Robert Kanigher (; June 18, 1915 – May 7, 2002) was an American comic book writer and editor whose career spanned five decades. He was involved with the Wonder Woman franchise for over twenty years, taking over the scripting from creator William Moulton Marston. In addition, Kanigher spent many years in charge of DC Comics's war titles and created the character Sgt. Rock. Kanigher scripted what is considered the first Silver Age comic book story, "Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt!", which introduced the Barry Allen version of the Flash in Showcase #4 (Oct. 1956).

Early life
Kanigher was born in New York City, the third of Ephraim and Rebecca (née Herman) Kanigher's three children. Kanigher's parents were Romanian Jewish immigrants.

Kanigher started working part-time when 12 years old to help support his family. "My father was destroyed in the Great Depression". He quickly started working full-time. "I supported them in their own flat (without their asking me), paying for everything from chewing gum to (their) coffins, 28 years later".

Career

Early work
Kanigher's career as a writer started early, with his short stories and poetry being published in magazines. He won The New York Times Collegiate Short Story Contest in 1932. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Kanigher also wrote for radio, film, and authored several plays.

In 1943 Kanigher wrote How to Make Money Writing, which included a section on comics, making it one of the earliest works on the subject.

Comic books

The Golden Age
Kanigher's earliest comics work was in such titles as Fox Feature Syndicate's Blue Beetle (where he created the Bouncer), MLJ/Archie Comics's Steel Sterling and The Web, and Fawcett Comics Captain Marvel Adventures.

Kanigher joined All-American Comics, a precursor of the future DC Comics, as a scripter in 1945, and was quickly promoted to editor. He wrote the "Justice Society of America" feature in All Star Comics, the "Hawkman" feature in Flash Comics, and Green Lantern. Kanigher edited Wonder Woman starting in 1948  to issue #176 (May–June 1968). A year after Wonder Woman creator William Moulton Marston died in 1947, Kanigher became the title's writer as well. Kanigher wrote "The Black Canary", a six-page Johnny Thunder story which introduced the Black Canary character in Flash Comics #86 (August 1947). This was also artist Carmine Infantino's first published work for DC. Other new characters created by Kanigher during this time included the Rose and Thorn and the Harlequin.

Starting in 1952, Kanigher began editing and writing the "big five" DC Comics' war titles: G.I. Combat, Our Army at War, Our Fighting Forces, All-American Men of War, and Star Spangled War Stories. His creation of Sgt. Rock with Joe Kubert is considered one of his most memorable contributions to the medium. Comics historian Bill Schelly noted that "Kanigher's scripts were built on well-orchestrated dramatic sequences, with the story's objects not war-time danger and violence, but the impact these events had on the men of Easy Company."

The Silver Age
In 1956, DC editor Julius Schwartz assigned Kanigher and Infantino to the company's first attempt at reviving superheroes: an updated version of the Flash that would appear in issue #4 (Oct. 1956) of the try-out series Showcase. The eventual success of the new, science-fiction oriented Flash heralded the wholesale return of superheroes, and the beginning of what fans and historians call the Silver Age of comics.

Artist Ross Andru began a nine-year run on Wonder Woman, starting with issue #98 (May 1958), where he and Kanigher reinvented the character, introducing the Silver Age version and her supporting cast.

Kanigher and Andru had several other notable collaborations. The "Gunner and Sarge" feature introduced in All-American Men of War #67 (March 1959) was one of the first war comics to feature recurring characters. Andru drew an early appearance of Kanigher's Sgt. Rock character in Our Army at War #81 (April 1959) The creative team co-created the original version of the Suicide Squad in The Brave and the Bold #25 (September 1959). Another innovation was the melding of war comics with science-fiction in "The War that Time Forgot", a feature created by Kanigher and Andru in Star Spangled War Stories #90 (May 1960). The Kanigher-Andru pairing co-created the Metal Men in Showcase #37 (March–April 1962).

Kanigher also created other popular action series features, such as "Enemy Ace", "The Losers", and The Unknown Soldier. He and artist Russ Heath created the "Haunted Tank" feature, and the Sea Devils series. Several of Kanigher's characters were combined into a single feature titled "The Losers". Their first appearance as a group was with the Haunted Tank crew in G.I. Combat #138 (Oct.–Nov. 1969). In the late 1950s and 1960s, Kanigher had a hand in creating many other characters, including the Viking Prince, Balloon Buster, and the Batman villain Poison Ivy.

Among fellow comic creators, Kanigher was as well known for his unstable personality and violent temper as he was for his brilliance as a writer, and collaborators such as Gene Colan and John Romita Sr. have commented on the difficulty of working with him. Romita recounted: I worked on a series with Kanigher — he wrote two series for me in the romance dept. One about an airline stewardess, and one about a nurse. He used to compliment me whenever he'd see me in the bullpen. "Like the stuff ... like the stuff ..." That was about the amount of conversation we had. Then one day we were in the elevator together, and he said, "Like the stuff." I, like an innocent fool ... I used to do some adjustments to his pages. If he had a heavy-copy panel, I might take a balloon from one panel and put it in the next. Just because I was distributing space. I was so stupid and naive, I said to him, "It doesn't bother you, does it, that I sometimes switch some of the panels around and move some of the balloons from one panel to another?" He started to chew me out in the elevator! "Who the hell do you think you are, changing my stuff? Where do you come off changing my stuff? You don't know anything about this business!"

The Bronze Age
Reuniting with Andru, Kanigher co-created the "Rose & The Thorn" backup feature in Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane #105 (October 1970). Kanigher wrote two stories for Marvel Comics: "Weep for a Lost Nightmare" in Iron Man #44 (Jan. 1972) and "Running for Love" in Our Love Story #19 (Oct. 1972). Kanigher returned as writer-editor of the Wonder Woman title with issue #204 (Jan.–Feb. 1973) and restored the character's powers and traditional costume. In 1974, drawing on a classic novel, he introduced Rima the Jungle Girl to the DC Universe in her own title. Kanigher and Kubert created Ragman in the first issue (Aug.–Sept. 1976) of that character's short-lived ongoing series.

Around 1977, Kanigher taught for a year at the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art.

Kanigher was still working for DC into the early 1980s, most notably on the Creature Commandos feature in Weird War Tales. When told the comic was being canceled, Kanigher wrote a one-page Creature Commandos story where the team of military superhumans and himself were rocketed off into space.

Tributes and awards
In 1985, DC Comics named Kanigher as one of the honorees in the company's 50th anniversary publication Fifty Who Made DC Great.

Streets and buildings have been named in his honor in several of DC Comics' fictional cities, including Central City and Keystone City. The hometown of Nate Banks in the comic book themed kids' series of novels, The Amazing Adventures of Nate Banks, is named Kanigher Falls.

In 2014, Kanigher was posthumously recognized with the Bill Finger Award.

Publications

See also
 War comics

References

Further reading
 Snyder, Robin. "The Golden Gladiator Robert Kanigher," The Comics Journal #84 and #85 (1983).

External links

 "DC Profiles #42: Robert Kanigher" at the Grand Comics Database
 Robert Kanigher at Mike's Amazing World of Comics

1915 births
2002 deaths
20th-century American Jews
21st-century American Jews
20th-century American writers
20th-century American male writers
American comics writers
American people of Romanian-Jewish descent
Jewish American artists
Jewish American writers
American art educators
Bill Finger Award winners
Comic book editors
Golden Age comics creators
People from Fishkill, New York
Silver Age comics creators
Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame inductees
Writers from New York City
DC Comics people

Robert Kanigher


Joe David (born June 30, 1946) is a  Nuu-chah-nulth artist, a member of the Tla-o-qui-aht Band of the Nuu-chah-nulth people, also formally "adopted" into the Haida people, whose work is identified with the contemporary Northwest Coast art movement; among his close associates are teacher and art historian Bill Holm, Duane Pasco, and his cousin Ron Hamilton. He is also a singer of traditional Nuu-chah-nulth songs, and has a strong interest in shamanic traditions, both those from his own culture and from others.

Early life and education
David was born in the Clayoquot village of Opitsaht (on Meares Island off the west coast of Vancouver Island). His father Hyacinth David, an elder of the Clayoquot Nation, gave him a strong grounding in his cultural heritage.  As a child, he attended a mission boarding school. While there, David visited the school's chapel for quiet and solitude. He saw that the carved altar in the chapel was similar to the artwork of his people in the awe and respect that it inspired.  He studied art in the Job Corps, attended art school in San Marcos, Texas and Seattle, and worked briefly as a commercial artist (among other places, for Seattle's Bon Marché department store) before, in 1969, turning more specifically to Northwest Coast Native art after he was visiting the Burke Museum collection of Northwest Native art, curated by Bill Holm. Of this collection, David said "Here was this collection that Bill Holm had curated and understood and treated properly -- it was like, wow! This was not the academic, Mickey Mouse stuff. I was just blitzed. It was just between the eyes, like man, I've got to not only study and learn this, but I've got to master it." In 1971, he met Duane Pasco, who encouraged his interest in two-dimensional representation and experimentation with Northwest Coast styles."

Artwork
He was one of the innovators of serigraphy featuring traditional Northwest Coast Native motifs, and has worked in a variety of media, including carving totem poles. In the 1981 documentary "Spirit of the Mask," David expresses his love of the wood and the tools with which he works. His eclecticism has involved an interest not only in his native traditions and the broad mainstream of contemporary North American culture, but also in other Native American traditions (he participates annually in a Sun Dance in the southwestern United States) and, for example, by Maori art. Rejecting the view that traditional Northwest Native cultures should somehow remain frozen in time, he has remarked "The fact is, there is always change and our people have always been comfortable with it." He emphasizes that his work is not a tribute to the past, but to a living culture.

Collections
David has pieces in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and in the Museum of Anthropology at UBC.

Notes

1946 births
Living people
20th-century First Nations sculptors
Canadian male sculptors
20th-century Canadian male artists
21st-century First Nations people
Artists from British Columbia
First Nations printmakers
Haida woodcarvers
Northwest Coast art
Nuu-chah-nulth people
Totem pole carvers

Joe David


Chaim Potok (February 17, 1929 – July 23, 2002) was an American author, novelist, playwright, editor and rabbi. Of the more than dozen novels he authored, his first book The Chosen (1967), was listed on The New York Times' best seller list for 39 weeks and sold more than 3,400,000 copies and which was adapted into a well-received 1981 feature film by the same title.

Biography
Herman Harold Potok was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Benjamin Max (died 1958) and Mollie (née Friedman) Potok (died 1985), Jewish immigrants from Poland. He was the oldest of four children, all of whom either became or married rabbis. His Hebrew name was Chaim Tzvi (חיים צבי). He received an Orthodox Jewish education. After reading Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited as a teenager, he decided to become a writer (he often said that the novel Brideshead Revisited is what inspired his work and literature). He started writing fiction at the age of 16. At age 17 he made his first submission to the magazine The Atlantic Monthly. Although it was not published, he received a note from the editor complimenting his work. He attended high school at Marsha Stern Talmudical Academy, Yeshiva University's boys high school.

In 1949, at the age of twenty, his stories were published in the literary magazine of Yeshiva University, which he also helped edit. In 1950, Potok graduated summa cum laude with a BA in English Literature.

After four years of study at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America he was ordained as a Conservative rabbi. He was appointed director of LTF, Leaders Training Fellowship, a youth organization affiliated with Conservative Judaism.

After receiving a master's degree in English literature, Potok enlisted with the U.S. Army as a chaplain. He served in South Korea from 1955 to 1957. He described his time in South Korea as a transformative experience.  Brought up to believe that the Jewish people were central to history and God's plans, he experienced a region where there were almost no Jews and no anti-Semitism, yet whose religious believers prayed with the same fervor that he saw in Orthodox synagogues at home.

Upon his return to the U.S., he joined the faculty of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles. Potok met Adena Sara Mosevitzsky, a psychiatric social worker, at Camp Ramah in Ojai, California, where he served as camp director from 1957 to 1959. They were married on June 8, 1958. In 1959, he began his graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania and was appointed scholar-in-residence at Har Zion Synagogue in Philadelphia. In 1963, the Potoks were instructors at Camp Ramah in Nyack.  Also in 1963, he began a year in Israel, where he wrote his doctoral dissertation on Solomon Maimon and began to write a novel.

In 1964, the Potoks moved to Brooklyn, where Chaim became the managing editor of the magazine Conservative Judaism and joined the faculty of the Teachers' Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary. The following year, he was appointed editor-in-chief of the Jewish Publication Society in Philadelphia and later, chairman of the publication committee. During this time, Potok received a doctorate in philosophy from  the University of Pennsylvania. In 1970, the Potoks relocated to Jerusalem and then returned to Philadelphia in 1977.

After the publication of Old Men at Midnight, Potok was diagnosed with brain cancer. He died at his home in Merion, Pennsylvania on July 23, 2002, aged 73.

Literary career

In 1967, Potok published The Chosen, which won the Edward Lewis Wallant Award and was nominated for the National Book Award. Potok wrote a sequel to The Chosen in 1969, entitled The Promise, which details the issues of the value and identity between Orthodox and Hasidic Jews. This book won the Athenaeum Literary Award the same year of its publication. Not long afterward the Jewish Publication Society appointed him as its special projects editor. In 1972, he published My Name is Asher Lev, the story of a boy struggling with his relationship with his parents, religion and his desire to be an artist. In 1975, he published In the Beginning. From 1974 until his death, Potok served as a special projects editor for the Jewish Publication Society. During this time, Potok began translating the Hebrew Bible into English. In 1978, he published his non-fiction work, Wanderings: Chaim Potok's Story of the Jews, a historical account of the Jews. Between 1978 and 1989, Potok contributed articles to Moment Magazine. Potok described his 1981 novel The Book of Lights as an account of his experiences in Asia during the war. He said "it reshaped the neat, coherent model of myself and my place in the world."

His novel The Chosen was made into a film released in 1981, which won the most prestigious award at the World Film Festival, Montreal. Potok had a cameo role as a professor. The film featured Rod Steiger, Barry Miller, Maximilian Schell and Robby Benson. It also became an  Off-Broadway musical and was adapted as a stage play by Aaron Posner in collaboration with Potok, which premiered at the Arden Theatre Company in Philadelphia in 1999.

Potok's 1985 novel Davita's Harp is his only book featuring a female protagonist. In 1990, he published a sequel to My Name is Asher Lev titled The Gift of Asher Lev. It won the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. Potok wrote many plays, among them Sins of The Father and Out of The Depths. In 1992, Potok completed another novel, I am the Clay, about the courageous struggle of a war-ravaged family. His 1993 young adult literature The Tree of Here was followed by The Sky of Now (1995) and Zebra and Other Stories (1998).

Literary influences
Potok's parents discouraged his writing and reading of non-Jewish subjects. Nevertheless, he spent many hours in the public library reading secular novels. Potok cited James Joyce, Thomas Mann, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Ernest Hemingway, and S. Y. Agnon as his chief literary influences. Many of his novels are set in the urban environments in New York in which he himself grew up. While not Hasidic, Potok was raised in an Orthodox home. In the book My Name is Asher Lev, Asher Lev wants to be a painter, which causes much conflict with his father who wants him to do something else, much as Potok did during his childhood. Asher decides to become a painter, which upsets his family. Potok went into writing and painted in his free time. Potok said he related to Asher Lev more than any of his other characters.

Legacy
Potok has had a considerable influence on Jewish American authors. His work was significant for discussing the conflict between the traditional aspects of Jewish thought and culture and modernity to a wider, non-Jewish culture.  He taught a highly regarded graduate seminar on Postmodernism at the University of Pennsylvania from 1993 through 2001.

He bequeathed his papers to the University of Pennsylvania. The university houses a collection of Potok correspondence, writings, lectures, sermons, article clippings, memorabilia and fan mail. One of his admirers was Elie Wiesel, who wrote to Potok saying he had read all his books "with fervor and friendship".

Published works

 Jewish Ethics (1964–69, 14 volumes)
 The Chosen (1967)
 The Promise (1969)
 My Name Is Asher Lev (1972)
 In the Beginning (1975)
 The Jew Confronts Himself in American Literature (1975)
 Wanderings: Chaim Potok's History of the Jews (1978)
 The Book of Lights (1981)
 Davita's Harp (1985)
 Theo Tobiasse (1986)
 The Gift of Asher Lev (1990)
 I Am the Clay (1992)
 The Tree of Here (1993)
 The Trope Teacher (1994)
 The Sky of Now (1994)
 The Gates of November (1996)
 Zebra and Other Stories (1998)
 Isaac Stern: My First 79 Years (with Isaac Stern; 1999)
 Old Men at Midnight (2001)

See also

List of brain tumor patients

References

External links

 Finding aid to the Chaim Potok papers Ms. Coll. 730 at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries
Chaim Potok resource site created by William M. Allen, PhD, La Sierra University

Interview with Quiara Alegría Hudes in Guernica, July 2012

1929 births
2002 deaths
20th-century American novelists
21st-century American novelists
American people of Polish-Jewish descent
American Conservative rabbis
American male novelists
Deaths from brain cancer in the United States
University of Pennsylvania alumni
Yeshiva University alumni
Jewish Theological Seminary of America semikhah recipients
Translators of the Bible into English
Deaths from cancer in Pennsylvania
Rabbis in the military
Jewish American novelists
Postmodern writers
Jewish translators of the Bible
20th-century translators
21st-century translators
American psychological fiction writers
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
20th-century American rabbis
21st-century American rabbis

Chaim Potok


Bridport Museum is a museum in Bridport, Dorset, England. It is housed within an early 16th century building known as the Castle, located on South Street. The building has been Grade II* Listed since 1950.

History
The Bridport Museum and Art Gallery was established in 1932 by Captain Alfred Percy Codd, who had purchased the Castle for £1,800 the year before. He offered to donate the building to Bridport Borough Council on the condition that it would be transformed into a museum and art gallery, which would house his own paintings. The council accepted Codd's offer and the museum opened on 28 May 1932.

In 1974, the management of the museum was taken over by West Dorset District Council, and later in 2002 by the Bridport Museum Trust. After years of planning, the museum closed to undergo a £1.3 million redevelopment in 2016. Funding had been received from various sources, including the Heritage Lottery Fund, Bridport Town Council, West Dorset District Council and public donation. It reopened in May 2017 with new galleries and displays, while repair work had been completed on the building.

References

External links
 Bridport Museum – official site

Bridport
Jurassic Coast
Tourist attractions in Dorset
Museums in Dorset
Local museums in Dorset
1932 establishments in England
Museums established in 1932
Grade II* listed buildings in Dorset

Bridport Museum


Neuroprosthetics (also called neural prosthetics) is a discipline related to neuroscience and biomedical engineering concerned with developing neural prostheses.  They are sometimes contrasted with a brain–computer interface, which connects the brain to a computer rather than a device meant to replace missing biological functionality.

Neural prostheses are a series of devices that can substitute a motor, sensory or cognitive modality that might have been damaged as a result of an injury or a disease.  Cochlear implants provide an example of such devices.  These devices substitute the functions performed by the eardrum and stapes while simulating the frequency analysis performed in the cochlea. A microphone on an external unit gathers the sound and processes it; the processed signal is then transferred to an implanted unit that stimulates the auditory nerve through a microelectrode array. Through the replacement or augmentation of damaged senses, these devices are intended to improve the quality of life for those with disabilities.

These implantable devices are also commonly used in animal experimentation as a tool to aid neuroscientists in developing a greater understanding of the brain and its functioning. By wirelessly monitoring the brain's electrical signals sent out by electrodes implanted in the subject's brain, the subject can be studied without the device affecting the results. Accurately probing and recording the electrical signals in the brain would help better understand the relationship among a local population of neurons that are responsible for a specific function.

Neural implants are designed to be as small as possible in order to be minimally invasive, particularly in areas surrounding the brain, eyes, or cochlea. These implants typically communicate with their prosthetic counterparts wirelessly. Additionally, power is currently received through wireless power transmission through the skin. The tissue surrounding the implant is usually highly sensitive to temperature rise, meaning that power consumption must be minimal in order to prevent tissue damage.

The neuroprosthetic currently undergoing the most widespread use is the cochlear implant, with over 300,000 in use worldwide .

History
The first known cochlear implant was created in 1957. Other milestones include the first motor prosthesis for foot drop in hemiplegia in 1961, the first auditory brainstem implant in 1977 and a peripheral nerve bridge implanted into the spinal cord of an adult rat in 1981. In 1988, the lumbar anterior root implant and functional electrical stimulation (FES) facilitated standing and walking, respectively, for a group of paraplegics.

Regarding the development of electrodes implanted in the brain, an early difficulty was reliably locating the electrodes, originally done by inserting the electrodes with needles and breaking off the needles at the desired depth. Recent systems utilize more advanced probes, such as those used in deep brain stimulation to alleviate the symptoms of Parkinson's disease. The problem with either approach is that the brain floats free in the skull while the probe does not, and relatively minor impacts, such as a low speed car accident, are potentially damaging. Some researchers, such as Kensall Wise at the University of Michigan, have proposed tethering 'electrodes to be mounted on the exterior surface of the brain' to the inner surface of the skull. However, even if successful, tethering would not resolve the problem in devices meant to be inserted deep into the brain, such as in the case of deep brain stimulation (DBS).

Sensory prosthetics

Visual prosthetics

A visual prosthesis can create a sense of image by electrically stimulating neurons in the visual system.  A camera would wirelessly transmit to an implant, the implant would map the image across an array of electrodes.  The array of electrodes has to effectively stimulate 600–1000 locations, stimulating these optic neurons in the retina thus will create an image.   The stimulation can also be done anywhere along the optic signal's pathway.  The optical nerve can be stimulated in order to create an image, or the visual cortex can be stimulated, although clinical tests have proven most successful for retinal implants.

A visual prosthesis system consists of an external (or implantable) imaging system which acquires and processes the video.  Power and data will be transmitted to the implant wirelessly by the external unit.  The implant uses the received power/data to convert the digital data to an analog output which will be delivered to the nerve via micro electrodes.

Photoreceptors are the specialized neurons that convert photons into electrical signals.  They are part of the retina, a multilayer neural structure about 200 um thick that lines the back of the eye.  The processed signal is sent to the brain through the optical nerve.  If any part of this pathway is damaged blindness can occur.

Blindness can result from damage to the optical pathway (cornea, aqueous humor, crystalline lens, and vitreous).  This can happen as a result of accident or disease. The two most common retinal degenerative diseases that result in blindness secondary to photoreceptor loss is age related macular degeneration (AMD) and retinitis pigmentosa (RP).

The first clinical trial of a permanently implanted retinal prosthesis was a device with a passive microphotodiode array with 3500 elements. This trial was implemented at Optobionics, Inc., in 2000.  In 2002, Second Sight Medical Products, Inc. (Sylmar, CA) began a trial with a prototype epiretinal implant with 16 electrodes. The subjects were six individuals with bare light perception secondary to RP.  The subjects demonstrated their ability to distinguish between three common objects (plate, cup, and knife) at levels statistically above chance.  An active sub retinal device developed by Retina Implant GMbH (Reutlingen, Germany) began clinical trials in 2006.  An IC with 1500 microphotodiodes was implanted under the retina.  The microphotodiodes serve to modulate current pulses based on the amount of light incident on the photo diode.

The seminal experimental work towards the development of visual prostheses was done by cortical stimulation using a grid of large surface electrodes.  In 1968 Giles Brindley implanted an 80 electrode device on the visual cortical surface of a 52-year-old blind woman.  As a result of the stimulation the patient was able to see phosphenes in 40 different positions of the visual field.  This experiment showed that an implanted electrical stimulator device could restore some degree of vision.  Recent efforts in visual cortex prosthesis have evaluated efficacy of visual cortex stimulation in a non-human primate.  In this experiment after a training and mapping process the monkey is able to perform the same visual saccade task with both light and electrical stimulation.

The requirements for a high resolution retinal prosthesis should follow from the needs and desires of blind individuals who will benefit from the device. Interactions with these patients indicate that mobility without a cane, face recognition and reading are the main necessary enabling capabilities.

The results and implications of fully functional visual prostheses are exciting. However, the challenges are grave.  In order for a good quality image to be mapped in the retina a high number of micro-scale electrode arrays are needed.  Also, the image quality is dependent on how much information can be sent over the wireless link.  Also this high amount of information must be received and processed by the implant without much power dissipation which can damage the tissue.  The size of the implant is also of great concern.  Any implant would be preferred to be minimally invasive.

With this new technology, several scientists, including Karen Moxon at Drexel, John Chapin at SUNY, and Miguel Nicolelis at Duke University, started research on the design of a sophisticated visual prosthesis. Other scientists  have disagreed with the focus of their research, arguing that the basic research and design of the densely populated microscopic wire was not sophisticated enough to proceed.

Auditory prosthetics

Cochlear implants (CIs), auditory brain stem implants (ABIs), and auditory midbrain implants (AMIs) are the three main categories for auditory prostheses. CI electrode arrays are implanted in the cochlea, ABI electrode arrays stimulate the cochlear nucleus complex in the lower brain stem, and AMIs stimulate auditory neurons in the inferior colliculus.  Cochlear implants have been very successful among these three categories. Today the Advanced Bionics Corporation, the Cochlear Corporation and the Med-El Corporation are the major commercial providers of cochlear implants.

In contrast to traditional hearing aids that amplify sound and send it through the external ear, cochlear implants acquire and process the sound and convert it into electrical energy for subsequent delivery to the auditory nerve.  The microphone of the CI system receives sound from the external environment and sends it to processor.  The processor digitizes the sound and filters it into separate frequency bands that are sent to the appropriate tonotonic region in the cochlea that approximately corresponds to those frequencies.

In 1957, French researchers A. Djourno and C. Eyries, with the help of D. Kayser, provided the first detailed description of directly stimulating the auditory nerve in a human subject.  The individuals described hearing chirping sounds during stimulation.  In 1972, the first portable cochlear implant system in an adult was implanted at the House Ear Clinic.  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) formally approved the marketing of the House-3M cochlear implant in November 1984.

Improved performance in cochlear implants not only depends on understanding the physical and biophysical limitations of implant stimulation, but also on an understanding of the brain's pattern processing requirements.  Modern signal processing represents the most important speech information while also providing the brain the pattern recognition information that it needs.  Pattern recognition in the brain is more effective than algorithmic preprocessing at identifying important features in speech.  A combination of engineering, signal processing, biophysics, and cognitive neuroscience was necessary to produce the right balance of technology to maximize the performance of auditory prosthesis.

Cochlear implants have been also used to allow acquiring of spoken language development in congenitally deaf children, with remarkable success in early implantations (before 2–4 years of life have been reached). There have been about 80,000 children implanted worldwide.

The concept of combining simultaneous electric-acoustic stimulation (EAS) for the purposes of better hearing was first described by C. von Ilberg and J. Kiefer, from the Universitätsklinik Frankfurt, Germany, in 1999.  That same year the first EAS patient was implanted. Since the early 2000s FDA has been involved in a clinical trial of device termed the "Hybrid" by Cochlear Corporation.  This trial is aimed at examining the usefulness of cochlea implantation in patients with residual low-frequency hearing.  The "Hybrid" utilizes a shorter electrode than the standard cochlea implant, since the electrode is shorter it stimulates the basil region of the cochlea and hence the high-frequency tonotopic region. In theory these devices would benefit patients with significant low-frequency residual hearing who have lost perception in the speech frequency range and hence have decreased discrimination scores.

For producing sound see Speech synthesis.

Prosthetics for pain relief

The SCS (Spinal Cord Stimulator) device has two main components: an electrode and a generator.  The technical goal of SCS for neuropathic pain is to mask the area of a patient's pain with a stimulation induced tingling, known as "paresthesia", because this overlap is necessary (but not sufficient) to achieve pain relief. Paresthesia coverage depends upon which afferent nerves are stimulated.  The most easily recruited by a dorsal midline electrode, close to the pial surface of spinal cord, are the large dorsal column afferents, which produce broad paresthesia covering segments caudally.

In ancient times the electrogenic fish was used as a shocker to subside pain.  Healers had developed specific and detailed techniques to exploit the generative qualities of the fish to treat various types of pain, including headache.  Because of the awkwardness of using a living shock generator, a fair level of skill was required to deliver the therapy to the target for the proper amount of time. (Including keeping the fish alive as long as possible)
Electro analgesia was the first deliberate application of electricity.  By the nineteenth century, most western physicians were offering their patients electrotherapy delivered by portable generator. In the mid-1960s, however, three things converged to ensure the future of electro stimulation.

 Pacemaker technology, which had it start in 1950, became available.
 Melzack and Wall published their gate control theory of pain, which proposed that the transmission of pain could be blocked by stimulation of large afferent fibers.
 Pioneering physicians became interested in stimulating the nervous system to relieve patients from pain.

The design options for electrodes include their size, shape, arrangement, number, and assignment of contacts and how the electrode is implanted. The design option for the pulse generator includes the power source, target anatomic placement location, current or voltage source, pulse rate, pulse width, and a number of independent channels. Programming options are very numerous (a four-contact electrode offers 50 functional bipolar combinations).  The current devices use computerized equipment to find the best options for use.  This reprogramming option compensates for postural changes, electrode migration, changes in pain location, and suboptimal electrode placement.

Motor prosthetics
Devices which support the function of autonomous nervous system include the implant for bladder control. In the somatic nervous system attempts to aid conscious control of movement include Functional electrical stimulation and the lumbar anterior root stimulator.

Bladder control implants

Where a spinal cord lesion leads to paraplegia, patients have difficulty emptying their bladders and this can cause infection. From 1969 onwards Brindley developed the sacral anterior root stimulator, with successful human trials from the early 1980s onwards. This device is implanted over the sacral anterior root ganglia of the spinal cord; controlled by an external transmitter, it delivers intermittent stimulation which improves bladder emptying. It also assists in defecation and enables male patients to have a sustained full erection.

The related procedure of sacral nerve stimulation is for the control of incontinence in able-bodied patients.

Motor prosthetics for conscious control of movement

Researchers are currently investigating and building motor neuroprosthetics that will help restore movement and the ability to communicate with the outside world to persons with motor disabilities such as tetraplegia or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Research has found that the striatum plays a crucial role in motor sensory learning. This was demonstrated by an experiment in which lab rats' firing rates of the striatum was recorded at higher rates after performing a task consecutively.

To capture electrical signals from the brain, scientists have developed microelectrode arrays smaller than a square centimeter that can be implanted in the skull to record electrical activity, transducing recorded information through a thin cable. After decades of research in monkeys, neuroscientists have been able to decode neuronal signals into movements. Completing the translation, researchers have built interfaces that allow patients to move computer cursors, and they are beginning to build robotic limbs and exoskeletons that patients can control by thinking about movement.

The technology behind motor neuroprostheses is still in its infancy. Investigators and study participants continue to experiment with different ways of using the prostheses. Having a patient think about clenching a fist, for example, produces a different result than having him or her think about tapping a finger. The filters used in the prostheses are also being fine-tuned, and in the future, doctors hope to create an implant capable of transmitting signals from inside the skull wirelessly, as opposed to through a cable.

Prior to these advancements, Philip Kennedy (Emory and Georgia Tech) had an operable if somewhat primitive system which allowed an individual with paralysis to spell words by modulating their brain activity. Kennedy's device used two neurotrophic electrodes: the first was implanted in an intact motor cortical region (e.g. finger representation area) and was used to move a cursor among a group of letters. The second was implanted in a different motor region and was used to indicate the selection.

Developments continue in replacing lost arms with cybernetic replacements by using nerves normally connected to the pectoralis muscles. These arms allow a slightly limited range of motion, and reportedly are slated to feature sensors for detecting pressure and temperature.

Dr. Todd Kuiken at Northwestern University and Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago has developed a method called targeted reinnervation for an amputee to control motorized prosthetic devices and to regain sensory feedback.

In 2002 a Multielectrode array of 100 electrodes, which now forms the sensor part of a Braingate, was implanted directly into the median nerve fibers of scientist Kevin Warwick. The recorded signals were used to control a robot arm developed by Warwick's colleague, Peter Kyberd and was able to mimic the actions of Warwick's own arm. Additionally, a form of sensory feedback was provided via the implant by passing small electrical currents into the nerve. This caused a contraction of the first lumbrical muscle of the hand and it was this movement that was perceived.

In June 2014, Juliano Pinto, a paraplegic athlete, performed the ceremonial first kick at the 2014 FIFA World Cup using a powered exoskeleton with a brain interface. The exoskeleton was developed by the Walk Again Project at the laboratory of Miguel Nicolelis, funded by the government of Brazil. Nicolelis says that feedback from replacement limbs (for example, information about the pressure experienced by a prosthetic foot touching the ground) is necessary for balance. He has found that as long as people can see the limbs being controlled by a brain interface move at the same time as issuing the command to do so, with repeated use the brain will assimilate the externally powered limb and it will start to perceive it (in terms of position awareness and feedback) as part of the body.

Amputation techniques

The MIT Biomechatronics Group has designed a novel amputation paradigm that enables biological muscles and myoelectric prostheses to interface neurally with high reliability. This surgical paradigm, termed the agonist-antagonist myoneural interface (AMI), provides the user with the ability to sense and control their prosthetic limb as an extension of their own body, rather than using a prosthetic that merely resembles an appendage. In a normal agonist-antagonist muscle pair relationship (e.g. bicep-tricep), when the agonist muscle contracts, the antagonist muscle is stretched, and vice versa, providing one with the knowledge of the position of one's limb without even having to look at it. During a standard amputation, agonist-antagonist muscles (e.g. bicep-tricep) are isolated from each other, preventing the ability to have the dynamic contract-extend mechanism that generates sensory feedback. Therefore, current amputees have no way of feeling the physical environment their prosthetic limb encounters. Moreover, with the current amputation surgery which has been in place for over 200 years, 1/3 patients undergo revision surgeries due to pain in their stumps.

An AMI is composed of two muscles that originally shared an agonist-antagonist relationship. During the amputation surgery, these two muscles are mechanically linked together within the amputated stump. One AMI muscle pair can be created for each joint degree of freedom in a patient in order to establish control and sensation of multiple prosthetic joints. In preliminary testing of this new neural interface, patients with an AMI have demonstrated and reported greater control over the prosthesis. Additionally, more naturally reflexive behavior during stair walking was observed compared to subjects with a traditional amputation. An AMI can also be constructed through the combination of two devascularized muscle grafts. These muscle grafts (or flaps) are spare muscle that is denervated (detached from original nerves) and removed from one part of the body to be re-innervated by severed nerves found in the limb to be amputated. Through the use of regenerated muscle flaps, AMIs can be created for patients with muscle tissue that has experienced extreme atrophy or damage or for patients who are undergoing revision of an amputated limb for reasons such as neuroma pain, bone spurs, etc.

Obstacles

Mathematical modelling
Accurate characterization of the nonlinear input/output (I/O) parameters of the normally functioning tissue to be replaced is paramount to designing a prosthetic that mimics normal biologic synaptic signals. Mathematical modeling of these signals is a complex task "because of the nonlinear dynamics inherent in the cellular/molecular mechanisms comprising neurons and their synaptic connections". The output of nearly all brain neurons are dependent on which post-synaptic inputs are active and in what order the inputs are received. (spatial and temporal properties, respectively).

Once the I/O parameters are modeled mathematically, integrated circuits are designed to mimic the normal biologic signals. For the prosthetic to perform like normal tissue, it must process the input signals, a process known as transformation, in the same way as normal tissue.

Size
Implantable devices must be very small to be implanted directly in the brain, roughly the size of a quarter. One of the example of microimplantable electrode array is the Utah array.

Wireless controlling devices can be mounted outside of the skull and should be smaller than a pager.

Power consumption
Power consumption drives battery size. Optimization of the implanted circuits reduces power needs. Implanted devices currently need on-board power sources. Once the battery runs out, surgery is needed to replace the unit. Longer battery life correlates to fewer surgeries needed to replace batteries. One option that could be used to recharge implant batteries without surgery or wires is being used in powered toothbrushes. These devices make use of inductive charging to recharge batteries. Another strategy is to convert electromagnetic energy into electrical energy, as in radio-frequency identification tags.

Biocompatibility
Cognitive prostheses are implanted directly in the brain, so biocompatibility is a very important obstacle to overcome. Materials used in the housing of the device, the electrode material (such as iridium oxide), and electrode insulation must be chosen for long term implantation. Subject to Standards: ISO 14708-3 2008-11-15, Implants for Surgery - Active implantable medical devices Part 3: Implantable neurostimulators.

Crossing the blood–brain barrier can introduce pathogens or other materials that may cause an immune response. The brain has its own immune system that acts differently from the immune system of the rest of the body.

Data transmission
Wireless Transmission is being developed to allow continuous recording of neuronal signals of individuals in their daily life. This allows physicians and clinicians to capture more data, ensuring that short term events like epileptic seizures can be recorded, allowing better treatment and characterization of neural disease.

A small, light weight device has been developed that allows constant recording of primate brain neurons at Stanford University. This technology also enables neuroscientists to study the brain outside of the controlled environment of a lab.

Methods of data transmission between neural prosthetics and external systems must be robust and secure. Wireless neural implants can have the same cybersecurity vulnerabilities as any other IT system, giving rise to the term neurosecurity. A neurosecurity breach can be considered a violation of medical privacy.

Correct implantation
Implantation of the device presents many problems. First, the correct presynaptic inputs must be wired to the correct postsynaptic inputs on the device. Secondly, the outputs from the device must be targeted correctly on the desired tissue. Thirdly, the brain must learn how to use the implant. Various studies in brain plasticity suggest that this may be possible through exercises designed with proper motivation.

Technologies involved

Local field potentials
Local field potentials (LFPs) are electrophysiological signals that are related to the sum of all dendritic synaptic activity within a volume of tissue. Recent studies suggest goals and expected value are high-level cognitive functions that can be used for neural cognitive prostheses.
Also, Rice University scientists have discovered a new method to tune the light-induced vibrations of nanoparticles through slight alterations to the surface to which the particles are attached. According to the university, the discovery could lead to new applications of photonics from molecular sensing to wireless communications. They used ultrafast laser pulses to induce the atoms in gold nanodisks to vibrate.

Automated movable electrical probes
One hurdle to overcome is the long term implantation of electrodes. If the electrodes are moved by physical shock or the brain moves in relation to electrode position, the electrodes could be recording different nerves. Adjustment to electrodes is necessary to maintain an optimal signal. Individually adjusting multi electrode arrays is a very tedious and time consuming process. Development of automatically adjusting electrodes would mitigate this problem. Anderson's group is currently collaborating with Yu-Chong Tai's lab and the Burdick lab (all at Caltech) to make such a system that uses electrolysis-based actuators to independently adjust electrodes in a chronically implanted array of electrodes.

Imaged guided surgical techniques
Image-guided surgery is used to precisely position brain implants.

See also

 Biomedical engineering
 Brain–computer interface
 Brain-reading
 Cyborg
 Experience machine
 Neural engineering
 Neurosecurity
 Prosthetic neuronal memory silicon chips
 Prosthetics
 Simulated reality
 Wirehead (science fiction)

References

Further reading
 Santhanam G, Ryu SI, Yu BM, Afshar A, Shenoy KV. 2006. "A high-performance brain-computer interface". Nature 442:195–98
 Patil PG, Turner DA. 2008. "The development of brain-machine interface neuroprosthetic devices". Neurotherapeutics 5:137–46
 Liu WT, Humayun MS, Liker MA. 2008. "Implantable biomimetic microelectronics systems". Proceedings of the IEEE 96:1073–74
 Harrison RR. 2008. "The design of integrated circuits to observe brain activity." Proceedings of the IEEE 96:1203–16
 Abbott A. 2006. "Neuroprosthetics: In search of the sixth sense". Nature 442:125–27
 Velliste M, Perel S, Spalding MC, Whitford AS, Schwartz AB (2008) "Cortical control of a prosthetic arm for self-feeding." Nature. 19;453(7198):1098–101.
 Schwartz AB, Cui XT, Weber DJ, Moran DW "Brain-controlled interfaces: movement restoration with neural prosthetics." (2006)  Neuron 5;52(1):205–20
 Santucci DM, Kralik JD, Lebedev MA, Nicolelis MA (2005) "Frontal and parietal cortical ensembles predict single-trial muscle activity during reaching movements in primates." Eur J Neurosci. 22(6): 1529–40.
 Lebedev MA, Carmena JM, O'Doherty JE, Zacksenhouse M, Henriquez CS, Principe JC, Nicolelis MA (2005) "Cortical ensemble adaptation to represent velocity of an artificial actuator controlled by a brain-machine interface." J Neurosci. 25: 4681–93.
 Nicolelis MA (2003) "Brain-machine interfaces to restore motor function and probe neural circuits." Nat Rev Neurosci. 4: 417–22.
 Wessberg J, Stambaugh CR, Kralik JD, Beck PD, Laubach M, Chapin JK, Kim J, Biggs SJ, Srinivasan MA, Nicolelis MA. (2000) "Real-time prediction of hand trajectory by ensembles of cortical neurons in primates." Nature 16: 361–65.

External links

The open-source Electroencephalography project and Programmable chip version, Sourceforge open source EEG projects
Dr. Theodore W. Berger's website (WayBack machine snapshot from 2017)
Neuroprosthetic.org (Neuroscience, Artificial Intelligence, Prosthetics, Deep learning and Robotics)
CIMIT – Center For Integration Of Medicine And Innovative Technology – Advances & Research in Neuroprosthetics

Emerging technologies
Implants (medicine)

Neuroprosthetics


War of the Worlds is a 2005 science fiction movie that has Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning as the main actors. It was directed by Steven Spielberg. It is based on the H. G. Wells novel The War of the Worlds.

Plot
Ray Ferrier's home town in New Jersey is attacked by alien tripods that were buried underneath the ground. He is then forced to flee the city with his two children and make it to Boston where his ex-wife is located.

2005 science fiction movies
American science fiction movies
Movies directed by Steven Spielberg
Movies composed by John Williams
Movies about extraterrestrial life
Movies based on books
Movies set in New Jersey
Movies set in New York (state)
Movies set in Boston
2000s English-language movies
2000s apocalyptic movies

War of the Worlds (2005 movie)


The Lake House is a 2003 novel by James Patterson, a sequel to When the Wind Blows. Elements of this series also appeared in Patterson's Maximum Ride series for younger readers.

Plot
The Lake House told the story of six extraordinary children, endowed with the power to fly after genetic engineering merged their DNA with that of birds, and who had to fight for their lives against scientists who wanted to kill them, thinking that they were monsters of despair. With them came the help of Dr. Frannie O'Neil and suspended FBI agent Thomas "Kit" Brennan.

Synopsis
The Lake House starts some time after When the Wind Blows. The bird children - Max, Matthew, Ozymandias, Wendy, Peter, and Icarus - are all depressed and unhappy in their new "normal" lives and wish to return to live with Frannie and Kit. Frannie and Kit miss the children as well and engage in a courtroom battle to regain custody of the children. The judge decides that the children will remain living with their biological parents until an appeal hearing is made. Meanwhile, a doctor named Ethan Kane begins trying to capture the bird children and bring them to the place he works, a nightmarish place called the hospital. In the hospital, faceless people are murdered and dissected and their organs are taken and used for the "Resurrection" of rich and famous people such as former presidents and prime ministers.

Going back to their lives, the children are forced to put up with harassment from various reporters and paparazzi. After a visit from one of the reporters, it is revealed that Max knows about the hospital from working at the School, but was trained not to talk about it on the threat of death. Upset, she goes to Oz for comfort. He tells her that she is "drop dead gorgeous". Shortly after, the two begin a sexual relationship.

After Kane attempts to kidnap Max and Matthew at their new home, the siblings escape and meet up with the rest of the flock. The children then fly to Frannie's house for protection. That night, Hospital workers try to break into Frannie's house. She calls the police and sets her house on fire. She and the children then escape through the basement and meet up with Kit.

Kit takes them to Washington D.C. for help. While left alone, hit men hired by Kane capture the children. Oz is killed while trying to protect Max. Frannie and Kit try to rescue the children but are drugged and hooked up to holographic monitors, which give the patients pleasant visions while their organs are being taken. Max and the flock manage to escape and Frannie and Kit are released later. Although they try to expose the hospital, all evidence of their experiments are hidden and the V.I.Ps seen there have alibis.

At the appeal hearing, the judge decides to return the children to the custody of Frannie and Kit. The family rejoices and moves back to the Lake House. There, Frannie notices that Max has been in her room all morning. She goes to investigate and learns that Max has laid two eggs - her babies with Oz. Max spends the next few weeks caring for the eggs. One night, Kane breaks into Max's room to steal the eggs. Max fights him off and knocks him out of the window, fulfilling her promise to Oz that she'd break his neck. Four weeks later, the eggs hatch. Max's winged babies are a boy and a girl, who she names Ozymandias and Frances Jane. The book ends with Max thinking that she can't wait to teach them how to fly.

References

2003 American novels
American science fiction novels
Novels by James Patterson
Little, Brown and Company books

The Lake House (Patterson novel)


St. John's Park used to be a park in Lower Manhattan, New York City. It was square-shaped. To the west, north, east, and south were Varick, Laight, Hudson, and Beach Streets. The park is now a traffic circle at the Manhattan end of the Holland Tunnel to New Jersey.

It used to be a farm belonging to a New Netherland farmer. Then, the country of England  gave the park to Trinity Church. The church built St. John's Chapel, as well as some townhouses, around the park. By 1827, people living in the area were very rich. In the 1850s, many rich people moved out. In 1866, Cornelius Vanderbilt bought the park for a railroad terminal. The terminal was destroyed in 1927. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's Holland Tunnel was built in 1927.

References

Other websites

Manhattan

St. John's Park


Somerset Academy, also known as Athens Academy, is an historic building on Academy Street in Athens, Maine.  Built in 1846, it is a remarkably sophisticated treatment of Greek Revival architecture in rural setting.  The building is home to the River of Life Church.  It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

Description and history
The Somerset Academy building is located on the north side of Academy Street, a short way east of Brighton Road (Maine State Routes 150/151).  The main building is a 2-1/2 story brick structure, with a front-facing gable roof, and there is a large modern addition to the rear.  The front (south-facing) facade is three bays wide, articulated by brick piers, with sash windows on both levels in the outer bays.  The center bay is finished in wooden clapboards, and has a simple entrance on the first floor, flanked by widely-set wooden pilasters and topped by an entablature and cornice.  The second level has a sash window flanked by pilasters.  An entablature encircles the building below the roof line.  The front gable is finished in flushboard, with an eyebrow window at its center.  Centered on the ridge, a two-stage square tower rises; the first stage is simple, finished in clapboards with cornerboards, while the second belfry stage has louvered round-arch openings and paneled corner pilasters.  A simple balustrade tops the tower.

The building was constructed in 1846 by Joseph Bigelow, a regionally well-known builder of the period from Skowhegan.  Money for its construction was raised by subscription, the largest donation coming from John Ware, who also gave the land.  The building now hosts the River of Life Church and a local chapter of the American Legion.

See also
National Register of Historic Places listings in Somerset County, Maine

References

School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Maine
School buildings completed in 1846
Buildings and structures in Somerset County, Maine
National Register of Historic Places in Somerset County, Maine

Somerset Academy (Athens, Maine)


Max Eugen Keller (born 19 March  1947, Aarau) is a Swiss composer, jazz pianist and improvising musician. He was one of the first free-jazz musicians in Switzerland. Since 2007 he is chairman of the Swiss Society for New Music.

Life and work
Keller studied (fellowship by the Heinrich Strobel Foundation in Freiburg, Germany) musicology, history and composition with Hans Ulrich Lehmann and Helmut Lachenmann at the City of Basel Music Academy and with Nicolaus A. Huber and Thomas Kessler.

In 1966 he began his career as one of the first Swiss artists of free jazz. In 1967, he had a sensational performance at the Zurich Jazz Festival. He played in various bands in concerts and on radio broadcasts in Europe.

Since 1980 he worked as an improvising musician (piano and electronic musical instruments) again. Concerts have taken him to South America, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland. He worked together with Dani Schaffner, Christoph Gallio, Peter A. Schmid, , Kurt Grämiger, Daniel Mouthon, Thomas Borgmann, Hans Koch, Urs Leimgruber, Günter Müller, Hans Hassler, Charlotte Hug, Matthias Ziegler, Christian Wolfarth, Günter Heinz and Barry Guy.

He has composed about 100 works, including electronic music. He produce a chamber opera (commission of the Komische Oper Berlin) and several songs. His compositions have been performed in Europe, Australia, South Africa, North and South America, Russia, Korea, China, Mongolia and Azerbaijan (including the World Music Days in Zurich (1991) and Mexico (1993)). Performers were the Orchester Musikkollegium Winterthur, the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, the Ensemble Sortisatio and the Hanns Eisler New Music Group.

From 2007 to 2010 he is chairman of the Swiss Society for Contemporary Music (successor to  Jean-Luc Darbellay).

Awards

 1997: Carl Heinrich Ernst Art Prize
 2006: Art Prize of Winterthur

External links

 Homepage of Max E. Keller
 Biography of Max E. Keller at Musinfo
 Information about Max E. Keller at Klassika
 Information about Max E. Keller at the Living Composers Project

References

1947 births
Living people
Swiss classical composers
Swiss jazz pianists
Free improvising musicians
21st-century classical composers
20th-century classical composers
Swiss male classical composers
Male pianists
21st-century pianists
20th-century male musicians
21st-century male musicians
Male jazz musicians
20th-century Swiss composers
21st-century Swiss composers

Max E. Keller


Alfred Barrett (died 18 July 1849) was born in New England. He was an engineer by training.

In about 1818, Barrett began working on the engineering staff that was constructing the Erie Canal in New York State. He rapidly gained experience and was an accredited engineer by 1821. The project was completed in 1825.

In 1824, the Erie project was visited by William Hamilton Merritt and he likely recruited Barrett as resident superintending engineer of the Welland Canal. Over the course of his career, he worked on a variety of important projects including the Lachine Canal improvements and resident engineer on the Erie.

His professional achievements were of high importance to the development of the economy of this North American area. His early death cut short a highly productive and important engineering career.

He died in Montreal of cholera.

External links
 Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online

Canadian engineers
1849 deaths
American canal engineers
Year of birth unknown
Erie Canal
Welland Canal

Alfred Barrett


Alfons Flisykowski (22 September 1902 – 5 October 1939) was a Polish worker of the Polish Post Office in the Free City of Danzig in the years 1923–1939 and a second commander (after Konrad Guderski) of the defence of the Post Office from the invading Nazi German forces when World War II started on 1 September 1939.

Background
Flisykowski was captured by the Germans on 2 September 1939 and handed over to the Gestapo. Denied the legitimate status of POW, he was put on trial (which was later found to be illegal), together with the other 37 captured post-office workers. Designated as a "bandit" by a paramilitary court (and therefore not protected by the Geneva Convention), he was sentenced to death and executed by firing squad in Danzig-Saspe on 5 October 1939.

Flisykowski's grave was discovered in 1991. In the same year the families of the killed postmen founded an association called Circle of the Families of the Former Workers of Gdańsk Post Office (Koło Rodzin Byłych Pracowników Poczty Gdańskiej) with a goal to repeal the verdict qualifying the postmen as bandits. With the help of Dieter Schenk, a former worker of Interpol and the author of a book on the subject, the case was put into a verification trial.

As a result of these actions the Land Court in Lübeck made a decision, on 30 December 1996, that the previous verdict of 1939 sentencing Flisykowski to death was illegal.

He was awarded the Cross of Valour posthumously on 1 September 1990.

Further reading
 Dieter Schenk, Die Post von Danzig. Geschichte eines deutschen Justizmords [Post-Office of Gdańsk. History of a German Justice Murder], 1995

1902 births
1939 deaths
People from Kartuzy County
People from West Prussia
Polish military personnel killed in World War II
Polish people executed by Nazi Germany
Polish murder victims
People murdered in Poland
People executed by Nazi Germany occupation forces
People executed by Nazi Germany by firing squad
Executed people from Pomeranian Voivodeship
People who were court-martialed

Alfons Flisykowski


A tipi (also called tepee or teepee) is a kind of tent. It is cone-shaped. They were made by Native Americans of the Great Plains who frequently moved from place to place, following buffalo or other animals Native Americans hunted.

Tipis are made from long poles, and are covered with material. Long ago the material was animal skin or tree bark. Today, they are made from cloth.

Tepees were put up in as a circle, which symbolized the life.

Tepees are no longer usually used for a full-time home, but they are still used for special occasions.

Tepees were used by the Lakota.

The Plains Indians would sometimes paint and mark their tepees, and put signs to mark off evil.

They usually made the cover from buffalo skin (tanned hide).

Teepees had a flap that could be open and closed as necessary during the summer and winter months

They generally had an 'ears' flap.

The doorway would face towards the rising sun.

Tipis would contain paintings.

Other websites

Native Americans

Tipi


Castle Air Force Base (Castle AFB, 1941–1995) is a former United States Air Force Strategic Air Command base in California, located northeast of Atwater, northwest of Merced, and about  south of Sacramento.

The Central Valley base in unincorporated Merced County was closed in 1995, pursuant to a Base Realignment and Closure Commission decision following the end of the Cold War and the disestablishment of Strategic Air Command (SAC).  It is now known as the Castle Airport Aviation and Development Center.

History
The airfield was opened on 20 September 1941 as the Army Air Force Basic Flying School, one of the fields utilized to meet the needs of the 30,000 Pilot Training Program. It provided basic air training for beginning pilots and crewmen. Many pilots and crews were trained here during the war including a number of Women's Air Service Pilots (WASPs).

Auxiliary air fields used by Merced Army Air Field (as the site was known at the time) during the war were:
 Merced Municipal Airport Auxiliary Field No. 1
 Ballico Auxiliary Field No. 2
 Howard Auxiliary Field No. 3
 Athlone Auxiliary Field No. 4
 Potter Auxiliary Field No. 5
 Merced New Municipal Airport Auxiliary Field No. 6
 Mariposa Auxiliary Field

Postwar years

With the end of the war 444th Bombardment Group (Very Heavy) arrived on 15 November 1945 from West Field, Tinian with four squadrons (344th, 676th, 677th, and 678th) of wartime B-29s. The 444th operated from Merced for about six months with the 678th BS being re-designated as the 10th Recon Squadron and its aircraft being converted to the RB-29 configuration.

The three B-29 squadrons inactivated at Atwater on 6 May 1946 with the 10th Reconnaissance Squadron relocating to Davis-Monthan Field, Arizona where it turned in its RB-29 aircraft. The 444th was inactivated on 16 November 1947.

During the summer of 1945, when most other air fields were winding down, Merced was expanded to accommodate the large air tankers then programmed to come into service. After the war ended, Merced was home to several air tanker squadrons and remained a training center for pilots and air crews.

93d Bombardment Wing

Merced Army Air Field became Castle Field on 17 January 1946, named for Brigadier General Frederick Castle. On Christmas Eve 1944, Castle remained at the controls of his burning B-17 Flying Fortress over Europe while his crew bailed out, then was killed when the aircraft exploded; he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

The 93d Bombardment Group (Very Heavy) was activated at Merced on 21 June 1946, starting a nearly 50-year relationship with the airfield.  The 93rd was a former Eighth Air Force B-24 Liberator group which was assigned to Merced for Boeing B-29 Superfortress training.  The 93rd was one of SAC's first ten bomb groups. There were three initial operational squadrons (328th, 329th, and 330th) which absorbed the equipment and aircraft of the inactivated 444th BG.

On 1 October 1946, the base was put on "minimal operations on caretaker status," with control of the facility under the Colorado Springs AAF.  The 93rd Bomb Group, however remained active.  It, along with the 509th Composite Group at Roswell Army Air Field, New Mexico, was all there was of Strategic Air Command at that time. The base remained in this status until 1 May 1947 when it was reactivated.

On 1 May 1947, Castle Field was reactivated under Strategic Air Command. On 28 July 1947, the 93rd Bombardment Wing, (Very Heavy)  was established and took over responsibility from the group.  During 1947–1948, it flew Boeing B-29 Superfortresses, but soon received the upgraded version of the B-29, the Boeing B-50 Superfortress.  In 1948, the entire wing deployed to Kadena AB, Okinawa, becoming the first Strategic Air Command bomb group to deploy in full strength to the Far East.

Castle Field was renamed Castle Air Force Base on 13 January 1948, this following the establishment of the USAF as a separate military service in September 1947.

On 27 June 1949, the Air Force Reserve's 447th Bombardment Group was activated at Castle and equipped with the B-29s formerly of the 93d Bomb Wing.  The 447th remained active until 16 June 1951 when the group was activated and the aircraft and personnel sent to Far East Air Forces as replacements for combat losses during the Korean War.  With the unit's departure, the 447th was inactivated.

The Convair B-36 Peacemaker entered SAC's inventory in 1948.  The huge plane dwarfed earlier bombers and the 93rd, along with all other B-29 and B-50 bomb groups, was redesignated as "Medium."  Only the B-36 groups were "Heavy."

The wing began aerial refueling operations in October 1950, providing aerial refueling and navigational assistance for the July 1952 movement of the 31st Fighter-Escort Wing from the United States to Japan, the first jet fighter crossing of the Pacific Ocean, during the Korean War.  From 1953 to 1955, the wing flew Boeing KC-97 Stratofreighters. All-jet Boeing KC-135 tankers came on line in 1957.

The 93d Bombardment Wing (Medium) received its first Boeing B-47s in May 1954, but its involvement with the new Stratojet was curtailed on 29 June 1955 when the wing received the first production line Boeing B-52B Stratofortress, making it the first SAC bomb wing to receive the new aircraft.  The wing became SAC's primary B-52 aircrew training organization, incorporating KC-135 aircrew training for the air refueling mission in mid-1956. For this purpose, it set up the 4017th Combat Crew Training Squadron which was supposed to handle all B-52 crew training for the next few years. When the mission of B-52 training became too great a task for just one squadron, the Wing's other three squadrons took over the flight training role and the 4017th assumed responsibility for ground instruction in 1956.  The 93d was SAC's primary B-52 training organization and retained some of its B-47s until 1956 for crew training purposes.  It was one of the few wings in SAC to concurrently operate both the B-47 and B-52.

In November 1956, the wing made non-stop B-52 flights of some  around North America and to the North Pole.

Although most of the wing's components were used for B-52 and KC-135 aircrew training between 1956 and 1995, one or more of its units sometimes participated in tactical operations, including tactical bombardment and aerial refueling.

From April 1968 to April 1974, the 93rd operated a special B-52 replacement training unit to support SAC's B-52 operation in Southeast Asia. Also, the 328th and 329th Bomb Squadrons deployed to U-Tapao Royal Thai Navy Airfield, Thailand where they flew combat missions over Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos during the Vietnam War.

The wing won the SAC Bombing and Navigation Competition and the Fairchild Trophy in 1949, 1952, and 1970, and the Omaha Trophy as the outstanding SAC wing in 1970.

In August 1990, the wing operated an aerial port of embarkation (APOE) for personnel and equipment deploying to Southwest Asia during Desert Shield.

In addition to aerial refueling, Castle-based KC-135 tankers ferried personnel and equipment, while B-52s deployed to strategic locations worldwide, including Saudi Arabia. B-52s bombed the Iraqi Republican Guard and targeted Iraqi chemical weapons, nuclear, and industrial plants during Desert Storm, January–February 1991.

On 1 September 1991, the 93rd Bombardment lost its operational KC-135 unit, the 924th Air Refueling Squadron, and its KC-135 aircrew formal training unit, the 329th Combat Crew Training Squadron.  It also implemented the objective wing organization and was redesignated as the 93rd Wing (93 WG).

On 1 June 1992, pursuant to the inactivation of Strategic Air Command and the establishment of the new Air Combat Command (ACC), the 93rd Wing was transferred from SAC, reassigned to ACC, and renamed the 93rd Bomb Wing (93 BW).

Shortly afterwards, nationwide base closures under the BRAC process targeted numerous USAF installations, especially former SAC installations, to include Castle AFB.  With BRAC closure of Castle AFB confirmed, the 322d Bomb Squadron was inactivated on 3 May 1994 and the wing was placed on non-operational status. However, the 93rd Bomb Wing continued to supervise the closure of Castle AFB. The 93rd Bomb Wing was inactivated on 30 September 1995 with the closure of Castle AFB, but was subsequently redesignated as the 93d Air Control Wing (93 ACW) and reactivated at Robins AFB, Georgia on 29 January 1996.

Notable operations
 Operation Power Flite: First jet aircraft nonstop flight around the world (January 1957).
 Nonstop, unrefueled KC-135 flight from Yokota AB, Japan, to Washington, D.C. (April 1958).

Closure
The end of the Cold War brought many changes to the Air Force, and Castle AFB was selected for closure under the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Act of 1991 during Round II Base Closure Commission deliberations (BRAC 91).  Part of the decision criteria on which bases to close at that time included how well the local community supported its airmen.  Unfortunately, a local Home Owner's Association had just defeated a proposed new base housing project for Castle AFB.  This news made it to the BRAC and was a decision point to close the base.(citation needed)

On 1 June 1992 the 93d was relieved from assignment to SAC and was reassigned to the newly formed Air Combat Command (ACC). It was then redesignated as the 93d Bomb Wing, its B-52G aircraft given the ACC tail code of "CA" and the marking of blue tail stripes.  The 322d Bomb Squadron was inactivated 3 May 1994 and the wing was placed on non-operational status.

However, the 93d continued to supervise the closure of Castle AFB. The 93d Bomb Wing was inactivated on 30 September 1995 with the closure of Castle AFB. The Castle Air Museum remains at the site.

Civilian use
As of 2008, local government plans to convert the dormant facility to civilian commercial use has become an active political issue.  It has been identified as the preferred location for the central maintenance facility of the proposed California High-Speed Rail system.

The University of California, Merced maintains a research site on the former base, which was its first facility before construction of the main campus in Merced.

United States Penitentiary, Atwater stands on a portion of the grounds of the former Air Force Base.

In 2011, Google leased 60 acres (24 ha) in order to test the development of their new project, the self-driving car, which has become Waymo. Google also leased a hangar at the former Air Force base in order to continue testing a new project, Project Loon. Project Loon was a program that creates an aerial Wi-Fi network, using balloons to loft relay equipment to high altitude. The former Base was expecting Google to pay approximately $456,000 in rental fees for both of these projects over the course of one year.

In 2021, Merced County completed a $2.1 million expansion project of the automotive research and testing complex located at Castle (pictured). Known as TRC—California, the site includes a 2.2-mile oval test track, a one-mile city course and two large vehicle dynamics areas. The 225-acre site is already attracting a significant amount of business interest from major car companies. The County expects expansion to continue in the coming years as testing demand at the site increases.

In addition to vehicle technology, Castle has also become a focal point for goods movement. In February 2022, the Board of Supervisors approved an agreement with Patriot Rail to establish a rail district at Castle Commerce Center. That district became operational in May 2022 and is located near the southeastern corner of Castle. The rail district will enhance the ability of agricultural producers, manufacturers and other enterprises from throughout the San Joaquin Valley to quickly and efficiently ship and receive products via the BNSF railroad mainline, which runs adjacent to the site. A rail spur from the BNSF lines currently connects to Castle, and Patriot Rail will soon develop additional infrastructure to facilitate enhanced rail freight service from the location.

The County is expecting more growth at Castle in the future. In order to make more room at the site and improve Castle's versatility and safety, Merced County demolished old dormitory buildings in 2022 that were uninhabitable and unusable, paving the way for future development while eliminating blight and hazards to public safety.

Tesla, Inc. was spotted testing their Cybertruck at the site in October 2021.

Previous names
 Army Air Force Basic Flying School, Merced, CA, 20 September 1941 – 7 April 1942
 Merced Army Flying School, 7 April 1942 – 8 May 1943
 Merced Army Airfield, 8 May 1943 – 17 January 1946
 Castle Field, 17 January 1946 – 13 January 1948

Major Commands to which assigned
 West Coast Air Force Training Center, 20 September 1941
 Re-designated: West Coast AAF Training Center
 Re-designated: AAF West Coast Training Center, 1 May 1942
 Re-designated: AAF Western Flying Training Command, 31 July 1943
 Continental Air Forces, 1 July 1945
 Re-designated: Strategic Air Command, 21 March 1946 – 1 June 1992
 Air Combat Command, 1 June 1992 – 30 September 1995

Note: Base directed to revert to "minimum operations on caretaker status;' 1 Oct 1946; base under administrative control of Colorado Springs Army Air Base, Colorado, 1 Nov 1946 – 1 Jul 1947.  Reactivated from caretaker status, 1 May 1947"

Major units assigned

 Air Corps Basic Flying School
 Re-designated: AAF Basic Flying School
 Re-designated: AAF Pilot School, Basic, 20 September 1941 – 30 June 1945
 89th Air Base Group, 3 November 1941 – 15 December 1942
 90th Base HQ and Air Base Sq, 13 June 1942
 35th Flying Training Wing, 8 June – 11 September 1943
 3026th AAF Base Unit, 1 May 1944 – 30 June 1945
 446th AAF Base Unit, 1–18 July 1945
 482nd AAF Base Unit, 19 July 1945 – 15 August 1947
 HQ I Staging Command, 7 October 1945 – 3 April 1946
 444th Bombardment Group, 15 November 1945 – 6 May 1946
 93rd Bombardment Group, 21 June 1946 – 16 June 1952
 Later: 93rd Operations Group, 1 September 1991 – 30 June 1995

 93rd Bombardment Wing, 15 August 1947 – 30 September 1995
 93d Air Refueling Squadron, 1 March 1949 – 31 March 1995
 447th Bombardment Group, 26 June 1949 – 16 June 1951
 2nd Strategic Support Squadron, 16 May 1951 – 1 September 1956
 340th Air Refueling Squadron, 20 October 1952 – 18 January 1954
 90th Air Refueling Squadron, 18 January 1954 – 5 August 1955
 341st Air Refueling Squadron, 11 June 1954 – 15 August 1955
 456th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, 18 October 1955 – 18 July 1968
 47th Air Division, 11 July 1959 – 30 June 1971
 924th Air Refueling Squadron, 1 July 1959 – 1 October 1994
 84th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, 1 September 1973 – 27 February 1987

Notable people
 Ray Allen, a military child, was born at the base on 20 July 1975.
 Our Gang (a.k.a., The Little Rascals) member, Bobby "Weezer" Hutchins was killed in a mid-air collision on 17 May 1945, while attending flight school during WWII.

See also

 California World War II Army Airfields
 35th Flying Training Wing (World War II)
 Western Air Defense Force (Air Defense Command)
 Bombers B-52 Starring Natalie Wood and Karl Malden. Parts of the movie were filmed at Castle.

References and notes

 Endicott, Judy G. (1999) Active Air Force wings as of 1 October 1995; USAF active flying, space, and missile squadrons as of 1 October 1995. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History. CD-ROM.
 Manning, Thomas A. (2005), History of Air Education and Training Command, 1942–2002.  Office of History and Research, Headquarters, AETC, Randolph AFB, Texas
 Maurer, Maurer (1983). Air Force Combat Units of World War II. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History. .
 Mueller, Robert (1989). Volume 1: Active Air Force Bases Within the United States of America on 17 September 1982. USAF Reference Series, Office of Air Force History, United States Air Force, Washington, D.C.
 Patton, Victor. "Google Set to Lease Castle Site for Self-Driving Car." Merced Sun-Star [Merced] 24 Jan. 2014: n. pag. Print.
 Ravenstein, Charles A. (1984). Air Force Combat Wings Lineage and Honors Histories 1947–1977. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Office of Air Force History. .
 Rogers, Brian (2005). United States Air Force Unit Designations Since 1978. Hinkley, England: Midland Publications. .
 Shaw, Frederick J. (2004), Locating Air Force Base Sites, History's Legacy, Air Force History and Museums Program, United States Air Force, Washington DC.
 Yawger, Doane. "Former Air Force One Lands in Atwater." Merced Sun-Star 16 Oct. 2013: n.pag.  Web. 5 Mary 2014.

External links

 Lt Col Harold W. Moll memorial webpage: Colonel Moll was assigned to Castle Army Airfield (10 February – 28 May 1946) as part of the 444th BG.
 Castle AFB at Strategic-Air-Command.com
 Atwater: Former Air Force One lands at Castle in Atwater | Local News | Merced Sun-Star
 Google set to lease Castle site for self-driving car program | Local News | Merced Sun-Star

Installations of the United States Air Force in California
Airports established in 1941
Buildings and structures in Merced County, California
Formerly Used Defense Sites in California
Installations of Strategic Air Command
Initial United States Air Force installations
Military installations closed in 1995
Military Superfund sites
History of Merced County, California
Superfund sites in California
1941 establishments in California
1995 disestablishments in California
Transportation buildings and structures in Merced County, California

Castle Air Force Base


Konakovo () is a town and the administrative center of Konakovsky District in Tver Oblast, Russia, located on the right bank of Ivankovo Reservoir (Volga River). Population:

History

Konakovo was founded in 1806 as the selo of Kuznetsovo (). The name originates from the last name Kuznetsov, who was one of the early owners. The selo was not doing very well and was almost deserted by the 1820s. In 1826–1828, a faience factory was transferred there from the village of Domkino, about  east of Kuznetsovo. The factory was built by merchant Auerbach in Domkino on the property which belonged to a local landowner, and by 1829 the lease agreement expired and was not extended. In 1826, Auerbach bought all lands in and around Kuznetsovo. In 1870, the factory was purchased by industrialist Matvey Kuznetsov (unrelated to Kuznetsov who gave the name to the village) and became known as Kuznetsov Faience Factory. After 1918, the factory was nationalized, and one of its specializations was art production. To this end, it established collaboration with many established Russian artists of the time.

At the time, Kuznetsovo was a part of Korchevskoy Uyezd in Tver Governorate. On May 30, 1922, Korchevskoy Uyezd was abolished and merged into Kimrsky Uyezd. On July 14, 1925, Kuznetsovo was granted urban-type settlement status.

On July 12, 1929, Tver Governorate was abolished, and the area was transferred to Moscow Oblast. Uyezds were abolished as well, and Kuznetsovsky District, with the administrative center in the town of Korcheva, was established within Kimry Okrug of Moscow Oblast. On July 23, 1930, the okrugs were abolished and the districts were directly subordinated to the oblast. On February 26, 1930, Kuznetsovo was renamed Konakovo and Kuznetsovsky District was renamed Konakovsky, to commemorate Porfiry Konakov, a participant of the Revolution of 1905. On January 29, 1935, Kalinin Oblast was established, to which Konakovsky District was transferred. In 1937, when the Ivankovo Reservoir was filled, Korcheva was submerged under water. The administrative center of the district was transferred to Konakovo, which was granted town status on March 2, 1937. On February 13, 1963, during the abortive administrative reform by Nikita Khrushchev, Konakovsky District was merged into Kalininsky District, but on January 12, 1965, it was re-established. In 1990, Kalinin Oblast was renamed Tver Oblast.

Administrative and municipal status
Within the framework of administrative divisions, Konakovo serves as the administrative center of Konakovsky District. As an administrative division, it is, together with six rural localities, incorporated within Konakovsky District as Konakovo Urban Settlement. As a municipal division, this administrative unit also has urban settlement status and is a part of Konakovsky Municipal District.

Economy

The Konakovo Power Station, a thermal power plant, is the biggest enterprise in Konakovsky District. In 2008, it produced over 60% of the GDP of the district.

Transportation
Konakovo has a railway station, Konakovo GRES. It is connected to the Saint Petersburg – Moscow Railway by a line which branches off in Reshetnikovo. It is connected by regular passenger suburban service with Moscow.

Konakovo has road connections to Kimry and to Zavidovo, where it has access to the M10 Highway, which runs between Moscow and St. Petersburg. There are also local roads with the bus traffic.

Culture and recreation
Konakovo contains eight cultural heritage monuments of local significance. They include one of the buildings of the faience factory, the complex of Kuznetsov's dacha, as well as monuments to soldiers fallen in World War II and of people killed during the October Revolution and subsequent events.

The Konakovo District Museum, located in Konakovo, contains exhibitions on the archeology and history of the district.

Sister Cities
 Menomonie, Wisconsin, USA (1994)
 Talachyn, Belarus (2016)

References

Notes

Sources

Cities and towns in Tver Oblast
Populated places established in 1806
Populated places on the Volga
Korchevskoy Uyezd

Konakovo