Michel Vigneault (October 4, 1944 – June 30, 1978) was a Canadian professional wrestler, better known by his ring name, Michel "Mad Dog" Martel. Martel is best known for his appearances with professional wrestling promotion such as Atlantic Grand Prix Wrestling, Stampede Wrestling, International Wrestling Enterprise and the World Wrestling Council in the late 1960s and 1970s. He was one-half of the tag team The Mercenaries with Frenchy Martin and the older brother of fellow wrestler Rick Martel.

Professional wrestling career

Early career
The eldest of six children, Vigneault was born in Quebec City to Fernand Vigneault and Evelyne Harvey in October 1944. During high school, Vigneault became involved in powerlifting and began working nights as a bouncer and bartender in local clubs. It was during this time that he would meet his future tag team partner Pierre Martin.

During the late 1960s, he began training with his uncles Real Choinard and Aldrick Harvey who wrestled occasionally for promoter Johnny Rougeau. In 1968, he began touring northern Ontario during the summer for Larry Kasaboski. During his time in the area, he was trained by Vic Tanney and later wrestled for Johnny Rougeau in Quebec for a time before traveling to Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling.

Stampede Wrestling
During his time in Stampede Wrestling, he would gain early success as a singles competitor becoming involved in a high-profile feud "Cowboy" Dan Kroffat before teaming with Danny Babich to defeat Earl Black and Tiger Joe Tomasso for the Stampede International Tag team Championship in Calgary, Alberta on October 1, 1971. Their championship reign was brief, however, as they lost the titles to Chin Lee and Sugi Sito less than two weeks later.

He and Babich would later defeat Tiger Joe Tomasso and Gil Hayes to recapture the tag team titles in mid-December only to lose the titles to George Gordienko and Super Hawk on December 16. Rebounding a week later, they won the titles back from George Gordienko and Super Hawk on December 23 and held on to the titles for almost a month before losing to Dan Kroffat and Lennie Hurst in Edmonton, Alberta on January 20, 1972. Winning back the titles in Calgary on February 9, he and Babich would eventually lose the titles to Carlos Belafonte and Gino Caruso two months later. While in Calgary, Martel would also occasionally return to Quebec from time to time as well as travel to Mexico where he wrestled as "The Lumberjack".

Soon after his brother's debut in June 1972, he and Rick Martel would team together in Quebec as well as occasionally in Georgia and Calgary during the next several years.

The Mercenaries in Japan and Puerto Rico
By the mid-1970s, Martel had become an established star in Stampede Wrestling and persuaded Pierre Martin to enter professional wrestling as well. Martin eventually agreed and, after training with several veterans in Quebec, Martel brought him into Stampede Wrestling during his first year as "Don Gagne". They soon began teaming together as "the Mercenaries", their in-ring personas closely mirroring the Québécois nationalist movements active in Quebec during that time, and began wrestling in Montreal and the Maritimes for Eastern Sports Association as Michel and Frenchy Martin feuding with Leo Burke, The Beast, Rudy Kay and Eric Pomeroy.

It was in Puerto Rico, however, where The Mercenaries gained the greatest success, when his friends Carlos Colon and Victor Rivera established the World Wrestling Council the previous year. Signing with the promotion in early 1975, he and Martin would defeat Vikingo and Ciclon Sudamericano for the WWC North American Tag Team Championship in Caguas, Puerto Rico on April 8, 1975. Feuding with Jose Rivera and Carlos Colon during the next several months, he and Martin remained the top "heels" in the promotion headlining the majority of the WWC events with Rivera and Colon for much of the year. In one of the biggest cards of the year, which featured the return of WWC mainstays Eric the Red, "Cowboy" Bob Ellis and Dick Steinborn, the Martel brothers lost a hair vs. hair match to Jose Rivera and Carlos Colon on May 31, 1975. They would also be allied with Kurt Von Hess for a short time while he toured Puerto Rico during the summer.

After losing the titles to Jose Rivera & Ciclon in August 1975, the Mercenaries also had a brief stay in the Cleveland-based International Wrestling Association facing Johnny Powers and Pez Whatley in Walpole, Massachusetts on October 1. Negotiations to sign with the IWA would later fall through due to miscommunication with promoters Pedro Martínez and Eddie Einhorn, however, including being unable to attain a work visa among other issues.

In November and December 1975, the Mercenaries (billed as "Combat") wrestled in Japan for the International Wrestling Enterprise promotion as part of its Big Winter Series. In their second bout, they defeated Great Kusatsu and Mighty Inoue in a two-out-of-three falls match to win the IWA World Tag Team Championship. Kusatsu and Inoue regained the titles from Combat the following month in a cage match. Combat made a second tour with International Wrestling Enterprise in October to December 1976 as part of its Bravery Series.

During the next two years, "The Mercenaries" would become one of the most popular tag teams in the promotion and feuded with many of the biggest stars of the era including Carlos Colon, Jose and Johnny Rivera and The Moondogs. He and Martin would eventually be joined Danny Babich, Martel's former Stampede Wrestling tag team partner, who became the third member of "The Mercenaries" as "Daniel Martel". Later defeating The Medics (Medico I and Medico II) for the WWC North American Tag Team titles in May 1977, he would feud over the tag team championship with Jose Rivera and Hercules Ayala and eventually won the tag team titles twice more with Babich before the end of the year. Returning to Stampede Wrestling in early 1978, he would also briefly feud with Leo Burke over the Stampede North American Championship defeating Burke for the title in March before losing it back to him the following month.

Death
On the night of June 30, 1978, Martel was wrestling at a WWC event in Ponce, Puerto Rico appearing on the undercard in a 6-man tag team match alongside Pierre Martin and Jack Lafarb facing Carlos Colon and "The Invaders" (Invader I and Invader II). Although showing no signs during the match, he complained of suffering hot flashes during the match to his tag team partner while backstage preparing to leave for the night. Martel left the arena along with Pierre. While on his way to San Juan, Michel suffered a heart attack, and was rushed to a hospital in Ponce, where he was pronounced dead.

Rick Martel, then 22 years old, would eventually be flown into Puerto Rico to identify his brother and eventually charged with bringing his body back to Quebec. His death was not only announced by Bob Leonard in Stampede Wrestling but also the World Wrestling Council where promoter Carlos Colon and Jose Gonzalez would use Martel's death to promote a long running feud between The Invaders and Pierre Martin and Rick Martel with the promotion claiming that Martel's attack had been caused by Gonzales using the then banned "heart punch" during their last match. This incident was later brought up when Jose Gonzalez stabbed American wrestler Bruiser Brody to death at a WWC show in 1988.  This has since been revealed as "kayfabe" used to promote Gonzalez's feud with Frenchy Martin and Michel Martel's younger brother Rick Martel.

Championships and accomplishments
Cauliflower Alley Club
Posthumous Award (2011)
Eastern Sports Association
ESA Maritime Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Frenchy Martin
International Wrestling Enterprise
IWA World Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Pierre Martin
Stampede Wrestling
NWA International Tag Team Championship (Calgary version) (4 times) - with Danny Babich
Stampede Wrestling North American Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
World Wrestling Council
WWC North American Tag Team Championship (4 times) - with Pierre Martel (1) and Daniel Martel (3)

See also
 List of premature professional wrestling deaths

References

External links

1944 births
1978 deaths
Canadian male professional wrestlers
Professional wrestlers from Quebec
Sportspeople from Quebec City
Stampede Wrestling alumni
20th-century professional wrestlers
Stampede Wrestling International Tag Team Champions
Stampede Wrestling North American Heavyweight Champions

Michel Martel


Lucius Arruntius Stella was a Roman senator, who was active during the reigns of Domitian, Nerva and Trajan. He was suffect consul in October of 101 as the colleague of Lucius Julius Marinus Caecilius Simplex. He is known from the works of the poets Martial and Statius. Martial records Stella wrote poems, in a style influenced by Catullus and Tibullus. None of his poems have survived.

According to Martial, Stella had come from Patavium in northern Italy. He was appointed to organize the games that celebrated Domitian's victory over the Chatti and Dacians in either the year 89 or 93. Stella had also become a member of the Quindecimviri sacris faciundis, the Roman priesthood entrusted with the care of the Sibylline oracles, which admitted him by AD 91.

Statius wrote an epithalamium, or a marriage poem, for Stella. It is from this work we learn the identity of his wife: Violentilla, a wealthy Neapolitan widow.

References

1st-century Romans
2nd-century Romans
Suffect consuls of Imperial Rome
Stella, Lucius Arruntius

Lucius Arruntius Stella


Metaepistemology is the branch of epistemology and metaphilosophy that studies the underlying assumptions made in debates in epistemology, including those concerning the existence and authority of epistemic facts and reasons, the nature and aim of epistemology, and the methodology of epistemology.

Perspectives in methodological debates include traditional epistemology which argues for the use of intuitions and for the autonomy of epistemology from science, experimental philosophy which argues against intuitions and for the use of empirical studies in epistemology, pragmatism which argues for the reconstruction of epistemic concepts to achieve practical goals, naturalism which argues that epistemology should be empirical and scientifically-informed, and feminism which criticises androcentric bias in epistemology and argues for the use of feminist method.

Terminology
According to philosopher Dominique Kuenzle, metaepistemology is not an established term in contemporary philosophy, only having been used by a few philosophers throughout the twentieth and twenty-first century. It was coined by Roderick Firth in 1959 in an article discussing the views of Roderick Chisholm on the ethics of belief. Richard Brandt used the term in 1967 in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, defining it as a higher-order discipline, analogous to metaethics, that attempts to explain epistemic concepts and to understand the underlying logic of epistemic statements. In 1978, similarly inspired by the work of Roderick Chisholm, William Alston released "Meta-Ethics and Meta-Epistemology", the first paper with the explicit aim of defining the distinction between metaepistemology and "substantive epistemology", in which he defined metaepistemology as the study of "the conceptual and methodological foundations of [epistemology]." Whilst subsequent theorists using the term have agreed on the need for a distinction between metaepistemology and other areas of epistemology, there are substantial disagreements about how and where to draw the lines.

Some sources define metaepistemology narrowly as the epistemology of epistemology, including The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy which also states that the role of metaepistemology is in comparing different epistemologies and analyzing epistemic concepts. Others emphasise the role of metaepistemology in examining epistemology's goals, methods and criteria of adequacy, such as the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy and The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. Metaepistemology is also sometimes characterised as the study of epistemic statements and judgements, including their semantic, ontological and pragmatic status, or as the study of epistemic facts and reasons. Metaepistemology has been described as a reflective or higher-order discipline by a number of sources, including the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy and The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, which calls metaepistemology a branch of metaphilosophy. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy also emphasises that metaepistemology is concerned with the fundamental assumptions of epistemology. Similarly, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states that metaepistemology "takes a step back from particular substantive debates in epistemology in order to inquire into the assumptions and commitments made by those who engage in these debates."

Relationship to epistemology
The division between metaepistemology and the other branches of epistemology—as well as their connections with one another—are debated by metaepistemologists. Some theorists, such as William Alston, characterise metaepistemology as dealing with the analysis of epistemic concepts such as knowledge. Others, such as Dominique Kuenzle and Christos Kyriacou, argue that the analysis of knowledge is a paradigmatic example of a standard first-order epistemological question, not a metaepistemological one. Theorists also differ on whether the debate between internalism and externalism is epistemological or metaepistemological.

As well as the question of where the dividing line between metaepistemology and the rest of epistemology should be placed, there are also differing views about what branches to divide epistemology into. The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy contrasts metaepistemology with "substantive epistemology" whereas the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy states that epistemology can be divided into three branches analogously to the three branches of ethics: metaepistemology, normative epistemology and applied epistemology. Richard Fumerton views the idea of a branch of normative epistemology as problematic because he views epistemic normativity as inherently different in character to moral normativity; he instead divides epistemology into metaepistemology and applied epistemology.

Views about the relationship between metaepistemology and the other branches of epistemology fall into two groups: autonomy and interdependency. According to the autonomy view, metaepistemology is an entirely independent branch of epistemology that neither depends on the other branches nor entails any particular position in the other branches. For example, according to this view, a person being an epistemic realist, anti-realist, or relativist has no implications for whether they should be a coherentist, foundationalist, or reliabilist and vice versa. According to the interdependency view, on the other hand, there are strong theoretical interdependencies between the branches and a normative epistemological view may even be fully derivable from a metaepistemological one.

Epistemological methodology

Overall, traditional accounts of epistemological methodology hold that epistemological inquiry is a priori and so methods should be reflective rather than empirical, that epistemology is methodologically and conceptually autonomous from scientific methodology, and that epistemology is not just a descriptive discipline, but also a normative one as well. Another part of traditional methodology is the use of intuitions to make judgements about thought experiments which has arguably been a central part of philosophical methodology dating back to Plato; a famous example of its use in epistemology is the use of epistemologists intuitive responses to cases such as Gettier cases to determine the validity or invalidity of different theories of knowledge. Defenders of traditional epistemological methodology include Laurence BonJour, Ernest Sosa, Timothy Williamson and George Bealer. BonJour and Bealer have both argued that methodologies that reject a priori inquiry are self-defeating because their proponents must make arguments for why the rejection of a priori inquiry is preferable to traditional epistemology and, prior to the adoption of one methodology over the other, the only way to judge which is better is with the use of a priori judgements about which set of arguments are better. As BonJour summarises the argument, "the repudiation of all a priori justification is apparently tantamount to the repudiation of argument or reasoning generally, thus amounting in effect to intellectual suicide."

The use of intuitive judgements in traditional epistemological methodology has been criticised due to empirical results coming from the field of experimental philosophy which have aimed to cast doubt on this and other kinds of philosophical methodology which experimental philosophers view as "armchair methodology". Studies in experimental philosophy have suggested that intuitive judgements are unreliable because they are unstable and because they are sensitive to philosophically irrelevant factors such as cultural background and personality. They have also attempted to show that philosopher's intuitions misrepresent the folk intuitions of society at large. Proponents of the use of intuition in epistemology have questioned the design of these studies and put forwards their own empirical results. However, with the increasing professionalization of experimental philosophy, such arguments have fallen out of favour. Proponents have also attempted to argue that these experimental results are compatible with existing philosophical methodology. For example, one response to these results has been that folk judgements about philosophical thought experiments are subject to cognitive bias and that they are less reliable than the intuitions of professional philosophers who have a higher level of expertise in the subject area. Subsequent studies have shown that some of the earlier results in experimental philosophy such as the instability of intuitive judgements and their sensitivity to philosophically irrelevant factors affect professional philosophers to a similar degree as lay people and that professional philosophers are also subject to cognitive biases. Another argument that has been put forward by Max Deutsch and Herman Cappelen is that, contrary to the claims of experimental philosophers, examination of the philosophical literature reveals that thought experiments in philosophy actually don't rely on intuitive judgements but rather on judgements which are supported by philosophical arguments.

In response to this debate, Jonathan Weinberg has argued that one reason epistemologists have defended an intuition-driven methodology is because these results from experimental philosophy do not provide an alternative methodology to be used in its place. In order to strengthen the case against intuition-driven methodology, Weinberg proposes an alternative methodology which he calls "reconstructive neopragmatism" and compares it to intuition-driven methodology by how well they each meet up to several desirable methodological qualities including truth-conduciveness and the ability to produce normative results, the two most important qualities according to Weinberg. Weinberg argues that the biggest failures of intuition-driven methodology is that it doesn't foster successful conversations because intuitions are entirely subjective and cannot be rationally argued for or against and that it seems to imply epistemic relativism due to varying intuitions across cultures. Weinberg's reconstructive neopragmatism replaces intuitions with an "analysis-by-imagined-reconstruction" in which epistemologists continually evaluate and re-evaluate how epistemic norms and concepts should be changed to best achieve practical goals such as organising our lives. Weinberg claims that an advantage to this pragmatist methodology over intuition-driven methodology is that it allows for progressive change as epistemic circumstances change across time.

Another alternative to traditional epistemological methodology in epistemology is methodological naturalism, advocated for by Willard Quine, Hilary Kornblith and Alvin Goldman. Methodological naturalism was first explicitly proposed by Quine as part of his project to naturalise epistemology. Quine argued for the radical position that traditional epistemological methods had failed to deliver the results they had aimed for (such as an adequate response to the problem of induction) and as a result they should be abandoned and completely replaced with empirical psychology, a view which has since become known as "replacement naturalism". Kornblith and Goldman adopted more moderate forms of naturalism which allow for a place for epistemology but one that is informed by developments in science rather than being an entirely autonomous discipline. According to Kornblith, the subject matter of epistemology is not our concept of knowledge but the real and robust phenomenon of knowledge itself which, according to Kornblith, is a natural kind and this means that investigation into knowledge is a posteriori, not a priori. According to Kornblith, whilst philosophers' intuitions may be able to identify features of the shared concept of knowledge, the concept itself may be incorrect about the true nature of knowledge and so investigation in epistemology should use empirical methods just like investigation into any other external phenomenon in science. Kornblith further argues that epistemological methodology should be empirical rather than intuition-based because intuitions are historically conditioned and slow to change when new evidence is found. Goldman offered an even more moderate view which places appeals to intuition as an ineliminable part of epistemological methodology because even if we engage in empirical study of knowledge, we need some concept of what counts as knowledge in the first place. Despite this, his methodology is still naturalistic because it rejects the idea that justification is a concept that can be analysed into its necessary and sufficient conditions via intuitive judgements, instead identifying it with an entirely psychological process, and because he views scientific research as necessarily informing what actual psychological processes could count as justification once an adequate conceptualisation of it has been found.

Feminist philosophy has extended various of these criticisms of traditional epistemology from a feminist perspective and advocated for feminist methods in epistemology. For example, Sally Haslanger has argued from a pragmatist feminist perspective that androcentric bias is widespread within epistemic practice and concepts and as such the use that they provide for us should be re-evaluated so that they can be reformed to better serve their purposes within epistemology. Louise Antony and Elizabeth Anderson have embraced feminist forms of naturalist methodology which maintain naturalism's dedication to an empirical approach whilst making a space for normative feminist ideals such as eliminating androcentric bias. Antony argues that the "bias of paradox"—the tension between feminism's criticism of the bias in androcentric perspectives on the one hand and the feminist idea that all methods, including feminist methods, must be biased by their values and interests on the other—can be resolved by naturalism. She argues that feminists should not attempt to argue from a neutral perspective but should show through empirical work that feminist values and approaches are better at producing true theories than androcentric ones.

Metanormativity

Epistemic language often includes sentences with a normative appearance; for example "you should believe in the evidence" or "it is good to be an open-minded researcher". This normative appearance of epistemic language gives rise to many metanormative questions such as whether epistemic semantics is truly normative, whether or not there are objective epistemic facts about what we ought to believe, how we could ever gain knowledge of such facts as well as whether or not they could fit into a naturalistic philosophy, and the relationship between epistemology and ethics as normative disciplines.

As in meta-ethics, views about the semantics of epistemology can be divided into cognitivism and non-cognitivism. Epistemic cognitivism holds that epistemic judgements such as "you should believe in the evidence" express beliefs about facts about the world and so characteristically aim at the truth. Epistemic non-cognitivism, on the other hand, holds that such judgements do not express beliefs, instead expressing the desires or attitudes of the speaker, and so are not truth-apt.

Likewise, views about the metaphysics of epistemology can be divided into epistemic realism and anti-realism. Epistemic realism is the view that mind-independent epistemic facts, reasons and properties exist. Epistemic realism generally also holds that epistemic facts provide categorical reasons for belief (i.e. reasons that apply to agents regardless of their desires or goals). Epistemic anti-realism denies the existence of such epistemic facts, reasons and properties, instead characterising them as mind-dependent, and argues that mind-dependent facts provide us with only with instrumental reasons (i.e. reasons that only apply to agents depending on their desires and goals). Anti-realist theories are generally thought to fit well with naturalist philosophy because they ground normative epistemic facts in descriptive natural facts such as facts about human psychology. A view which seeks to find a middle ground between realism and anti-realism is constructivism (also known as constitutivism) which argues that normative truths are constructed by agents such that epistemic facts are grounded by or constitutive of facts about agents (such as facts about their desires or about the pre-conditions of their agency).

There are broadly two positions about the relationship between metaepistemology and metaethics: the parity thesis and the disparity thesis. The parity thesis holds that because metaethics and metaepistemology have important structural similarities to one another, their answers to metanormative questions such as whether there are any normative facts will be the same. For example, according to the parity thesis, if epistemic realism is true, then moral realism must also be true. The parity thesis has been used in "companions-in-guilt" arguments which aim to extend arguments for or against realism in metaepistemology to metaethics, and vice versa. For example, Terence Cuneo has argued that denying the existence of epistemic facts is self-defeating because it requires arguing that we should believe that there are no facts about what we should believe. According to this argument, there must be epistemic facts and, given the parity premise, also moral facts. Similarly utilising the parity premise, Sharon Street, Allan Gibbard and Matthew Chrisman have argued that reasons for being moral anti-realists extend to epistemic anti-realism. In contrast to the parity thesis, the disparity thesis holds that there is some important disparity between metaethics and metaepistemology which means that their answers to metanormative questions could be very different from one another. For example, Chris Heathwood argues that moral facts are irreducibly normative whilst epistemic facts are reducible to descriptive facts such as facts about evidence and probability. As a result, he thinks that we have reason to be moral realists but not necessarily epistemic realists.

References

Citations

Sources

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External links

Epistemology
Metaphilosophy

Metaepistemology


The Image is a 1969 black and white short film directed by Michael Armstrong with starring Michael Byrne and David Bowie in his first film role. The film is one of the few short films ever to receive a certified 'X' Rating and it gained this rating due to its violent content.

Plot
A troubled artist (Michael Byrne) is haunted by a ghostly young man (David Bowie) who appears to step right out of one of the artist's paintings. From a brief summary located on the cover of the film's script, it reads: a study of the illusionary reality world within the schizophrenic mind of the artist at his point of creativity.

Cast
 David Bowie as The Boy
 Michael Byrne as The Artist

References

External links

 The Image - Script
 The Image at CINEBEATS

British short films
Films directed by Michael Armstrong
1969 films
1960s English-language films

The Image (1969 film)


Crab cakes are a popular dish from the Chesapeake Bay region of Maryland. They are a mix of crab meat and seasonings. They usually contain bread picked apart in small pieces, mayonnaise, mustard, parsley, beaten egg, paprika and pepper.

Traditionally, crab cakes are fried in vegetable oil. They can be served between saltine crackers or on a roll. A typical size is 1/5 to ¼ lb. Often they are eaten with French fries and a soda or beer.

American food
Seafood dishes

Crab cake


Jan Betrand Latham-Koenig,  (born 1953) is a British conductor. He was born in England, coming from French, Danish and Polish origins. He attended Highgate School and then studied at the Royal College of Music in London before he founded the Koenig Ensemble in 1976 and began his career as a concert conductor with the BBC, in 1981 and winning the Gulbenkian Fellowship. He made his debut with Macbeth at the Vienna State Opera in 1988 and was appointed its permanent guest conductor in 1991.

His guest appearances in opera and concert have included the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, English National Opera, New Japan Philharmonic, Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Orchestra dell'Arena di Verona, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Dresden Philharmonic, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and the orchestras of Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, Sudwestfunk and Baden-Baden in Germany. His appearances with the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome have included the Beethoven Piano Concertos with Evgeny Kissin.

As an opera conductor, his appearances include La traviata (Royal Opera House London), Macbeth (Savonlinna Festival); Tristan und Isolde and Thaïs (Novaya Opera Moscow); Tristan und Isolde and Orfeo ed Euridice (National Opera Prague); Otello (New National Theatre Tokyo); Il viaggio a Reims (Finnish National Opera);  I puritani (Vienna Staatsoper); Billy Budd (Gothenburg Opera); Venus and Adonis (Teatro Carlo Felice Genova); Tosca (Opéra National de Paris); La figlia del mago (Cantiere Internazionale d'Arte); Jenůfa and Hamlet (Royal Danish Opera); the Chilean première of Peter Grimes and I Lombardi (Orquesta Filarmónica del Teatro Municipal de Santiago). Additional performances have included Dialogues des Carmélites (BBC Proms, Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires, Opéra national du Rhin), the latter winning the Claude-Rostand Best Regional Production Prize 1999 and the Diapason d'or for best opera video 2001. He has also made some recordings.

He was music director with ensembles and organisations including the Orchestra of Porto (which he founded at the request of the Portuguese government), the Cantiere Internazionale d'Arte di Montepulciano, Teatro Massimo di Palermo and both the Orchestre Philharmonique and the Opéra in Strasbourg. He has held Principal Guest Conductorships with Opéra national du Rhin, Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Filarmonica del Teatro Regio di Torino and he was founder and artistic director of the Young Janáček Philharmonic.

Since August 2011 he is artistic director of the Novaya Opera, Moscow, being the first British-born conductor to have held such a role in a Russian opera company. Also, at present, he is artistic director of the Orquesta Filarmónica de la UNAM, Mexico City and the Flanders Symphony Orchestra, Bruges. In 2019 he founded the Britten Shostakovich Festival Orchestra, a collaborative venture composed of young British and Russian musicians.

Latham-Koenig was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2020 Birthday Honours for services to music and UK/Russia cultural relations.

References

British male conductors (music)
Alumni of the Royal College of Music
People educated at Highgate School
Living people
1953 births
21st-century British conductors (music)
21st-century British male musicians
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
English people of French descent
English people of Polish descent
English people of Danish descent
English people of Mauritian descent
English conductors (music)

Jan Latham-Koenig


2015 South Indian floods is a disaster happened in South India.The heavy floods were resulted due to heavy rainfall by the annual northeast monsoon in November–December 2015.The mainly affected regions are Coromandel Coast region of the South Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and the union territory of Puducherry and especially the most devastated area, the city of Chennai. More than 500 people were killed and over 18 lakh (1.8 million) people were displaced.

From October to December each year, a very large area of south India, including Tamil Nadu, the coastal regions of Andhra Pradesh and the union territory of Puducherry, receives up to 30 percent of its annual rainfall from the northeast monsoon (or winter monsoon). The northeast monsoon is the result of the annual gradual retreat of monsoonal rains from northeastern India.

On 8 November 2015, during the 2015 North Indian Ocean cyclone season, a low pressure area consolidated into a depression and slowly intensified into a deep depression before crossing the coast of Tamil Nadu near Puducherry the following day.On 15 November, well-marked low pressure area moved northwards along the Tamil Nadu coast, dropping huge amounts of rainfall over coastal Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh with 24‑hour totals peaking at 370 mm in Ponneri. Chennai International Airport recorded 266 mm of rainfall in 24 hours. On 28–29 November, another system developed and arrived over Tamil Nadu on 30 November, bringing additional rain and flooding. The system dropped 490 mm of rainfall at Tambaram in 24 hours starting 8:30 am on 1 December. Very heavy rains led to flooding across the entire stretch of coast from Chennai to Cuddalore.

Flood in Chennai and Tamil Nadu regions
Between 9–10 November 2015, Neyveli received  of rainfall; rains continued to downpour in Cuddalore, Chidambaram and Chennai. Continuing rains led to low-lying parts of Chennai becoming sunk by 13 November, resulting in the evacuation of over 1000 people from their homes. The flooding in Chennai city was worsened by years of illegal development and inadequate levels of flood preparedness.

The flooding in Chennai city was described as the worst in a century. The continued rains led to schools and colleges remaining closed across Puducherry and Chennai, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur districts in Tamil Nadu and fishermen were warned against sailing because of high waters and rough seas.these floods caused a large amount of destruction in the southeren area

Puducherry affected by the floods
Puducherry sustained relatively minor damage in November as the depression largely remained offshore; some trees were downed and several banana and sugarcane plantations at Kutchipalayam were severely damaged. Puducherry reported receiving 55.7 mm of rainfall over the 24-hour period from 14–15 November. Water entered several houses in low-lying areas, while three houses collapsed in Uppalam.
On 5 December, the territorial government announced that nearly 9,000 hectares of paddy fields had been damaged by torrential rainfall, including 4,420 hectares of paddy fields in Puducherry,4,248.34 hectares in Karaikal and 287.15 hectares in Yanam. The government also reported 1,544 hectares of sugercane fields under cultivation had been damaged, along with 297.73 hectares of plantains,  231.9 hectares of tapioca and related tubers, 168.10 hectares of vegetable fields and eight hectares under betel-leaf cultivation. Proposed compensation rates would be as follows:  per hectare for betel-leaf losses, ) per hectare for plantains, ) per hectare for paddy fields and ) per hectare for losses of vegetables, tapioca, tubers and sugercane. Compensation scales had also been set for losses of cotton, lentils and flowers.

Consequences
Supplies of basic necessities, including milk, water and vegetables, were affected due to logistical difficulties. During the December floods in Chennai and the adjoining areas, milk packets sold for , five times more than their usual cost. Water bottles and cans were sold at prices between  to . Vegetables were sold at least  to  over and above their normal average cost at the wholesale level.

Apart from basic necessities, fuel supplies and travel were greatly affected, especially in Chennai.In Chennai, over 1.5 lakh (150,000) street vendors sustained losses of over . The persistent rainfall and flooding forced several major automakers in the region, including Ford, Renault, Nissan and Daimler AG, to temporarily halt production, resulting in estimated losses of up to .

References

2015 disasters in Asia
2015 in India
2010s floods
Andhra Pradesh
December 2015 events
Floods in India
November 2015 events
History of Tamil Nadu
2010s disasters in India

2015 South Indian floods


Inspiration is a 1931 American pre-Code Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer romantic melodrama film adapted by Gene Markey from the Alphonse Daudet short novel Sappho (1884). The film stars Greta Garbo, Robert Montgomery, Lewis Stone and Marjorie Rambeau. It was directed by Clarence Brown and produced by Irving Thalberg. The cinematography was performed by William H. Daniels, the art direction by Cedric Gibbons and the costume design by Adrian.

Plot

Yvonne Valbret is a Parisian kept woman who poses as an artist's model. She falls in love with a young student of foreign diplomacy, André Montell. When André learns of her past and her multiple lovers, he leaves her. But finding Yvonne living in poverty when their paths cross again, he pays for her to live in his country cottage outside Paris and they engage in a platonic relationship. He soon reveals his intent to marry another woman as Yvonne begs him not to desert her. André eventually realizes that he loves Yvonne and decides to choose love over career. When he comes to the cottage to tell her, he is met by one of Yvonne's old lovers pleading with her to return to him. She immediately decides to marry André, but fearing that their relationship will ruin his career, she chooses her old lover and writes André a farewell note while he is sleeping.

Cast
Greta Garbo as Yvonne Valbret
Robert Montgomery as Andre Montell
Lewis Stone as Raymond Delval
Marjorie Rambeau as Lulu
Judith Vosselli as Odette
Beryl Mercer as Marthe, Yvonne's maid
John Miljan as Henry Coutant, the sculptor
Edwin Maxwell as Uncle Julian Montell
Oscar Apfel as M. Vignaud
Joan Marsh as Madeleine Dorety
Zelda Sears as Aunt Pauline
Karen Morley as Liane Latour
Gwen Lee as Gaby
Paul McAllister as Jouvet
Arthur Hoyt as Gavarni
Richard Tucker as Galand

Reception
The film earned approximately $1,127,000 in its worldwide distribution, resulting in a $286,000 profit for MGM.

References

Further reading
 Mark A. Vieira. Greta Garbo: A Cinematic Legacy. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2005;

External links

 Film information at Garbo Forever

1931 films
American drama films
1931 drama films
American black-and-white films
Films based on French novels
Films based on works by Alphonse Daudet
Films directed by Clarence Brown
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films
Films produced by Irving Thalberg
1930s English-language films
1930s American films

Inspiration (1931 film)


55 Cancri c (abbreviated 55 Cnc c), formally named Brahe (pronounced  or ), is an extrasolar planet in an eccentric orbit around the Sun-like star 55 Cancri A, making one revolution every 44.34 days. It is the third known planet in order of distance from its star. 55 Cancri c was discovered on June 13, 2002, and has a mass roughly half of Saturn.

In July 2014 the International Astronomical Union launched NameExoWorlds, a process for giving proper names to certain exoplanets and their host stars. The process involved public nomination and voting for the new names. In December 2015, the IAU announced the winning name was Brahe for this planet. The winning name was submitted by the Royal Netherlands Association for Meteorology and Astronomy of the Netherlands. It honors the astronomer Tycho Brahe.

Discovery
Like the majority of known extrasolar planets, 55 Cancri c was detected by observing changes in its star's radial velocity. This was achieved by making sensitive measurements of the Doppler shift of the star's spectrum. At the time of discovery, 55 Cancri A was already known to possess one planet (55 Cancri b); however, there was still a drift in the radial velocity measurements which was unaccounted for.

In 2002, further measurements revealed the presence of a long-period planet in an orbit at around 5 AU from the star. Even when both of the two planets were accounted for, there was still a periodicity at around 43 days. However, this period is close to the rotation period of 55 Cancri A, which led to the possibility that the 43-day period was caused by stellar rotation rather than a planet. Both the 43-day planet (designated 55 Cancri c) and the 5 AU planet (designated 55 Cancri d) were announced in the same paper, labeled in order of increasing distance from the star.

Further measurements which led to the discovery of the inner planet 55 Cancri e in 2004 lent support to the planet hypothesis. Photometric measurements of the star over 11 years show no activity with the same period as 55 Cancri c's radial velocity variations, and furthermore the period is stable over long timescales, which is inconsistent with the hypothesis of stellar activity causing the radial velocity variations. The amplitude of the radial velocity signal is inconsistent with stellar variations on stars with 55 Cancri A's low level of chromospheric activity.

Orbit and mass
In the 5-planet solution for the 55 Cancri system, the orbit of 55 Cancri c is mildly eccentric: at apoastron the planet is about 19% further from the star than it is at periastron. It is located closer to 55 Cancri A than Mercury is to the Sun, though it has a longer orbital period than the hot Jupiters. The planet is located close to a 3:1 resonance with the inner planet 55 Cancri b; however, simulations indicate that the two planets are not actually in this resonance.

A limitation of the radial velocity method used to discover the planet is that only a lower limit on the mass can be obtained. Further astrometric observations with the Hubble Space Telescope on the outer planet 55 Cancri d suggest that planet is inclined at 53° to the plane of the sky; but innermost b and e are inclined at 85°. Planet c's inclination is unknown.

Characteristics
Since the planet was detected indirectly through observations of its star, properties such as its radius, composition, and temperature are unknown. With a mass similar to that of Saturn, 55 Cancri c is likely to be a gas giant without a solid surface.

See also
 Appearance of extrasolar planets
 Cancer (Chinese astronomy)
 Lists of exoplanets
 Gliese 1132 b, Rocky exoplanet with a confirmed atmosphere.
 Mu Arae c, At constellation Ara
 Planetary system

References

External links

55 Cancri
Cancer (constellation)
Exoplanets discovered in 2002
Giant planets
Exoplanets detected by radial velocity
Exoplanets with proper names

55 Cancri c


The platy fish is a small tropical fish that is found naturally in the warm waters of America. Today, platys are very popular as pets.

Platys are small fish. They grow to 2.5 centimeters. Their come from America. They live there in creeks, canals, ditches and swamps. These habitats have lots of plants, stones and branches to hide in. Platys like a tank with live plants on the sides and back. They hide in the plants. They also eat them. Their tank should have good lighting and lots of open area in the center for swimming.

Food
Platy will eat almost anything that fits into its mouth. As pets, they eat can fish flakes. They can also eat frozen or live food like daphnia or bloodworms. In the wild platy fish will eat algae and plants.

Aquarium fish
Cyprinodontiformes

Platy


A cookie table is a wedding tradition where in addition to a wedding cake, a large table with different cookies is presented to guests at the wedding reception. Cookies are generally prepared by family members in advance of the reception. It is typically a  tradition in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Youngstown, Ohio.

Cookie tables are included in primarily Italian, Polish or Catholic wedding receptions. Other groups that also have cookie tables or cookie platters are the Greeks, Slovaks, Serbian Orthodox, Austrian/Hungarian, and Scandinavians. The inclusion of a cookie table is more widely known where those of Italian ancestry settled, and also in some cases, of the other groups mentioned above. Where a settlement did not consist of sizable numbers of Italian or Eastern European groups, the number of those who were familiar with cookie tables decreased. Cookie tables were better known in the east than in the mid-west, south, southwest or west.

Research by the Arms Family Museum of Local History in Youngstown discovered the dominant areas for cookie tables were northeastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, including New Castle, Pennsylvania. Cookie tables were also well known in West Virginia, Virginia, New York, New Jersey and Delaware. States where they were unknown or not present included Washington, California, Texas and Nevada.

The world record for the largest cookie table was set on August 11, 2019 in Monongahela, Pennsylvania with 88,425 cookies.

References

Culture of Pittsburgh
Italian-American culture
Wedding traditions
Cookies

Cookie table


Oregon v. Guzek, 546 U.S. 517 (2006), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, which ruled that the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution does not grant criminal defendants facing the death penalty the right to introduce new evidence of their innocence during sentencing that was not introduced during trial.  Accordingly, states could constitutionally exclude such evidence from the sentencing phase of a capital trial.

Background of the case

First state appeal
Randy Lee Guzek was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Chief Deputy DA Ron Brown prosecuted the case. The Oregon Supreme Court affirmed his conviction but vacated the sentence on appeal.  The court ruled that the death sentence violated the Eighth Amendment because the jury was not presented with a "general mitigation question," which would ensure that it had the opportunity to give effect to any relevant mitigating evidence outside of the statutory factors that were submitted to it. The court remanded the case back to the trial court for a new sentencing trial.

Second state appeal
On remand, Guzek was sentenced to death again. Chief Deputy DA Joshua Marquis prosecuted the re-trial. Guzek appealed, and the Oregon Supreme Court again vacated the sentence, ruling that "victim impact" evidence that the State had presented during sentencing was irrelevant, so unconstitutionally secured the death sentence.  The case was remanded for a third sentencing trial.

Third state appeal
During the third sentencing trial, prosecuted by special prosecutor Joshua Marquis,  the trial judge failed to instruct the jury about a "true-life" sentencing option— life in prison without the possibility of parole— as an alternative to the death penalty.  Guzek was once again sentenced to death. Based on this error, the Oregon Supreme Court vacated Guzek's sentence and remanded for a new sentencing trial.

Seeking to avoid further errors at his fourth sentencing proceeding, the court also addressed the exclusion of alibi evidence that Guzek had sought to admit, which consisted of  transcripts of testimony by his mother and grandfather stating he was with them at the time of the murder. The Oregon Supreme Court ruled that under state law, and the Eighth Amendment, Guzek had a right to present this evidence during his death penalty sentencing and directed the trial court to admit all alibi evidence he submitted. The State of Oregon then petitioned the Supreme Court for review.

Fourth sentencing trial
As the result of the opinion of SCOTUS the Oregon Supreme Court reviewed the case yet again in 2007 (State of Oregon vs. Randy Lee Guzek, 153 P.3d 101 (Ore. 2007) and determined that in accordance with the SCOTUS decision, that live alibi testimony would not be allowed but that prior transcript alibi testimony of the defendant's mother and grandfather would be admitted.
Although the sole remaining issue for the defendant was his right to have life without parole considered if he waived any ex post facto right, on May 5, 2010 as jury selection was starting Guzek wrote a pro-se 5-page brief demanding that life without parole (LWOP) be removed from consideration and the presiding judge, Judge Jack Billings so ordered. Clatsop County DA Josh Marquis returned for a third time to re-prosecute Guzek.
In May 2010, after several further delays, the case of the State of Oregon vs. Randy Guzek went to trial again in Deschutes County, Oregon. On June 17, 2010, after about 5 hours of deliberation, the 8-woman, 4-man jury unanimously answered all the four questions required for a sentence of death to be rendered under Oregon's capital sentencing scheme "yes," and Guzek was immediately sentenced to death again for the murders of Rod Houser and Lois Houser.

The court's decision
The United States Supreme Court unanimously reversed the Oregon Supreme Court, ruling that the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment did not create a right to introduce evidence of innocence in a defendant's death penalty sentencing phase if it had not been introduced in the trial phase. The U.S. Constitution permitted states to limit such evidence to that already presented at trial.

Guzek had also argued that this alibi evidence could be used to impeach the testimony of other witnesses. The Court left it open to the Oregon Supreme Court on remand to determine whether this was permissible under Oregon law.

Subsequent developments
On December 13, 2022, Guzek's death sentence (along with everyone else on Oregon's death row) was commuted to life without parole by Governor Kate Brown. Sue Shirley, the daughter of Guzek's victims, reacted to the decision with outrage.

See also
 List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 546
 List of United States Supreme Court cases
 Capital punishment in Oregon

Notes

References
Full text of the Court's decision from FindLaw.com

United States Supreme Court cases
Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause and death penalty case law
Capital punishment in Oregon
2006 in United States case law
Deschutes County, Oregon
United States Supreme Court cases of the Roberts Court

Oregon v. Guzek


Jan O'Sullivan (born 1950) is a politeecian in the Republic o Ireland, an a member o the Irish pairlament in Dublin, representin the Labour Pairty.  She represents the East Limerick consteetuency in Dáil Éireann.

1950 births
Livin fowk
Alumni o Varsity College Cork
Alumni o Trinity College, Dublin
Female Teachtaí Dála
Erse Anglicans
Erse schuilteachers
Labour Pairty (Ireland) politeecians
Members o the 20t Seanad
Members o the 28t Dáil
Members o the 29t Dáil
Members o the 30t Dáil
Members o the 31st Dáil
Teachtaí Dála
Meenisters o State o the 31st Dáil

Jan O'Sullivan


The Iberg Dripstone Cave () is a public cave and geology museum in southern Lower Saxony near Bad Grund, Germany.  It is located on the western edge of the Harz mountains in the  Iberg mountain at a height of  above sea level in the chalk of an upper Devonian atoll reef.  The actual dripstone cave is 123 metres long. With its  Captain Spatzier Gallery, the Yellow Climb (Gelben Stieg) and two other caverns, the total length of the cave is .

Between 2006 and 2008, the cave was turned into a 'cave experience centre' with the three main themes of "Fascination Cave" "The oldest family in the world" and "A reef on a journey".

History
The cave was discovered in the 16th century by miners, who were looking for deposits of limonite or 'brown iron ore'. In 1524, the presence of caverns in the Iberg massif was mentioned for the first time. The first account in 1737 described a visit to the cave by a doctor, Franz Ernst Brückmann, on 30 March 1723. In 1874, paths and steps were laid out and the show cave was opened to the public with a viewable length of 220 metres. The entrance gallery, the Captain Spatzier Gallery (Hauptmann-Spatzier-Stollen), was built in 1910 and 1911. Electric lighting was added in 1912 and was extended in 1935.

Geology
The limestone mountain was originally a coral reef, formed about 385 million years ago on the spot where Madagascar lies today. it was subsequently moved to its present-day site as a result of tectonic plate movements over several hundred million years.

The gallery built in 1910–11 runs through two natural caverns, the first being opened up as a new section, the Yellow Climb (Gelben Stieg), a former space largely filled with brown iron ore that had probably been excavated in the 16th century. In one chamber, blue and green speleothems coloured by copper minerals can be seen. The usual red coloration of the speleothems in the cave is due to the presence of iron. Narrow crevices that enter from the north are richly clad with sinter. Helictites may be seen at the southern main entrance. This entrance continues in the direction of the Spatzier Gallery  in curves with splendid scour holes (Auskolkungen).

Tourism
The dripstone cave soon became very popular and one of the tourist attractions of the Harz. There were 556 visitors in 1881 and 8,436 came in 1913. Up to the Second World War, visitor numbers continued to climb, reaching 15,000 in 1937. After the war the numbers rose enormously, because the two popular Rübeländ dripstone caves, Baumann's Cave and Hermann's Cave, now lay in East Germany. The construction of a new main entrance, a new car park and the installation of the first 'special effects' lighting raised visitor numbers even more. In 1950 there were 88,000 visitors and, in 1953, 165,000. In 1972 the numbers crossed the 200,000 threshold for the first time. In 2003 there were 63,872 visitors, in 2007 still 50,847. In 2008 numbers rose again, to 76.971, as a result of the opening of the Cave Experience Centre (HöhlenErlebnisZentrums). From 2004 to 2008 the average annual number of visitors was 60,479. This makes it one of the most popular show caves in Germany.

The high visitor numbers may also be put down to the cave's location which is easily accessible by road, being close to the B 242, which is a main access route for day trippers in the Upper Harz area.

Cave Experience Centre
Between 2006 and 2008 the caves were converted into a Cave Experience Centre (HöhlenErlebnisZentrum). A clearly visible cubic building was constructed next to the car park and the B 242. This so-called Museum am Berg ("museum on the mountain") has a , 17 to 19-degree sloping tunnel (Museum im Berg) linking it to the old Iberg Dripstone Cave. This expansion and conversion has the clear imprint of the district conservationist, Prof. Dr. Reinhard Roseneck, who two years earlier had come up with a new concept for the Cistercian abbey at Walkenried. The cost of the conversion was 3.85 million euros.

Museum am Berg
In the Museum am Berg, the 'oldest family in the world' is displayed: By researching the bones found at the Lichtenstein Cave about 10 miles to the south, several Bronze Age families could be genetically identified. DNA tests on 300 local inhabitants showed that 40 of them were descendants of these Bronze Age people.

In addition, the museum looks at life in the Bronze Age and displays a number of artefacts from the period. A replica of the Lichtenstein Cave, which is not accessible to tourists, may be considered.

Museum im Berg
The Museum im Berg is located in a new gallery built between 2006 and 2008 and portrays the theme "A reef on a journey" (Ein Riff auf Reisen). The presentation explains the formation of the Iberg as a coral reef and its subsequent move to its present-day location.

Fascination Cave
This section known as "Fascination Cave" (Faszination Höhle) runs through parts of the Iberg Dripstone Cave opened up over 100 years ago.

Owner
The owner of the Cave Experience Centre is the district of Osterode am Harz.

See also

 List of show caves in Germany
 List of caves

External links
 Official website of the Cave Experience Centre
 Iberg Dripstone Cave
 Bad Grund cave pages
 Show caves in Germany
 Kittelsthal Dripstone Cave

Show caves in Germany
Osterode (district)
Caves of the Harz
Landforms of Lower Saxony
Museums in Lower Saxony
Natural history museums in Germany
Geology museums in Germany
Natural monuments in Lower Saxony
Caves of Germany

Iberg Dripstone Cave


Diodorus Siculus or Diodorus of Sicily was a Greek historian. He is known for writing the universal history Bibliotheca historica, much of which survives, between 60 and 30 BC. It is arranged in three parts. The first part covers mythic history up to the destruction of Troy. It is arranged geographically, describing regions around the world including Egypt, India, Arabia, Greece and Europe. The second part covers the Trojan War to the death of Alexander the Great. The third part covers the period to about 60 BC. The title Bibliotheca, meaning 'library', shows that he was using the work of many other authors.

Life

Diodorus wrote that he was born at Agyrium in Sicily (now called Agira). There is only two other references to Diodorus. One is by Jerome, in his Chronicon from 49 BC, who wrote that "Diodorus of Sicily, a writer of Greek history, became illustrious". There is also a Greek inscription in the collection of the Agyrium (Inscriptiones Graecae XIV, 588) about the tombstone of one "Diodorus, the son of Apollonius". (This may be a different person).

Work
Diodorus' book, which he called Bibliotheca historica meaning "Historical Library", consisted of 40 books. Books 1–5 and 11–20 survive. Small sections of the lost books are preserved in Photius and the excerpts of Constantine Porphyrogenitus.

It was divided into three sections. The first six books treated the mythic history of the non-Hellenic and Hellenic tribes to the destruction of Troy and are geographical in theme, and describe the history and culture of Ancient Egypt (book I), of Mesopotamia, India, Scythia, and Arabia (II), of North Africa (III), and of Greece and Europe (IV–VI).

In the next section (books VII–XVII), he tells the history of the world from the Trojan War down to the death of Alexander the Great. The last section (books XVII to the end) concerns the historical events from the successors of Alexander down to either 60 BC or the beginning of Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars. As the last books have been lost, it is not known if Diodorus reached the beginning of the Gallic War as he promised at the beginning of his work or, as evidence suggests, old and tired from his labours he stopped at 60 BC.) He used the name "Bibliotheca" to show that he was writing a work from many sources. Identified authors on whose works he drew include Hecataeus of Abdera, Ctesias of Cnidus, Ephorus, Theopompus, Hieronymus of Cardia, Duris of Samos, Diyllus, Philistus, Timaeus, Polybius, and Posidonius.

His writing of gold mining in Nubia in eastern Egypt is one of the earliest texts on the topic, and describes in vivid detail the use of slave labour in terrible working conditions.

He also described the Celts:
"Physically the Celts are terrifying in appearance with deep-sounding and very harsh voices.  In conversation they use few words and speak in riddles, for the most part hinting at things and leaving a great deal to be understood.  They frequently exaggerate with the aim of extolling themselves and diminishing the status of others.  They are boasters and threateners, and given to bombastic self-dramatization, and yet they are quick of mind and with good natural ability for learning." (Book 5)

Notes

References

 Ambaglio, Dino, Franca Landucci Gattinoni and Luigi Bravi. Diodoro Siculo: Biblioteca storica: commento storico: introduzione generale. Storia. Ricerche. Milano: V&P, 2008. x, 145 p.
 Buckley, Terry. Aspects of Greek History 750-323 BC: A Source-based Approach. Routledge, London, 1996,
 Lloyd, Alan B. Herodotus, Book II. Brill, Leiden, 1975

  Downloadable via Google Books.
  Downloadable via Google Books.

Other websites

90s BC births
30s BC deaths
Ancient Greek historians

Diodorus Siculus


Old Parliament Building (Quebec) was the site of the seat of government of Lower Canada (1791-1833), Canada West, Province of Canada and Quebec (1867-1883).

It was located in what is Parc Montmorency today, the site of two Parliament buildings from 1791 to 1883 at the Chapel of Bishop's Palace and later within the grounds of the Bishop's Palace.

History

The first building on the site was the Chapel of Bishop's Palace, which was ordered built by Bishop Saint-Vallier from 1693 to 1695 to replace a stone house purchased by Saint-Vallier in 1688.

In 1777 the building was rented to the British government to house the Legislative Council under orders from then Governor General Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester. From 1791 to 1838 it was home to the House of Assembly and Legislative Council of Lower Canada.

Chronology of Parliament Buildings of Quebec

1st Parliament Buildings:

 1777 British government rents the Chapel of Bishop's Palace within the Episcopal Palace of Quebec for the Legislative Council
 1830s demolition of Chapel of Bishop's Palace (1833) and addition added with new main building and first wing of new Parliament Buildings to the Episcopal Palace (1830-1831)
 1840 Quebec no longer capital and buildings becomes vacant with the establishment of the Province of Canada (rotated between Kingston, Montreal and Toronto)
 1852 Parliament returns to the Episcopal Palace site and new Parliament still under construction
 1852–1853 Episcopal Palace is demolished as new Parliament construction continues
 1854 new Parliament Buildings nearing completion but destroyed by fire
 1854–1859 Parliament relocates to two locations:
 Quebec Music Hall (or Academy of Music) on rue St. Louis - a three-storey Greek Revival structure built by Charles Baillairge from 1851 to 1853; it burned down in 1900
 Quebec City Courthouse – a three-storey wooden building built between 1799 and 1804; it burned down in 1873 (now home to Old Courthouse of Quebec)

2nd Parliament Buildings:

 1859–1860 new Parliament Building at Côte de la Montagne completed and served sessions from 1860 to 1865
 1866 capital of the province of Canada moves to Ottawa for final time (and becomes federal Parliament in 1867), and Quebec buildings becomes vacant briefly
 1867–1883 the province of Quebec is created and the Parliament Buildings is designated home to new provincial Parliament
 1883 Parliament Buildings destroyed in fire and relocated to the current buildings (began construction in 1877 and nearing completion
 1884 – Parliament moved to the current Parliament Building (Quebec); the old building is demolished and reopened known as Parc Montmorency in 1894

The 2nd parliament building was a Greek Revival structure with a dome in the central structure flanked by two wings. Built between 1830 and 1850, it was destroyed by a fire in 1854.

The building's interior is featured in Robert Harris' 1884 painting "Conference at Quebec in 1864.

References

External links

 * Parliament of Canada (Montmorency Park)

Buildings and structures in Quebec City
Former seats of national legislatures
Legislative buildings in Canada
Demolished buildings and structures in Canada
Greek Revival architecture in Canada
Quebec Legislature
Province of Canada
Burned buildings and structures in Canada

Old Parliament Building (Quebec)


Charles Beck or Karl Beck (August 19, 1798 – March 19, 1866) was a German-born American classical scholar, Harvard professor and friend of Charles Follen.

Biography

Beck was born in Heidelberg. His merchant father died when Beck was young, and his mother married Wilhelm de Wette, a theologian, biblical scholar, and professor in the University of Heidelberg. In 1810, the family moved to Berlin, where de Wette had been appointed professor of theology at the new Prussian university. In Berlin, while a student at the Werdersches Gymnasium, Beck began to frequent the Hasenheide Turnplatz where he became proficient in the arts of a Turner.

Beck studied the classics at the University of Berlin, then theology at the University of Heidelberg where he was ordained, and finally at the University of Tübingen where he was awarded a Ph.D. While a student, he became active in the Burschenschaft movement, and on his graduation found his republican sentiments prevented him from pursuing a career in Germany. Thus he became employed for some time as tutor at the University of Basle in Switzerland, where his step father was a professor. After the murder of August von Kotzebue, de Wette had written a letter to the assassin's mother in which he attempted to console her saying her son did the act out of a mistaken sense of duty. On learning of the letter, the Prussian authorities accused him of excusing the assassination, dismissed him from his professorship at Berlin and banished him from Prussia. De Witte lived in retirement a few years, and then in 1822 had become professor of theology at the Basle university.

By 1824, Beck felt his republican sentiments endangered his liberty even in Switzerland, and he took refuge in Paris where he met Charles Follen, another German in a similar situation.
The two then left from Le Havre for the United States on 5 November, arriving in New York City on 19 December 1824. Soon afterward Beck became connected, as teacher, with the Round Hill School at Northampton, Massachusetts. There he was appointed teacher of Latin. He also established at Round Hill an outdoor gymnasium: the first gymnasium in the United States, which hosted the first school gymnastics program in that country.
He taught physical education classes with a curriculum modeled after Jahn's system, and translated Jahn's 1816 work Deutsche Turnkunst into English as Treatise on Gymnasticks, taken chiefly from the German of F. L. Jahn.

In 1830, he and two other teachers established a school at Philipstown, New York, on the Hudson River, opposite West Point. In 1832 Beck was appointed professor of Latin language and literature at Harvard. He became a member of the American Oriental Society in 1843 and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1845. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1845. On his retirement from Harvard in 1850, he devoted himself to literary pursuits and classical studies. In 1863, he published The Manuscripts of the Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter, described and collated. For two years he represented Cambridge in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He was specially interested in the soldiers' fund, the Sanitary Commission, and the agencies for the care and education of the freedmen.

In 1827 he married Louisa A. Henshaw (d. 1830), and in 1831 he married her sister, Teresa H. Phillips (d. 1863). He died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, aged 67.

See also
Beck-Warren House, a Greek Revival house (now on the Harvard campus) built by Beck in 1833

Notes

References
  This source says Beck established the first indoor gymnasium, but is apparently mistaken in identifying it as an indoor facility.

External links

1798 births
1866 deaths
American classical scholars
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Emigrants from the Kingdom of Prussia
Immigrants to the United States
Classical scholars of Harvard University
Humboldt University of Berlin alumni
Scholars of Latin literature
Members of the Massachusetts House of Representatives
People associated with physical culture
Heidelberg University alumni
University of Tübingen alumni
19th-century American politicians

Charles Beck


BOND (Building Object Network Databases) started development in late 2000 as a rapid application development tool for the GNOME Desktop by Treshna Enterprises. Its aim was to fill a gap that traditional Microsoft Windows applications like Borland Delphi, Microsoft Access and Visual Basic filled on the Windows desktop, but targeted for the Linux environment. Its goal was to allow developers to quickly build database forms in XML for backend SQL databases. It has been employed extensively by Treshna Enterprises to develop applications such as PayMaster (an opensource payroll application) and GymMaster (a commercial gym management application).

Description
It uses PostgreSQL as its backend database and GTK+ as its front end. Windows and HTML driven front ends are also available. While it initially worked closely with Glade and the Gnome Desktop, newer versions have focused on more web oriented with AJAX driven widgets. The Glade XML format was abandoned a number of years ago and a new XML schema was developed to be more flexible with the range of data required for storing database information. BOND makes use of BONDDB which serves as a layer between the BOND API and the PostgreSQL backend.

In the future, BOND aims to be a free open source solution that allows users to quickly create their own databases from scratch without being a skilled programmer or DBA.

External links
 BOND development website

GNOME
Software that uses GTK

BOND


John Carl 'Jack' Button (1940 – July 31, 1996) was a professional hockey executive with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals of the National Hockey League. The Jack Button Award, given to the top prospect for the Washington Capitals, was created in his honor. He died of leukemia in 1996.

NHL clubs
Button served as an assistant general manager while with the Penguins from 1969 until 1974, when he was named as the franchise's third general manager. At the end of the 1974-75 season, the Penguins entered bankruptcy. The new owners included Wren Blair as a minority partner, who took over the managerial reins. In Washington, Button was highly regarded as a scout and he was credited with discovering Peter Bondra, Jim Carey, Sergei Gonchar, Michal Pivonka and Brendan Witt. He was a part of the Capital franchise from 1979 until his death in 1996. During the 1996–97 season, the Capitals wore a memorial patch for Button which showcased his initials and a bulldog.

Minor league clubs
Button was public relations director of the Rochester Americans from 1964 until 1966, then moved to the American Hockey League office as the league's PR director. He also served as league secretary. In 1968, the Pittsburgh Penguins appointed him general manager of their Central Hockey League affiliate, the Amarillo Wranglers. The club played only one season, after which Button was promoted to the Penguins' front office.

League work
Button founded the NHL Central Scouting Bureau and served as its first director from 1975 until 1979.

Family
Button is the father of Craig, a former executive with the Dallas Stars and Calgary Flames, as well as a former pro scout with the Toronto Maple Leafs. His other son Tod is the Flames' current director of scouting.

References

A to Z Hockey" Jack Button

1940 births
1996 deaths
American ice hockey coaches
People from Rushville, New York
Pittsburgh Penguins executives
Washington Capitals executives
Washington Capitals scouts
Deaths from leukemia
Deaths from cancer in Washington, D.C.

Jack Button


The Beaconsfield Terraces Historic District is a residential historic district at 11–25, 33–43, and 44–55 Garrison Rd. and 316–326, 332–344, and 350–366 Tappan Street in Brookline, Massachusetts.  It encompasses a collection of architecturally distinctive row houses that were built between 1889 and 1892 by a single developer, and represent a unique early success in condominium ownership.  The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

Description and history
The Beaconsfield Terraces are roughly centered on the junction of Tappan Street and Garrison Road, a short way west of Brookline's Washington Square. Three of the six buildings line the west side of Tappan Street, while the other three line the north side of Garrison Road. A seventh building, not included in this historic district, fronts on Beacon Street, and is included in the Beacon Street Historic District. The oldest of the buildings, 350–366 Tappan, was built in 1889 out of yellow brick and stone, and has Chateauesque styling, a style used in four of the six buildings. These buildings feature steeply-pitched roofs, round-arch entranceways, corbelled brickwork decoration, gabled wall dormers, and polygonal window bays. One building has a distinctively Flemish character, with buttressed wall gables, and limestone pinnacles. The last two buildings are Georgian Revival, with red brick exterior and entrance porticoes with Corinthian columns.

The Terraces were designed by the Boston architectural firm of Fehmer & Page for the developer, Eugene Knapp, who had seen developments involving condominium ownership in England, and sought to recreate them here. He purchased land from the Henry Whitney (the principal developer of Beacon Street, and oversaw this development, which included (in addition to the row houses), a park, stables, casino (playhouse), and playground. Of his original development, only the row houses survive, the remaining land having been redeveloped into other uses. The development was an immediate success, attracting some high-profile residents, including William Shreve of Shreve, Crump & Low. Knapp was financially overextended by the development, and eventually sold his interest back to Whitney.

See also
National Register of Historic Places listings in Brookline, Massachusetts

References

Historic districts in Norfolk County, Massachusetts
Colonial Revival architecture in Massachusetts
Renaissance Revival architecture in Massachusetts
Buildings and structures in Brookline, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places in Brookline, Massachusetts
Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts

Beaconsfield Terraces Historic District


William Bateson (Yorkshire, 8 August 1861 – 8 February 1926) was a British zoologist, a Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge University. He was the first person to use the term genetics to describe the study of heredity, and the chief populariser of the ideas of Gregor Mendel, after their rediscovery in 1900 by Hugo de Vries and Carl Correns.

Career

Bateson became famous as a mutationist who believed evolution took place by jumps. Later, Ronald Fisher and J.B.S. Haldane showed that discrete mutations were compatible with gradual evolution: see the modern evolutionary synthesis.

Bateson was the first to suggest the word "genetics" to describe the study of inheritance, in a letter to Adam Sedgwick, dated April 18, 1905. Bateson first used the term "genetics" publicly at the Third International Conference on Plant Hybridization in London in 1906. Although this was three years before Wilhelm Johannsen used the word "gene" to describe the units of hereditary information, De Vries had introduced the word "pangene" for the same concept already in 1889 and etymologically the word genetics finds its origin in Darwin's concept of pangenesis.

Bateson co-discovered genetic linkage with Reginald Punnett, and he and Punnett founded the Journal of Genetics in 1910. Bateson also coined the term "epistasis" to describe the genetic interaction of two independent traits. So important from 1900 to 1910, he was almost a bystander for the next ten years because he refused to accept the role chromosomes played in genetics. At last, in 1921, a visit to T.H. Morgan's fly lab convinced him, but by then he could no longer recover his influence.

References

1861 births
1926 deaths
British zoologists
English geneticists
English science writers

William Bateson


Caseless ammunition (CL), or caseless cartridge, is a configuration of weapon-cartridge that eliminates the cartridge case that typically holds the primer, propellant and projectile together as a unit. Instead, the propellant and primer are fitted to the projectile in another way so that a cartridge case is not needed, for example inside or outside the projectile depending on configuration.

Caseless ammunition is an attempt to reduce the weight and cost of ammunition by dispensing with the case, which is typically precision made of brass or steel, as well as to simplify the operation of repeating guns by eliminating the need to extract and eject the empty case after firing. Its acceptance has been hampered by problems with production expenses, heat sensitivity, sealing, and fragility. Its use to date has been mainly limited to prototypes and low-powered guns, with some exceptions.

Internal propellant caseless ammunition

Description

Older caseless ammunition typically uses a configuration where the primer and propellant get integrated into the bottom of the projectile, much like a rocket. When fired, the propellant gas is vented out the back of the projectile to accelerate it to speed. Unlike rocket projectiles, which have similar configurations, the propellant of "internal propellant caseless ammunition" has an instant burn time like a traditional cartridge (under 0.2 seconds), meaning the propellant burns up before the projectile leaves the barrel, preferrably inside the chamber. Rocket projectiles, in comparison, have propellant burn times of over 0.2 seconds, usually several seconds, meaning rocket propellant traditionally propels the rocket for a certain distance from the launcher.

Another difference is means of fire and stabilization. As a cartridge, internal propellant caseless ammunition is only fired from gun barrels, either closed or recoilless, and achieves ballistic stabilization through longitudinal spinning (conservation of angular momentum), either by the use of driving bands and rifling or oblique nozzles for the propellant gas. Rockets, in contrast, can be fired from more platforms than gun barrels, for example, rails, and traditionally use fins for stabilization, either fixed or foldable.

History
An early type of internal propellant caseless ammunition was Walter Hunt's Rocket Ball cartridge. It was developed in the 1850s and the guns using it were sold primarily by Volcanic Repeating Arms. Hunt's Rocket Ball cartridges were severely under-powered and never saw wide acceptance for self-protection, hunting, or military use.

During World War II, Germany began an intensive program to research and develop a practical internal propellant caseless ammunition cartridge for military use, which was driven by the rising scarcity of metals, especially copper used to make cartridge cases. The Germans had some success, but not sufficient to produce a caseless cartridge system during the war. One quasi-example which almost entered production was the 55 mm Maschinenkanone MK 155. It used partially combustible cartridges similar to the ones used in the popular Rheinmetall Rh-120 tank gun today. Japan, however, successfully developed an aircraft mounted autocannon using internal propellant caseless ammunition during the war. Named Ho-301, it was a 40 mm autocannon and saw limited action in the defense of the Japanese home islands during the waning months of the war.

After WWII the use of internal propellant caseless ammunition largely disappeared from mainstream weapons development, however the type saw a small resurgence when the Soviet Union introduced their GP-25 40 mm internal propellant caseless under-barrel grenade launcher in 1978. This was followed by the Russian-developed AGS‑40 Balkan 40 mm internal propellant caseless automatic grenade launcher in 2017.

Issues
Since propellant is blasted out the back of the projectile during fire, many historical guns using internal propellant caseless ammunition have had problems with residue buildup from the propellant, leading to malfunctions. To decrease residue buildup, historical systems have often been forced to use lower amounts of propellant in the ammunition or adopting a recoilless solution for the gun where some of the burning propellant is vented out the back of the gun when firing. This, however, causes problems on its own as less propellant is being used to propel the ammunition, leading to less potent muzzle velocities, often under the speed of sound (~). This is equal to the muzzle-velocities of many mortar-weapons which are meant to be fired at high angles of elevation with heavy projectile arcs. Caseless ammunition weapons are often meant for horizontal fire, meaning that highly sub-sonic ammunition leads to very limited range and poor accuracy due to the rapid loss of projectile velocity.

Gallery

External propellant caseless ammunition

Description

Modern caseless ammunition typically uses a configuration in which the primer and projectile gets integrated into a solid mass of external propellant (originally nitrocellulose), cast to form the body of the cartridge. Cavities exist in the body to accept the bullet and a primer (both of which are glued into place). The completed cartridge might also contain a booster charge of powdered propellant to help ignite the body and provide initial thrust to the bullet. Many of these external propellant caseless cartridges are also telescoped, with the bulk of the bullet held within the body of the cartridge, to cut down on cartridge length. A shorter cartridge cuts down on the distance the firearm's action must reciprocate to load a new round, which allows for higher cyclic rates and greater probability of multiple hits on a target at long range. Lack of a case also reduces the weight of the cartridge substantially, especially in small bore rifles. For example, the external propellant caseless ammunition designed by Austrian inventor Hubert Usel (1926–2010) for the Voere VEC-91 weighs about one third as much as regular ammunition for the same caliber.

Issues
While it seems a simple operation to replace the case with a piece of solid propellant, the cartridge case provides more than just a way to keep the cartridge components together, and these other functions must be replaced if the case is to be replaced. External propellant caseless ammunition is not without its drawbacks, and it is these drawbacks that have kept modern external propellant caseless ammunition from achieving wider success.

Heat sensitivity
The first major problem, of special concern in military applications, which often involve sustained firing, is the heat sensitivity of the ammunition. Nitrocellulose, the primary component of modern firearm propellant, ignites at a relatively low temperature of around 170 °C (338 °F). One of the functions of the metallic cartridge case is as a heat sink; when extracted after firing, every metallic case carries away a significant amount of the heat from the combustion of the propellant, slowing the rate at which heat builds up in the chamber. The thermal insulation provided by the case also works the other way around, shielding the propellant from built-up heat in the chamber walls.

Without a case to provide these functions, external propellant caseless rounds using nitrocellulose will begin to cook off, firing from the residual chamber heat, much sooner than cased cartridges do. Cooking off can be avoided by designing the weapon to fire from an open bolt, but this introduces other problems, and thus is only suitable for smaller calibre machine guns and submachine guns.

The normal solution to the problem of heat is to increase the heat resistance by switching to a propellant with a higher ignition temperature, typically a non-crystalline explosive carefully formulated to provide an appropriate rate of combustion. Heckler & Koch, in concert with Dynamit Nobel, managed such a task by producing relatively heat-resistant external propellant caseless ammunition.

Sealing
Another important function provided by the cartridge is to seal the rear of the chamber. During firing of a cased cartridge, the pressure in the chamber expands the metallic case, which obturates to the chamber. This prevents gas exiting from the rear of the chamber, and it has also been experimentally shown to provide a significant amount of support to the bolt. Without the case to provide this seal, the firearm design must account for this and provide a means of sealing the rear of the chamber. This problem was also encountered with the Dreyse needle gun; the French Chassepot solved the leaking-breech problem with the addition of a rubber seal to the bolt.

Telescoped external propellant caseless rounds must also deal with the issue of blocking the bore, as the bullet is surrounded by propellant. The booster charge is used to address this issue, providing an initial burst of pressure to force the bullet out of the cartridge body and into the barrel before the body combusts.

Fragility
External propellant caseless rounds are limited by the fact that the cartridge body is primarily a propellant, and structural properties are secondary to the combustion properties. The primary issue is one of extraction. While caseless ammunition eliminates the need to extract a fired case, unfired caseless rounds must be extractable to unload the firearm or to clear a misfire. With metallic cases, this ability is provided by a rim or extractor groove machined into the rear of the case. Even in completely plastic-bodied cartridges, such as the Activ brand shotgun shells, a thin metal ring is molded into the rim to provide support for the extractor. A secondary issue is that ammunition in use can be exposed to air, water, lubricants, and solvents. Primer and propellant in external propellant caseless rounds is unprotected, while cartridge cases provide a high degree of protection.

External propellant caseless guns
One of the first caseless firearm and ammunition systems produced was made by Daisy, the airgun maker, in 1968. The Daisy V/L rifle uses a .22 caliber (5.5 mm) low-powered external propellant caseless round with no primer. The rifle was basically a spring-piston air rifle, but when used with the V/L ammunition the energy from the compression of the piston heated the air behind the caseless cartridge enough to ignite the propellant, and this generated the bulk of the energy of firing. The Daisy V/L rifle system was discontinued in 1969 after the ATF ruled that it was not an airgun, but a firearm, which Daisy was not licensed to produce.

Some assault rifles have used external propellant caseless ammunition. One of the better-known weapons of this type is the G11 made by Heckler & Koch as a potential replacement for the G3 battle rifle. Although the G11 never entered full production, it went through a number of prototype stages as well as field testing, including testing as part of the American Advanced Combat Rifle program. While it was scheduled to be adopted by the West German military with a plan set out to procure 300,000 G11K2 rifles over a period from 1990 to 2002, the expenses created by the reunification of Germany and the impossibility of modifying the G11 to use NATO-standard ammunition led to the cancellation of the G11 project and the adoption of a cheaper, more conventional NATO-standardised assault rifle, the 5.56mm G36. The G11's caseless ammunition was later used as the basis for the caseless round development in the US Lightweight Small Arms Technologies program.

The first commercial external propellant caseless rifle featuring electronic firing was the Voere VEC-91.

See also

References

 Starry, Donn A., General. Mounted Combat in Vietnam. Department of the Army, Washington D.C., 1978.

External links
 Assault Rifle Ammunition History

Ammunition
Caseless firearms
Military technology
Emerging technologies

Caseless ammunition


Nasal sprays are used to deliver medications locally in the nasal cavities or systemically. They are used locally for conditions such as nasal congestion and allergic rhinitis. In some situations, the nasal delivery route is preferred for systemic therapy because it provides an agreeable alternative to injection or pills. Substances can be assimilated extremely quickly and directly through the nose. Many pharmaceutical drugs exist as nasal sprays for systemic administration (e.g. sedative-analgesics, treatments for migraine, osteoporosis and nausea). Other applications include hormone replacement therapy, treatment of Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Nasal sprays are seen as a more efficient way of transporting drugs with potential use in crossing the blood–brain barrier.

Antihistamines
Antihistamines work by competing for receptor sites to block the function of histamine, thereby reducing the inflammatory effect. Antihistamine nasal sprays include:

 Azelastine hydrochloride
 Levocabastine hydrochloride
 Olopatadine hydrochloride

Corticosteroids
Corticosteroid nasal sprays can be used to relieve the symptoms of sinusitis, hay fever, allergic rhinitis and non-allergic (perennial) rhinitis. They can reduce inflammation and histamine production in the nasal passages, and have been shown to relieve nasal congestion, runny nose, itchy nose and sneezing. Side effects may include headaches, nausea and nose bleeds. Corticosteroid nasal sprays include:

 Beclomethasone dipropionate
 Budesonide
 Ciclesonide
 Flunisolide
 Fluticasone furoate
 Fluticasone propionate
 Mometasone
 Triamcinolone acetonide

Saline
Saline sprays are typically non medicated. A mist of saline solution containing sodium chloride is delivered to help moisturize dry or irritated nostrils. This is a form of nasal irrigation. They can also relieve nasal congestion and remove airborne irritants such as pollen and dust thereby providing sinus allergy relief.

Three types of nasal sprays preparations of sodium chloride are available including hypertonic (3% sodium chloride or sea water), isotonic (0.9% sodium chloride) and hypotonic (0.65% sodium chloride). Isotonic solutions have the same salt concentration as the human body, whereas hypertonic solutions have a higher salt content and hypotonic solutions have a lower salt content. Isotonic saline nasal sprays are commonly used in infants and children to wash out the thick mucus from the nose in case of allergic rhinitis. Hypertonic solutions may be more useful at drawing moisture from the mucous membrane and relieving nasal congestion.

Natural nasal sprays that include chemical complexes derived from plant sources such as ginger, capsaicin and tea-tree oil are also available. There is however no trial-verified evidence that they have a measurable effect on symptoms.

Topical decongestants
Decongestant nasal sprays are available over-the-counter in many countries. They work to very quickly open up nasal passages by constricting blood vessels in the lining of the nose. Prolonged use of these types of sprays can damage the delicate mucous membranes in the nose. This causes increased inflammation, an effect known as rhinitis medicamentosa or the rebound effect. Decongestant nasal sprays are advised for short-term use only, preferably 5 to 7 days at maximum. Some doctors advise to use them 3 days at maximum. A recent clinical trial has shown that a corticosteroid nasal spray may be useful in reversing this condition. Topical nasal decongestants include:

 Oxymetazoline
 Phenylephrine
 Xylometazoline

Allergy combinations
Combination use of two medications as nasal spray preparation has been frequently prescribed by doctors.

List of combination nasal sprays:

  Azelastine together with fluticasone propionate (trade names including Dymista)
 Xylometazoline together with cromoglicic acid

See also
Olopatadine/mometasone

References

External links

Dosage forms
Drug delivery devices
Medical treatments

Nose

Nasal spray


The Drøbak Sound (Norwegian: Drøbaksundet) is a sound at the Oslofjord narrows between Drøbak and Hurum. Outer Oslofjord, which is a term for the Oslofjord south of the Drøbak Sound until it meets the Skagerrak.  Inner Oslofjord which is a term for the rest of the fjord, that starts in the Drøbak Sound northwards towards Oslo, where the fjord makes a turn and continues to the Bunne Fjord.

The Drøbak Sound was previously guarded by Oscarsborg Fortress. During the German invasion of Norway on 9 April 1940, the German cruiser  was sunk by the fortress. Oscarsborg Fortress has been converted into a museum and a hotel. There is a ferry from Drøbak.

The subsea Oslofjord Tunnel at the Norwegian National Road 23 is running underneath the Oslofjord connects the east side and the west side of the fjord.

See also
 Battle of Drøbak Sound

References

Sounds of Norway
Frogn
Hurum

Drøbak Sound


Systematic Protein Investigative Research Environment (SPIRE) provides web-based experiment-specific mass spectrometry (MS) proteomics analysis in order to identify proteins and peptides, and label-free expression and relative expression analyses. SPIRE provides a web-interface and generates results in both interactive and simple data formats.

Methodology
Spire's analyses are based on an experimental design that generates false discovery rates and local false discovery rates (FDR, LFDR) and integrates open-source search and data analysis methods. By combining X! Tandem, OMSSA and SpectraST SPIRE can produce an increase in protein IDs (50-90%) over current combinations of scoring and single search engines while also providing accurate multi-faceted error estimation. SPIRE combines its analysis results with data on protein function, pathways and protein expression from model organisms.

Integration with other information
SPIRE also connects results to publicly available proteomics data through its Multi-Omics Profiling Expression Database (MOPED). SPIRE can provide analysis and annotation for user-supplied protein ID and expression data. Users can upload data (standardized appropriately) or mail in data files.

References

Further reading

Mass spectrometry software
Proteomics
Biological databases


Col. Bruce & The Quark Alliance is a band formed in 2006 by musician Bruce Hampton that recorded and toured through 2010. Hampton has been a part of the Southern music scene since the 1960s fronting such acts as The Hampton Grease Band, The Late Bronze Age, The Aquarium Rescue Unit, and The Fiji Mariners.

The Quark Alliance toured nationally and also included guitarist Jeff Caldwell, Perry Osborn, bassist Kris Dale, and drummers Mark Letalien and Duane Trucks.

Perry Osborn joined the band in 2008, replacing original guitarist Jeff Caldwell. He teaches music at Florida State University and has toured with Grant Green Jr., Jeff Sipe, and Gary Gazaway.

Kris Dale graduated from the University of Miami's School of Music with a degree in studio music and jazz performance.  Kris played in many touring bands including Tongo-hiti, The Lost Continentals, Kingsized, Bernadette Seacrest, and The Johnny Knox Trio. Along the way he picked up pedal steel guitar and recorded on the theme song for Adult Swim's "Squidbillies."

Duane Trucks was born in Jacksonville, Florida. He began playing drums at the age of two. Coming from a musical family, he was able to learn from some of the best musicians in the country and take lessons from the legendary Bernard Purdie. After graduating high school he toured with his brother Derek Trucks's band, Soul Stew Revival. His jazz trio 'The Sixes' still plays occasionally around Atlanta.

Former member Jeff Caldwell has been playing clubs in the South and L.A. for years. For a while he was at the Musicians Institute in California with John Frusciante and Aquarium Rescue Unit guitarist Jimmy Herring. Jeff wrote seven songs on the band's 2007 CD.

Original drummer Mark Letalien still performs over 100 shows a year throughout the Southeast, has a busy teaching studio, and is the first call drummer for many bands in the Atlanta area.

The Quark Alliance's only CD, "Give Thanks to Chank" was released in November 2007.

References

External links
Col. Bruce Hampton's Website
Mark Letalien's Website
Kris Dale's Website

Jam bands
Musical groups from Georgia (U.S. state)

The Quark Alliance


Wind power in the United States is a growing industry. As of 2011, the total installed capacity of was 42,432 megawatts (MW), making it second in the world, behind China. In 2010 wind power accounted for 2.3% of the electricity generated in the United States. This amounted to 94,650 thousand megawatt-hours of electricity.

Driven by state renewable energy mandates, fourteen states have installed over 1,000 MW of wind capacity, and a total of 37 states now have installed at least some large-scale wind power. Texas, with 10,135 MW of capacity, has the most installed wind power capacity of any U.S. state, followed by Iowa with 3,675 MW. The Roscoe Wind Farm (781 MW) in Texas is the largest wind farm in the US as of 2011.

The U.S. wind industry generates tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars. Wind projects boost local tax bases, and help the economy of rural communities by providing a steady income stream to farmers with wind turbines on their land. GE Energy is the largest domestic wind turbine manufacturer.

References

Wind energy
Energy in the United States

Wind power in the United States


V382 Carinae, also named x Carinae, is a yellow hypergiant star. It is visible to the eye and is seen in the Carina constellation. With a diameter of almost 1 billion kilometers, or 700 times larger than the Sun, it is one of the largest known stars. V382 Carinae is 316,000 times brighter than the Sun.

References

Hypergiants
Variable stars

V382 Carinae


Córdoba, Op. 232, No. 4, is a composition by Isaac Albéniz. It was originally written for piano as part of Chants d'Espagne and was published in 1898.

Since it has been transcribed for guitar by Miguel Llobet, it has become one of the staples of classical guitar music. John Williams describes the piece as "real guitar music" and which he believes to be partly inspired by the Great Mosque of Córdoba in Córdoba, Andalusia. One author said "The beauty and romance, which is the particular charm of the city of Cordoba, inspired this composition."

References

Compositions by Isaac Albéniz
Spanish compositions for solo piano
Compositions for guitar

Córdoba (Albéniz)