Cargo Records is a record label based in London, England, which distributes musical recordings in the United Kingdom and Europe. The company currently distributes records in a wide variety of genres, both as a label in its own right and as a distributor for other independent record labels.

The company was first established in 1992 as a division of the Canadian record company Cargo Records. When its original founders sold the Canadian parent company to new owners in 1995, the British office was not part of the sale — instead, it became a separate company which continued to be owned and operated by founder Phillip Hill. At the same time, his former business partner Eric Goodis took over ownership and operation of the former parent company's office in the United States to form Cargo Music. The American and British companies thus were not affected by the Canadian company's bankruptcy in 1997, and both remained in operation as of 2011.

References

External links
Cargo Records UK

British independent record labels
Record labels established in 1992

Cargo Records (UK)


Arakaparampil Mathai "Arak" Mathai (born 28 April 1935) is an Indian mathematician who has worked in Statistics, Applied Analysis, Applications of special functions and Astrophysics. Mathai established the Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Palai, Kerala, India.

He has published more than 25 books and more than 300 research publications.  In 1998 he received the Founder Recognition Award from the Statistical Society of Canada. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India and a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics.

Early years
Mathai was born in Arakulam near Palai in the Idukki district of Kerala, India as the eldest son of Aley and Arakaparampil Mathai. After completing his high school education in 1953 from St. Thomas High School, Palai, with record marks he joined St. Thomas College, Palai, and obtained his B Sc. degree in mathematics in 1957. In 1959 he completed his master's degree in statistics from University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India, with first class, first rank and gold medal. Then he joined St. Thomas College, Palai, University of Kerala, as a lecturer in Statistics and served there until 1961. He obtained Canadian Commonwealth scholarship in 1961 and went to University of Toronto, Canada, for completing his MA degree in mathematics in 1962. He was awarded his PhD from the University of Toronto in 1964, then joined McGill University as an assistant professor until 1968. From 1968 to 1978 he was an associate professor there.  He became a full professor at McGill in 1979 and served the department of mathematics and statistics until 2000. From 2000 onwards he was an emeritus professor of McGill University.

Selected publications
Random p-content of a p-parallelotope in Euclidean n-space, Advances in Applied Probability, 31(2), 343–354 (1999).
An Introduction to Geometrical Probability: Distributional Aspects with Applications, Gordon and Breach, Newark, (1999).
Jacobians of Matrix Transformations and Functions of Matrix Argument, World Scientific Publishing, New York, (1997).
Appell's and Humbert's functions of matrix arguments, Linear Algebra and Its Applications, 183, 202–221, (1993).
On non-central generalized Laplacianness of quadratic forms in normal variables, Journal of Multivariate Analysis, 45, 239–246, (1993).
(With S.B. Provost),	Quadratic Forms in random Variables: Theory and Applications, Marcel Dekker, New York, (1992).
On a system of differential equations connected with the gravitational instability in a multi-component medium in Newtonian cosmology, Studies in Applied Mathematics, 80, 75–93, (1989).
(With H.J. Haubold), Modern Problems in Nuclear and Neutrino Astrophysics, Akademie-Verlag, Berlin.
On a conjecture in geometric probability regarding asymptotic normality of a random simplex, Annals of Probability, 10, 247–251, (1982).
(With R.S. Katiyar), Exact percentage points for testing independence, Biometrika, 66, 353–356, (1979).
(With P.N. Rathie), Recent contributions to axiomatic definitions of information and statistical measures through functional equations. In, Essays in Probability and Statistics, Ikeda and others editors, Shinto, Tsusho, Tokyo, pp. 607–633,(1976).
(With T.A. Davis), Constructing the sunflower head, Mathematical Biosciences, 20, 117–133, (1974).

References

External links
A. M. Mathai personal webpage, Department of Mathematics, McGill University
Complete list of publications of A. M. Mathai

Selected Publications of A. M. Mathai

Academic staff of McGill University
20th-century Indian mathematicians
1935 births
Living people
University of Kerala alumni
People from Pala, Kerala
Fellows of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics
Scientists from Kerala
Indian statisticians

A. M. Mathai


The avian brain is the central organ of the nervous system in birds. Birds possess large, complex brains, which process, integrate, and coordinate information received from the environment and make decisions on how to respond with the rest of the body. Like in all chordates, the avian brain is contained within the skull bones of the head.

The bird brain is divided into a number of sections, each with a different function. The cerebrum or telencephalon is divided into two hemispheres, and controls higher functions. The telencephalon is dominated by a large pallium, which corresponds to the mammalian cerebral cortex and is responsible for the cognitive functions of birds. The pallium is made up of several major structures: the hyperpallium, a dorsal bulge of the pallium found only in birds, as well as the nidopallium, mesopallium, and archipallium. The bird telencephalon nuclear structure, wherein neurons are distributed in three-dimensionally arranged clusters, with no large-scale separation of white matter and grey matter, though there exist layer-like and column-like connections. Structures in the pallium are associated with perception, learning, and cognition. Beneath the pallium are the two components of the subpallium, the striatum and pallidum. The subpallium connects different parts of the telencephalon and plays major roles in a number of critical behaviours. To the rear of the telencephalon are the thalamus, midbrain, and cerebellum. The hindbrain connects the rest of the brain to the spinal cord.

The size and structure of the avian brain enables prominent behaviours of birds such as flight and vocalization. Dedicated structures and pathways integrate the auditory and visual senses, strong in most species of birds, as well as the typically weaker olfactory and tactile senses. Social behaviour, widespread among birds, depends on the organisation and functions of the brain. Some birds exhibit strong abilities of cognition, enabled by the unique structure and physiology of the avian brain.

Structure and function

Telencephalon

The telencephalon, or forebrain, is generally a large structure in birds. It is made up of three primary domains: the striatal domain, the pallidal domain, and the pallial domain.

Pallium

The pallial domain is divided into two main parts: the Wulst, or hyperpallium, at the dorsal surface of the pallium, and the dorso-ventricular ridge, which comprises the nidopallium, arcopallium, and archipallium. The circuitry of the avian brain is organised such that circuits for processes such as vision and cognition pass between the structures of the pallium, with connections both horizontally and vertically oriented within the pallium. In the sensory areas of the pallium, neurons display a layer-like organisation into columns, with horizontal connections; hence, the part of the pallium responsible for sensory circuitry is also called the sensory cortex in birds.

Within the pallium, the nidopallium caudolaterale is thought to be a centre of goal-directed action. It is the part of the pallium that has the most innervation sensitive to dopamine, and has a structure suggesting strong dopamine control. Neural activity in the nidopallium caudolaterale is correlated with rewards, rules, categories, and information held in the memory. The nidopallium caudolaterale is also proportionally much larger in birds with stronger cognitive abilities. Showing diversity in bird brains and potentially the role of the nidopallium caudolaterale is that structure's separation into multiple structures in songbirds.

Lateralisation
The avian telencephalon, like its human counterpart, is organised into two distinct hemispheres. Functions such as song learning in songbirds, vision, auditory, and olfactory, and magnetic sensory systems are all lateralised, meaning that one hemisphere of the brain dominates a certain function. The left hemisphere of the brain dominates activities that demand the separation of important stimuli from distracting ones, while the right hemisphere is more easily distracted and has a broad attention. The right hemisphere also dominates fear and escape responses. In zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata), the left hemisphere also is dominant in learning tasks. Birds can sense the orientation of magnetic fields, and use them to help navigate. The right hemisphere of the brain is dominant in the magnetic sense.

Subpallial telencephalon
The subpallial tenecephalon of birds, ventral to the pallium, contains neural systems with critical functions. It can be divided into the striatal domain and the pallidal domain, which are progenitor zones from which brain structures develop. The subpallial telencephalon is also grouped into several major functional systems. These are the dorsal somatomotor basal ganglia, the ventral viscerolimbic basal ganglia, subpallial extended amygdala, basal corticopetal system, and the septum. Additionally, the preoptic area is considered part of the subpallial telencephalon. Functional systems exist in both subpallial domains.

Research through the 1960s demonstrated that the basal ganglia of birds occupied only the ventromedial telencephalon and not the entire forebrain, a historically held belief. The basal ganglia include the dorsal somatomotor basal ganglia (DSBG), which possesses both a pallidal and a striatal component, and is made up of the medial striatum, lateral striatum, globus pallidus, and intrapeduncular nucleus. In songbirds, it also contains Area X, which is responsible for aspects of vocal function in songbirds. The DSBG has important functions in voluntary motor control. Pathways including the DSBG allow birds to effect movement when desired and to reject movement when undesired. The basal ganglia also include the ventral viscerolimbic basal ganglia (VVBG). The VVBG, like the DSBG, occupies portion of both the striatum and pallidum. It contains the ventral portion of the medial striatum, the nucleus accumbens, the olfactory tubercle, and the ventral pallidum. The VVBG functions as a "reward centre" as well as a facilitator of "action selection". In these roles, the VVBG is important in supporting reward-seeking behaviour and discouraging behaviour leading to negative stimulus.

Area X, unique to songbirds, is critical to learning song, which is a reproduction-critical behaviour in songbirds. It has been described by scientists as analogous to the mammalian striatum, due to a similar composition to that part of the brain. However, it also contains brain cells from the pallidum. Area X is activated most strongly when songbirds are learning new songs, and decline thereafter.

The extended amygdala is composed of the central extended amygdala and medial extended amygdala. The central extended amygdala is connected to behaviours involving ingestion, as well as stress, anxiety, and fear. The role and structure of the medial extended amygdala are debated by scientists. The medial extended amygdala receives inputs from the olfactory bulb, as well as the rest of the olfactory system, including the olfactory organs in the front of bird heads. It is related to sexual and social behaviours. Certain structures in the median extended amygdala have been demonstrated in birds to be sexually dimorphic. In chickens (Gallus gallus), research shows that part of the median extended amygdala plays a part in male sexual behaviour.

The basal corticopetal system in birds is made up of three nuclei: the basal magnocellular nucleus, and the horizontal and vertical limbs of the nuclei of the diagonal band. The role of the basal corticopetal system is poorly known in birds, although that system is known to be correlated to memory in mammals. However, it has been shown that damage to the basal corticopetal system impairs the memory of chicks (Gallus gallus).

Based on studies of a variety of passerine birds, the avian septum is divided into four main parts: the lateral septum, medial septum, septohippocampal septum, and caudocentral septum. The septum has functions related to stress, as well as responses to stimuli such as light. The preoptic area has functions related to sexual behaviour.

Brain stem and cerebellum

Cerebellum

The cerebellum is a relatively conservative part of the brain, with circuitry tending to be similar across different types of vertebrates. However, the size and shape of the cerebellum varies. Despite this variation, however, the proportions of the subdivisions of the cerebellum are relatively stable among different types of birds.

Physiology

Metabolism

Neurons are typically energy-intensive cells that have a high cost of maintenance, yet birds have high neuron densities and absolute numbers in their brains. Of the energy consumed by the brain, about 70-80% is used by neurons. The large numbers of neurons in the avian brain are enabled by relatively low specific energy demands. Experiments with pigeons have found the glucose demand of avian neurons to be more than 3 times less that of mammals, whose neuron energy costs do not change between taxa. It is not yet known why avian brains require so much less glucose, but two contributing factors, neuron size and body temperature, have been posited by researchers. Although there has not been definitive study on the topic as of 2023, it is speculated that bird neurons are smaller than those of mammals, since bird brains have a much higher density of neurons per unit volume compared to similarly sized mammals. Smaller neurons can consume less energy, as their smaller surface area and volume contain fewer receptors, ion channels, and mitochondria, while possessing lower membrane capacitance, meaning membrane potential requires less energy to change. A smaller neuron also requires less energy for upkeep. Additionally, the higher temperatures of bird brains, reaching  in pigeons, also facilitate lower energy consumption. Higher temperatures reduce the time it takes to activate and deactivate ion channels, which reduces energy needs.

Evolution
The avian brain today differs markedly from those of mammals, from which the bird lineage diverged in the Permian, and from all other reptiles, from which birds diverged in the Triassic.

The nidopallium caudolaterale of the avian brain, responsible for goal-directed action, has been found in crocodylians, the closest living relatives of birds, separated evolutionarily by 245 million years. Though this could represent an example of convergent evolution between crocodylians and birds, scientists believe it is more likely that the last common ancestor of birds and crocodiles possessed a nidopallium caudolaterale.

In the Jurassic and Cretaceous
Birds evolved from the non-avian dinosaurs, and the dinosaurean lineage leading up to birds shows substantial enlargement and reshaping of the brain. Endocasts of dinosaur braincases allow scientists to examine the relationship between brain size and body size in extinct species. In particular, brain sizes underwent several significant enlargements from the first theropod dinosaurs to modern birds. The brain sizes and shapes of most dinosaurs are similar to those of modern reptiles. However, in Coelurosauria, a group of dinosaurs containing (among other taxa) tyrannosauroids and birds, the brain is at least twice as large as other dinosaurs of similar body size. A group of coelurosaurs, the Maniraptoriformes, a group containing birds as well as ornithomimosaurs, possesses brains again twice as large as those of other coelurosaurs. Brain size increases again in the Maniraptora, a group containing birds and oviraptorosaurs. Additionally, the shape of the brain acquired in Maniraptora, with a large cerebellum and optic lobe lateral to the telencephalon, is found in Ichthyornis, a bird that lived 70 million years ago and closely related to modern birds. The understanding of the evolution of brain size in modern birds is complicated by the limited sample of stem-bird brain endocasts. Only four Mesozoic avialans have brain endocasts: Archaeopteryx, which is not always classified as an avialan (closer to modern birds than to Dromaeosaurus), Cerebavis, an incomplete specimen which lacks a hyperpallium and whose classification is unclear, Ichthyornis, and MPM-334-1, a basicranium that belonged to an eighty-million-year old enantiornithine bird, preserving the hindbrain. No telencephalon is known from definitive examples of Enanitornithes, the largest and most diverse group of birds outside of the radiation of modern birds.

Archaeopteryx is traditionally considered the first bird, and is sometimes referred to as the Urvogel (original bird). Despite possessing a brain almost certainly adapted for flight, the telencephalon of Archaeopteryx was not particularly large compared to related dinosaurs. Indeed, several oviraptorosaurs, as well as the troodontine Zanabazar and the jinfengopterygine troodontid IGM100/1126, possess brains larger relative to their body size than Archaeopteryx. Other elements of the cranial anatomy of Archaeopteryx are likewise similar to those of other maniraptoran dinosaurs, suggesting that those animals may also have had the requisite neurological facilities for flight.

The Wulst, the physically projecting hyperpallium, is of interest in bird brain evolution because it is not present in any other living reptiles other than birds. Moreover, it is thought to be analogous to the neocortex in mammals, with an important role in higher cognition. No non-avialan dinosaurs possess a Wulst, and indeed neither does Archaeopteryx, a primitive bird. However, the ornithuran Ichthyornis, despite having a brain shape resembling primitive maniraptorans, possesses a Wulst, showing that the structure likely originated earlier in bird evolution and exists outside of modern birds.

In general, the brain-to-body ratio of dinosaurs doubled from basal Theropoda to Coelurosauria and again doubled from Coelurosauria to Maniraptoriformes. From Maniraptoriformes, the general form of the brain took upon a form that would be retained at least in Ichthyornis, close to modern birds. Three major grade shifts in brain-to-body ratio are inferred by scientists to have taken place in the evolution of birds from basal Paraves to the base of crown Neoaves.

In the Cenozoic
There is substantial diversity in the size and arrangement of the brain in modern birds. During the Paleogene, the average brain size in birds relative to the body tended to increase; in many of the lineages emerging from the Paleogene avian radiation, brain size tended to scale more quickly than body size. Scientists hypothesise that this growth in brain size occurred as a result of the adaptive radiation birds experienced at the K-Pg transition, and that the larger brains of crown birds allowed them to adapt to an unstable environment.

The tremendous diversity of modern birds leads to a diverse range of patterns for the brain. In the clade Neoaves, comprising all birds save fowl and paleognaths, the brain-to-body ratio increases, but this is driven primarily by a decrease in average body size. This pattern is observed in swifts, hummingbirds, sandpipers, buttonquails, as well as in the line leading up to Telluraves, the "higher landbirds". However, many groups of waterbirds, collectively known as the Aequornithes, do not follow this trend, rather tending to increase body size and brain size at an equal rate. The basalmost Telluraves are two branches of large, predatory birds. One, in Afroaves, is made up of the owls, which have large brains evolved for visual acuity, and the Accipitriformes, including hawks and eagles. The other, in Australaves, includes the falcons, seriemas, and the extinct terror birds. Within Afroaves, there are successive shifts towards higher brain-to-body ratios. The mousebirds and rollers in Coraciimorphae have greater brain-to-body ratios than Afroaves, and the woodpeckers nested within Coraciimorphae have yet larger ratios still.

Some of the largest brain-to-body ratios in birds, especially of the telencephalon, that part of the brain responsible for cognition, are found in the Psittaciformes (parrots) and Corvidae (crows, ravens, jays, magpies, and allies), both members of the Australaves. Indeed, the parrots and corvids are unique among birds for their large brain sizes. Moreover, scientists believe that their increased brain-body ratios evolved the most rapidly of any brain-body ratio shift in birds.

In contrast to what is currently thought to be relatively few grade changes in the brain-to-body ratio of birds in the Mesozoic, researchers have found that nine such shifts took place in the Paleocene, possibly as a response to the K-Pg extinction event. Moreover, they find that the largest brain sizes in birds evolved only recently, with the Neogene radiation of crown corvids and crown parrots. Moreover, in these lineages, the density of neurons in the brain also increases, contributing to significant cognitive complexity.

Comparison to mammal brains
The brains of birds are often compared to those of mammals. The earliest neuroscientists to extensively study birds, such as Ludwig Edinger, were struck by the differences they observed between bird brains and mammals. Today, the relationships between homologous structures in avian and mammalian brains are better known; additionally, many convergent features of bird and mammal brains have been observed. Some of the similarities between bird and mammal brains include the processing of specialised sensory input, involvement in higher cognition, high neuron density, and the fibre structure of the brain. Moreover, avian brains show evidence for sensory consciousness. Many of the structures thought to contribute to mammal intelligence, such as the six-layered neocortex, are absent in birds. Despite this, birds such as corvids and parrots display intellectual behaviour that are comparable to those of highly intelligent mammals like the great apes. Scientists believe that this is an example of convergent evolution, wherein radically different gross structures evolved towards connectional similarities that produced comparable results.

Striation of the pallium
In mammals, the neocortex, strongly associated with higher thought and cognition, is laminated and consists of 6 layers. In birds, there is no comparable lamination in most of the pallium, which corresponds to the cerebral cortex. However, the hyperpallium of the dorsal telencephalon does indeed possess some layering: either three or four strata, depending on the size of the hyperpallium of the bird in question. In both the mammalian neocortex and the avian hyperpallium, the layers have distinct connection types and neurochemical composition.

Analogues to the prefrontal cortex
The prefrontal cortex of mammals, which is highly involved in the processes that support complex learning, may have an analogue in birds in the form of the nidopallium caudolaterale. Researchers have found that there are similarities between the ways neurons in the caudolateral nidopallium activate in response to certain tests designed for the prefrontal cortex similarly to how neurons in the prefrontal cortex themselves behave. Damage to the caudolateral nidopallium also causes deficiencies in this class of task. However, the role of the caudolateral nidopallium is still not clear, and it has been tested only in pigeons, which possess relatively small brains. The role of the caudolateral nidopallium in more complex goal-oriented action is thus uncertain.

History
The scientific study of the avian brain accelerated in the 19th century as new techniques for the preparation of vertebrate brains became more refined. At the turn of the 20th century, the German neurologist Ludwig Edinger devised a theory of vertebrate cerebral evolution that soon became the dominant scientific view. The Dutch neurologist C.U. Ariëns-Kappers then refined the model, adapting it to the avian brain. Following a linear model of evolution, Ariëns-Kappers promoted the idea that brain structures were gained in sequence in evolutionary lineages, called an accretionary theory. According to his theory, birds and mammals inherited a primitive basal ganglia from fish and amphibians known as the palaeostriatum. They also inherited a newer basal ganglia from the reptiles known as the neostriatum. Reptiles were supposed to have evolved the neostriatum into two different structures, which were then passed on to birds. Ariëns-Kappers also posited that the topmost layer of the avian brain was formed of striatal brain cells, comprising a mass which he dubbed the hyperstriatum. Therefore, for many years, the avian telencephalon was thought to consists almost entirely of a large basal ganglia. The first stereotaxic atlas of the avian brain, in 1967, followed the Ariëns-Kappers view of the avian brain and further entrenched the incorrect concept of a "primitive" avian brain.

For years, too, scientists assumed that birds were not capable of advanced thought, as their brains were perceived to be devoid of complex pallial structures. Moreover, they lacked striated structures such as those found in the mammalian cerebral cortex, which were thought to be responsible for complex cognition. In fact, neurologists believed that birds were creatures that acted on instinct rather than on any sort of thought, and that they were highly unintelligent. From this conception arose the term colloquial term bird-brain, used to denigrate persons as unintelligent.

Research into bird cognition, behaviour, and anatomy, as well as into the brain, specifically, it became apparent that the traditional accretionary view of vertebrate telencephalic evolution was incorrect. It was also becoming clear that what were then referred to as striatal parts of the brain were really pallial in origin. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, a movement began, culminating in 2002, resulting in a new nomenclature for the avian brain that has since become standard. New research into bird neural networks resulted in a better understanding of the structure and organisation of the avian brain.

See also

 Bird intelligence
 Brain
 Bird vision
 Bird anatomy
 Encephalization quotient

References

Bird anatomy

Avian brain


A cemevi or cem evi (pronounced and sometimes written as djemevi; meaning literally "a house of gathering" in Turkish) is a place of fundamental importance for Turkey's Alevi-Bektashiyyah tariqa populations. Certain Alevi organizations describe cemevis as places of worship, and ask for this to be officially recognized. However, the Directorate of Religious Affairs of Turkey does not recognise cemevis as Muslim places of worship, and only recognises Sunni and Ja'fari-Shi'ite mosques.

A place of gathering for Bektash'īyyah tariqa

It is primarily considered a place of assembly (Cem; pronounced djam, from Arabic الجمع, al-jamʕ). Historically, the cems were usually held outdoors, using candles and torches to light up the place of gathering when it got dark. Often, people from nearby places would come to a cem to have a collective meal. The participants would often bring along food, which they would then distribute during the meal. Nowadays, some of these customs are still preserved. Men and women conduct cem activities and rites together.

The structuring of cemevi as into their present characteristics and rites owes much to the Bektashi tradition within various historical currents of Turkey's Alevi culture. Urbanization of many Alevis also brought changes in the conception of cem. In larger towns in Turkey today, cemevi are multi functional buildings where a broad range of cultural activities take place. In Turkey, it is always problematic for a cemevi to get off the ground, due to strict state interference in religious matters, and cases of discrimination against the Alevis, which results in the founding of each cemevi acquiring political dimensions and necessitating case-by-case lobbyism.

Vast Majority of Alevis consider themselves to be Muslims, a view shared by the Turkish state. There is some disagreement as to whether Alevism should be considered a religious tradition at all. Some Alevis may describe it as a subethnic solidarity and/or cultural tradition. For those who recognize it as religious, they consider it a form of Islam (often, a branch of Shia'ism), while a few claim it to represent an independent, non-Islamic religion (a radical position held by relatively few adherents). Relations with Turkey's Sunni majority are difficult, though some dialogue has occurred. Besides historical or theological grievances, the issues often center around outbreaks of anti-Alevi violence, complaints of systematic discrimination, and official non-recognition of Alevi identity. The latter has resulted in attempts to assimilate Alevis into a Sunni-dominated Islam, e.g. through the construction of state-funded mosques, or compulsory religious education which excludes or marginalizes Alevi practices and teachings.

Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ indicated that a total of 329 cemevis have been established since their political party came to power on Nov. 3, 2002.

Cemevi in Istanbul
Erikli Baba Cemevi (Zeytinburnu)
Firuzköy Cemevi (Avcılar)
Maltepe Cemevi (Maltepe)
Garip Dede Cemevi (Küçükçekmece)
Okmeydanı Cemevi (Okmeydanı, Beyoğlu)
Gazi Cemevi (Gazi Mahallesi, Gaziosmanpaşa)
Sarıgazi Cemevi (Sarıgazi, Ümraniye)
Kartal Cemevi (Kartal)
Gürpınar Cemevi (Gürpınar, Büyükçekmece)
Şahkulu Sultan Cem Kültür Merkezi (Göztepe, Kadıköy)
Haramidere Cemevi (Haramidere, Büyükçekmece)
Tuzla Aydınlıköy Cemevi (Tuzla)
Karacaahmet Cem Kültür Merkezi (Üsküdar)
Yenibosna Cemevi (Yenibosna, Bahçelievler)
Bağcılar  Cemevi (Bağcılar/İstanbul)

See also
 Ashurkhana
 Jamatkhana
 Imambargah
 Khalwatkhana
 Khanaqa
 Mejlis
 Musallah
 Hussainia
 Tekkes
 Malamatiyya
 Mawlawiyyah
 Hurufiyya
 Rifa'iyya
 Qadiriyya
 Galibi Order
 Qalandariyya
 Bektashiyyah
 Naqshbandiyyah
 Zahediyya
 Khalwatiyya
 Bayramiyya
 Safaviyya
 Nusayriyya
 Kızılbaş

References

Alevism
Islam in Turkey
Culture of Turkey
Turkish words and phrases
Kurdish culture

Cemevi


Anthony B. Smith (born September 20, 1983) is a former American football safety who played for six seasons in the National Football League (NFL). After playing college football for Syracuse, he was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the third round of the 2006 NFL Draft. Smith has also been a member of the Jacksonville Jaguars, Green Bay Packers, and Tennessee Titans. He is a two-time Super Bowl Champion with the Steelers in 2008 and the Packers in 2010. Smith retired from professional football in 2012.

Early years
Smith attended Hubbard High School in Hubbard, Ohio. He started at safety and running back and wore the number three jersey, earning All-Midwest Region honors by PrepStar and All-Trumbull County Smith had six interceptions both his junior and senior seasons and rushed for 1,787 yards and 29 TDs for an 11-1 team as a senior, and rushed for 1,475 yards and 26 TDs to earn all-state accoladesas a junior. Smith also played basketball and baseball, and participated in track, competing in the hurdles, relay events, high jump and long jump.

College career
Smith played college football at Syracuse and finished his Syracuse career ranked third in school history with 14 interceptions. He also set a school record with six blocked kicks, turning two into touchdowns. Played in 46 career games, with 35 starts, recorded 293 tackles and posted 17 pass break-ups, three sacks, eight tackles for loss, four forced fumbles and five recoveries, and also returned one of his 14 interceptions for a score.

He had an immediate impact as a freshman, 71 tackles, with 1.5 of them coming for loss. He added a playmaking element as a sophomore, racking up 106 tackles and five picks on the year. Smith earned Second-team All-Big East as a junior after an 85 tackle, three interception season. He finished his career First-team All-Big East, posting 71 tackles, five for loss, three sacks, and a career-high six interceptions. He majored in retail and consumer studies. He was also recruited a running back out of the state of Ohio.

Professional career

Pre-draft
Smith ran a 6.63 3-cone drill at the 2006 NFL Combine, which was the 12th best time in that category. He ran a 40-yard time of 4.71 at the combine as well.

Pittsburgh Steelers
Smith started his professional career with the Pittsburgh Steelers. During his rookie year, Smith played all 16 games, starting the final four at free safety for injured Ryan Clark. Smith totaled 15 tackles (13 solo) with two interceptions and seven passes defensed and also had  15 tackles on special teams.

During his second year, he had a position battle with Clark for the starting free safety position, but the coaching staff stayed with Clark. However, Smith got his chance when the re-injured Clark went on injured reserve, promoting him to starting safety.

In 2007, Smith became infamous before a game against the undefeated Patriots, when he guaranteed a win. "We're going to win," Smith said. "Yeah, I can guarantee a win. As long as we come out and do what we got to do. Both sides of the ball are rolling, and if our special teams come through for us, we've got a good chance to win." The Steelers lost the game 34-13, with Smith allowing several big plays. After his poor performance, which included a few blown coverages, Smith was benched in favor of Tyrone Carter.

In 2007, he played in all 16 games, starting 10 mostly in place of the injured Clark, for a Steelers defense that was ranked No. 1 in the league. He also started one postseason contest. He finished sixth on the team with 74 tackles and had two interceptions among four passes defensed, and his first career forced fumble and fumble recovery. He also had five tackles on special teams

The following season, 2008, he played in 14 games as a reserve safety and special teamer, recording five tackles (two solo) plus four special teams tackles.

Green Bay Packers
After the Pittsburgh Steelers failed to tender Smith an offer as a restricted free agent in the 2009 offseason, Smith was signed by the Green Bay Packers on March 9. He was waived by the Packers on September 5, 2009.

St. Louis Rams
Smith was claimed off waivers by the St. Louis Rams on September 6, 2009. He was waived on November 5.

Jacksonville Jaguars
Smith was claimed off waivers by the Jacksonville Jaguars on November 6, 2009.

Green Bay Packers
Smith was traded to the Green Bay Packers October 17, 2010. He was placed on injured reserve on December 18. The Packers, however, went on to win Super Bowl XLV against his former team the Pittsburgh Steelers, making Smith a two-time Super Bowl Champion.

Tennessee Titans
On August 9, 2011, Smith signed with the Tennessee Titans. After playing in 13 games with zero starts and four tackles in 2011, Smith retired from the NFL in 2012.

References

External links
Green Bay Packers bio
Pittsburgh Steelers bio

1983 births
Living people
People from Hubbard, Ohio
Players of American football from Ohio
American football safeties
Syracuse Orange football players
Pittsburgh Steelers players
St. Louis Rams players
Jacksonville Jaguars players
Tennessee Titans players
Green Bay Packers players

Anthony Smith (safety)


Diner Dash: Hometown Hero is the fourth installment in the Diner Dash series of casual games. It was developed and published by PlayFirst. it was launched on September 25, 2007.

Story
Flo returns to her hometown to visit her Grandma, Florence, only to find the place having turned into a run-down ghost town. Flo decides to use her culinary skills to rejuvenate the town by improving the eateries at all the formerly popular hangouts.

Flo and Grandma begin with the zoo, only to discover the zoo is now desolate. They head to the cafe, but are appalled at the service. The cafe waiter tells them that the reason for the zoo's poor state is recent funding cuts by the city. The two rejuvenate the zoo and it becomes successful again.

Flo and Grandma then head to the baseball park to watch a game, but attendance is poor. The park's diner is lackluster too, as Flo and Grandma hear a customer complain about the hot dog he waited for 30 minutes having turned cold. They then revive the baseball park and bring it to its former glory.

Flo and Grandma visit the museum and find it in a state of depression. Flo's favorite dinosaur fossil is gone. The janitor is all alone, as he has to work as the curator, and the grill's cook and waiter, all at the same time. Flo and Grandma then revive the museum with the help of the customers and the museum celebrates its grand reopening.

Flo and Grandma later go to the Boardwalk Beach. During the trip, Grandma Florence tells Flo about the discotheque she used to own when she was younger. When Flo notices an old building, which was apparently the aforementioned disco, Grandma says that she was unable to keep it afloat, and all that is left now is a parking lot. Flo and Grandma head to a shack at the park for a funnel cake, but decide to help the poorly managed waiters when they see how bad the amusement park has got.

Once the amusement park has been successfully restored, Flo decides to take a ride on the park's rollercoaster before leaving and ends up warping back in time. Flo finds herself in the 70's and discovers Grandma Florence's disco. She runs inside, where she meets a younger Florence in her 30's. Flo then resolves to help Florence keep her eatery afloat by helping her.

After helping Florence, Flo says goodbye, runs back to the rollercoaster, and warps back to the present time. When Flo encounters Grandma Florence in the present, she tells her about the disco and discovers that Florence's Groovy Disco is up and running. Grandma tells Flo that a woman who looks very familiar to her had helped her. Flo and Grandma Florence enter the disco and celebrate its anniversary.

Gameplay
Gameplay involves seating customers as they enter the restaurant. One must drag and drop each group of customers to a table appropriate for their group size. Extra points are given for seating a customer in a chair that is the same color as the customer's clothing. Then, Flo must take their orders, send the order to the kitchen, deliver the food, give the group the check, and clean the table for new customers. There is hardly ever only one group of customers at a time, so the player must use time management in order to keep all of the customers happy. Each group of customers has a row of hearts at their table in order to show their mood. If the mood drops low enough, the customers will leave and players lose money. However, if the customers remain happy, they will stay and tip well. Each level has a money goal that one must reach in order to continue on to the next level.  As the player moves from level to level, they are able to select new upgrades for the restaurant. New elements are also added such as spills or desert in different levels in order to make the game more challenging and interesting. The player also has the option of playing a "continuous shift" where there are no levels or story. Players just continue to play to see how much money they can earn.

At certain levels in the game, Flo hires an assistant. In these levels, the only goal is to make more money than her assistant. It incorporates a new element of friendly competition into the game instead of always going against the clock.

Expansion Packs
There are three themed expansion packs that can be bought separately, also featuring Flo & Grandma:

Seasonal Snack Pack: Coral Cove Cafe, Crypt Cafe, Hometown Harvest, Winter Wonderland & Romantic Rendezvous
Flo Through Time: The Caveman Cafe, Pharaoh's Feast, All Knight Diner, Buccaneer Bistro & Snack to the Future
Once Upon a Diner: 1001 Bites, Through the Cooking Glass, Fee Fi Flo Fun, The Dash Slipper & Munchkin Lunchkin

See also
 Diner Dash

References

External links
 Official site
 Official game series site

2007 video games
Action games
Games built with Playground SDK
MacOS games
Video games about food and drink
Video games developed in the United States
Video games featuring female protagonists
Video games scored by Adam Gubman
Video games set in zoos
Windows games
PlayFirst games

Diner Dash: Hometown Hero


Prince Hieronim Augustyn Lubomirski (1648–1706) was a Polish noble (szlachcic), magnate, politician and famed military commander.  He was a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire SRI.

Son of Grand Marshal and Hetman Jerzy Sebastian Lubomirski and Konstancja Ligęza. He married Konstancja Bokum c. 1694.

He was owner of Wiśnicz, Jarosław and Rzeszów. Commendatory abbot of Płock, Knight of Malta, Great Chorąży of the Crown since 1676, Court Marshal of the Crown since 1683, Grand Podskarbi of the Crown since 1692, voivode of Kraków Voivodeship, Field Crown Hetman, castellan of Kraków and Great Crown Hetman since 1702.

Under the command of Jan Sobieski he fought against Tatars and Turks and participated in the expedition and siege of Chocim in 1673. He refused to join the "Lubomirski Rokosz" of his father in 1665–1666.

As Marshal he led the ordinary Sejm on 10 January – 21 May 1681.

He took part in the Vienna expedition in 1683 and become famous for his courage at the Battle of Vienna. He also participated in following campaigns in Hungary.

In the Kings election of 1697, he backed up the candidature of Prince Conti for the Polish throne.

He supported the Warsaw Confederation in 1704 against August II and the proclamation of interregnum, in the hope that he would gain the Polish crown, with the help of Sweden. He went into retirement from political activity, after the election of Stanisław Leszczyński.

Awards
 Knight of the Order of the White Eagle, awarded in 1705.

Children
 Anna  married starost and voivode Franciszek Wielopolski.
 Marianna married Krzysztof Towiański
 Elżbieta married Jan Rybiński
 Jerzy Ignacy became General and Chorąży.
 Jan became starost.
 Jakub became Kuchmistrz, Miecznik and General.

1647 births
1706 deaths
Secular senators of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
People from Rzeszów
Castellans of Kraków
Hieronim Augustyn Lubomirski
University of Padua alumni
Polish people of the Great Northern War
Sandomierz confederates (1704)
Abbots of Płock
Polish Roman Catholics
Field Crown Hetmans
Great Crown Hetmans
17th-century Polish politicians
Recipients of the Order of the White Eagle (Poland)

Hieronim Augustyn Lubomirski


Archibald Bruce (1746–1816), was a Scottish theological writer.

Life
Bruce was born at Broomhall, Stirlingshire, and, after studying at the University of Glasgow, was ordained, in 1768, minister of the Associate (Anti-Burgher) congregation of Whitburn. In 1786 he was appointed professor of divinity by the General Associate Synod, and continued to hold that office till 1806. Being dissatisfied with the action of his synod, he left it and formed, along with Thomas M'Crie the Elder and two others, the 'Auld Licht' Anti-Burgher 'Constitutional Associate Presbytery'. This led to a sentence of deposition being passed on him by the former body. He died 28 February 1816.

Writings
Bruce's major writings were:

 The Kirkiad, or the Golden Age of the Church of Scotland', a satirical poem, 1774.
 Free Thoughts on the Toleration of Popery, 1780.
 Annus Secularis, the centenary of the revolution 1788, a long dissertation on religious festivals.
 Queries, on the commemoration of the revolution, 1797.
 The Catechism modernized, 1791, a cutting satire on lay patronage, and its effects, in the form of a parody on the Westminster Assembly's Shorter Catechism.
 Reflexions on the Freedom of Writing, 1794, à propos of a proclamation against seditious publications, bearing the motto "What Britons dare to think, he dares to tell".
 A poem ridiculing the pretensions of the pope, 1797.
 Lectures to Students, 1797.
 Life of James Hog of Carnock, 1798.
 Dissertation on the Supremacy of the Civil Power in Matters of Religion, 1798.
 Poems, serious and amusing, by a reverend divine, 1812.
 Life of Alex. Morus, a celebrated divine in Geneva and Holland, 1813.
 A Treatise on Earthquakes'' (posthumous).

References
Citations

Sources

1746 births
1816 deaths
Scottish Christian theologians
Scottish educators
18th-century Scottish poets
19th-century Scottish poets
18th-century Scottish Christian theologians
19th-century Scottish theologians
People from Stirling
Alumni of the University of Glasgow
Ministers of Secession Churches in Scotland

Archibald Bruce (writer)


Christian Louis Cooke (born 15 September 1987) is an English actor. He is known for playing Luke Kirkwall in Where the Heart Is, Luke Rutherford in Demons, Dorian Gaudain in Trinity, Freddie Taylor in Cemetery Junction and Len Matthews in the Channel 4 mini series The Promise. Cooke's most recent roles include ex-soldier Graham Connor in Crackle's original drama The Art of More and Mickey Argyll in BBC's three-part adaptation of Agatha Christie novel Ordeal by Innocence.

His other television roles have included Echo Beach (2008), Magic City (2012–13) and Witches of East End (2014). His other film roles have included Mercutio in Romeo & Juliet (2013), Electricity (2014), Love, Rosie (2014) and Drunk Wedding (2015).

Early life and education
Cooke was born in Leeds, West Yorkshire. He attended St Mary's Menston Catholic Voluntary Academy. He has an older brother, Alexander, a younger sister, Gabrielle, and is a first cousin to Mel B from the Spice Girls through his mother, Di, who is sister to Mel's mother, Andrea Brown.

Cooke began his acting career at the age of 10 when he appeared in a production of Bedazzled at the Bingley Arts Centre. His first television appearance was in a commercial for Birds Eye beef burgers, shortly followed by his first lead role as Wilmot Tanner in Granada Television series Wilmot. His career progressed from there.

Career
Cooke played the role of Luke Kirkwall from 2000 to 2006 in the ITV drama Where the Heart Is and guest starred in Doctors, Barking!, The Royal, Casualty & Inspector George Gently. In 2007, he starred in one episode of BBC's Robin Hood as Will Scarlett's younger brother Luke and made his film debut in the short film Wish.

Cooke also appeared in BBC One's The Chase and played Brae Marrack in the ITV1 soap opera Echo Beach. He guest-starred in the Doctor Who episodes "The Sontaran Stratagem" and "The Poison Sky", playing UNIT soldier Ross Jenkins, in 2008.

During 2009, he played the lead roles of Luke Rutherford in ITV1's supernatural drama Demons & Lord Dorian Gaudain in ITV2's eight-part drama Trinity, where he had several rear nude scenes in its first episode, and appeared in Syfy's television film Dark Relic the following year. He went on to play the lead role of Freddie Taylor in Cemetery Junction and starred in the critically acclaimed Channel 4 four-part drama The Promise, directed by Peter Kosminsky in 2011.
That same year, Cooke made his directorial debut in Chandide, an independent short film based in London written & produced by Trinity co-star Arnab Chanda, who also starred in the lead role, before completing Paramount Pictures' romantic comedy Drunk Wedding. The following year, he featured in 1950s Miami-set drama series, Magic City, which came to a close after two seasons in August 2013.

Cooke's film career has since grown in the form of two collaborations with director Bryn Higgins, titled Unconditional and Electricity, starring alongside Charlie Cox in British independent Hello Carter, playing Mercutio in Carlo Carlei's Romeo and Juliet and starring alongside Lily Collins in British-American romantic comedy Love, Rosie. He also made a return to short films, starring in Nativity-inspired Anomaly before taking the lead in Fare with Maimie McCoy, and has since featured regularly throughout the second season of American television series Witches of East End  before Lifetime announced the show's cancellation in November 2014.

Spring 2015 saw Cooke return to British television in BBC two-part book-adaptation drama Stonemouth, the first adaptation of Iain Banks' work since his death in 2013, opposite Sharon Small, Gary Lewis & Peter Mullan, as well as the announcement of Magic Citys movie adaptation starring alongside Bruce Willis & Bill Murray, reprising his role as Danny Evans. On top of his return to British television, his role as Stewart Gilmour in Stonemouth marked his return to a lead role, and towards the summer of 2015 came the announcement of a return to directing with Peter Mullan & Michelle Fairley taking the lead roles in short film Edith; news that was followed by the release of Crackle original drama The Art of More, leading alongside Dennis Quaid & Kate Bosworth, where Cooke starred as ex-soldier Graham Connor.

The start of 2016 brought in a reunion with Hello Carter director Anthony Wilcox, starring alongside Example, for Instagram-exclusive Shield 5, the first short film to be distributed across this platform. A year later, and Cooke's career grows in the form of a role in the premiere theatre production of Experience by Dave Florez at Hampstead Theatre, appearing in Yaël Farber's production of Knives In Hens by David Harrower at the Donmar Warehouse and collaborating with Edith producers Sara Huxley & April Kelley to co-produce comedy series Annie Waits.

In April 2018 Cooke played the part of Mickey Argyll in Ordeal by Innocence, a role initially portrayed by Ed Westwick, who was replaced by Cooke amid allegations of sexual assault.

Projects currently under way for Cooke include short film Everything You Didn't Say alongside Magic City co-star Olga Kurylenko, a Netflix adaptation of Point Blank and a feature film adaptation of Knives In Hens, titled Embers.

Filmography

Television

Film

Director

Producer

Theatre

References

External links

1987 births
English male film actors
English male television actors
Living people
Male actors from Leeds
People educated at St. Mary's Catholic High School, Menston
20th-century English male actors
21st-century English male actors
English male child actors

Christian Cooke


The eland is the largest antelope. There are two species, both African.

The common eland, Taurotragus oryx, is from East Africa and South Africa. The giant eland, Taurotragus derbianus, is found in Sudan, Central African Republic, Cameroon and Senegal  and West Africa.

The two species are rather similar in size: males range in size from  and may even reach a ton on rare occasions; females range from .

Giant eland are alert and wary, making them difficult to approach and observe. They are gregarious, and migrate in small herds of twenty or so animals. Giant eland live in open forest and savannah where they eat grass, leaves, and branches. Common eland live in large herds.

Observers have, as usual, found it difficult to measure their speed of running. Some claim they move quickly, running at over , and despite their size are exceptional jumpers, easily clearing heights of . Others claim elands are one of the slowest antelopes, but can even jump a height of  or more.

When walking, tendon or joints in the eland's foreleg produce a sharp clicking sound, the cause of which is not known. The sound carries some distance and is a good indication of an approaching herd. Naturalists think it is a form of communication in elands.

References

Bovines
Mammals of Africa

Eland


Sattar Bahlulzade (; ,  – 14 October 1974) was an Azerbaijani painter. He was born in the village of Amirjan, just outside the Azerbaijani capital Baku.

Sattar Bahlulzade is the founder of modern Azerbaijani landscape painting. He began his professional education at the National Art Institute in Baku (1927–1931). In 1933, he went to Moscow to continue his education in the Drawing Department at the Moscow Fine Arts Institute. There he studied in the studio of the Russian painter V. A. Favorsky. During the summer workshops in Crimea, Russian painter G. Shegal saw some of Sattar's sketches and suggested that he study at the institute's Painting Department, which he did.

Though he experimented in many styles of art, his unique talent was landscape painting. At first, he used to paint nature realistically as he had been taught. But soon he developed his own style. In fact, some of his paintings look like photos of the Earth taken from space. Using a combination of pastel colors and bold strokes, he made nature look more colorful and lively, and sometimes even more fantastic, than it did in reality.

Many of his works show different places of Azerbaijan. For example, "Bazarduzu Outskirts" is about Bazarduzu, the highest mountain in Azerbaijan. Other examples are "Old Shamakhi" and "Autumn in Nakhchivan."

Bahlulzade won many prizes for his art. He won the title of Honored Art Worker of the Republic of Azerbaijan in 1960 and was named People's Artist in 1963.

In 1973, Sattar became extremely ill due to blood poisoning and he died in 1974 in Moscow. When Sattar died, he was not buried in the Avenue of the Honored Ones, unlike other famous Azerbaijani people. Instead, according to his will, he was buried in his native village of Amirjan, next to his mother's grave.

Sattar's legacy includes many works that have been shown all over the world, including personal exhibitions in the USA, England, Turkey and Russia.

Most of his works are shown in museums all over Azerbaijan, particularly in the cities like Baku, Ganja and Nakhchivan.

Some of his most famous works are:
 Gudialchay Valley (1953)
 Evening above Caspian Sea (1959)
 Spring of my Native Land (1967)

Gallery

Other websites
 Sattar Bahlulzade, The Vibrant Pulse of Nature Azerbaijan International Magazine
 View Bahlulzade paintings at AZgallery.org.
 Sattar Bahlulzadeh
 Bahlulzadeh in headlines

1909 births
1974 deaths
Azerbaijani people
Painters from Asia

Sattar Bahlulzade


Eileanan Chearabhaigh is a collection of small uninhabited tidal islands off the south east coast of Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. The English language name Keiravagh Islands is sometimes used.

Bounded by the tidal waters of Loch Chearabhaigh to the north and Loch a' Laip to the south, the land area of the group defies a simple description. At low tide the islands form a peninsula with a total area of about , which is connected to Benbecula by drying sands. At high tide the connection to Benbecula is lost and a number of small islets stretching for over  from east to west appear, the largest of which is about  in extent. None of these individual islets are named by the Ordnance Survey. Argyll Yacht Charters supply a table of islands statistics that list the "Kiervagh islands" as being  in extent, although the method of measurement is not explicit.

The uninhabited island of Wiay lies to the south and fish farming is undertaken in the productive waters of Loch a' Laip and Loch Chearabhaigh. Loch a' Laip also provides shelter for visiting water craft but the area is strewn with rocks and skerries. There is a pier on Benbecula served by a track at the western end of Eileanan Chearabhaigh and another to the south at Eilean na Cille, although their use without local knowledge is not advised.

See also
Nearby islands with a similarly complex geography:
 Ceallasaigh Mòr
 Eileanan Iasgaich

Notes

Footnotes

References

Uist islands
Tidal islands of Scotland
Uninhabited islands of the Outer Hebrides

Eileanan Chearabhaigh


Chester Congregational Church is a historic church at 4 Chester Street (New Hampshire Route 121) in Chester, New Hampshire.  This wood-frame building was originally built as a traditional New England colonial meeting house in 1773, and underwent significant alteration in 1840, giving it its present Greek Revival appearance.  It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.

Description and history
The Chester Congregational Church stands prominently at the center of Chester's main village, at the northwest corner of New Hampshire Route 121 and New Hampshire Route 102. It is a -story wood-frame structure, with a gabled roof, mostly clapboarded exterior, and split granite foundation. The front facade is three bays wide and finished in flushboard articulated by broad wooden piers. The main entrance, a double entry, is set in a recess in the center bay, with the other bays filled with paired narrow windows. The gable end above is fully pedimented, with a triangular louver at its center. A three-stage tower with clock and belfry rises to an octagonal spire. The clock was provided by E. Howard & Co., and the bell by George Handel Holbrook of Medway, Massachusetts. The interior has modest Greek Revival elements, including slip pews and a coved plaster ceiling.

The frame of the church was built in 1773, and underwent a major restyling in the 1840s. The church design is based on that of a church built in 1839 in nearby Candia. Most of its interior was lost during these alterations, but the original roof trusses and other features are still in evidence.

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

References

External links

Church website

Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in New Hampshire
Churches completed in 1773
United Church of Christ churches in New Hampshire
Congregational churches in New Hampshire
Churches in Rockingham County, New Hampshire
18th-century churches in the United States
National Register of Historic Places in Rockingham County, New Hampshire
Chester, New Hampshire

Chester Congregational Church


Michael S. Schudson (born November 3, 1946) is professor of journalism in the graduate school of journalism of Columbia University and adjunct professor in the department of sociology. He is professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego. He is an expert in the fields such as journalism history, media sociology, political communication, and public culture.

Biography
Schudson grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He received his BA from Swarthmore College (1969) and his MA (1970) and PhD (1976) from Harvard University in sociology. He taught at the University of Chicago from 1976 to 1980 and the University of California, San Diego, from 1980 to 2009. From 2006 to 2009, he was on the faculty of both University of California, San Diego, and Columbia. He has been working full-time at Columbia since 2009.

Schudson has received major awards such as a Guggenheim Fellowship, a residential fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, and a MacArthur "genius" fellowship. On being named a MacArthur fellow in 1990, the foundation identified him as "an interpreter of public culture and of collective or civic memory". He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Groningen in 2014.

Schudson lives in New York City and is married to communication scholar Julia Sonnevend.

Work
Schudson is the author of seven books and editor of three others concerning the history and sociology of American journalism, the history of United States citizenship and political participation, advertising, popular culture, book publishing, and cultural memory. His books, Discovering the News (Basic Books, 1978), Advertising, the Uneasy Persuasion (Basic Books, 1984), The Good Citizen: A History of American Civic Life (Free Press, 1998), The Sociology of News (W. W. Norton, 2003, 2011), and Why Democracies Need an Unlovable Press (Polity Press, 2008); all have been published in Chinese translation. His other works include Watergate in American Memory (Basic Books, 1992); The Power of News (Harvard University Press, 1995), Reading the News (Pantheon, 1986), co-edited with Robert K. Manoff; Rethinking Popular Culture (University of California Press, 1991), co-edited with Chandra Mukerji; and The Enduring Book (vol. 5 of The History of the Book in America, University of North Carolina Press, 2009), co-edited with David Paul Nord and Joan Shelley Rubin.

His books are reviewed in both specialized and general publications. The Journal of American History judged The Good Citizen (1998) to be "relevant, imaginative, and determined to face facts" and The Economist urged all Americans to read it. Times Higher Education (UK) called Why Democracies Need an Unlovable Press (2008) "eloquent and wise".

Schudson publishes in both academic and general-interest journals. In the Winter 2019 edition of the Columbia Journalism Review he authored a history of "trust" issues related to journalistic reporting in the United States, a historical review of such issues, and the origin of the term, "the media", that is entitled, The Fall, Rise, and Fall of Media Trust. He offered an assessment of whether and how trust may be cultivated by journalists and publishers. Its subtitle is, "There are worse things than being widely disliked".

He is co-author, with Leonard Downie Jr., of a report on the future of news, The Reconstruction of American Journalism (2009), that was sponsored by the Columbia Journalism School.

Books
Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers (1978)
Advertising, the Uneasy Persuasion (1984)
Reading the News (1986) editor with Robert K. Manoff
Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies (1991) editor with Chandra Mukerji
Watergate in American Memory: How We Remember, Forget and Reconstruct the Past (1992)
The Power of News (1995)
The Good Citizen: A History of American Civic Life (1998)
The Sociology of News (2003, 2011)
Why Democracies Need an Unlovable Press (2008)
The Enduring Book (vol. 5 of The History of the Book in America) (2009) editor with David Paul Nord and Joan Shelley Rubin

References

External links
Faculty profile at Columbia University
Faculty profile page at UCSD
Why "The Informed Citizen" Is Too Much to Ask - And Not Enough (1999 Batten Symposium Keynote Address)
On Advertising -- an extract

1946 births
Swarthmore College alumni
Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni
American sociologists
MacArthur Fellows
Living people
University of Chicago faculty
University of California, San Diego faculty
Columbia University faculty
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Michael Schudson


Ecohydrology is the scientific study of how water interacts with ecological systems. It is a subdiscipline of hydrology, that focuses on the ecology. These interactions may happen in a water bodies, such as rivers and lakes, or on land, in forests, deserts, and other terrestrial ecosystems. Areas of research in ecohydrology include transpiration, how plants use water, adaptation of organisms to their environment in the water, effects of vegetation and benthic plants on smoving water, and interactions between ecological processes and the hydrological cycle.

Subfields of ecology
Water

Ecohydrology


Elliott Warren Rice (November 16, 1835 – June 22, 1887) was a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He commanded an infantry brigade during the pivotal Atlanta Campaign in the summer of 1864.

Early life
Rice was born in Allegany, Pennsylvania. His family moved to Belmont, Ohio, when Rice was an infant. He was schooled in Wheeling, West Virginia (then Virginia), and Franklin College in Athens, Ohio. In 1855, he moved to Oskaloosa, Iowa, to study law under his brother, Samuel Allen Rice, and graduated from the University of Albany Law School in 1858. He practiced law in Oskaloosa with Samuel until the Civil War broke out.

Civil War
On July 24, 1861, he joined the 7th Iowa Volunteer Infantry Regiment as a corporal. He was promoted to major on August 30, 1861. He fought at the Battle of Belmont in November, and became regimental commander when his superiors became incapacitated.  There he received the first of seven war wounds.  He participated in the campaigns to capture Fort Henry and Fort Donelson and in the Battle of Shiloh, when he was promoted to colonel.  He fought in the Second Battle of Corinth (October 1862) and commanded Bethel and La Grange, Tennessee, leading the 1st Brigade, 2nd Division, XVI Corps and protected Memphis & Charleston Railroad.

As a brigade commander in the Atlanta Campaign in 1864, he fought at Resaca, New Hope Church, and Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia. He was appointed and confirmed as brigadier general of volunteers on June 22, 1864, leading the 2nd Division. He participated in the Siege of Atlanta, and then transferred to the XV Corps, where he served through the March to the Sea and the Carolinas Campaign. Rice was mustered out of the volunteers on August 24, 1865. On January 13, 1866, President Andrew Johnson nominated Rice for appointment as a brevet major general of volunteers for war service to rank from March 13, 1865 and the United States Senate confirmed the appointment on March 12, 1866.

Post war
After the war he practiced law in Washington D.C., until returning to Iowa, to his sister's home in Sioux City, where he remained until his death. He is interred at Floyd Cemetery, Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa.

See also

List of American Civil War generals (Union)

References

1835 births
1887 deaths
Lawyers from Pittsburgh
Union Army generals
People of Iowa in the American Civil War
Iowa lawyers
People from Belmont, Ohio
Lawyers from Wheeling, West Virginia
People from Oskaloosa, Iowa
19th-century American lawyers

Elliott Warren Rice


A form-based interface is a kind of user interface. In it, the user interacts with the application by selecting one of a number of possible values, and by entering text into the fields that accept it. A word processor which is used to write documents, might offer settings for the font size, the font to use, and the alignment of the paragraph on the page. Many databases support a technology called query by example: Users who do not know SQL can easily select database records which are similar to the information entered.
Other places where form based interface can be use is
Online application for job, school, college
Bank to fill cash details a
Hospital for filling patients detail.

Computers

Form-based interface


Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794) was a French philosopher, mathematician, and politician. He was a liberal thinker, and today is seen as being among the thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment. In 1790, after the French Revolutiion,  and after the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. As it says i the declaration, they only applied to men. Condorcet  said these rights should also be given to women. He published an essay,  Sur l'admission des femmes au droit de cité (On the admission of women on rights of the citizen). In it, he postulated that women should get the right to vote in elections. He also said that black people should have the same rights as white people, that slavery should be abolished and there should be free trade.

In 1786, he married  Sophie de Grouchy (1764-1822), a translator, who was said to be among the most beautiful women of her time.

Because of one of his works, there was an arrest warrant against him, so he had to flee from Paris. He is foud in Clamart, and arrested. Two days later, he is found dead in his prison cell. The circumstances of his death are unsolved, he might have poisened himself, someone might have killed him, or died froim Pulmonary edema.

Works
In mathematics, worked on probability theory, philosophy of mathematics, and mathematical analysis. He also worked on the three-body problem.

In 1786 he published Essai sur l'application de l'analyse à la probabilité des décisions rendues à la pluralité des voix, which had a great influence on probability theory.

Today he is known for the Condorcet method, the Condorcet paradox, and Condorcet's jury theorem.

1743 births
1794 deaths
French mathematicians
French philosophers
Politicians from Hauts-de-France
People from Aisne
18th-century French people


Joannes Baptista Sproll (2 October 1870 – 4 March 1949) was a German bishop and prominent opponent of the Nazi regime.

Sproll was born in Schweinhausen, near Biberach, the son of a street mender, Josef Sproll, and his wife, Anna Maria née Freuer. He attended the Latin school in Biberach and the Gymnasium Ehingen. He studied Catholic theology at the University of Tübingen from 1890 to 1894. In 1898, he received his Ph.D. for his work on the history of the law and constitution of the Tübingen monastery of St. George. On 14 June 1927 he became the Bishop of Rottenburg.

During the Nazi era, Sproll often spoke out against the regime, and his abstention from the plebiscite over the Anschluss led to preliminary proceedings and staged demonstrations against him. At the end of August 1938, Sproll was expelled from his diocese and could not return again until 1945. On 1 August 1940 Conrad Gröber, Archbishop of Freiburg, and the Vicar General of the Diocese of Rottenburg (acting for Sproll) protested against the euthanasia programmes in Grafeneck; this was also the year of the protest of the Bishop of Münster, Clemens August Graf von Galen. Sproll died in 1949 in Rottenburg am Neckar.

References

1870 births
1949 deaths
People from Biberach (district)
Roman Catholic bishops of Rottenburg
Members of the Württembergian Chamber of Lords

Joannes Baptista Sproll


Bjarne Hodne (born 15 October 1943) is a Norwegian folklorist.

He defended his dr.philos. degree in 1973 with the thesis Personalhistoriske sagn. En studie i kildeverdi. He worked as a lecturer at the University of Oslo from 1975 to 1976, docent from 1976 to 1984 and professor from 1985. He was the dean of the Historical-Philosophical Faculty (now: the Faculty of Humanities) from 1991 to 1997. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. In 2007 he became leader of the trade union Norwegian Association of Researchers.

References

1943 births
Living people
Norwegian folklorists
Academic staff of the University of Oslo
Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
Norwegian trade unionists

Bjarne Hodne


The M4 (105) was an M4 Sherman with 105 mm howitzer. It was a secondary version of the M4 Sherman, which was mainly used for personal protection reasons, although the tank also used high-explosive anti-tank missiles and was heavily armored.

History
A total of 6748 M4 (from July 1942 to January 1944) and 1641 of the late variant were produced with a 105 mm howitzer for infantry support, the M4 (105). Early models had the three-piece screwed nose, while later models had a mixed cast/rolled fuselage. The gun coat also evolved from the M34 to a more protective M34A. A known weakness of the early M4 was the slight flammability of the ammunition after a hit, especially because the cartridges were large howitzer cartridges, which then set the engine on fire or blew up the tank. However, many tanks of the states involved in the war had this problem. Because of this fire danger, the Sherman was also called "Ronson" by the crews (a well-known lighter brand with the advertising slogan "Ronson always burns!"), the Germans called it "Tommykocher". It was only with the M4, which was produced at the beginning of 1944, that this weakness was remedied by installing water tanks on the storage areas of the ammunition. This system, known as "wet congestion," reduced the fire risk by more than a factor of four after hitting the combat room.

References

Howitzers

M4 (105)


Cornway College (or simply Cornway) is a private, day and boarding school for boys and girls in Mount Hampden, Mashonaland West, Zimbabwe, Africa. It is  from the Harare central business district. Cornway College was opened on January 23, 2006. It has a preparatory school (Cornway Junior College) and a high school (Cornway Senior College). The language used to communicate within the school is English.

Cornway College was ranked as one of the top 10 high schools in Zimbabwe in 2014.

Academics

Junior College
Students at the Junior College are taught the primary schools curriculum developed by Cambridge International Examinations or CIE (an exam board in the United Kingdom) and ZIMSEC (an exam board in Zimbabwe). The children learn the following subjects:
 Agriculture
 Computer Literacy
 English
 General Paper
 Mathematics
 Science
 Shona
In Grade Seven, children write tests for the Cambridge Primary certificate by CIE (for English, Mathematics and Science subjects) and Grade Seven exams by ZIMSEC (for English, General Paper, Mathematics and Shona subjects).

Senior College
Students in Form One and Form Two (Year 8 and Year 9) are taught several subjects according to the Zimbabwe Junior Certificate curriculum.

In Form Three and Form Four (Year 10 and Year 11), students are taught according to the curriculum of CIE and ZIMSEC. In Form Four, the students then write tests for the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (given by CIE) and the GCE Ordinary Level certificate (given by ZIMSEC).

In the Sixth Form (that is, Lower Six and Upper Six, or Year 12 and Year 13), students learn a minimum of three subjects according to the Advanced Level curriculum of CIE and ZIMSEC. In Lower Six, students can choose to write tests for the Cambridge International AS Level certificate (half the content of Advanced Level is tested, the certificate is given by CIE) then write tests again in Upper Six for the full Cambridge International A Level certificate. Another option is to write the Cambridge International A Level and or the ZIMSEC GCE Advanced Level tests in Upper Six.

Sports

Junior College
Sports at the Junior College include:
 Athletics
 Basketball
 Chess
 Cricket
 Cross-country
 Hockey
 Netball
 Rugby
 Soccer
 Swimming
 Tennis
 Volleyball

Senior College
Sports at the Senior College include:
 Athletics
 Basketball
 Chess
 Cricket
 Cross-country
 Handball
 Hockey
 Netball
 Rugby
 Soccer
 Swimming
 Tennis
 Volleyball

References

Other websites
  Official website
  on Pindula

Organizations based in Zimbabwe
Schools
2006 establishments in Africa

Cornway College


John Angus Weir (October 29, 1930 – August 28, 2007) was the fourth president of Wilfrid Laurier University, serving from 1982 until his retirement in 1992. Weir was born to J. Angus and Mary in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, on October 29, 1930. He was usually called "Jack". He has a brother named Robert. Weir graduated from St. Dunstan's University (now known as the University of Prince Edward Island with a Bachelor of Arts in 1953. He then moved to London, Ontario, where he received his master of business administration degree from the University of Western Ontario in 1955. Weir moved to Kitchener, Ontario to work at a company called Electrohome.

He later moved to South Bend, Indiana, to continue his education. This resulted in him receiving his PhD in economics from the University of Notre Dame in 1964. Weir and his new wife, Ann, moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba, where he took the position of professor at the University of Manitoba. His family moved back to Kitchener-Waterloo in 1965 so that Weir could take a position at Wilfrid Laurier University (then known as Waterloo Lutheran University) as a professor and chairman of the economics department from 1968 to 1978. He became vice-president of academics from 1978 to 1982, and then he eventually became the university's president from 1982 until his retirement in 1992. While university president, Weir helped form the undergraduate music therapy program in the university's Faculty of Music on February 16, 1987.

He married Ann in 1959 and had four sons. Weir died at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada.

References

1930 births
2007 deaths
Canadian university and college chief executives
People from Charlottetown
University of Prince Edward Island alumni
University of Western Ontario alumni
Mendoza College of Business alumni
Academic staff of the University of Manitoba
Academic staff of Wilfrid Laurier University

John Angus Weir


The Asiatic cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus) is a critically endangered cheetah subspecies currently only surviving in Iran. Its range once spread from the Arabian Peninsula and the Near East to the Caspian region, Transcaucasus, Kyzylkum Desert and northern South Asia, but was extirpated in these regions during the 20th century. The Asiatic cheetah diverged from the cheetah population in Africa between 32,000 and 67,000 years ago.

The Asiatic cheetah survives in protected areas in the eastern-central arid region of Iran, where the human population density is very low. Between December 2011 and November 2013, 84 individuals were sighted in 14 different protected areas, and 82 individuals were identified from camera trap photographs. In December 2017, fewer than 50 individuals were thought to be remaining in three subpopulations that are scattered over  in Iran's central plateau. In January 2022, the Iranian Department of Environment estimated that there were only 12 Asiatic cheetahs comprising nine males and three females left in the country. In 2023, a member of the Iranian Cheetah Society referred to 30 to 40 individuals living in Iran.

Taxonomy
Felis venatica was proposed by Edward Griffith in 1821 and based on a sketch of a maneless cheetah from India. Griffith's description was published in Le Règne Animal with the help of Griffith's assistant Charles Hamilton Smith in 1827.

Acinonyx raddei was proposed by Max Hilzheimer in 1913 for the cheetah population in Central Asia, the Trans-Caspian cheetah. Hilzheimer's type specimen originated in Merv, Turkmenistan.

Evolution
Results of a five-year phylogeographic study on cheetah subspecies indicate that Asiatic and African cheetah populations separated between 32,000 and 67,000 years ago and are genetically distinct. Samples of 94 cheetahs for extracting mitochondrial DNA were collected in nine countries from wild, seized and captive individuals and from museum specimen. The population in Iran is considered autochthonous monophyletic and the last remaining representative of the Asiatic subspecies.
Mitochondrial DNA fragments of an Indian and a Southeast African cheetah museum specimens showed that they genetically diverged about 72,000 years ago.

Characteristics

The Asiatic cheetah has a buff-to-light fawn-coloured fur that is paler on the sides, on the front of the muzzle, below the eyes and inner legs. Small black spots are arranged in lines on the head and nape, but irregularly scattered on body, legs, paws and tail. The tail tip has black stripes. The coat and mane are shorter than of African cheetah subspecies. The head and body of an adult Asiatic cheetah measure about  with a  long tail. It weighs about . They exhibit sexual dimorphism; males are slightly larger than the females.

The cheetah is the fastest land animal in the world. It was previously thought that the body temperature of a cheetah increases during a hunt due to high metabolic activity. In a short period of time during a chase, a cheetah may produce 60 times more heat than at rest, with much of the heat, produced from glycolysis, stored to possibly raise the body temperature. The claim was supported by data from experiments in which two cheetahs ran on a treadmill for minutes on end but contradicted by studies in natural settings, which indicate that body temperature stays relatively the same during a hunt. A 2013 study suggested stress hyperthermia and a slight increase in body temperature after a hunt. The cheetah's nervousness after a hunt may induce stress hyperthermia, which involves high sympathetic nervous activity and raises the body temperature. After a hunt, the risk of another predator taking its kill is great, and the cheetah is on high alert and stressed. The increased sympathetic activity prepares the cheetah's body to run when another predator approaches. In the 2013 study, even the cheetah that did not chase the prey experienced an increase in body temperature once the prey was caught, showing increased sympathetic activity.

Distribution and habitat

The cheetah thrives in open lands, small plains, semi-desert areas, and other open habitats where prey is available. The Asiatic cheetah mainly inhabits the desert areas around Dasht-e Kavir in the eastern half of Iran, including parts of the Kerman, Khorasan, Semnan, Yazd, Tehran, and Markazi provinces. Most live in five protected areas, viz Kavir National Park, Touran National Park, Bafq Protected Area, Dar-e Anjir Wildlife Refuge, and Naybandan Wildlife Reserve.

During the 1970s, the Asiatic cheetah population in Iran was estimated to number about 200 individuals in 11 protected areas. By the end of the 1990s, the population was estimated at 50 to 100 individuals.
During camera-trapping surveys conducted across 18 protected areas between 2001 and 2012, a total of 82 individuals in 15–17 families were recorded and identified. Of these, only six individuals were recorded for more than three years. In this period, 42 cheetahs died due to poaching, in road accidents and due to natural causes. Populations are fragmented and known to survive in the Semnan, North Khorasan, South Khorasan, Yazd, Esfahan, and Kerman Provinces.

In summer 2018, a female cheetah and four cubs were sighted in Touran Wildlife Refuge Iran's Semnan province.

Former range

The Asiatic cheetah once ranged from the Arabian Peninsula and Near East to Iran, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan to India. Bronze Age remains are known from Troy in western Anatolia and Armenia.
It is considered locally extinct in all of its former range, with the only known surviving population being Iran.

In Iraq, the cheetah was still recorded in the desert west of Basrah in 1926. The last record was published in 1991, and it was a cheetah that had been killed by a car. In the Sinai peninsula, a sighting of two cheetahs was reported in 1946. In the Arabian Peninsula, it used to occur in the northern and southeastern fringes and had been reported in both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait before 1974. Two cheetahs were killed in the northern Saudi Ha'il Region in 1973. In Yemen, the last known cheetah was sighted in Wadi Mitan in 1963, near the international border with Oman. In Oman's Dhofar Mountains, a cheetah was shot near Jibjat in 1977.

In Central Asia, uncontrolled hunting of cheetahs and their prey, severe winters and conversion of grassland to areas used for agriculture contributed to the population's decline. By the early 20th century, the range in Central Asia had decreased significantly. By the 1930s, cheetahs were confined to the Ustyurt plateau and Mangyshlak Peninsula in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and to the foothills of the Kopet Dag mountains and a region in the south of Turkmenistan bordering Iran and Afghanistan. The last known sightings in the area were in 1957 between the Tejen and Murghab Rivers, in July 1983 in the Ustyurt plateau, and in  November 1984 in the Kopet Dag. Officers of the Badhyz State Nature Reserve did not sight a cheetah in this area until 2014; the border fence between Iran and Turkmenistan might impede dispersal.

The cheetah population in Afghanistan decreased to the extent that it has been considered extinct since the 1950s. Two skins were sighted in markets in the country, one in 1971, and another in 2006, the latter reportedly from Samangan Province.

In India, the cheetah occurred in Rajputana, Punjab, Sind, and south of the Ganges from Bengal to the northern part of the Deccan Plateau. It was also present in the Kaimur District, Darrah and other desert regions of Rajasthan and parts of Gujarat and Central India. Akbar the Great was introduced to cheetahs around the mid-16th century and used them for coursing blackbucks, chinkaras and antelopes. He allegedly possessed 1,000 cheetahs during his reign but this figure might be exaggerated since there is no evidence of housing facilities for so many animals, nor of facilities to provide them with sufficient meat every day.
Trapping of adult cheetahs, who had already learned hunting skills from wild mothers, for assisting in royal hunts is said to be another major cause of the species' rapid decline in India, as there is only one record of a litter ever born to captive animals. By the beginning of the 20th century, wild Asiatic cheetahs sightings were rare in India, so much so that between 1918 and 1945, Indian princes imported cheetahs from Africa for coursing. Three of India's last cheetahs were shot by the Maharajah of Surguja in 1948. A female was sighted in 1951 in Koriya district, northwestern Chhattisgarh.

Ecology and behaviour
Most sightings of cheetahs in the Miandasht Wildlife Refuge between January 2003 and March 2006 occurred during the day and near watercourses. These observations suggest that they are most active when their prey is.

Camera-trapping data obtained between 2009 and 2011 indicate that some cheetahs travel long distances. A female was recorded in two protected areas that are about  apart and intersected by railway and two highways. Her three male siblings and a different adult male were recorded in three reserves, indicating that they have large home ranges.

Diet

The Asiatic cheetah preys on medium-sized herbivores including chinkara, goitered gazelle, wild sheep, wild goat and cape hare. In Khar Turan National Park, cheetahs use a wide range of habitats, but prefer areas close to water sources. This habitat overlaps to 61% with wild sheep, 36% with onager, and 30% with gazelle.

In India, prey was formerly abundant. Before its extinction in the country, the cheetah fed on the blackbuck, the chinkara, and sometimes the chital and the nilgai.

Reproduction

Evidence of females successfully raising cubs is very rare. A few observations in Iran indicate that they give birth throughout the year to one to four cubs. In April 2003, four cubs found in a den had still closed eyes. In November 2004, a cub was recorded by a camera-trap that was about 6–8 months old. Breeding success depends on availability of prey.
In October 2013, a female with four cubs were filmed in Khar Turan National Park. In December 2014, four cheetahs were sighted and photographed by camera traps in the same national park. In January 2015, three other adult Asiatic cheetahs and a female with her cub were sighted in Miandasht Wildlife Refuge. Eleven cheetahs were also sighted at the time, and another four a month later. In July 2015, five adult cheetahs and three cubs were spotted in Khar Turan National Park.

Threats

The Asiatic cheetah has been listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List since 1996. Following the Iranian Revolution of 1979, wildlife conservation was interrupted for several years. Manoeuvres with armed vehicles were carried in steppes, and local people hunted cheetahs and prey species unchecked. The gazelle population declined in many areas, and cheetahs retreated to remote mountainous habitats.

Reduced gazelle numbers, persecution, land-use change, habitat degradation and fragmentation, and desertification contributed to the decline of the cheetah population. The cheetah is affected by loss of prey as a result of antelope hunting and overgrazing from introduced livestock. Its prey was pushed out as herders entered game reserves with their herds. A herder pursued a female cheetah with two cubs on his motorbike, until one of the cubs was so exhausted that it collapsed. He caught and kept it chained in his home for two weeks, until it was rescued by officers of the Iranian Department of Environment.

Mining development and road construction near reserves also threaten the population. Coal, copper, and iron have been mined in cheetah habitat in three different regions in central and eastern Iran. It is estimated that the two regions for coal (Nayband) and iron (Bafq) have the largest cheetah population outside protected areas. Mining itself is not a direct threat to the population; road construction and the resulting traffic have made the cheetah accessible to humans, including poachers. The Iranian border regions to Afghanistan and Pakistan, viz the Baluchistan Province, are major passages for armed outlaws and opium smugglers who are active in the central and western regions of Iran, and pass through cheetah habitat. Uncontrolled hunting throughout the desert cannot be effectively controlled by the governments of the three countries.

Conflict between livestock herders and cheetahs is also threatening the population outside protected areas. Several herders killed cheetahs to prevent livestock loss, or for trophies, trade and fun. Some herders are accompanied by large mastiff-type dogs into protected areas. These dogs killed five cheetahs between 2013 and 2016.

Between 2007 and 2011, six cheetahs, 13 predators and 12 Persian gazelles died in Yazd Province following collisions with vehicles on a transit road. At least 11 Asiatic cheetahs were killed in road accidents between 2001 and 2014. The road network in Iran constitutes a very high risk for the small population as it impedes connectivity between population units.
Efforts to stop the construction of a road through the core of the Bafq Protected Area were unsuccessful.
Between 1987 and 2018, 56 cheetahs died in Iran because of humans; 26 were killed by herders or their dogs.

Conservation

In September 2001, the project "Conservation of the Asiatic Cheetah and its Associated Biota" was launched by the Iranian Department of Environment in cooperation with the United Nations Development Programme's Global Environment Facility, the Wildlife Conservation Society, the IUCN Cat Specialist Group, the Cheetah Conservation Fund and the Iranian Cheetah Society.

Personnel of Wildlife Conservation Society and the Iranian Department of Environment started radio-collaring Asiatic cheetahs in February 2007. The cats' movements are monitored using GPS collars. Sanctions against Iran have made some projects, such as obtaining camera traps, difficult.

A few orphaned cubs have been raised in captivity, such as Marita who died at the age of nine years in 2003. Beginning in 2006, the day of his death, 31 August, became the Cheetah Conservation Day, used to inform the public about conservation programs.

In 2014, the Iran national football team announced that its 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2015 AFC Asian Cup kits are imprinted with pictures of the Asiatic cheetah in order to raise international awareness for its conservation. In February 2015, Iran launched a search engine, Yooz, that features a cheetah as logo. In May 2015, the Iranian Department of Environment announced plans to quintuple the penalty for poaching a cheetah to 100 million Iranian toman. In September 2015, Meraj Airlines introduced the new livery of Iranian Cheetah to support its conservation efforts.
Iranian officials have discussed constructing wildlife crossings to reduce the number of deaths in traffic accidents.

In captivity

In February 2010, photos of an Asiatic cheetah in a "Semi-Captive Breeding and Research Center of Iranian Cheetah" in Iran's Semnan province were published. Another news report stated that the centre is home to about ten Asiatic cheetahs in a semi-wild environment protected by wire fencing all around.

In January 2008, a male cub aged about 7–8 months was recovered from a sheep herder and brought into captivity. Wildlife officials in Miandasht Wildlife Refuge and the Turan National Park have raised a few orphaned cubs.

In 2014, an Asiatic cheetah was cloned for the first time by scientists from the University of Buenos Aires. The embryo was not born.
In December 2015, it was reported that 18 Asiatic cheetah cubs had recently been born at Pardisan Park.
In May 2022, an Asiatic cheetah gave birth to three male cubs in a facility in Iran; two died shortly after with Pirouz being the lone survivor. This is the first known reproduction of the subspecies in captivity. On 28 February 2023, Pirouz reportedly died in the veterinary hospital in Iran due to kidney failure.

See also

 Wildlife of Iran
 Northwest African cheetah
 American cheetahs (Miracinonyx)
 Giant cheetah (Eurasian cheetah)
 Cheetah Conservation Fund
 Pirouz (cheetah)

References

External links

The Persian Cheetah
Spotted big cat in Turkmenistan
Asiatic cheetah embryos cloned at Royan Institute

Asiatic cheetah
Felids of Asia
Fauna of South Asia
Fauna of West Asia
Fauna of Iran
Critically endangered fauna of Asia
Species endangered by habitat loss
Species endangered by habitat fragmentation
Asiatic cheetah
Asiatic cheetah

Asiatic cheetah