked on the DVD commentary that this is Scottish Gaelic for "vodka and tonic". It is close to the MacLaren clan's slogan "" ("the rock of the boar").

Location filming for The Mind Robber took place in June 1968 at Harrison's Rocks in Sussex and Kenley Aerodrome in Croydon. Other filming took place in the same month in Ealing Studios, while studio recording for episodes one and two also took place in June. Studio recording for episodes three, four, and five took place in July 1968. The white robots that close in on Jamie and Zoe in the void outside the TARDIS had been loaned from a previous use in the British science fiction television series Out of the Unknown.

Cast notes

Bernard Horsfall later played a Time Lord in The War Games (1969), Taron in Planet of the Daleks (1973) and Chancellor Goth in The Deadly Assassin (1976), all were directed by David Maloney. He also played Arnold Baynes in the audio play Davros.  Christopher Robbie appeared in Revenge of the Cybermen (1975), playing the Cyberleader. Ian Hines, who plays one of the soldiers, is the brother of Frazer Hines.

Broadcast and reception

Although a caption at the end of Episode 5 advertised The Invasion for the next week, it would be three weeks before it was broadcast due to the BBC's coverage of the 1968 Summer Olympics. The story was repeated on BBC2 on consecutive Fridays from 31 January – 28 February 1992, achieving viewing figures of 2.57, 2.64, 1.5, 1.5 and 3.46 million respectively.

The BBC's Audience Research Report showed a mostly negative reaction from viewers, with "just under a third" reacting favourably. The complaints mainly were around the story being more fantasy-orientated rather than the more dignified science fiction, making it seem "silly". Others liked the concept, but felt it was too complicated for children.

Paul Cornell, Martin Day, and Keith Topping wrote of the serial in The Discontinuity Guide (1995), "The combination of disturbing images (Jamie having his face taken away), superb literalism ('When is a door not a door?') and set pieces (the mental battle for control of Jamie and Zoe) makes this one of the most memorable stories of the era." In The Television Companion (1998), David J. Howe and Stephen James Walker praised the story's inventiveness, stating that it "remains a hugely enjoyable story, and one that stands up to repeated viewing". However, they said that the various characters that did not contribute much made the story "a bit of a jumble", and the fact that the serial was elongated by an episode had added padding. Howe and Walker also felt that the story went "downhill" after the "wonderful" first episode. In 2009, Mark Braxton of Radio Times praised the story's "brave" premise and its "delightful" but subtle humour. He also wrote that the inhabitants of the Land of Fiction were "well cast", despite being "middle-class" and "bookish". The A.V. Club reviewer Christopher Bahn described it as "one of the series' most genre-breaking and forward-thinking stories", with the various elements "creepy and frightening" rather than played for camp. While he noted the confusion of where reality ended and the Land of Fiction began and the ambiguous ending that did not seem to affirm if they had escaped it or not, Bahn felt that it had a "weird effect" of strengthening the theme of the danger being the Doctor's ongoing story. In 2010, Charlie Jane Anders of io9 listed the cliffhanger to the first episode — in which the TARDIS breaks apart — as one of the greatest cliffhangers in the history of Doctor Who.

Commercial releases

In print

A novelisation of this serial, written by Peter Ling, was published by Target Books in November 1986.

Home media

The Mind Robber was released on VHS in May 1990 and released on Region 2 DVD on 7 March 2005, and in North America on 6 September 2005.

Tales of the TARDIS
A special edition of the episode aired on BBC iPlayer on the 1st November 2023. The episode opens with the characters Jamie and Zoe in the "Memory TARDIS" and talk about past adventures, the episode is then played in full.

Critical analysis

A book length study of the serial, written by Andrew Hickey, was published as part of The Black Archive series from Obverse Books in 2016.

The serial was covered in volume 13 of the Doctor Who: The Complete History book series, which reprinted Andrew Pixley's 'Archive' features from Doctor Who Magazine and the various Doctor Who Magazine Special Editions, as well as new articles created specifically for the book.

References

External links

Doctor Who Locations – The Mind Robber

Target novelisation

Doctor Who serials novelised by Peter Ling
Second Doctor serials
1968 British television episodes
Television series based on Arthurian legend
Classical mythology in popular culture
Gulliver's Travels
Television shows based on The Three Musketeers
Metafictional television episodes
Rapunzel
Television shows based on fairy tales
Cultural depictions of Blackbeard
Cultural depictions of Medusa
Works based on Cyrano de Bergerac (play)

The Mind Robber


Carlotta Walls LaNier (; born December 18, 1942) is the youngest of the Little Rock Nine, a group of African-American students who, in 1957, were the first black students ever to attend classes at Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, United States. She was the first black female to graduate from Central High School. In 1999, LaNier and the rest of the Little Rock Nine were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by President Bill Clinton. LaNier was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 2004 and the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2015.

Early and personal life
Carlotta Walls LaNier was born on December 18, 1942, in Little Rock, Arkansas to Juanita and Cartelyou Walls. Cartelyou was a brick mason and a World War II veteran, while Juanita was a secretary in the Office of Public Housing. Cartelyou died in 1976 from leukemia. LaNier was the eldest of three girls. She was inspired by Rosa Parks when she refused to give up her seat in the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott.

LaNier first attended Dunbar Junior High School, a segregated school in Little Rock. However, after graduating, she volunteered to be one of the first African-Americans to attend Central High School. She married Ira (Ike) LaNier in 1968 with whom she had two children, Whitney and Brooke. She has two grandchildren, a granddaughter and a grandson. She currently resides in Englewood, Colorado.

LaNier learned about the chance to go to Central High School by her homeroom teacher at her junior high. Her teacher asked if anyone was interested in going to Central, and LaNier popped out of her seat and registered to go to the new school. Her parents didn't know she had been enrolled until the registration card showed up in the mail that July.

On February 9, 1960, LaNier's home was bombed. Two sticks of dynamite were placed on her home. The explosion removed bricks, destroyed three windows, and could be heard from two miles away. Her father was away, but LaNier was home alongside her mother and sisters. Nobody was harmed in the bombing, but it was the first bombing directed at one of the students. Despite the bombing, LaNier continued to attend the school.

Desegregation

On September 4, 1957, the Little Rock Nine made an unsuccessful attempt to enter Central High School, which had been segregated. The Arkansas National Guard, under orders from the governor, and an ngry mob of about 400 surrounded the school and prevented them from going in. On September 23, 1957, a mob of about 1000 people surrounded the school again as the students attempted to enter. The following day, President Dwight D. Eisenhower took control of the Arkansas National Guard from the governor and sent soldiers to accompany the students to school for protection. Soldiers were deployed at the school for the entirety of the school year, although they were unable to prevent incidents of violence against the group inside.

Despite the constant torment from the white students, Lanier never cried or retaliated. She remained strong through all the times she was called names, spat on, and knocked over. She knew she had to be there as an example student so that all schools could eventually be desegregated. During her time there, LaNier was an honor roll student.

In 1958, LaNier and the rest of the Little Rock Nine were awarded the Spingarn Medal by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), as was Daisy Bates. The crisis resulted in all of Little Rock's high schools being closed during that year. Despite this, LaNier returned to Central High in 1959 and graduated in 1964.

College and career
Following her graduation from Central High in 1960, LaNier attended Michigan State University for two years. However, her father was unable to find a job because of the crisis surrounding his daughter, and they moved to Denver, Colorado. LaNier graduated from Colorado State College (now the University of Northern Colorado) and began working at the YWCA as a program administrator for teens.  In 1977, she founded LaNier and Company, a real estate brokerage company.

For over 30 years, LaNier has worked as a professional real estate broker. She is currently working with Brokers Guild-Cherry Creek Ltd., and formerly worked with Prudential Colorado Real Estate. She is a member of Metrolist, Inc.

LaNier has been a member of the Colorado Aids Project, Jack and Jill of America, The Urban League, and the NAACP. She was also the president of the Little Rock Nine Foundation, an organization dedicated to ensuring equal access to education for African American students.

Writings
A Mighty Long Way: My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School. With Lisa Frazier Page. OneWorld/Ballantine, 2009, .

References

External links

 Carlotta Walls LaNier at America.gov
 Carlotta LaNier entry at the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame
 "Changing Minds: The Youngest of the Little Rock Nine Talks Justice" --an August 2009 interview with Carlotta Walls LaNier from Books on the Root
 A Mighty Long Way book review at The Huffington Post
 Little Rock Nine Foundation website

 http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/carlotta-walls-lanier-729/
 https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/carlotta-walls-lanier-39

1942 births
American civil rights activists
Women civil rights activists
Michigan State University alumni
Living people
Little Rock Nine
Spingarn Medal winners
Congressional Gold Medal recipients

Carlotta Walls LaNier


Richard Foran (born 16 June 1980) is an Irish football player and coach.

He played for St Patrick's Athletic, Shelbourne, Carlisle United, Oxford United, Motherwell, Southend United, Darlington and Inverness Caledonian Thistle. After retiring as a player he became the manager of Inverness, but he left this position after the club were relegated in his first season in charge.

Playing career

Ireland
Born in Dublin, Foran started his career in Ireland with St Patrick's Athletic but failed to make a first team appearance, before signing for fellow League of Ireland club Shelbourne in 2000. He finished his first season in the league by winning the PFAI Young Player of the Year award. Also during his debut season with Shelbourne, he scored home and away against Rosenborg in the second qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League, and made his debut for the Republic of Ireland under-21 international team in Cyprus.

Carlisle
In 2001, manager Roddy Collins spent £120,000 to secure Foran's signature for Carlisle United, in England. While at Brunton Park he scored twenty-nine goals, with sixteen of them coming in the 2001–2002 season, helping Carlisle to a respectable mid-table finish – despite the club's recent history of battling to stay in The Football League. Over the next two seasons, Carlisle struggled and Foran found it difficult to score goals. He had a short loan spell at Oxford United during the 2003–2004 season, but at the end of the campaign, Carlisle United were relegated. During his time at Carlisle, he had a highly publicised 'fight' in the tunnel with Huddersfield Town's Steve Yates after a series of fouls committed by Foran in the first-half. Both were sent-off, Yates lost a front tooth and Foran picked up a five-match ban.

Motherwell
Foran moved to Scottish Premier League outfit Motherwell on a free transfer in 2004, where he scored twenty-three league goals in ninety matches. He also played in the 2005 Scottish League Cup Final against Rangers, but Motherwell lost the match 5–1.

Southend
On 31 January 2007 he completed a £200,000 transfer to Southend United. His career at Southend started with an assist for Freddy Eastwood against Stoke City, after coming on as a substitute. He then had a man-of-the-match performance playing against Crystal Palace. However, his early, impressive start was somewhat tarnished when he was sent-off for a second bookable offence during a game against Leicester City. His first goal in a Southend shirt came in the 1–0 win against Burnley in the later part of the 2006–07 season. His only other goal for the club came in a Football League Trophy tie against Dagenham & Redbridge.

Foran went on-loan to Darlington from Southend, but due to a knee injury, he returned to his 'parent' club.
Nevertheless, he made a second loan-move to Darlington in October 2008 following an injury to their striker Liam Hatch. He did not play for Southend during the 2008–09 season and his contract was terminated in January 2009.

Inverness
Soon afterwards he joined Inverness CT on a deal until the end of the season, making him their first signing under manager Terry Butcher. Foran made his debut in a goalless draw against Celtic and scored his first goal for the club in a 2–0 win over Hibernian. He also netted a hat-trick for Inverness in an emphatic 5–1 win over Ayr United.

Following Inverness' relegation to the First Division in 2010, Foran became the club captain. He was involved in most of the games during the club's promotion back to the Scottish Premier League.

In January 2012, he signed a new-deal to keep him at the club until 2014. On 12 September 2013, Foran was awarded the SPFL Player of the Month for August.

Due to a complicated knee injury, he missed the latter part of the 2013–14 season and the entire 2014–15 campaign where he watched from the sidelines as Inverness lifted their first major honour with the Scottish Cup and finished the season in third place. Foran made three substitute appearances in the 2015–16 season before he suffered a calf muscle tear in February 2016. .

It was reported that he could miss the rest of the season but he managed to make a surprise return in March he was an unused substitute a 1–1 draw at Easter Road In The Scottish Cup Quarter Final against Hibernian and the following league game away To St Johnstone F.C. He came off the bench in the 65th minute in a home 1–0 defeat to Hamilton Academical F.C. he impressed Yogi Hughes enough that he gave Foran a surprise start in the 2-1 Quarter Final replay home defeat to Hibernian. He made a late substitute appearance in the 3-0 Highland derby win in Dingwall.

He was an unused substitute through the majority of April and did not make an appearance till the last day of the month a substitute appearance away to Partick Thistle F.C an emphatic 4–1 away win for the Caley Jags.

May was a better month for the Irishman making substitute appearances in the last 3 games of the season a 3–2 home loss against Dundee United F.C. and a 1–0 away win at Hamilton. He scored a penalty during the final day of the season against Dundee F.C. in a battle for seventh place after Liam Polworth got brought down in the box. He scored the resulting penalty it was the fourth goal it was his also his first goal since November 2013 the game ended 4-0 a result that secured 7th place in The SPFL. Another reason fans knew it was a special moment as Foran stated 24 hours before that he would like regular first team football if he were to continue being a football player and felt he would not get that at Inverness. Leading to speculation that he would leave along with David Raven who was nearing the end of his contract. Raven had fallen out with manager John Hughes. It did turn out to be his final goal not just for Inverness Caledonian Thistle but his last goal as a player. However, even though Foran took the penalty, the crowd were calling for him to let David Raven take it, due to him becoming a club hero because of his goal that sent Inverness into the Scottish Cup final the previous year, in the end Foran took the penalty and Raven stayed at the club, while manager at the time, John Hughes, left the club after a fall out, due to the lack of star players staying at the club, with Richie taking the reins the next week.

Coaching career

Inverness manager
On 30 May 2016, Foran was appointed manager of Inverness CT on a four-year contract. When he was appointed manager, Foran also announced his retirement from playing. During the summer, Inverness signed Billy King on loan from Hearts, Kevin McNaughton, Jake Mulraney and Scott Boden.

Inverness managed to progress through their 2016–17 Scottish League Cup group, but then lost their first league game (2–0 at Partick Thistle) and were knocked out of the League Cup by Alloa. This was followed by league defeats to Ross County and Hearts. Foran took blame for the loss to Hearts and promised to get better results and a few more players in to strengthen the squad. During the international break Foran signed Lonsana Doumbouya, Brad McKay, Dean Ebbe and Larnell Cole.

Inverness got their first league win of the season after the international break in early September, a 2–1 home win against St Johnstone. Inverness continued to struggle throughout the season, and were relegated to the Scottish Championship on the final day of the season. On Monday 29 May, Foran was relieved of his duties as Inverness boss.

Honours

Club
Inverness CT
Scottish First Division: 2009–10
Scottish Cup: 2014–15

Individual
PFAI Young Player of the Year: 2000–01
SPFL Player of the Month: August 2013

Managerial statistics

References

External links

1980 births
Living people
Association footballers from Dublin (city)
Republic of Ireland men's association footballers
Republic of Ireland men's under-21 international footballers
Men's association football forwards
St Patrick's Athletic F.C. players
Shelbourne F.C. players
Carlisle United F.C. players
Oxford United F.C. players
Motherwell F.C. players
Southend United F.C. players
Inverness Caledonian Thistle F.C. players
Scottish Premier League players
League of Ireland players
English Football League players
Scottish Football League players
Home Farm F.C. players
Darlington F.C. players
Scottish Professional Football League players
Expatriate men's footballers in Scotland
Expatriate men's footballers in England
Republic of Ireland expatriate men's association footballers
Belvedere F.C. players
Republic of Ireland association football managers
Inverness Caledonian Thistle F.C. managers
Scottish Professional Football League managers
Republic of Ireland expatriate association football managers
Expatriate football managers in Scotland
Irish expatriate sportspeople in England
Irish expatriate sportspeople in Scotland
People educated at St. Joseph's CBS, Fairview

Richie Foran


Ventastega (Venta referring to the Venta River at the Ketleri Formation where Ventastega was discovered) is an extinct genus of stem tetrapod that lived during the Upper Fammenian of the Late Devonian, approximately 372.2 to 358.9 million years ago. Only one species is known that belongs in the genus, Ventastega curonica, which was described in 1996 after fossils were discovered in 1933 and mistakenly associated with a fish called Polyplocodus wenjukovi. 'Curonica' in the species name refers to Curonia, the Latin name for Kurzeme, a region in western Latvia. Ventastega curonica was discovered in two localities in Latvia, and was the first stem tetrapod described in Latvia along with being only the 4th Devonian tetrapodomorph known at the time of description. Based on the morphology of both cranial and post-cranial elements discovered (see below), Ventastega is more primitive than other Devonian tetrapodomorphs including Acanthostega and Ichthyostega, and helps further understanding of the fish-tetrapod transition.

Discovery
Walter Gross was the first person to collect partial Ventastega remains, collecting some teeth in addition to scales from a locality called Ketleri in a Latvian Upper Famennian formation while on a collection trip in 1933. Gross attributed all remains to an osteolepiform fish named Polyplocodus wenjukov, before later in 1944 reattributing some of the fragments to a species called Panderichthys bystrowi when a piece of a lower jaw was collected from the same locality. Additional remains were collected from the locality and from another locality, Pavāri, in the same formation by researchers Per Erik Ahlberg, , and Oleg Lebedev. After this collection they realized the previously collected remains were assigned incorrectly, and were actually part of a newly discovered tetrapod, which they named and described in a paper published in 1996. In the follow years, several more fragments of Ventastega curonica remains have been discovered at both the Ketleri and Pavāri localities, with all specimens residing at the Natural History Museum of Latvia.

Description

Cranial elements

Lower jaw
The Ventastega holotype (LDM 81/521) is a right lower jaw ramus from Pavāri, and was described by Per Erik Ahlberg, Ervīns Lukševičs, and Oleg Lebedev. The lower jaw ramus total length was estimated to be over 200mm. This, combined with other cranial and post-cranial elements of Ventastega, made researchers predict that it was larger than Ichthyostega. The mandible is widest anterior to the first coronoid fang. The dentary is long and shallow, and has a butt joint as the contact with the coronoid series, indicating the dentary is loosely attached to the jaw. Similar to some tetrapods such as Acanthostega and Tulerpeton, the dentary's lateral surface is ornamented on the dorsal side with a smooth section only on the ventral margin. Another lower jaw specimen (LDM 81/552) is the only known complete Ventastega dentary, and shows Ventastega had 89 marginal teeth on each side of the jaw that are all approximately the same size, although they decrease in height as you move distally. Ventastega also has a pair of fangs on each dentary that are situated close to where the two dentaries meet at the most anterior part of the lower jaw, similar to Panderichthyesand Ichthyostega.. On the precoronoid and intercornoid, Ventastega has fangs pairs set within the marginal row of teeth. On the lower jaw, Ventastega had a surangular pit line, which is present in most Sarcopterygians but unknown in any other tetrapods. A primitive characteristic on Ventastega, shared only with fish and Ichthyostega, is the presence of a fully enclosed mandibular sensory canal which opens to the external world through only a single row of pores.

Dermal skull bones
Maxillae, premaxillae, palatines, and a vomer along with large skull fragments from Pavāri have been identified as Ventastega. The maxilla is long and low, and unlike some fish, the posterior third of the maxilla is the lowest part of the bone. The teeth on the maxilla are approximately equal in size to each other, except for teeth in the posterior part where they shrink in size. The presence of a coronoid fangs in Ventastega is a primitive feature lost in Ichthyostega, Acanthostega, and likely Tulerpeton, indicating that Ventastega was more basal on a phylogeny in comparison other tetrapods. The posterolateral margin of the choana has a smooth area, which is evidence of a loose and ligamentous contact between the maxilla and premaxilla. The premaxilla itself is morphologically similar to premaxillas in Acanthostega, Ichthyostega, and Tulerpeton. The region of maximum curvature along the premaxilla is approximately halfway along the bone, suggesting that Ventastega had a broad and spade-shaped snout. Seventeen teeth are in each premaxilla, with the teeth increasing in size moving from the tip of the snout to the region of maximum curvature. A partial Ventastega cheekplate consisting of the jugal, and parts of the lacrimal, quadratojugal, squamosal, and preopercular is convex in the vertical plane, indicating that Ventastega's skull was low in height. The preopercular in this specimen and several other partial skull fragments is a primitive tetrapod character, otherwise seen only in Ichthyostega, Acanthostega, and Crassigyrinus. The cephalic lateral lines in Ventastega have an intermediate morphology with the lines only being partially enclosed, between the primitive state of full enclosure of the lines in fish and Ichthyostega, and the fully open lines seen in Temnospondyls and other derived tetrapods. The ventral surface of the Ventastega pterygoid is covered is covered in denticles, a feature shared by all early tetrapods except Ichthyostega. Ventastega has a large spiracular notch, larger than seen in any known Devonian tetrapods. The increase in spiracular notch size in Devonian tetrapods has been hypothesized to indicate an increased reliance on air breathing.

Braincase
A pristinely preserved three-dimensional braincase of Ventastega has been discovered, and closely resembles the braincase of Acanthostega, except Ventastega had a uniquely large and bi-lobed nerve foramen on the anterior face of the prootic, along with an orbit-temporal region immediately dorsal to the basipterygoid processes. Shared features between the two taxa were the shape of the prootic region and its location to the ventral cranial fissure and fenestra vestibuli, along with the basipterygoid processes and laterally open post-temporal fossae.

Post-cranial elements

The clavicle has a broad ventral blade with a narrow stem, characteristic of early tetrapods, along with the stem having a thick anterior and thin posterior lamina that merges into the lateral rod surface. In the iliac blade, there is a pronounced bend/kink approximately one third from the proximal end of the blade, with the distal part of the blade bent dorsally and mesially. The interclavicle is approximately 25% smaller than the clavicle, and similar in shape in a Greererpeton interclavicle, suggesting it had a similar rhomboidal or kite shape. The clavicle itself is similar to the morphology of other early tetrapod clavicles, with a tapering clavicular stem and P-shaped cross section, although it has a unique and distinct unornamented strip along the anterior margin.

Classification
Ventastega curonica belongs to Tetrapoda in accordance with the traditional definition. According to a strict parsimony phylogeny that ranked 319 characters of tetrapods (defined less inclusively as a crown group) and other tetrapodomorphs, Ventastega is part of the stem-tetrapod group, with 96% bootstrapping consensus at its node (shown below). The group of stem-tetrapods contains any extinct taxon that, according to morphological analysis, is more closely related to lissamphibians (living amphibians) and amniotes than to any other crown group.

Ventastega in an evolutionary tree, as recovered from an analysis by Clack et al. 2016:

Role in fish–tetrapod transition
Ventastega has helped further research on the Fish-Tetrapod transition, the event during the Devonian when digit bearing tetrapods evolved from finned, fish ancestors. Research on rates of character changes in tetrapods have shown that there were high rates of character changes in the Devonian, which led to the conflicting hypotheses of either the tetrapods had few major changes that occurred during the Devonian or had many small but rapid morphology changes. The braincase of Ventastega has a mixture of fish-like and tetrapod-like characteristics, indicating that changes in the braincase during the fish-tetrapod transition occurred through a series of many small changes instead of one large change. The skull morphology of Ventastega has helped informed the hypothesis that changes in skull roof pattern proportions also occurred gradually, with the snout elongating and eyes increasing in size while moving dorsally over time.

Due to anoxic conditions in aquatic ecosystems during the Famennian (see Paleoenvironment below), early tetrapods such as Ventastega would have had a significant fitness advantage with the ability to exploit terrestrial environments.

Locomotion
No limb remains from Ventastega have been discovered to inform researchers about its locomotion, but paleontologists have been able to infer some basic information about its limbs and locomotion due to its overall morphological similarity to Acanthostega, a limbed tetrapod with digits. While no fossilized trackways from Ventastega have yet been discovered, discoveries of late Devonian trackways from closely related Ichthyostega and Acanthostega along with other early tetrapods indicate that the most stable gait for early tetrapods, including Ventastega, would a lateral-sequence walk. The trackway patterns, including marks from the tetrapods dragging their tails and bellies on the ground, have both been subaerial and subaqueous, indicating that the origin of terrestrial locomotion originated in tetrapods, not in their fish ancestors. Ventastega likely had subaqueous locomotion, which can be inferred from its close relation to Acanthostega, which researchers hypothesized moved subaqueously.

Paleoenvironment

Paleogeologists estimate that the Famennian, the global average temperature was about 19.5 °C. CO2 levels in the atmosphere during the Famennian were approximately 0.3%, higher than present, while O2 levels were lower than present, making up only 16% of the atmosphere. Plants were undergoing rapid diversification during the middle and late Devonian, and beginning to occupy vast tracts of land instead of being restricted to the coastal margins, which created new terrestrial habitats, including the first forests. The decomposition of these newly diversified plants would have increased nutrient concentrations in the surrounding water, creating intense algae growth, which would cause eutrophic and anoxic conditions in the water. Ventastega and other early tetrapods would have been able to gulp air, giving them a significant fitness advantage by allowing them to explore the banks of the anoxic rivers and lakes where they were found.

Stem and crown tetrapods have been found in both freshwater environments along with estuarine and lagoonal environments of varying salinity. However, the sedimentology of the Ketleri Formation, including sands interbedded with siltstones and clays, indicates that Ventastega was deposited in a low-tidal, near-shore environment in saline water.

Geographic and stratigraphic range
The Ketleri Formation or Ketleri Outcrop () is located in southwestern Latvia and northwestern Lithuania. Per Erik Ahlberg, Ervīns Lukševičs, and Oleg Lebedev collected Ventastega material both from the Ketleri locality where the original material was found, but also from another locality in the Ketleri formation, the Pavāri locality (. The Ketleri locality is at the Venta river near the former Ketleri hamlet, while the Pavāri locality is across the Ciecere river from the former Pavāri hamlet. The formation itself is composed of sand, sandstone, clay, and dolomitic marls, with the formation being 45m thick in Lithuania and 41-56m thick in Latvia. The formation is composed of three members, the lowermost Nīgrange member which has thick clayey carbonate deposits, the Pavāri member which consists of sand and sandstone with high levels of quartz, feldspar, and mica, and the upper Varkaļi member which is composed of fine feldspar-quartz sands and sandstones with high quantities of mica. The Pavāri member had a shallow erosional channel filled with well sorted sands indicating the presence of a stream in the Devonian that flowed in the channel from NNE to SSW, which is the characteristic direction of flow across the whole Ketleri formation. Sand particles filled in the erosional channel, and then were followed by slow, calm intertidal streams depositing poorly sorted silts and clays.

See also

 Acanthostega
 Ichthyostega
 Devonian period
 Latvia
 Sarcopterygians
 Tetrapodamorpha
 Tetrapods

References

Stegocephalians
Ichthyostegalia
Prehistoric lobe-finned fish genera
Late Devonian animals
Devonian bony fish
Devonian fish of Europe
Transitional fossils
Fossil taxa described in 1994
Fossils of Latvia
Famennian genera

Ventastega


The Watchdogs are a fictional right-wing terrorist group appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, usually as enemies of Captain America.

The Watchdogs have also been adapted into other media, having appeared in the TV series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the video game Marvel's Avengers.

Publication history
The Watchdogs first appeared in Captain America #335 (Nov 1987) and were created by writer Mark Gruenwald and artist Tom Morgan.

Most of the villains Mark Gruenwald introduced in Captain America were created to symbolize aspects of contemporary American culture and the world political situation. In the case of the Watchdogs, Gruenwald created them to symbolize censorship and repression.

Philosophy, goals, and activities
The Watchdogs are dedicated to restoring and preserving traditional American culture and values, and fighting against indecency, immorality, and sexual perversion. The Watchdogs seek to impose their conservative moral views on the general public; they believe in strict enforcement of family values, and are violently opposed to pornography, obscenity, sex education, abortion, homosexuality, and the teaching of evolutionary theory. Their terrorist activities, which include vandalism, arson, intimidation, assault, kidnapping, brainwashing, and murder, are targeted primarily at people who produce material which the Watchdogs consider pornographic, including nude art and sexually explicit music.

The Watchdogs are active in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, West Virginia, Missouri, plus Washington, D.C., and New York City. The Watchdogs imprison their kidnapping victims at a large compound in Vermont, where they force them to wear "dog collars" which the Watchdogs use to administer a painful electric shock as punishment for undesirable behavior. The prisoners are forced to participate in group activities such as sing-alongs, and exposed to constant televised Americana imagery such as baseball games, American flags, fields of flowers, and happy children.

Organization
The Watchdogs are headed by a leader referred to as Watchdog Prime (real name unknown), also called Watchdog One or Top Dog. Each state ("realm") is governed by a Head Dog. Each realm has one or more operating units ("packs"). Individual cells of Watchdogs, called "dogpounds," are organized by city and led by "pack leaders." Members call one another Dog-Brothers. Unbeknownst to nearly all of its membership, the Watchdogs were partially funded by the Red Skull through his dummy corporation, the Freedom Foundations; the Watchdogs receive the rest of their funding through public contributors and other undisclosed financiers. Watchdog Prime held the position of one of the Red Skull's "division chiefs," and the Red Skull saw in them an opportunity to harm America by creating chaos. Whether Watchdog Prime was deceived by the Skull or was secretly working against that which he claimed to uphold is unknown.

The Watchdogs use conventional technology, with all weapons and paraphernalia purchased from legitimate retailers; members use their own ground vehicles, usually pick up trucks, vans, motorcycles, and recreational vehicles. The Watchdogs wear identical costumes of synthetic stretch fabric resembling riot gear, consisting of tight-fighting purple shirts and pants with gold-colored gloves, leather boots and accessories, armored kevlar vests, and hard plastic helmets with built-in visors. They are trained in the use of firearms, and usually arm themselves with conventional American-manufactured handguns, shotguns, and rifles, and Army surplus explosives. Watchdogs also carry Army surplus walkie-talkies, and short-wave radios. The Red Skull denies Watchdog Prime's request for funding to purchase exotic weaponry, because use of such weapons would undermine the group's image as a grassroots organization.

A Watchdog member must be an adult male over 21 with a valid gun permit willing to sign an affidavit in blood that he is not a homosexual, believes in the Bible and the United States Constitution, disavows all immoral acts, and is willing to use violence to oppose all activities, materials, institutions, and individuals which are deemed by the organization to undermine the morality and decency of the United States.

Fictional team biography
The Watchdogs were introduced as the first group fought by John Walker and Lemar Hoskins after officially becoming the new Captain America and Bucky, respectively. A major Watchdog pack torches an adult bookstore and women's health clinic, and attempts to lynch an alleged pornographer. This pack is busted by John Walker, as the interim Captain America, who was initially conflicted in his opposition to the Watchdogs because he shared their political views. The Watchdogs later hold Walker's parents captive in an effort to get revenge upon him; during the ensuing melee, the Watchdogs murdered his parents, and Walker became a bitter enemy of the organization. The Red Skull was seen to have employed a single Watchdog in his elite cadre of bodyguards.

At the public ceremony where Walker relinquished his title of Captain America to Rogers, a lone Watchdog shot and apparently killed Walker. In the same issue, an unnamed member of the Watchdogs was killed by Scourge of the Underworld disguised as a government agent. The "Watchdog" was actually a government agent who staged the ruse on John Walker's behalf so that he can re-emerge as the U.S. Agent. As Captain America, Rogers continued to oppose the Watchdogs, especially once they kidnapped his then-girlfriend Bernie Rosenthal.

Although he and U.S. Agent arrested all the Watchdogs at the Vermont compound, the organization was apparently still active by Captain America #394, when Watchdog Prime joined his fellow division chiefs in a meeting with the Red Skull. At the time, they were expanding their operations and membership westward across the United States.

Other versions
In the Ultimate Marvel universe, the Watchdogs are a terrorist hate group that were killed by Scourge.

In other media

Television
The Watchdogs appear in media set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This version of the group is a radical Inhuman-hunting group who recruit new members from prisons.
 The group first appears in the television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., led by ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Felix Blake and secretly supported by Hydra in the third season before they are replaced by Anton Ivanov / The Superior and anti-Inhuman senator Ellen Nadeer in the fourth season.
 A group of Watchdogs led by an "Alpha Dog" appear in the companion web series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Slingshot.

Video games
The Watchdogs appear in Marvel's Avengers. This version of the group originated as a vigilante group who captured and eliminated Inhumans before becoming hired guns for A.I.M. and coming into conflict with the Avengers. They also utilize advanced weaponry such as flamethrowers, riot shields, and jet packs.

References

External links
 Watchdogs at Marvel Wiki
 Watchdogs at Comic Vine
 The Watchdogs at Bring on the Bad Guys

Characters created by Mark Gruenwald
Comic book terrorist organizations
Comics characters introduced in 1987
Fictional organizations in Marvel Comics

Watchdogs (Marvel Comics)


Janusz Kazimierz Zawodny (11 December 1921 – 8 April 2012) was a Polish-American historian, political scientist, and World War II soldier and resistance fighter of the Polish Underground State.

Life
Zawodny fought in the Polish Army during World War II, initially during the Invasion of Poland, then with the underground Home Army resistance movement. He took part as a second lieutenant in the 1944 Warsaw uprising during the September campaign, first a soldier of the ZWZ (Związek Walki Zbrojnej), then the AK (Armia Krajowa). In the Warsaw Uprising he was a platoon commander of a battalion AK "Lukasiriski", and later replaced the commander of the companies "Cost" in the group the "Pine" at the Old Town. In the street fighting against Waffen-SS troops, he was twice wounded: once in the hand by submachine gun fire at point-blank range, and once to his face and ear by schrapnel after he recovered, and threw back, a live German grenade that was tossed into the bunker he and his men were sheltering in. After the uprising, he was captured and became a prisoner of war in Oflag VII-A Murnau under a different name, "Turczyk", as he was wanted by the Gestapo beginning in April 1944. After liberation from Murnau, he joined the Second Polish Army Corps in Italy, where he commanded a battalion of heavy armored cars in the 12th Podolian Uhlan Regiment.

After the war (1945–48), he continued his military service with Polish Second Corps. When the Soviet Union took control of the country, creating the People's Republic of Poland, he decided to stay abroad and emigrated to the United States, ultimately residing in Washington state until his death in 2012.

He studied at the University of Iowa and earned his PhD in 1955 at Stanford University. He went on to teach at Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, St Antony's College (Oxford University), Claremont Graduate University and Pomona College.

He was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study Princeton (1971–72); Research Associate, Harvard University Center for International Affairs (1968); Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford (1961–62); Fellow (Faculty), Ford Foundation (1956, 1958–59, 1968–69); Fellow, Institute for Social & Behavioral Pathology, University of Chicago; Consultant, Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, The Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, Tufts University, Cambridge.

He also served as an advisor to the National Security Council (1979–84) for the Carter and Reagan presidential administrations.

Books
 Death in the Forest: The Story of the Katyn Forest Massacre (1962)
 Nothing but Honor: The Story of the Warsaw Uprising, 1944 (1978)
 Man and International Relations: Contribution of the Social Sciences to the Study of Conflict and Integration (1967), Editor and Contributor.
 Guide to the Study of International Relations (1966)
 The Warsaw Uprising in Combat and Diplomacy (1994)
 Participants and Witnesses of the Warsaw Uprising. Interviews (2004)
 Motyl na Śniegu (Butterfly in the Snow) (2004)

Awards
History Award, The J. Pilsudski Institute, New York, 1997
Literary Award, Kultura, Paris 1981
Gold Medal and Life Membership, Medicus Association Doctors of Medicine, for "Interdisciplinary Research," New York, 1980
2003 laureate honor "Guardian of National Remembrance" from Poland's Instytut Pamięci Narodowej

Decorations
Virtuti Militari
Polonia Restituta (Commander with Star) by President Aleksander Kwaśniewski on 6 September 1996 "in recognition of outstanding merit in activities for Poland"
Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland (Commander with Star) from President Lech Walesa on 9 March 1994 "for outstanding merit in journalism"
Cross of Valor
Gold and Silver Crosses of Merit with Swords
British War Medal 1939–45.

See also
List of Poles

References

External links
 Short bio at Józef Piłsudski Institute of America
 Short bio at IPN site

1921 births
2012 deaths
Polish emigrants to the United States
20th-century Polish historians
Polish male non-fiction writers
Writers from Warsaw
University of Iowa alumni
Stanford University alumni
Princeton University faculty
Polish military personnel of World War II
Pomona College faculty
Historians from California
People associated with the magazine "Kultura"

Janusz K. Zawodny


Tropical Depression Seven was a weak tropical depression that formed near the northeast Florida coast. It was the seventh tropical cyclone of the 2003 Atlantic hurricane season. The depression formed on July 25 from the same tropical wave that created another weather system. It was a small and disorganized depression, and it never became a tropical storm, which is stronger than a tropical depression. The depression moved onto land at St. Catherines Island, Georgia, and it quickly weakened. Because the storm was weak, the effects were limited to heavy rain in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.

Storm history

A tropical wave, which had also created Tropical Depression Six, combined itself with an upper-level low pressure area to create an area of deep convection near Hispaniola on July 23, 2003.  A mid- to lower-level circulation started to form inside the storm as it moved mostly in a north-northwest direction. According to surface and satellite observations, it is thought that the system became Tropical Depression Seven at 1200 UTC on July 25 about 60 miles (95 km) east of Daytona Beach, Florida. The system was caught in an environment characterized by high surface pressures.

At first, the depression moved west-northwest at about 13 mph (20 km/h), and most of the convection from the storm was separated from the center.  However, the cloud pattern became organized, and was made up of a number of curved banding features. The storm continued to move northwestward for its whole life, from the steering currents of a subtropical ridge and an approaching mid-level trough.

Moving through an area of cool water temperatures, as well as unfavorable upper-level winds, the depression was not able to get winds greater than 35 mph (55 km/h), and as a result did not gain tropical storm status.  Before landfall, the highest winds were measured to exist in a small area northeast of the center of circulation, where a well-defined group of clouds persisted.  Early on July 26, it moved onto land on St. Catherines Island, Georgia, and after slowly weakening over land, it died out on July 27.

Impact
The depression was never predicted to become tropical storm status. Because of this, no tropical storm warnings or watches were issued. However, flood watches were issued for part of Georgia and South Carolina. At Georgetown County, South Carolina, officials watched the storm closely.

The depression dropped light to moderate rain from Florida to the coast of North Carolina. The highest rain was 5.17 inches (131 mm) in Savannah, Georgia. Other rainfall totals of 2 to 3 in (50 to 75 mm) were common. There were no damages or casualties because of this depression.

Related pages
Atlantic hurricane
Tropical cyclone

References

2003 Atlantic hurricane season
2003 in Florida
Hurricanes in the United States
Tropical depressions
July 2003 events

Tropical Depression Seven (2003)


The Empire Service is an Inter-city rail service operated by Amtrak within the state of New York in the United States. The brand name originated with the New York Central Railroad in 1967. Trains on the line provide frequent daily service along the  Empire Corridor between New York City and Niagara Falls via Albany, the state capital.

During fiscal year 2018, the Empire Service carried 1,150,498 passengers on the line between New York City and Albany, while services between Albany and points west, including the  and , carried an additional 366,696. Ticket revenue on the New York City–Albany section in FY2016 was $49,361,545, an increase of 1.4% from FY2015, while revenue on the Albany–Toronto route was $22,143,803.

Services
Hourly weekday service is available on the southern portion of the line between New York Penn Station and Albany–Rensselaer. An additional two trains continue through to Niagara Falls. As of the April 14, 2019, timetable, seven trains operate along the line on most days–five between New York City and Albany, and two between New York City and Niagara Falls.

The Capital Region and Albany are served by two additional trains each day:

The Maple Leaf, which runs along the entire corridor before continuing across Central and Western New York and on to Toronto
The Lake Shore Limited, which follows the corridor through Central and Western New York as far as Buffalo–Depew en route to Chicago, with one section breaking off at Albany to serve Massachusetts en route to Boston.

The Adirondack to Montreal and Ethan Allen Express to Burlington also supplement service on the southern portion of the line between New York City and Albany. Both follow the corridor as far as Schenectady.

Downstate, in the Hudson Valley, the portion of the route from Poughkeepsie southward is shared with the Metro-North Railroad's Hudson Line, and sees frequent commuter service, with connections to the Empire Service at Poughkeepsie, Croton-Harmon, and Yonkers.

The Empire Service is one of four New York-based train routes that Amtrak operates with funding from the New York State Department of Transportation with the other three routes being the Adirondack, Maple Leaf, and Ethan Allen Express.

History

Today's Empire Service is the descendant of numerous routes dating to 1869, when Cornelius Vanderbilt merged his Hudson River Railroad (forerunner of today's Metro-North Hudson Line) with the New York Central Railroad (NYC), thus linking New York City with Albany.

Its route is largely coextensive with what was once the NYC's main line, which was the eastern portion of the "Water Level Route" from New York City to Chicago. The Buffalo-Niagara Falls leg was formerly part of an NYC subsidiary, the Buffalo and Niagara Falls Railroad, but passenger service was dropped in 1961.

On December 3, 1967, just months before its merger with the Pennsylvania Railroad to become the Penn Central Transportation Company, the Central reorganized all its passenger routes. All trains along the New York City-Buffalo corridor were consolidated under the Empire Service brand. Marketing emphasized convenient service within the state, with a reduced emphasis on long-distance trains which continued west of Buffalo. This program continued after the Penn Central merger. The new scheduling produced mixed results; passengers were deterred by the poor quality of the passenger cars and the inconvenient locations of stations along the route.

Penn Central handed the Empire Service, along with most of its other routes, to Amtrak on May 1, 1971. Initially, Amtrak retained seven daily trains on the New York City–Albany–Buffalo corridor: four operated from New York City to Albany, and three ran through to Buffalo. All service west of Buffalo was discontinued. All trains retained their ex-Penn Central numbers and were otherwise nameless. Westward service resumed briefly after May with the introduction of the Chicago–New York City Lake Shore, but this train was canceled on January 6, 1972.

The Empire Service name was restored on June 11, 1972, and individual names were added to the trains along the corridor on May 19, 1974.

Despite doubts about Amtrak's potential success, the company was key in reestablishing some discontinued services along the Empire Corridor. Service beyond Buffalo to Niagara Falls was reestablished with such trains as the Niagara Rainbow and the Maple Leaf. In addition Amtrak restored service to downtown Schenectady in 1978, a service which Penn Central had discontinued in 1968, for all Empire Service trains that continued beyond Albany. Service was restored permanently on the old Water Level Route with the reintroduction of the old New York Central train, the Lake Shore Limited, on October 31, 1975.

On April 7, 1991, all Amtrak Empire Service trains started using the new Empire Connection into New York Penn. Prior to that change, all passenger trains from Albany and beyond originated and terminated at Grand Central Terminal, forcing passengers traveling to the Northeast Corridor to transfer via shuttle bus, taxicab, or via the New York City Subway to reach Penn Station. The move also saved Amtrak the expense of operating two stations in New York City.

All service along the Empire Corridor was consolidated under the Empire brand on October 28, 1995. The names were restored just a year later, only to be dropped again in 1999.

In October 2011, CSX and Amtrak reached an agreement for Amtrak to lease the Hudson Subdivision between Poughkeepsie and Hoffmans, west of Schenectady. Since 2012, Amtrak has effectively had operational control over the Hudson Subdivision, handling all maintenance and capital responsibilities. CSX retained freight rights over the line, which hosts only five freights a day.

In the Capital District, Amtrak has used federal funds to double-track the line between Rensselaer and Schenectady (which once had four tracks under the New York Central), and add an additional station track at the Albany–Rensselaer station. Amtrak sees the lease as key to improving Empire Service speeds and frequencies. Amtrak officially assumed control on December 1, 2012, with trains in the section now dispatched by the Amtrak Control and Command Center in New York City.

From July 10 through September 1, 2017, six Empire Service trains (three round trips) used Grand Central Terminal as part of Amtrak's work to make repairs at Penn Station. All trains using the Empire Connection, excluding the Lake Shore Limited, again operated into Grand Central Terminal from May 26 to September 4, 2018, to allow work on the Empire Tunnel, the Spuyten Duyvil movable bridge, and Track 19 in New York City's Penn Station.

In May 2018, the Massachusetts Senate approved funds for a two-year pilot of the "Berkshire Flyer", a seasonal extension of a weekend Empire Service round trip to Pittsfield. The service, modeled on the CapeFLYER, would extend one New York City–Albany train to Pittsfield on Friday afternoons, with a return trip on Sunday afternoons. The trial was scheduled to begin in June 2020, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and outstanding questions around the program's legal sponsorship. After delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, the pilot was rescheduled for summer 2022 and 2023, with the first trip on July 8, 2022.

Operation

Equipment

Most Empire Service trains consist of five or six cars hauled by a locomotive.

The passenger cars are the Amfleet I series passenger cars built by the Budd Company in the mid-to-late 1970s. Most trains include an Amfleet club car which has a combination of Business Class seating with a Café (food service/lounge) and four or five Coach Class cars.

Between New York City and Albany–Rensselaer, trains are pulled by a GE Genesis P32AC-DM dual-mode diesel locomotive at speeds up to . The locomotives operate on third rail electric power in Penn Station and the Empire Connection tunnel and on diesel power for the rest of the route. Between Albany–Rensselaer and Niagara Falls, traditional diesel-only GE Genesis locomotives are used.

The New York Central did not order new equipment for the Empire Service, preferring to rehabilitate existing equipment. 40 64-seat coaches, built by Pullman-Standard in 1946, were refurbished in 1967–1968. Another 21 coaches from the same pool were rebuilt as 50-seat "coach-buffet" cars. Amtrak acquired this equipment when it took over the Penn Central's passenger trains in 1971. The cars remained on the Empire Service under Amtrak into the mid-1970s. A typical train between New York City and Albany consisted of two coaches and the coach-buffet or "snack bar" coach. Trains which operated west of Albany had additional coaches.

In the coming years all equipment will be replaced with Amtrak Airo trainsets, the railroad's branding of its combination of Siemens Venture passenger cars and a Siemens Charger diesel-electric locomotive. The trainsets for the Empire Service will have six passenger cars, which will include a cab control car food service area and a mix of 2x2 Coach Class and 2x1 Business Class seating. The car closest to the locomotive will have batteries to supply electricity to traction motors in the locomotive when operating in Penn Station and the Empire Connection tunnel, eliminating the need for third rail propulsion. The arrangement will eliminate the time-consuming locomotive change at Albany–Rensselaer.

Classes of service
All classes of service include complimentary WiFi, an electric outlet (120 V, 60 Hz AC) at each seat, reading lamps, fold-out tray tables. Reservations are required on all trains, tickets may be purchased online, from an agent at some stations, a ticketing machine at most stations, or, at a higher cost, from the conductor on the train.
Coach Class: 2x2 seating. Passengers self-select seats on a first-come, first-served basis.
Business Class: 2x1 seating with more legroom than coach. Passengers receive complimentary soft drinks.

Route

The Empire Service operates over CSX Transportation, Metro-North Railroad, and Amtrak trackage:
 CSX trackage: Niagara Subdivision, Buffalo Terminal Subdivision, Rochester Subdivision, Mohawk Subdivision, Selkirk Subdivision, and Hudson Subdivision, Niagara Falls to Poughkeepsie (Amtrak-owned between Hoffmans and Schenectady, leased to Amtrak between Schenectady and Poughkeepsie)
 Metro-North Railroad: Hudson Line, Poughkeepsie to Spuyten Duyvil
 Amtrak: Empire Connection, Spuyten Duyvil to Penn Station

The northern terminus for most trains, Albany-Rensselaer, is the ninth-busiest Amtrak station in the country and the busiest serving a metropolitan area of fewer than two million people. This is mainly due to the large number of passengers traveling along the New York City-Albany corridor, which for years was to the New York Central what the Philadelphia-New York corridor was to the Pennsylvania Railroad.

From Spuyten Duyvil to Albany, the train runs mostly parallel to the Hudson River (viewable on the left side northbound and the right side southbound).

Station stops
All stops are within the U.S. state of New York.

High-speed rail

The Empire Service has been a long-standing candidate for high-speed rail and electrification. The need for high-speed rail service has been addressed by former Governor George Pataki, former Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, and members of the New York State Assembly who represent the upstate regions. Other politicians have asked that high-speed rail be introduced along the Empire Corridor, diminishing the time for New York City – Buffalo trains from seven hours to just three hours; train travel from New York City to Albany would take less than two hours to complete. This may introduce Acela trains to the Empire Corridor if high-speed rail is successful. Another reason, which politicians have noted, is that high-speed trains might help improve Upstate New York's economy, which had become stagnant.

Currently, trains attain a maximum speed of  on the stretch of track just northwest of Albany. Areas east of Schenectady also see speeds above . The overall average including stops is about 50 mph, taking nearly 9 hours to go 450 miles.

Notes

References

External links

Amtrak routes
Passenger rail transportation in New York (state)
Railway services introduced in 1967
Higher-speed rail
1967 establishments in New York (state)

Empire Service


Verificationism, also known as the verification principle or the verifiability criterion of meaning, is the philosophical doctrine which asserts that a statement is meaningful only if it is either empirically verifiable (i.e. confirmed through the senses) or a truth of logic (e.g., tautologies).

Verificationism rejects statements of metaphysics, theology, ethics, and aesthetics, as cognitively meaningless. Such statements may be meaningful in influencing emotions or behavior, but not in terms of conveying truth value, information, or factual content. Verificationism was a central theme of logical positivism, a movement in analytic philosophy that emerged in the 1920s by philosophers who sought to unify philosophy and science under a common naturalistic theory of knowledge.

Origins
Although earlier philosophical principles which aim to ground scientific theory in some verifiable experience are found within the work of American pragmatist C.S. Peirce and that of French conventionalist Pierre Duhem, who fostered instrumentalism, the project of verificationism was launched by the logical positivists who, emerging from the Berlin Circle and the Vienna Circle in the 1920s, sought an epistemology whereby philosophical discourse would be, in their perception, as authoritative and meaningful as an empirical science.

Logical positivists garnered the verifiability criterion of cognitive meaningfulness from Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy of language posed in his 1921 book Tractatus, and, led by Bertrand Russell, sought to reformulate the analytic–synthetic distinction in a way that would reduce mathematics and logic to semantical conventions. This would be pivotal to verificationism, in that logic and mathematics would otherwise be classified as synthetic a priori knowledge and defined as "meaningless" under verificationism.

Seeking grounding in such empiricism as of David Hume, Auguste Comte, and Ernst Mach—along with the positivism of the latter two—they borrowed some perspectives from Immanuel Kant, and found the exemplar of science to be Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity.

Revisions
Logical positivists within the Vienna Circle recognized quickly that the verifiability criterion was too stringent. Notably, universal generalizations are empirically unverifiable, such that, under verificationism, vast domains of science and reason, such as scientific hypothesis, would be rendered meaningless.

Rudolf Carnap, Otto Neurath, Hans Hahn and Philipp Frank led a faction seeking to make the verifiability criterion more inclusive, beginning a movement they referred to as the "liberalization of empiricism". Moritz Schlick and Friedrich Waismann led a "conservative wing" that maintained a strict verificationism. Whereas Schlick sought to reduce universal generalizations to frameworks of 'rules' from which verifiable statements can be derived, Hahn argued that the verifiability criterion should accommodate to less-than-conclusive verifiability. Among other ideas espoused by the liberalization movement were physicalism, over Mach's phenomenalism, coherentism over foundationalism, as well as pragmatism and fallibilism.

In 1936, Carnap sought a switch from verification to confirmation. Carnap's confirmability criterion (confirmationism) would not require conclusive verification (thus accommodating for universal generalizations) but allow for partial testability to establish "degrees of confirmation" on a probabilistic basis. Carnap never succeeded in formalizing his thesis despite employing abundant logical and mathematical tools for this purpose. In all of Carnap's formulations, a universal law's degree of confirmation is zero.

That same year saw the publication of A. J. Ayer's work, Language, Truth and Logic, in which he proposed two types of verification: strong and weak. This system espoused conclusive verification, yet accommodated for probabilistic inclusion where verifiability is inconclusive. Ayer also distinguished between practical and theoretical verifiability. Under the latter, propositions that cannot be verified in practice would still be meaningful if they can be verified in principle.

Criticisms

Verificationism has been criticized by some philosophers, such as Karl Popper, another graduate of the University of Vienna though not part of the Vienna Circle. Popper identified three core concerns with verificationism:

 Verificationism rejects universal generalizations, like "all swans are white," as meaningless. Popper argues that while universal statements cannot be verified, they can be proven false. Further, Popper argues that universals can be scientifically useful.
 Verificationism allows for some obviously false existential statements, such as "werewolves exist," to be classified as scientifically meaningful because one could possibly find one somewhere that they have not yet looked.
 By its own logic, the verificationism is meaningless because it cannot be empirically verified.

In The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959), Popper proposed falsifiability as a preferable method for determining if a hypothesis is scientific, though it has been misunderstood as a revision of verificationism. Informed by the contrasting approaches of Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud, Popper proposed falsifiability as a standard specific to the sciences, rather than as a theory of meaning. Popper noticed that Einstein sought out data that would disprove his theories; he made predictions about future instances based upon the past, and then tried to learn more to test the validity of his hypothesis. Freud, on the other hand, used data that could be shaped to fit his theories, and his theories were crafted to explain the past, not the future. For Popper, this clarified a key difference between science and pseudoscience.

Popper regarded scientific hypotheses to be never completely verifiable, as well as not "confirmable" under Rudolf Carnap's thesis. It is pseudoscientists that come to a conclusion and seek out information to verify their claim. Scientists, on the other hand, use a hypothesis to indicate the most likely possible explanation based on current data, and they seek to prove the hypothesis wrong so that they can continue to learn. Popper also found that some non-scientific, metaphysical, ethical and aesthetic statements were, indeed, rich in meaning and important in the origination of scientific theories.

Other philosophers have voiced their own criticisms of verificationism:
 The 1951 article "Two Dogmas of Empiricism", by Willard Van Orman Quine, attacked the analytic/synthetic division and apparently rendered the verificationist program untenable. Carl Hempel, one of verificationism's greatest internal critics, had recently concluded the same as to the verifiability criterion.
 In 1958, Norwood Hanson explained that even direct observations must be collected, sorted, and reported with guidance and constraint by theory, which sets a horizon of expectation and interpretation, how observational reports, never neutral, are laden with theory.
 Thomas Kuhn's landmark book of 1962, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions—which identified paradigms of science overturned by revolutionary science within fundamental physics—critically destabilized confidence in scientific foundationalism, a theory commonly, if erroneously, attributed to verificationism.
 In 1967, John Passmore, a leading historian of 20th-century philosophy, wrote, "Logical positivism is dead, or as dead as a philosophical movement ever becomes".  Logical positivism's fall heralded postpositivism, where Popper's view of human knowledge as hypothetical, continually growing, and open to change ascended, and verificationism, in some circles, became mostly maligned.

Legacy
Malachi Haim Hacohen, in his biography of Popper, said that logical positivists practiced Popper's principles—conjecturing and refuting—until they ran their course, catapulting Popper, initially a contentious misfit, to carry the richest philosophy out of interwar Vienna. Popper's critical rationalism posed its own criterion, falsifiability, to ensure that empiricism anchors scientific theory.

In a 1979 TV interview, A. J. Ayer, who had introduced logical positivism to the English-speaking world in the 1930s, was asked what he saw as its main defects, and answered that "nearly all of it was false".  However, he soon said that he still held "the same general approach".  The "general approach" of empiricism and reductionism—whereby mental phenomena resolve to the material or physical, and philosophical questions largely resolve to ones of language and meaning—has run through Western philosophy since the 17th century and lived beyond logical positivism's fall.

In 1977, Ayer recognized that the verification principle was not widely accepted but acknowledged that it still held relevance and was being utilised. "The attitude of many philosophers reminds me of the relationship between Pip and Magwitch in Dickens's Great Expectations.  They have lived on the money, but are ashamed to acknowledge its source".  In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the general concept of verification criteria—in forms that differed from those of the logical positivists—was defended by Bas van Fraassen, Michael Dummett, Crispin Wright, Christopher Peacocke, David Wiggins, Richard Rorty, and others.

See also
 Epistemic theories of truth
 Newton's flaming laser sword
 Semantic anti-realism (epistemology)

Notes

Analytic philosophy
Empiricism
Logical positivism
Metatheory of science
Epistemological theories
Meaning (philosophy of language)
Meaning in religious language

Verificationism


Rhein-Nahe is a Verbandsgemeinde ("collective municipality") in the district Mainz-Bingen, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated along the left bank of the Rhine, north of Bingen. Bingen is the seat of the municipality, but not part of it.

The Verbandsgemeinde Rhein-Nahe consists of the following Ortsgemeinden ("local municipalities"):

Bacharach
Breitscheid
Manubach
Münster-Sarmsheim
Niederheimbach
Oberdiebach
Oberheimbach
Trechtingshausen
Waldalgesheim
Weiler bei Bingen

Verbandsgemeinde in Rhineland-Palatinate

Rhein-Nahe