Theoretical computer science (TCS) is a subset of general computer science and mathematics that focuses on mathematical aspects of computer science such as the theory of computation, formal language theory, the lambda calculus and type theory.

It is difficult to circumscribe the theoretical areas precisely. The ACM's Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory (SIGACT) provides the following description:

History

While logical inference and mathematical proof had existed previously, in 1931 Kurt Gödel proved with his incompleteness theorem that there are fundamental limitations on what statements could be proved or disproved.

Information theory was added to the field with a 1948 mathematical theory of communication by Claude Shannon. In the same decade, Donald Hebb introduced a mathematical model of learning in the brain. With mounting biological data supporting this hypothesis with some modification, the fields of neural networks and parallel distributed processing were established. In 1971, Stephen Cook and, working independently, Leonid Levin, proved that there exist practically relevant problems that are NP-complete – a landmark result in computational complexity theory.

With the development of quantum mechanics in the beginning of the 20th century came the concept that mathematical operations could be performed on an entire particle wavefunction. In other words, one could compute functions on multiple states simultaneously. This led to the concept of a quantum computer in the latter half of the 20th century that took off in the 1990s when Peter Shor showed that such methods could be used to factor large numbers in polynomial time, which, if implemented, would render some modern public key cryptography algorithms like RSA insecure.

Modern theoretical computer science research is based on these basic developments, but includes many other mathematical and interdisciplinary problems that have been posed, as shown below:

Topics

Algorithms

An algorithm is a step-by-step procedure for calculations.  Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning.

An algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function.  Starting from an initial state and initial input (perhaps empty), the instructions describe a computation that, when executed, proceeds through a finite number of well-defined successive states, eventually producing "output" and terminating at a final ending state. The transition from one state to the next is not necessarily deterministic; some algorithms, known as randomized algorithms, incorporate random input.

Automata theory

Automata theory is the study of abstract machines and automata, as well as the computational problems that can be solved using them. It is a theory in theoretical computer science, under discrete mathematics (a section of mathematics and also of computer science). Automata comes from the Greek word αὐτόματα meaning "self-acting".

Automata Theory is the study of self-operating virtual machines to help in the logical understanding of input and output process, without or with intermediate stage(s) of computation (or any function/process).

Coding theory

Coding theory is the study of the properties of codes and their fitness for a specific application. Codes are used for data compression, cryptography, error-correction and more recently also for network coding. Codes are studied by various scientific disciplines—such as information theory, electrical engineering,  mathematics, and computer science—for the purpose of designing efficient and reliable data transmission methods. This typically involves the removal of redundancy and the correction (or detection) of errors in the transmitted data.

Computational biology

Computational biology involves the development and application of data-analytical and theoretical methods, mathematical modeling and computational simulation techniques to the study of biological, behavioral, and social systems. The field is broadly defined and includes foundations in computer science, applied mathematics, animation, statistics, biochemistry, chemistry, biophysics, molecular biology, genetics, genomics, ecology, evolution, anatomy, neuroscience, and visualization.

Computational biology is different from biological computation, which is a subfield of computer science and computer engineering using bioengineering and biology to build computers, but is similar to bioinformatics, which is an interdisciplinary science using computers to store and process biological data.

Computational complexity theory

Computational complexity theory is a branch of the theory of computation that focuses on classifying computational problems according to their inherent difficulty, and relating those classes to each other. A computational problem is understood to be a task that is in principle amenable to being solved by a computer, which is equivalent to stating that the problem may be solved by mechanical application of mathematical steps, such as an algorithm.

A problem is regarded as inherently difficult if its solution requires significant resources, whatever the algorithm used. The theory formalizes this intuition, by introducing mathematical models of computation to study these problems and quantifying the amount of resources needed to solve them, such as time and storage. Other complexity measures are also used, such as the amount of communication (used in communication complexity), the number of gates in a circuit (used in circuit complexity) and the number of processors (used in parallel computing). One of the roles of computational complexity theory is to determine the practical limits on what computers can and cannot do.

Computational geometry

Computational geometry is a branch of computer science devoted to the study of algorithms that can be stated in terms of geometry. Some purely geometrical problems arise out of the study of computational geometric algorithms, and such problems are also considered to be part of computational geometry.

The main impetus for the development of computational geometry as a discipline was progress in computer graphics and computer-aided design and manufacturing (CAD/CAM), but many problems in computational geometry are classical in nature, and may come from mathematical visualization.

Other important applications of computational geometry include robotics (motion planning and visibility problems), geographic information systems (GIS) (geometrical location and search, route planning), integrated circuit design (IC geometry design and verification), computer-aided engineering (CAE) (mesh generation), computer vision (3D reconstruction).

Computational learning theory

Theoretical results in machine learning mainly deal with a type of inductive learning called supervised learning.  In supervised learning, an algorithm is given samples that are labeled in some
useful way.  For example, the samples might be descriptions of mushrooms, and the labels could be whether or not the mushrooms are edible.  The algorithm takes these previously labeled samples and
uses them to induce a classifier.  This classifier is a function that assigns labels to samples including the samples that have never been previously seen by the algorithm.  The goal of the supervised learning algorithm is to optimize some measure of performance such as minimizing the number of mistakes made on new samples.

Computational number theory

Computational number theory, also known as algorithmic number theory, is the study of algorithms for performing number theoretic computations. The best known problem in the field is integer factorization.

Cryptography

Cryptography  is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of third parties (called adversaries). More generally, it is about constructing and analyzing protocols that overcome the influence of adversaries and that are related to various aspects in information security such as data confidentiality, data integrity, authentication, and non-repudiation. Modern cryptography intersects the disciplines of mathematics, computer science, and electrical engineering. Applications of cryptography include ATM cards, computer passwords, and electronic commerce.

Modern cryptography is heavily based on mathematical theory and computer science practice; cryptographic algorithms are designed around computational hardness assumptions, making such algorithms hard to break in practice by any adversary. It is theoretically possible to break such a system, but it is infeasible to do so by any known practical means. These schemes are therefore termed computationally secure; theoretical advances, e.g., improvements in integer factorization algorithms, and faster computing technology require these solutions to be continually adapted. There exist information-theoretically secure schemes that  cannot be broken even with unlimited computing power—an example is the one-time pad—but these schemes are more difficult to implement than the best theoretically breakable but computationally secure mechanisms.

Data structures

A data structure is a particular way of organizing data in a computer so that it can be used efficiently.

Different kinds of data structures are suited to different kinds of applications, and some are highly specialized to specific tasks. For example, databases use B-tree indexes for small percentages of data retrieval and compilers and databases use dynamic hash tables as look up tables.

Data structures provide a means to manage large amounts of data efficiently for uses such as large databases and internet indexing services. Usually, efficient data structures are key to designing efficient algorithms. Some formal design methods and programming languages emphasize data structures, rather than algorithms, as the key organizing factor in software design. Storing and retrieving can be carried out on data stored in both main memory and in secondary memory.

Distributed computation

Distributed computing studies distributed systems. A distributed system is a software system in which components located on networked computers communicate and coordinate their actions by passing messages. The components interact with each other in order to achieve a common goal. Three significant characteristics of distributed systems are: concurrency of components, lack of a global clock, and independent failure of components. Examples of distributed systems vary from SOA-based systems to massively multiplayer online games to  peer-to-peer applications, and blockchain networks like Bitcoin.

A computer program that runs in a distributed system is called a distributed program, and distributed programming is the process of writing such programs. There are many alternatives for the message passing mechanism, including RPC-like connectors and message queues.  An important goal and challenge of distributed systems is location transparency.

Information-based complexity

Information-based complexity (IBC) studies optimal algorithms and computational complexity for continuous problems. IBC has studied continuous problems as path integration, partial differential equations, systems of ordinary differential equations, nonlinear equations, integral equations, fixed points, and very-high-dimensional integration.

Formal methods

Formal methods are a particular kind of mathematics based techniques for the specification, development and verification of software and hardware systems. The use of formal methods for software and hardware design is motivated by the expectation that, as in other engineering disciplines, performing appropriate mathematical analysis can contribute to the reliability and robustness of a design.

Formal methods are best described as the application of a fairly broad variety of theoretical computer science fundamentals, in particular logic calculi, formal languages, automata theory, and program semantics, but also type systems and algebraic data types to problems in software and hardware specification and verification.

Information theory

Information theory is a branch of applied mathematics, electrical engineering, and computer science involving the quantification of information.  Information theory was developed by Claude E. Shannon to find fundamental limits on signal processing operations such as compressing data and on reliably storing and communicating data. Since its inception it has broadened to find applications in many other areas, including statistical inference, natural language processing, cryptography, neurobiology, the evolution and function of molecular codes, model selection in statistics, thermal physics, quantum computing, linguistics, plagiarism detection, pattern recognition, anomaly detection and other forms of data analysis.

Applications of fundamental topics of information theory include lossless data compression (e.g. ZIP files), lossy data compression (e.g. MP3s and JPEGs), and channel coding (e.g. for Digital Subscriber Line (DSL)).  The field is at the intersection of mathematics, statistics, computer science, physics, neurobiology, and electrical engineering. Its impact has been crucial to the success of the Voyager missions to deep space, the invention of the compact disc, the feasibility of mobile phones, the development of the Internet, the study of linguistics and of human perception, the understanding of black holes, and numerous other fields. Important sub-fields of information theory are source coding, channel coding, algorithmic complexity theory, algorithmic information theory, information-theoretic security, and measures of information.

Machine learning

Machine learning is a scientific discipline that deals with the construction and study of algorithms that can learn from data. Such algorithms operate by building a model based on inputs and using that to make predictions or decisions, rather than following only explicitly programmed instructions.

Machine learning can be considered a subfield of computer science and statistics. It has strong ties to artificial intelligence and optimization, which deliver methods, theory and application domains to the field. Machine learning is employed in a range of computing tasks where designing and programming explicit, rule-based algorithms is infeasible. Example applications include spam filtering, optical character recognition (OCR), search engines and computer vision. Machine learning is sometimes conflated with data mining, although that focuses more on exploratory data analysis. Machine learning and pattern recognition "can be viewed as two facets of
the same field."

Parallel computation

Parallel computing is a form of computation in which many calculations are carried out simultaneously, operating on the principle that large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which are then solved "in parallel". There are several different forms of parallel computing: bit-level, instruction level, data, and task parallelism. Parallelism has been employed for many years, mainly in high-performance computing, but interest in it has grown lately due to the physical constraints preventing frequency scaling. As power consumption (and consequently heat generation) by computers has become a concern in recent years, parallel computing has become the dominant paradigm in computer architecture, mainly in the form of multi-core processors.

Parallel computer programs are more difficult to write than sequential ones, because concurrency introduces several new classes of potential software bugs, of which race conditions are the most common. Communication and synchronization between the different subtasks are typically some of the greatest obstacles to getting good parallel program performance.

The maximum possible speed-up of a single program as a result of parallelization is known as Amdahl's law.

Programming language theory and program semantics

Programming language theory is a branch of computer science that deals with the design, implementation, analysis, characterization, and classification of programming languages and their individual features. It falls within the discipline of theoretical computer science, both depending on and affecting mathematics, software engineering, and linguistics. It is an active research area, with numerous dedicated academic journals.

In programming language theory, semantics is the field concerned with the rigorous mathematical study of the meaning of programming languages. It does so by evaluating the meaning of syntactically legal strings defined by a specific programming language, showing the computation involved. In such a case that the evaluation would be of syntactically illegal strings, the result would be non-computation. Semantics describes the processes a computer follows when executing a program in that specific language. This can be shown by describing the relationship between the input and output of a program, or an explanation of how the program will execute on a certain platform, hence creating a model of computation.

Quantum computation

A quantum computer is a computation system that makes direct use of quantum-mechanical phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement, to perform operations on data. Quantum computers are different from digital computers based on transistors. Whereas digital computers require data to be encoded into binary digits (bits), each of which is always in one of two definite states (0 or 1), quantum computation uses qubits (quantum bits), which can be in superpositions of states. A theoretical model is the quantum Turing machine, also known as the universal quantum computer.  Quantum computers share theoretical similarities with non-deterministic and probabilistic computers; one example is the ability to be in more than one state simultaneously.  The field of quantum computing was first introduced by Yuri Manin in 1980 and Richard Feynman in 1982. A quantum computer with spins as quantum bits was also formulated for use as a quantum space–time in 1968.

, quantum computing is still in its infancy but experiments have been carried out in which quantum computational operations were executed on a very small number of qubits. Both practical and theoretical research continues, and many national governments and military funding agencies support quantum computing research to develop quantum computers for both civilian and national security purposes, such as cryptanalysis.

Symbolic computation

Computer algebra, also called symbolic computation or algebraic computation is a scientific area that refers to the study and development of algorithms and software for manipulating mathematical expressions and other mathematical objects. Although, properly speaking, computer algebra should be a subfield of scientific computing, they are generally considered as distinct fields because scientific computing is usually based on numerical computation with approximate floating point numbers, while symbolic computation emphasizes exact computation with expressions containing variables that have not any given value and are thus manipulated as symbols (therefore the name of symbolic computation).

Software applications that perform symbolic calculations are called computer algebra systems, with the term system alluding to the complexity of the main applications  that include, at least, a method to represent mathematical data in a computer, a user programming language (usually different from the language used for the implementation), a dedicated memory manager, a user interface for the input/output of mathematical expressions, a large set of routines to perform usual operations, like simplification of expressions, differentiation using chain rule, polynomial factorization, indefinite integration, etc.

Very-large-scale integration

Very-large-scale integration (VLSI) is the process of creating an integrated circuit (IC) by combining thousands of transistors into a single chip. VLSI began in the 1970s when complex semiconductor and communication technologies were being developed. The microprocessor is a VLSI device. Before the introduction of VLSI technology most ICs had a limited set of functions they could perform. An electronic circuit might consist of a CPU, ROM, RAM and other glue logic. VLSI allows IC makers to add all of these circuits into one chip.

Organizations
 European Association for Theoretical Computer Science
 SIGACT
 Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing

Journals and newsletters
 Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science
 Information and Computation
 Theory of Computing (open access journal)
 Formal Aspects of Computing
 Journal of the ACM
 SIAM Journal on Computing (SICOMP)
 SIGACT News
 Theoretical Computer Science
 Theory of Computing Systems
 TheoretiCS (open access journal)
 International Journal of Foundations of Computer Science
 Chicago Journal of Theoretical Computer Science (open access journal)
 Foundations and Trends in Theoretical Computer Science
 Journal of Automata, Languages and Combinatorics
 Acta Informatica
 Fundamenta Informaticae
 ACM Transactions on Computation Theory
 Computational Complexity
 Journal of Complexity
 ACM Transactions on Algorithms
 Information Processing Letters
 Open Computer Science (open access journal)

Conferences
 Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC)
 Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS)
 Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science (ITCS)
 Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS)
 International Computer Science Symposium in Russia (CSR)
 ACM–SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA)
 IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science (LICS)
 Computational Complexity Conference (CCC)
 International Colloquium on Automata, Languages and Programming (ICALP)
 Annual Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG)
 ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (PODC)
 ACM Symposium on Parallelism in Algorithms and Architectures (SPAA)
 Annual Conference on Learning Theory (COLT)
 Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS)
 European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA)
 Workshop on Approximation Algorithms for Combinatorial Optimization Problems (APPROX)
 Workshop on Randomization and Computation (RANDOM)
 International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC)
 International Symposium on Fundamentals of Computation Theory (FCT)
 International Workshop on Graph-Theoretic Concepts in Computer Science (WG)

See also
 Formal science
 Unsolved problems in computer science
 Sun–Ni law

Notes

Further reading

 Martin Davis, Ron Sigal, Elaine J. Weyuker, Computability, complexity, and languages: fundamentals of theoretical computer science, 2nd ed., Academic Press, 1994, . Covers theory of computation, but also program semantics and quantification theory. Aimed at graduate students.

External links
 SIGACT directory of additional theory links (archived 15 July 2017)
 Theory Matters Wiki Theoretical Computer Science (TCS) Advocacy Wiki
 List of academic conferences in the area of theoretical computer science at confsearch
 Theoretical Computer Science – StackExchange, a Question and Answer site for researchers in theoretical computer science
 Computer Science Animated
 Theory of computation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Formal sciences

Theoretical computer science


Sanborn Seminary is a historic educational facility in Kingston, New Hampshire. Its main building was built in 1883 by Major Edward S. Sanborn (died 1885) to serve as a secular secondary boarding school. The school ran continuously until 1966 when it was sold to the Town of Kingston. The campus became known as Sanborn Regional High School and served students from the towns of Kingston, Newton, and Fremont. The last class at this campus graduated in June 2006.

Description and history
The former Sanborn Seminary is located north of the village center of Kingston, on the east side of Church Street north of Depot Road. It is a large -story masonry structure, built out of brick with limestone trim. It is covered by an elaborate multicolored slate mansard roof. The main facade is five bays wide, with the center bay projecting and rising to a three-story mansard roofed tower with iron cresting. The facade bays are otherwise articulated by brick pilasters, and have pairs of narrow windows, each with stone keystones, shoulders, and sills.

The Seminary building was designed in the Victorian Gothic style popular at the time of its construction, and was completed in 1883. The architect is unknown. In preparation for the building's 100th anniversary in 1983, an exterior restoration project was completed, and the building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Seminary is the centerpiece of a campus complex that originally included five additional wood-frame structures and a beach recreation area on nearby Greenwood Pond. The bell tower was removed from the building's roof and located on the East Lawn until 2006, when it was relocated to the new Sanborn Regional High School atrium.

Current use
A new building for Sanborn Regional High School opened on August 28, 2006. The Seminary building is currently empty.  Various proposals have been made for its use, with town residents expressing a strong emotional tie to the facility.  The other school facilities on the property are used for storage (the 'Science Building', to house the district's technology and business department (the old garage building), and the Swasey Gym, which is still used as the football locker room and for town and school basketball games.

See also
National Register of Historic Places listings in Rockingham County, New Hampshire

References

Sources
 Nomination Form, National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service, United States Department of the Interior, 1984.
 "Old school hosts final graduation", June 23, 2006, The Rockingham News, accessed on August 31, 2006.
 "Sanborn's dual life; The secrets which were revealed after his death", The New York Times, September 22, 1885, page 2.
 "Was Sanborn Sane? Dartmouth College contesting one of his wills", The New York Times, February 19, 1886, page 2.
 "Edward S. Sanborn's life; Efforts to break the will of an eccentric man. The dual life of the testator used as a means to prove insanity --testimony regarding his habits", The New York Times, January 2, 1886.

Victorian era
Properties of religious function on the National Register of Historic Places in New Hampshire
Education in Rockingham County, New Hampshire
Buildings and structures in Rockingham County, New Hampshire
National Register of Historic Places in Rockingham County, New Hampshire
Kingston, New Hampshire

Sanborn Seminary


John Russell Parnell (6 August 1923  – 8 August 2010) was an English musician and musical director.

Biography
Parnell was born into a theatrical family in London, England. His uncle was the theatrical impresario Val Parnell.

During his military service in the 1940s he became a member of Buddy Featherstonhaugh's Radio Rhythm Club Sextet and played drums with Vic Lewis and other servicemen who were keen on jazz. From 1944 to 1946 Parnell recorded with Lewis, and the Lewis-Parnell Jazzmen's version of "Ugly Child".

During the 1940s and 1950s, he was voted best drummer in the Melody Maker poll for seven years in succession. He composed many television themes, including Love Story (for which he won the Harriet Cohen Award), Father Brown, The Golden Shot and Family Fortunes. He was a regular judge on the ATV talent show New Faces. He was also the musical director for The Benny Hill Show.

He was appointed as the musical director for ATV in 1956, a post he held until 1981, and was the "real" conductor for The Muppet Show orchestra for the series entire run and composed the score theme to ITC Entertainment. Throughout the 1960s, Parnell directed the pit orchestra for Sunday Night at the London Palladium.

In the 1970s, he had co-founded the group The Best of British Jazz with Kenny Baker, Don Lusher, Betty Smith, Tony Lee, and Tony Archer, which performed until 1985.

From 1991 until he died, Parnell was part of the Norfolk-based Mike Capocci Trio, with Capocci on piano and Mike Harris on the double bass. They backed saxophonists Johnny Griffin, Ronnie Ross, and Kathy Stobart. In 1994, he took over as the leader of the London Big Band, which comprised some of Britain's leading jazz musicians.

Personal life and death
Parnell had three sons and two daughters (including Ric Parnell who played the drummer Mick Shrimpton in the film This Is Spinal Tap).  Parnell died in Southwold, Suffolk, from the effects of cancer on 8 August 2010, two days after his 87th birthday.

References

External links
 Louis Barfe, "Jack Parnell – master of many trades", Sounds On
 The Jack Parnell Orchestra big band line-ups from 1951 to 1958

1923 births
2010 deaths
Primetime Emmy Award winners
English bandleaders
English jazz drummers
British male drummers
English jazz pianists
Royal Air Force personnel of World War II
Deaths from cancer in England
Music directors
20th-century British pianists
20th-century English musicians
20th-century British drummers
British male pianists
20th-century British male musicians
British male jazz musicians

Jack Parnell


El Salvador competed at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, from 28 July to 12 August 1984. This was the nation's second appearance at the Olympics.

Comité Olímpico de El Salvador sent a total of 11 athletes to the Games, all men, to compete in 2 sports. Swimmer Salvador Vilanova was selected to carry his nation's flag during the opening ceremony.

Competitors
Comité Olímpico de El Salvador selected a team of 11 athletes, all men, to compete in 2 sports. Skeet shooter Andrés Amador, at age 47, was the oldest athlete of the team, while swimmer Salvador Vilanova was the youngest at age 19.

The following is the list of number of competitors participating in the Games.

Shooting

Men

Swimming

Men

References

External links
Official Olympic Reports

Nations at the 1972 Summer Olympics
1972
Olympics

El Salvador at the 1972 Summer Olympics


The 2020 OFC Nations Cup will be the 11th edition of the OFC Nations Cup, the international men's football championship of Oceania organised by the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) that happens once every four years. Season has been cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic in Oceania

New Zealand are the defending champions.

Qualification
All 11 FIFA-affiliated national teams from OFC can enter. A qualification round may be held for the lowest-ranked teams before the final tournament.

Football competitions
Football in Oceania

2020 OFC Nations Cup


Szczodre  is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Długołęka, within Wrocław County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland.

Geography
The settlement is located within the Silesian Lowlands, approximately  north of Długołęka, and  north-east of the regional capital Wrocław.

History

In the 10th century Mieszko I of Poland of the Piast dynasty included these areas into newly formed Poland. Following Poland's fragmentation, it was located in the Duchy of Silesia. The village in the Duchy of Silesia was first mentioned as Palici in a 1245 deed. From 1315 it was the seat of the Rastelwitz noble family, and in 1327 it passed to the Crown of Bohemia (Czechia). It was completely destroyed in 1643 during the Thirty Years' War. In the 18th century it was annexed by Prussia, and from 1871 to 1945 it was also part of Germany.

The Prittwitz family had the locality of Neudorf rebuilt, which in 1685 was acquired by Christian Ulrich I of Württemberg, then Duke of Bernstadt (Bierutów). He had a Baroque palace built, named Sibyllenort  after his second wife Sibylle Maria, daughter of Duke Christian I of Saxe-Merseburg. Held by the Dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg from 1792, the castle was rebuilt several times, the last of which was in 1852 in a Tudor style at the behest of Duke William of Brunswick. The palace was often visited by Kings Augustus II the Strong and Augustus III of Poland.

Upon William's death at Sybillenort in 1884, the possessions fell to the royal Saxon House of Wettin.

The Archduchess Louise of Austria, consort of the last King of Saxony, Frederick Augustus III, recounts the following about Sibyllenort Castle in her memoirs:

"In the summer of 1902 we were in the country, but our usually pleasant holiday was clouded by the serious condition of King Albert, who was on the point of death. The King and Queen were staying at the Castle of Sibyllenort near Breslau (Wrocław) in Silesia, a beautiful residence given by the last Duke of Brunswick to the then King of Saxony. The castle contains four hundred rooms, and it was the scene of many scandalous orgies in the later forties. The Duke, who was a great admirer of the fair sex, had a private theatre there, and the ballet was composed of numerous pretty girls, whom he kept in harem-like seclusion. I remember seeing some rather startling pictures when I visited the castle as a girl of sixteen, but these were very properly banished by Queen Carola's orders, and Sibyllenort became a highly decorous royal residence."

Two kings of Saxony died here: Albert in 1902 and Frederick Augustus III,  in 1932.

The palace in Sibyllenort was taken over by SS troops during World War II, who burned the palace in January 1945, leaving it in a partially destroyed state. The neighboring city of Wrocław (Breslau) was the locale of a battle a month later called the Siege of Breslau. German soldiers deliberately destroyed the palace at Sibyllenort to not leave them for the Polish people.

In 1945, following Germany's defeat in the war, the village became again part of Poland per the Potsdam Agreement, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime, which stayed in power until the Fall of Communism in the 1980s. The palatial building was almost completely dismantled in 1957. Today there is only a ruin left in the size of a small villa. The preserved part of the palace was occupied by the communist security forces of the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of Poland.

After the war, the village was repopulated with Poles displaced from the areas of Lwów and Nowogródek in former Eastern Poland annexed by the Soviet Union, small farmers from southern Poland, and Polish soldiers returning from Western Europe.

Education
There is a primary school in Szczodre.

References

External links
 Information service about Szczodre in the Polish language

Villages in Wrocław County

Szczodre


Synodontis katangae is a species of upside-down catfish that is native to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia where it is found in the Congo Basin.  It was first described by  Max Poll in 1971.  The original specimens were obtained in Lukonzolwa, on Lake Mweru, in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  The species name katangae is a reference to the Katanga province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the species was first found.

Description
Like all members of the genus Synodontis, S. katangae has a strong, bony head capsule that extends back as far as the first spine of the dorsal fin.  The head contains a distinct narrow, bony, external protrusion called a humeral process.  The fish has three pairs of barbels. The maxillary barbels are on located on the upper jaw, and two pairs of mandibular barbels are on the lower jaw.   The adipose fin is large and the tail, or caudal fin, is forked.

The front edges of the dorsal fins and the pectoral fins are hardened into stiff spines.  These spines can be raised into position at right angles to the body and locked into position for defensive purposes.   The ability to lock the spines into place comes from several small bones attached to the spine, and once raised, the spines cannot be folded down by exerting pressure on the tip.

The fish has a structure called a premaxillary toothpad, which is located on the very front of the upper jaw of the mouth. This structure contains several rows of short, chisel-shaped teeth.  On the lower jaw, or mandible, the teeth are attached to flexible, stalk-like structures and described as "s-shaped" or "hooked".

The maximum total length of the species is .  Generally, females in the genus Synodontis tend to be slightly larger than males of the same age.

Habitat and behavior
In the wild, the species occurs in the Luapula-Mweru system and from the Luashi River and the Lubumbashi region (high Katanga).  It is harvested for human consumption.  The species faces potential threats to its survival from environmental damage resulting from mining activities, as well as overfishing.  As a whole, species of Synodontis are omnivores, consuming insect larvae, algae, gastropods, bivalves, sponges, crustaceans, and the eggs of other fishes.  The reproductive habits of most of the species of Synodontis are not known, beyond some instances of obtaining egg counts from gravid females. Spawning likely occurs during the flooding season between July and October, and pairs swim in unison during spawning.   The growth rate is rapid in the first year, then slows down as the fish age.

References

External links

katangae
Freshwater fish of Africa
Fish of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Fish of Zambia
Taxa named by Max Poll
Fish described in 1971

Synodontis katangae


Western School Corporation is a public school district which serves Russiaville, Alto, New London, West Middleton, and southwestern Kokomo in Howard County, Indiana.  The district spans the Howard County townships of Harrison, Honey Creek and Monroe, and the school buildings themselves straddle Harrison and Monroe.

WSC's high school gained national attention in the mid-1980s. When one of the students at the junior high, a hemophiliac Ryan White had been diagnosed with AIDS and recovering from an opportunistic infection (viral pneumonia), the school decided that White was ineligible to attend school out of fear the disease could spread. White was forced to take many of his eighth grade classes by speakerphone until a prolonged court battle overturned Western School Corporation's decision.

Administration
Randy McCracken, Superintendent

Building directory
Western Administration Building
Western Primary School (K-2)
Western Intermediate School (3-5)
Western Middle School (6-8)
Western High School (9-12)

References

External links
 Western School Corporation

School districts in Indiana
Education in Howard County, Indiana

Western School Corporation


John Blair (c. 1687 – November 5, 1771) was a merchant and politician of the colony of Virginia. He served in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly. As a member of the House of Burgesses, he initially represented Jamestown then Williamsburg (the successive seats of the colony's government), before being appointed to the Governor's Council. There he served for more than 25 years, including four times becoming acting governor during changes of the royal governors and while governor Francis Fauquier was in the New York and Georgia colonies. Nonetheless, this John Blair, the earliest of the four men of the name serving in the Virginia General Assembly, may be best known either as the nephew and heir of Rev. James Blair (who founded the College of William and Mary, where many descendants would be educated) or father of John Blair, Jr. (a lawyer who served in many governmental posts, including as a burgess, delegate to the Constitutional Convention, Virginia judge and finally as associate justice of the United States Supreme Court).

Early life
Blair was born in Scotland around 1687, the only known son of Archibald Blair. His Scottish grandfather, Rev. Peter Blair, was minister at St. Cuthbert's parish in Edinburgh, married Mary Hamilton in 1654 and in his final years served as the rector of Jedburgh parish in Roxburghshire, Scotland. Archibald Blair was the youngest of the couple's three sons, had graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1685 (having studied medicine) and probably married this man's mother shortly thereafter. Meanwhile, his eldest brother Rev. James Blair had previously graduated from that university and been ordained a minister, but emigrated to Virginia around 1685 because he refused to sign a loyalty oath required by the Scots parliament. In Virginia Rev. James Blair would become the leading representative of the Church of England for five decades, as well as the minister in the colony's capital, and helped re-found the College of William and Mary. Rev. James Blair soon married a daughter of a leading family, but had no children, so after his brother Archibald and this boy emigrated to the colony, and the son was educated and married, he and his family ultimately became that cleric's principal heirs. Only one of Archibald and James's sisters (Christian Blair (1665-1725)) also emigrated to Virginia (after marrying Rev. John Munroe, who accepted a post at St. John's Parish in King William County). Ultimately, this man would marry his cousin Mary, daughter of that Rev. John Monroe. The middle brother, John Blair (ca. 1662-after 1689) remained in Scotland where he became an apothecary in Edinburgh and a burgess of that city in 1683 and Scotland's postmaster general in 1689. Some of his children also became merchants, including grandsons (by sons Peter the skinner and another Archibald) John Blair (d. 1757) and another James Blair. Those men worked for years in Virginia as employees and at least the former became trading partner of this man.

Dr. Archibald Blair immigrated with this son to the Virginia colony in the 1690s, possibly following his wife's death, since no re record exists of her emigration.  Due to unhealthy circumstances at Jamestown, particularly during summers, Williamsburg (at first called "Middle Plantation") was established as a trading center, and the colony's government offices relocated there around 1699. Dr. Archibald Blair remarried twice, first when this man was still a boy to Sarah Archer Fowler, a widow who probably helped raise this boy as well as bore four daughters who reached adulthood, married and became Archibald Blair's heirs. They included Sarah Blair who married Wilson Cary, Ann Blair who married Peter Whiting, Elizabeth Blair who married John Bolling and later Richard Bland, and Harrison Blair who became the third wife of Dr. George Gilmer. After Sarah's death Archibald remarried, to the twice widowed Mary Wilson Roscoe Cary, the daughter of burgess William Wilson and who had outlived burgesses William Roscoe as well as Miles Cary II (who died in 1709). as well as practiced as a doctor and operated an in Williamsburg. Archibald also joined with his brother James Blair and Philip Ludwell, who jointly owned a retail store in Williamsburg, which is discussed below, since upon coming of age, this man would succeed his father as its manager. This John Blair graduated from the College of William and Mary around 1707 and remained in Williamsburg his whole life.

Businessman and planter
Until his death in 1733, Blair's father, Archibald, in addition to his medical practice and apothecary shop was the largest shareholder of Dr. Blair's Store, a mercantile house. This man managed the store for many years, probably succeeding his Edinburgh-born cousin of the same name. Blair was also a partner with John Blair Jr. (the son of a cousin) in another store from 1740 to 1759. Blair owned two of the largest taverns in the colony, the Raleigh Tavern, named after Sir Walter Raleigh and the Chowning Tavern, renting them to tavern keepers.  He owned Chowning from 1726 to around 1738, and sold Raleigh in 1742. In 1745, he was a partner with 16 others in a  land grant on the Potomac and Youghiogheny rivers.
Upon receiving his inheritance from Rev. James Blair in 1743, this John Blair bought a plantation south of Taskinas Creek on the York River about ten miles downstream of its confluence with the Mattaponi River, which he operated using enslaved labor.

Public career

Blair's public career may have begun in 1715, when he (or a cousin with the same name) was appointed keeper of the Royal Storehouse in Williamsburg. Blair took the oaths of office as a justice of the peace for York County on August 17, 1724 (serving until he was sworn in as a member of the Virginia Governor's Council in 1745) and in 1727 as a James River upper district naval officer (serving until he became deputy Auditor General of Virginia on August 15, 1728). He served as deputy Auditor General until his death in 1771, while simultaneously holding various other positions.

Blair was elected to the House of Burgesses from Jamestown for the 1734 session, succeeding his father, whose term had begun in 1728 and who died in 1733. In the next session, which began in 1736, the citizens of Williamsburg elected Blair as their representative, though he was replaced by John Harmer for the 1742 session, possibly because his nomination for Governor's Council was in process, as discussed below. While in office, Blair helped oversee the colonists' defense from attacks by Indians. From April 22, 1741, to October 15, 1741, he served as clerk of the Governor's Council. During part of that time, his uncle James Blair was the acting governor.

He is likely the John Blair who was Williamsburg's mayor in 1751.

Blair having inherited approximately £10,000 from his uncle James, Governor William Gooch now considered him qualified for a seat on the upper house of the colonial legislature, the Virginia Governor's Council and recommended to the king in February 1745 that he be appointed to fill a vacant seat. However, the king had already named Blair to fill a different vacancy on November 15, 1744. He was seated on August 6, 1745. He became the council's senior member or president in 1757 and served four times as Virginia's acting governor. The first was after the departure of Robert Dinwiddie, from January 12, 1758 to June 5, 1758, when Francis Fauquier arrived. The second time was in September and October 1761 when Fauquier was consulting with General Jeffery Amherst in New York. In 1763, Blair was acting governor when Fauquier was in the Province of Georgia in September to December. The final time was after Fauquier's death on March 4, 1768 until the arrival of his replacement, Norborne Berkeley on October 26, 1768.

Although appointed for life, he resigned on October 15, 1770, after the death of governor Berkeley. In poor health himself, he did not want to serve as acting governor again for the fifth time. He died the following year. Blair having a large family to support, the Council petitioned the king to grant Blair a pension. The king and Privy Council did not act before Blair's death.

Deputy Auditor General
Holding the position for 43 years, he was responsible for certifying the accuracy of official government revenue accounts, including quitrents and taxes on exported tobacco, then a major component of Virginia's agricultural production. Blair successfully improved procedures and records to prevent the evasion of paying quitrents. However, in his final years the efficacy of the office was poor, probably due to his failing health and the death of his assistant. Blair's son became the next deputy auditor general.

Governor's Council
In 1746, he voted to license Reverend Samuel Davies to preach in Williamsburg, one of the first non-Anglican ministers licensed in Virginia. This was not popular with the established church as Davies advanced the cause of religious and civil liberty and preached to religious dissenters against the Anglican Church.

Governor
During his first term as acting governor in 1758, he addressed the General Assembly on March 31 requesting that Virginia raise an additional regiment for offensive operations in the Ohio Valley against the New France forces in the French and Indian War, which was approved. Also approved was the issuance of £32,000 of treasury notes to fund defenses of the colony.

In 1768, Fauquier had intended to call the Assembly into session. After Fauquier died, Blair, again acting Governor, followed through with a session that closed in April at which time he sent to the king and Parliament the assembly's challenges, led by speaker Peyton Randolph of Parliament's right to tax the colonies. The response was the speedy appointment of Berkeley as new governor with instructions to quash such protests of the crown's authority over the colonies. Blair also urged Virginia's clergy to raise money to aid the victims of a fire in Old Montreal (then under British rule) that destroyed the Congregation Notre-Dame convent and 88 houses.

Other civic action
Blair served on a 1745 committee to revise the laws of Virginia, on a committee that oversaw the 1748–1753 rebuilding of the Capitol after it burned in 1747, and on another in 1763 to correspond with Virginia's London agent.

He was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the public hospital for lunatics established in 1769.
Blair was the only participant in the bricklaying ceremonies for both of the Williamsburg Capitol buildings (in 1699 or 1701 and 1752 or 1754).

Religious duty
Blair served as a vestryman of Bruton Parish, from around 1744 or earlier, and was a churchwarden about 1749.  He was also a visitor of the College of William and Mary in 1758.

Personal life
Blair married his first cousin Mary Munro about 1726. Munro, the daughter of the Reverend John and Christina Monro of St. John's Parish, King William County, was born circa 1708 and died in 1768 They had ten children, including eight daughters. Their fourth child and eldest surviving son, John Blair, Jr. became an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Their eldest daughter, Christian (1727–1784), married Armistead Burwell who was elected Burgess in 1753 –1754. Their next two children, Mary and James, never reached adulthood, then a second daughter Mary (1734-1799), survived at least two husbands, as well as continued the family line. On December 6, 1753, she married Colonel George Braxton, and while several of her children died as infants, son George Braxton IV and daughter Elizabeth (who would marry Henry Whiting and move to Jefferson County), survived their father, who died October 3, 1761. On December 31, 1774, she remarried, to Colonel R. Burwell, who died January 30, 1777. Her third marriage was on June 2, 1795, to Mr. R Prescott who died June 2, 1795. Her sisters Sarah Archer Blair and Ann Blair and brother Archibald Blair also died as children, but the next Sarah Blair (1737-1799) married Wilson-Miles Cary. One of their youngest daughters received the name Agan (Scottish for Anna)(1746-1813), and married Colonel John Banister. Another daughter was Elizabeth (Betsy), who married Captain/Commander/Admiral Thompson.
His younger son Dr. James Blair studied medicine in Scotland, married Catherine Eustace in 1771 and shortly thereafter separated from his wife and died the next year. This led to a dower lawsuit between his estate and wife (Blair v Blair), involving his brother John as executor and Thomas Jefferson and Edmund Randolph as council. Some considered this matter a scandal.

Death and legacy
John Blair Sr. died in Williamsburg on November 5, 1771, and was buried in Bruton Parish churchyard. In addition to his children and grandchildren, Blair's diary survived him. According to that, he loved gardening and maintained a garden with flowers, vegetables, and a fruit tree orchard. His family house, originally built circa 1747 and now known as the John Blair House, is now located on Duke of Gloucester Street in the National Register of Historic Places district living history museum of Colonial Williamsburg. The house is one of the oldest in Williamsburg, and was reconstructed in 1937. It features typical American colonial architecture, including hip roof dormers.  The stone steps were imported from England. His Taskinas plantation passed to his son John Blair Jr., who was not a hands-on manager, but passed it on to his son in law Rev. James Henderson. It is now part of York River State Park.

Notes

References

1771 deaths
Colony of Virginia
House of Burgesses members
Colonial Williamsburg
Scottish emigrants to the Thirteen Colonies
College of William & Mary alumni
Politicians from Williamsburg, Virginia
Virginia colonial people
Burials at Bruton Parish Church
1687 births
American slave owners

John Blair Sr.


The Pieter Baan Centre (Pieter Baan Centrum) is a forensic psychiatric observation clinic in Almere, Netherlands, operated by the Ministry of Security and Justice, where suspects of crimes in the Netherlands are observed to ascertain whether they can be held wholly responsible for their suspected crimes. When suspects are found guilty, but performed their crimes while suffering from some sort of psychiatric or psychological disorder, they may be applicable for involuntary commitment (in Dutch terbeschikkingstelling or TBS), which means To be held at disposal. This is a special measure for crimes which are committed under psychologically abnormal circumstances. The purpose is to treat the perpetrator rather than to punish them and to work towards their reintegration into society.
The TBS measure is usually enacted after about one third to half of the prison sentence has been served, thought this practice is now (as of medio 2010) under review.
The duration of TBS terms are decided upon by the treatment staff in concordance with the Ministry of Justice and can last decades. For this reason perpetrators not always cooperate with the observations of the Pieter Baan Centre.

The clinic has been part of the Netherlands Institute for Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology (NIFP) since 2007.

External links
 NIFP
 Ministry of Justice

Buildings and structures in Utrecht (province)
Law enforcement in the Netherlands

Pieter Baan Centre


The chicken (Gallus gallus, whiles G. gallus domesticus), aft kent as a teukie frae the teuk teuk soond it maks, is a caif foul. Evidence newlin foond mynts that domestication o the chicken wis unner wey in Vietnam ower 10,000 year syne. Afore this discovery, conventional wit haudit that the chicken wis domesticatit in Indie.
A poullie is a young chicken for bylin in a pat.

Birds descrived in 1758
Taxa named bi Carl Linnaeus
Poutrie

Chicken


Qingliang Wenyi (),  also known as Fayan Wenyi () is a Chinese Buddhist monk in the early 10th century. Wenyi was born in Yuhang.  His secular surname is Lu. Fayan school, one of the main philosophical schools of Zen Buddhism was created by him.

Life
Wenyi became a Buddhist monk by the age of 7. His first tutor was Quanwei Chanbo. He followed monk Xijue to the Ashoka temple of Mingzhou where Xijue and Wenyi preached. He then traveled to the southern city of Fuzhou in search of the solution of his doubts on the subject of Zen. In Fuzhou, Wenyi's knowledge gained him much popularity. However, he was not content with himself and thought that he had not detached himself from the secular world. His departure from Fuzhou eventually led him to Linchuan. The tradition of Zen Buddhism holds that it was during this particular trip, Wenyi acquired great insight(頓悟). Knowing that Wenyi is an accomplished Zen philosopher, the king of Nan Tang which ruled over the Linchuan region appointed a temple under his guidance. He would remain in the kingdom of Nan Tang for the rest of his life, promulgating the way of Zen. Wenyi died in the year 958. The King of Nan Tang ordered his royal subjects to wear white clothes for the mourning of Wenyi's death. A pagoda was built in Danyang in honor of Wenyi's spiritual accomplishments. His posthumous title "Zen master Dafayan"(大法眼禪師) was then granted.

Legacy

Wenyi is sometimes referred as Fayan Wenyi for his status as the founder of Fayan school of Zen. The Fayan school was listed as one of the five major schools of Zen Buddhism. Some of his pupils such as Tiantai Deshao, the patriarch of the Kingdom of Wuyue, Wensui, the Patriarch of Jiangnan, and Huiju, Patriarch of Korea made major contributions to the promotion of Zen Buddhism in different regions of China and Korea.

References

Zen patriarchs
Chinese scholars of Buddhism
Chan patriarchs
958 deaths
Year of birth unknown

Qingliang Wenyi


A Short History of Pakistan is an edited book published by University of Karachi Press and comprises four volumes. The book is edited by Prof Ishtiaq Hussain Qureshi and provides a comprehensive account of the history of the Pakistan region and its people from the prehistory leading to the creation of Pakistan and East Pakistan which then became Bangladesh. Complete set of four volumes are sequentially titled as, Book One: Pre-Muslim Period by Ahmad Hasan Dani; Book Two: Muslim Rule under the Sultans by M. Kabir; Book Three: The Mughul Empire by Sh. A. Rashid; and, Book Four: Alien Rule and the Rise of Muslim Nationalism by M. A. Rahim et al.

This book is significant as probably the first serious attempt to paint an overall picture of the early history of Pakistan region. Given that the book deals with periods of history prior to the creation of Pakistan, it has been described as, point of fact, a history of the northern part of the entire Indian subcontinent with special emphasis on the region that presently is Pakistan.
Some of the essays have been criticised by peer reviewers as being insufficiently objective about relations between Indian Muslims, Hindus and the British political classes.

Preamble
At the preface, I H Qureshi addresses the common question as to whether it is possible to disentangle the history of Pakistan from the history of India. He maintains that although for certain periods Pakistan shares common history with modern day India, there are periods of regional history with local significance that were actually dominated by the events outside the South Asia, especially in Central Asia and Iranian plateau. There have also been times when the region actually became arbiter of the South Asia's historical destiny.

Critiques on four volumes

Book One: Pre-Muslim Period by A.H. Dani
Critique by Arthur Llewellyn Basham: Author of the first volume, Prof A. H. Dani is not only an expert archaeologist and prehistorian, but also an able Sanskrit scholar with a very important study of Indian palaeography to his credit. Its interest for the non-Pakistani reader lies chiefly in the attempt to find common factors in the ancient culture of what is now Pakistan. Although a great treasure of ancient Buddhist artefacts is discovered, no significant specimen of Mauryan Empire and Mauryan art is to be found in Pakistan. Gupta Empire also had little influence here. The book has been praised by Basham as "a work which no sensible Pakistani or Indian could object to or accuse of undue prejudice"

Book Two: Muslim Rule under the Sultans by M. Kabir
Critique by Philip B. Calkins: This volume gives a survey of the history of the Sultanate period. After an introductory chapter which describes some of the sources for the history of the period, nine chapters are devoted to an account of the Sultanate, its Muslim antecedents in Sindh and Afghanistan, and the independent Muslim kingdoms which developed out of it. The final chapter deals with administration, society and culture. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this volume is historiographical rather than historical, since it is part of a series of Pakistan and Muslims since their arrival in the sub-continent. Calkins, calls for a more deeper analysis of the history than presented in this volume. Despite of the apparent image of "the official Pakistani point of view" intended to be used as textbook for undergraduate students, the volume should have been able to offer more for those who desire more rudimentary knowledge of sultanate period. He praises the particular aspect of the book as "historigraphical rather than historical".

Book Three: The Mughal Empire by Sh. A. Rashid
Critique by Fritz Lehman: Given that this book is intended as a textbook for Pakistani undergraduates, Shaikh Ahmed Sarhindi predictably appears as the chief preserver of separate Islamic identity in India, yet only a very general and most inadequate description of his ideas and his influence is given. Chapters on Akbar and Aurangzib are the longest and the most revealing. The tone of the book in general is more reasonable and moderate than such earlier publications. Assessment of the Marathas, for example, while unsympathetic is fair to the facts.

Lehman criticises the volume's implications that Muslims living under "Hindu rule" was "the worst disaster in the history of Islam in South Asia", a view he describes as 'consistent with the Two-Nation Theory', but one that he finds "disquieting".

Book Four: Alien Rule and the Rise of Muslim Nationalism by M. A. Rahim et al.
Critique by Aziz Ahmed: Determination of national identity quite understandably tends to be re-evaluation of history. The educator's job is to make such re-evaluation available to the university student. It needs further analysis whether the Hindu officials of the Bengal Nawwabs conspired with the East India Company because they were Hindus or because, like Muslim officials, they were simply greedy.

Ahmad criticises this volume as a "warped subjectivity", and the portrayal of British rule in the region as "merely the lesser weakness of Rahim's historical presentation. His greater weakness is a complete lack of objectivity". According to the reviewer, the book portrays Hindus and the British as "villains" and Muslims as "victims". He further writes that the narrative is "dangerous" for it will not guide younger historians in Pakistan towards proper national self-criticism.

Quotes from the book

Editions
 Qureshi, I.H., 1967, A Short History of Pakistan. University of Karachi Press. (First edition)
 Qureshi, I.H., 1984, A Short History of Pakistan. University of Karachi.
 Qureshi, I.H., 1992, A Short History of Pakistan. University of Karachi, pages: 934, Paperback.

See also
 History of Pakistan
 Lahore Resolution
 Pakistan Movement
 Masood Ashraf Raja. Constructing Pakistan: Foundational Texts and the Rise of Muslim National Identity, 1857–1947, Oxford 2010,

Notes

1967 non-fiction books
1984 non-fiction books
1992 non-fiction books
History of Pakistan
Pakistan Movement
History books about Pakistan
20th-century history books

A Short History of Pakistan


Individualist feminism, also known as ifeminism, is a libertarian feminist movement that emphasizes individualism, personal autonomy, freedom from state-sanctioned discrimination against women, and gender equality.

Overview

Individualist feminists attempt to change legal systems to eliminate sex and gender privileges, and to ensure that individuals have equal rights. Individualist feminism encourages women to take full responsibility for their own lives and opposes any government interference into choices adults make with their own bodies.

Individualist or libertarian feminism is sometimes grouped as one of many branches of liberal feminism, but it tends to diverge significantly from 21st-century mainstream liberal feminism of the 21st century. Individualist feminists Wendy McElroy and Christina Hoff Sommers define individualist feminism in opposition to what they call "political" or "gender feminism".

Beliefs
Libertarian feminists reject gender roles that limit women's autonomy and choice, and assert that strict gender roles limit both women and men, especially if they are legally enforced. Libertarian feminists are critical of using institutional power to achieve positive aims, believing that allowing the government to make decisions on behalf of women may limit women's individual choices. For instance, banning sex work to "protect" women treats women as a monolithic group, rather than individuals, and takes away economic opportunities for women who want to work in the sex industry by choice.

The Cato Institute, an American libertarian think tank, argues that capitalism has given women a higher standard of living, greater access to resources, greater individual freedoms and more job opportunities outside of physical labor.

Individualist feminism conforms to the theory of natural law, supporting laws that protect the rights of men and women equally. Individual feminists argue that government should not prioritize the needs of women over men, nor should it strive to intervene to create equality in personal relationships, private economic arrangements, entertainment and media representation, or the general sociocultural realm.

History in the United States

According to individualist feminist Joan Kennedy Taylor, early organized feminism in the United States was fundamentally "a classical liberal women's movement". First-wave feminists focused on universal suffrage and the abolition of slavery, along with property rights for women and other forms of equal rights.

During the Victorian era and the early 20th century, individualist feminism fell out of vogue in the US and UK as the progressive, labor, and socialist movements began to hold more sway over politics.

Individualist feminism was revived by anti-authoritarian and individualist second-wave feminists in the mid-20th century. According to Taylor, "the political issues that gained wide adherence were the reproductive rights to birth control and abortion, and the Equal Rights Amendment, which (at least in its initial support) was a classical liberal restraint on government."

Labels like individualist feminism, libertarian feminism, and classical liberal feminism were explicitly embraced by late 20th century writers and activists such as Taylor, Sharon Presley, Tonie Nathan, and Wendy McElroy. Modern libertarian feminism is a continuation of ideas and work developed by these women and their contemporaries, including Nadine Strossen and Camille Paglia, as well as of the ideas of classical liberal and anarchist writers throughout history.

Libertarian feminist organizations

Association of Libertarian Feminists
The Association of Libertarian Feminists (ALF) was founded in 1973 by Tonie Nathan and Sharon Presley on Ayn Rand's birthday in Eugene, Oregon, at Nathan's home. In September 1975 in New York City, ALF became a national organization. , Presley was the executive director of the organization.

The ALF has stated that their purpose is to oppose sexist attitudes, oppose government, and "provide a libertarian alternative to those aspects of the women's movement that tend to discourage independence and individuality." The ALF have opposed the government's involvement in childcare centers, including "zoning laws, unnecessary and pointless "health and safety" restrictions, [and] required licensing." The ALF have also opposed public education, saying that public schools "not only foster the worst of traditionalist sexist values but inculcate docility and obedience to authority with sterile, stifling methods and compulsory programs and regulations." In 1977, Nathan suggested eliminating parts of the United States Postal Service regulations that obstructed the mailing of birth control samples and information about family planning at the National Women's Conference in Houston, Texas.

Feminists for Liberty
Feminists for Liberty (F4L) is a nonprofit libertarian feminist group founded in 2016. It was founded by Kat Murti and Elizabeth Nolan Brown to promote the values of libertarian feminism. F4L are "anti-sexism and anti-statism, pro-markets and pro-choice" and "classically liberal, anti-carceral, and sex positive". They are opposed to collectivism and argue that "treating someone as simply a representative of their sex or gender" is collectivist.

Ladies of Liberty Alliance (LOLA)
The Ladies of Liberty Alliance (LOLA) was established in 2009 as a nonprofit organization. LOLA's goal is to engage women in libertarianism through social groups, leadership trainings, and visits from guest speakers.

Mothers Institute
The Mothers Institute was a non-profit educational and networking organization supporting stay-at-home mothering, homeschooling, civics in the classroom, and an effective networking system for mothers and freedom of choice in health and happiness. It is now defunct.

Criticism

Criticism of individualist feminism ranges from expressing disagreements with the values of individualism as a feminist to expressing the limitations within individualist feminism as an effective activism. Critics have argued that individualist feminism does not sufficiently address structural inequality. In 1995, American radical feminist Catharine MacKinnon criticized the value of individual choice, saying there were still instances where "women are used, abused, bought, sold, and silenced", especially women of color. In 1999, American feminist Susan Brownmiller suggested that the aversion to collective, "united" feminism was a sign of a "waning" and unhealthy feminist movement.

Notable individualist feminists

 William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879)
 Ezra Heywood (1829–1893)
 Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912)
 Dora Marsden (1882–1960)
 Suzanne La Follette (1893–1983)
 Tonie Nathan (1923–2014)
 Joan Kennedy Taylor (1926–2005)
 Mimi Reisel Gladstein (b. 1936)
 Sharon Presley (b. 1943)
 Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
 Christina Hoff Sommers (b. 1950)
 Wendy McElroy (b. 1951)
 Virginia Postrel (b. 1960)
 Cathy Young (b. 1963)
 Tiffany Million (b. 1966)
 Rene Denfeld

See also

 Anarcha-feminism
 Cultural liberalism / radicalism
 Equity feminism
 Female entrepreneur
 Feminist anthropology
 Feminist economics
 Feminist existentialism
 Feminist political theory and ecology
 Individualist anarchism
 Left-libertarianism
 Liberal feminism
 Libertarian perspectives on abortion
 List of conservative feminisms
 Sex-positive feminism
 Women's property rights

References

Further reading

  One of the first individualist feminist essays, by Ezra Heywood.

  Essay including discussion of libertarian feminism.

External links
 Association of Libertarian Feminists
 iFeminists
 Pro Choice Libertarians
 The Mother's Institute
 Ladies of Liberty Alliance (LOLA)

Feminist movements and ideologies
Feminist theory
Libertarianism by form
Individualist anarchism
Feminism and history

Individualist feminism


1PN51-2 () is the GRAU index for a Soviet designed passive night scope for the RPG-29 rocket launcher. 1PN is the GRAU index of night vision devices, where PN stands for Nochnoy Pritsel () meaning night sight.

The scope weighs 2.1 kg and measures 280 mm × 192 mm × 106 mm (length × height × width). It is thus more compact than the similar multi-model 1PN51 night vision scope.

It is attached onto a matching side rail on the RPG after which a lever on the scope is pressed to hold it in place.

It comes in a metal container with room for extra batteries, battery charger and the other accessories, weighing 6.45 kg in total.

Optics
The scope gathers light via an 80 mm aperture into a reflector with the secondary mirror obscuring the central 42 mm of the aperture.

The top of the scope has two perpendicular knobs for zeroing the sight.

The aperture cover itself has two 12 mm apertures that can be opened partially allowing the scope to be used in light conditions that would otherwise saturate the light intensifier.

The rear end of the scope is a focus dial.

The eyepiece has a detachable soft rubber eyecup.

The scope has a magnification of 2.94.

Light Intensifier and Reticle

Below the aperture the device has a brightness knob. Apart from powering on and off the device, this knob controls the brightness of the reticle allowing for the reticle to be visible without outshining the target.

The reticle has markings that match the height of a typical armoured vehicle at ranges 200 m, 300 m, 400 m and 500 m.

Power
The light intensifier is powered by a pack of 5 D-0,55S () rechargeable cells, providing up to 7 V. The scope requires 6 V ± 1 V. The maximum current drawn is 40 mA.

The D-0,55S battery pack is used by a range of devices including 1PN51 and 1PN58 and has a separate charging device. The charging device has a switch to select one of 12 V or 27 V input and two red control lamps, one to indicate that power is available and one to indicate that charging is complete.

Image gallery

References

Military electronics of Russia
Night vision devices

1PN51-2


Spirit of Excalibur is a 1990 role-playing game developed by Synergistic Software and published by Virgin Mastertronic for MS-DOS, Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore CDTV, Apple IIGS and Macintosh. The player controls a host of characters with the goal of uniting Sub-Roman Britain under a single king and defending the kingdom. The game was followed by the sequel Vengeance of Excalibur in 1991.

Gameplay

The geographical setting for Spirit of Excalibur is a depiction of actual southern England with its cities, castles, villages, churches and other locations scattered throughout the land. The player starts by controlling a single character, Lord Constantine III of Britain, but as the game proceeds he will be able to control many other knights and the armies they lead, including King Arthur's best friend and magician Merlin. All action takes place at two different levels: a so-called "map level" and a "scene level".

As its name implies, the "map level" shows a multi-screen overview map of Britain, which the player can explore by scrolling. The computer- and player-controlled characters move across the map from place to place and are usually marked by a shield icon with the knight or character's own insignia. To solve the puzzles and mysteries which allow him to proceed through the game, the player must visit key locations and interact with various characters, sometimes enlisting their help and sometimes fighting them. These types of action take place at the "scene level".

When two different groups meet, the player is shown a scene depicting a side view of all characters present at that location. Dialogs, individual combat, exchanges of objects, and requests for information all take place at the scene level. During the fights on this level, one of the player controlled characters combats one of the enemies. The fight ends when all the elements of a group are dead or have withdrawn. The player can choose whether to activate an automatic control or fight manually and he can also have any of his characters use an object or a magician cast a spell. Individual combat ensues between characters who are not supported by an army, but upon a meeting between two hostile armies a specific combat screen opens. If the player has control over one of the two sides, he can issue commands to his units, for example ordering a group of soldiers to charge the enemy, some knights to flank the adversary of have one of the Knights of the Round Table use an object.

All characters have specific characteristics listed in a status display: numerical values identify the character health status, his/her magical or combat abilities, the strength of his/her defences and the nobility and faith levels. While combat skill or health level are quite self-explanatory, nobility and faith play a slightly subtle role: these virtues are fundamental to each character, so much that extremely low levels of nobility or faith will have the specific knight turn evil and the player will lose control over such character. The player can lower a knight's nobility value for example by committing inappropriate actions for a noble (e.g. attacking innocent people), but he can also enhance such value by committing good deeds like helping a damsel in distress. Faith values can be altered quite similarly: in presence of supernatural creatures or tools faith can be reduced, but having a character spend some time in a church will make his/her faith stronger.

Plot
As the title suggests, the game is based on Arthurian legend. Both fictional and historical sources are used to recreate the atmosphere of the age of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and to draw out characters' names, history and relationships. The game's sources include medieval works such as Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, modern ones such as Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, and a number of historical treatises on Arthur of the late 1980s. The game is set in the year 539, shortly after the Battle of Camlann at which King Arthur has been mortally wounded by the traitorous Mordred. Britain urgently needs a new king who can reunite its scattered realms and bring the Round Table back to its former glory. Arthur left a successor in the person of Lord Constantine the Crown Regent.

Spirit of Excalibur consists of five different episodes each with its main quest and a number of lesser ones to solve both to achieve the episode main goal and the game aim of reuniting Britain. During the game the player first leads Constantine to Camelot where he can claim Arthur's throne, then gathers forces to defeat both the Saxon invaders and the sons of Mordred who seek to usurp the throne just as their father did. As the game progresses, enchanted beings threaten Constantine's kingdom and the player must find the magical means to stop these menaces as well, up to the final confrontation with Arthur's half-sister Morgan le Fay who is dabbling in dark arts. The game is won if the player can unite all the fragmented kingdoms of Britain and successfully keep Constantine alive past the last episode.

Reception

Computer Gaming World praised Excaliburs VGA graphics and described it as a "technical wonder", but criticized the documentation and game for not explaining the goal. The DOS version of the game received 4 out of 5 stars in Dragon. Amiga reviews were varied from average to very positive and included the scores of 70% in Amiga Action, 62% in Amiga Power, and 83% in Zero.

Reviews
White Wolf #24 (Dec./Jan., 1990)

Sequel

The sequel was developed also by Synergistic Software and published by Virgin Games for the Amiga, Atari ST, DOS and Macintosh computers in 1991. It begins after Morgan has been slain and all her evil magic was undone, which also means the demon lord Shadowmaster was set free and becomes the powerful new main antagonist.

References

External links

Spirit of Excalibur manual (Amiga version)

1990 video games
Amiga games
Apple IIGS games
Atari ST games
Classic Mac OS games
Commodore CDTV games
DOS games
Fantasy video games set in the Middle Ages
Fiction set in the 6th century
Role-playing video games
Single-player video games
Video games based on Arthurian legend
Video games developed in the United States
Virgin Interactive games
Synergistic Software games

Spirit of Excalibur


Benjamin Travers, FRS (3 April 1783 – 6 March 1858) was a British surgeon, known for his expertise in the physiology and morbidity of the eye.  From 1857 to his death, he was the Serjeant Surgeon, a member of the Medical Household (part of the Royal Household).

Life
Benjamin Travers was born on 3 April 1783 at Cheapside, London, the second of the ten children of Benjamin Travers, a London sugar broker, and his wife Mary Spilsbury. After Cheshunt Grammar School, he was educated privately before joining his father's counting house in 1799.

In August, 1800 Travers was articled for six years to surgeon Astley Cooper. In 1807 he set up his own London practice and was appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy at Guy's Hospital. In 1810 he was appointed Surgeon to the London Infirmary for Diseases of the Eye, afterwards the Moorfields Ophthalmic Hospital, where he was later joined by William Lawrence. In May 1815, he was elected a Surgeon to St Thomas' Hospital where he served until his retirement in 1841. He also obtained the lucrative post of Surgeon to the East India Company's warehouses and brigade,

On the formation of the medical establishment of Queen Victoria he was appointed a Surgeon Extraordinary, afterwards becoming a Surgeon in Ordinary to the Prince Consort. He was appointed Serjeant Surgeon in 1857.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1813. He was President of the Hunterian Society in 1827 and served on their council from 1830 to 1858. He was their Hunterian Orator in 1838.

He married three times: firstly in 1807 Sarah, daughter of William Morgan, FRS, secondly in 1813 a daughter of G. Millet, an East India director and thirdly in 1831, the youngest daughter of Colonel Stevens. He had a large family, the eldest of whom was Benjamin. He died at his house in Green Street, Grosvenor Square, on 6 March 1858, and was buried at Hendon, Middlesex.

Publications

 An Inquiry into the Process of Nature in Repairing Injuries of the Intestine,  8vo, London, 1812.
 A Synopsis of Diseases of the Eye and their Treatment, 8vo, London, 1820; 3rd ed., 1824; issued in New York, 1825.
 An Enquiry into that Disturbed State of the Vital Functions usually denominated Constitutional Irritation, 8vo, London, 1824.
 A Further Enquiry respecting Constitutional Irritation and the Pathology of the Nervous System, London, 1834

References

1783 births
1858 deaths
People from the City of London
English surgeons
Fellows of the Royal Society
People educated at Cheshunt School
Medical doctors from London

Benjamin Travers


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Entreprise Tunisienne d'Activités Pétrolières (ETAP) is a state-owned industrial and commercial company in Tunisia directly in charge of the petroleum sector as well as the state's partnerships with foreign exploration and production operators.

Overview
ETAP was created by law N°72-22 on 10 March 1972, to manage petroleum exploration and production activities on behalf of the Tunisian government. ETAP is primarily active in endeavors related to attracting international oil companies to provide financing for exploration projects, particularly in the country's smaller oil fields. To help achieve this objective, Tunisia introduced a new hydrocarbon law (Law 99/93) that includes incentives with favorable fiscal regulations and additional legal flexibility of licensing procedures and terms. The new law has been effective since August 20, 2000. A provision for foreign corporations was a reduction in the tax rate from 75 to 50 percent, with ETAP taking a 40% share of the concession.

Activities
As of 2007, ETAP has granted a total of 44 exploration licenses to 42 international and domestic companies. Additionally, ETAP has been working in Syria with German-based Preussag to develop small oil fields and has signed an oil cooperation agreement with Iraq. In December 2004, the Syrian and Tunisian governments signed exploration agreements for areas in northeastern Syria. ETAP also has joint ventures with Sonatrach of Algeria and Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC). The 50-50 joint venture with NOC, known as the Tunisian-Libyan Gas Transportation Company (Joint Gas), is the client of the Trans-Med gas pipeline, which will supply natural gas from the Libyan town Melitah to Gabes in southeast Tunisia.

In April 2005, the Mabdallah Saad al-Thani Corporation of the United Arab Emirates announced a five-year exploration agreement with ETAP for the El Jem block, while U.S.-based Rigo Oil Company announced an exploration agreement for the Tozeur-Sud block. By the end of 2005, ETAP had issued 41 permits (26 onshore and 15 offshore), leading to an increase in total investment in petroleum exploration to US$135 million. In February 2006, Tunisia awarded PetroCanada and Anadarko a two-year production sharing agreements (PSAs) with ETAP for the Cape Sirat and Bashtar blocks.

In February 2006, a 35-year-old exploration dispute between Tunisia and Malta was resolved. The two countries signed a joint development agreement of the continental shelf between Malta and Tunisia, which is located near the Tunisian Isis field and Libya's offshore Bouri field. On March 20, 2007, Lundin Petroleum AB announced that ETAP decided to exercise its participation option to acquire a 20% interest in the Oudna field, offshore Tunisia. Following ETAP's participation, Lundin Petroleum and Atlantis Holding Norway AS will each hold 40%. The Oudna field development was successfully completed and production commenced in November 2006 and is now producing over . Average production for 2007 is estimated to be .

Notes

References

Energy Information Administration (2007) Tunisia: Country Analysis Brief
ETAP Annual Report 2007
P. Mobbs (2002) Mineral Industry of Algeria
Thomas S. Ahlbrandt (2001) Sirte Basin Province: Sirte-Zelten Total Petroleum System U.S. Geological Survey
Sonatrach official site (in French)
Project GALSI (in French)
Naftal

1972 establishments in Tunisia
Government-owned companies of Tunisia
Oil and gas companies of Tunisia
Tunisia
Non-renewable resource companies established in 1972
Economy of Tunis
Tunisian brands
Energy companies established in 1972


Portrait of the mother (also known as Ritratto della madre) is a 20th-century late filippinism painted in oil by Umberto boccioni. It was painted in 1910, in Via Adige in Milano, Italy. Is in the collection of the Museum Galleria d'arte moderna Ricci Oddi of Piacenza.

Umberto Boccioni was inspired by the work "Portrait of the mother" by Francesco Filippini to create the portrait of his mother, of which he was an attentive observer of his art exhibitions and for this reason it maintains a naturalistic structure typical of the Filipino artistic movement which then becomes the basis of the works of full Futurism. Boccioni then portrayed his mother several times.
The work of Boccioni's Portrait of the Mother is linked to the painting "Materia" (1912) and "Horizontal Volumes" (1911-1912).
The painting of Boccioni's Mother in the Ricci Oddi Museum therefore marks a moment of transition between the Divisionist phase and that, also inspired by Cubism, which proposes a decisive overcoming of traditional aesthetics.

The full stylistic adherence to Boccioni's futurism takes place with the stylistic turning point with the painting «The city that rises» created in 1910 in Via Adige in Milan (Fondazione Prada district).

Related pages
 Portrait of the mother (Filippini)
 Francesco Filippini
 Mater (Boccioni)

Bibliography
 Francesco Filippini, un protagonista del Naturalismo, Ed. Skira, 1999, p. 133
 Gaetano Panazza, 1964, p. 62
 Luciano Anelli, 1984, p. 97
 Renata Stradiotti, 1989, p.192

Paintings by Umberto Boccioni
1910s paintings

Portrait of the mother (Boccioni)


"What Do You Say" is a song written by Neil Thrasher and Michael Dulaney, and recorded by American country music artist Reba McEntire. It was released on September 14, 1999 as the first single from her album So Good Together. The song reached number 3 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart in January 2000 and number 31 on the Billboard Hot 100 becoming her first crossover hit and top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. It is her highest peaking single on that chart.

A video was produced of the song, and has aired on CMT, CMT Pure Country and Great American Country.

Content
The song's main premise explores a protagonist's struggle to appropriately explain or respond to different situations. The story — as depicted in the song's video, is told from the perspective of a typical American family.

The first verse sees the father and young son driving around town. While stopped at a red traffic light, the boy sees an adult bookstore and, spotting the store's marquee, asks "What are those X's for?" The father decides he does not want his son to know the type of business taking place inside the store and quickly changes the subject to football.

In the next verse, the teenaged daughter is at a friend's party, where she quickly becomes very drunk. After becoming ill, she becomes frightened and calls her mother to come get her. The mother does just that, upholding a promise to not ask any questions.

Music video
In the video, directed by Deaton-Flanigen, the mother is suffering from the final stages of cancer; this is revealed when she removes her wig and sees that she has lost her hair due to chemotherapy. In the song's final verse, the woman's family is at her bedside saying their final goodbyes. Although she has been trying to maintain her strength, she knows that her life is about to end. Her final apparent words to her family are a whispered "I want to go home." As the video ends, a photo collage of the woman and her family in more pleasant times (presumably on display at the woman's visitation and funeral) is shown, before the three surviving members of the family — the father, daughter and son — leave the hospital in sadness. They walk by McEntire and two children, who are in the hallway for an unexplained reason; this is the only moment in the entire video in which McEntire appears. Furthermore, this video marks the third of such in McEntire's career to not feature her singing, the other two being 1992's "Is There Life Out There" and "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia." The video received a nomination for a Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video.

Chart performance

Year-end charts

References

1999 singles
Reba McEntire songs
Songs written by Neil Thrasher
Song recordings produced by David Malloy
MCA Nashville Records singles
Music videos directed by Deaton-Flanigen Productions
Songs written by Michael Dulaney
1999 songs

What Do You Say (Reba McEntire song)


Underwater diving is going underwater to do things. There are different reasons to do this:
Recreational diving is done for fun. It is sometimes called sport diving. It can be done using air from cylinders carried by the diver. This is called scuba diving. It can also be done for shorter dives by holding your breath. This is called freediving or skindiving.
Military diving is diving for a military purpose.
Commercial diving is diving to do underwater work. This is done as part of a project where the work must be done under water.
Scientific diving is diving done to find things out for scientific purposes. It may be part of the job for a scientist, or done by volunteer for a citizen science project.
Public safety diving is diving done by a public service organisation like the police of a fire department to rescue people or to find and bring back bodies or evidence.

There are also different ways to dive:
Surface supplied diving gets air for breathing through a hose from a pump above the surface of the water.
Scuba diving is done with metal cylinders carried by the diver to hold the breathing air. In open-circuit scuba the air comes out of the mouthpiece when the diver breathes in, and goes into the water when the diver breathes out. When a rebreather is used, some of the same air is breathed many times, and the machine puts oxygen into the air to make up for the oxygen that is used up, and takes out the carbon dioxide by using a chemical to absorb it. A rebreather lets the diver use less air, but it can go wrong in more different ways.
Saturation diving is diving where the divers stay in pressurised rooms between dives and go to the underwater workplace and return in a sealed diving bell, so they stay at the same pressure for days or weeks at a time before the pressure is reduced to normal air pressure when they finish the contract. The breathing gas is supplied from the surface through a hose so this is also a kind of surface supplied diving.
Freediving is diving underwater without an air supply. The diver must hold their breath until they get back to the surface.

Diving

Underwater diving