Master data management (MDM) is a technology-enabled discipline in which business and information technology work together to ensure the uniformity, accuracy, stewardship, semantic consistency and accountability of the enterprise's official shared master data assets.

Drivers for master data management
Organisations, or groups of organisations, may establish the need for master data management when they hold more than one copy of data about a business entity.  Holding more than one copy of this master data inherently means that there is an inefficiency in maintaining a "single version of the truth" across all copies. Unless people, processes and technology are in place to ensure that the data values are kept aligned across all copies, it is almost inevitable that different versions of information about a business entity will be held.  This causes inefficiencies in operational data use, and hinders the ability of organisations to report and analyze.  At a basic level, master data management seeks to ensure that an organization does not use multiple (potentially inconsistent) versions of the same master data in different parts of its operations, which can occur in large organizations.

Other problems include (for example) issues with the quality of data, consistent classification and identification of data, and data-reconciliation issues.  Master data management of disparate data systems requires data transformations as the data extracted from the disparate source data system is transformed and loaded into the master data management hub.  To synchronize the disparate source master data, the managed master data extracted from the master data management hub is again transformed and loaded into the disparate source data system as the master data is updated.  As with other Extract, Transform, Load-based data movement, these processes are expensive and inefficient to develop and to maintain which greatly reduces the return on investment for the master data management product.

There are a number of root causes for master data issues in organisations.  These include:

 Business unit and product line segmentation
 Mergers and acquisitions

Business unit and product line segmentation
As a result of business unit and product line segmentation, the same business entity (such as Customer, Supplier, Product) will be serviced by different product lines; redundant data will be entered about the business entity in order to process the transaction. The redundancy of business entity data is compounded in the front- to back-office life cycle, where the authoritative single source for the party, account and product data is needed but is often once again redundantly entered or augmented.

A typical example is the scenario of a bank at which a customer has taken out a mortgage and the bank begins to send mortgage solicitations to that customer, ignoring the fact that the person already has a mortgage account relationship with the bank. This happens because the customer information used by the marketing section within the bank lacks integration with the customer information used by the customer services section of the bank.  Thus the two groups remain unaware that an existing customer is also considered a sales lead. The process of record linkage is used to associate different records that correspond to the same entity, in this case the same person.

Mergers and acquisitions
One of the most common reasons some large corporations experience massive issues with master data management is growth through mergers or acquisitions.  Any organizations which merge will typically create an entity with duplicate master data (since each likely had at least one master database of its own prior to the merger).  Ideally, database administrators resolve this problem through deduplication of the master data as part of the merger. In practice, however, reconciling several master data systems can present difficulties because of the dependencies that existing applications have on the master databases.  As a result, more often than not the two systems do not fully merge, but remain separate, with a special reconciliation process defined that ensures consistency between the data stored in the two systems.  Over time, however, as further mergers and acquisitions occur, the problem multiplies, more and more master databases appear, and data-reconciliation processes become extremely complex, and consequently unmanageable and unreliable. Because of this trend, one can find organizations with 10, 15, or even as many as 100 separate, poorly integrated master databases, which can cause serious operational problems in the areas of customer satisfaction, operational efficiency, decision support, and regulatory compliance.

Another problem concerns determining the proper degree of detail and normalization to include in the master data schema. For example, in a federated HR environment, the enterprise may focus on storing people data as a current status, adding a few fields to identify date of hire, date of last promotion, etc. However this simplification can introduce business impacting errors into dependent systems for planning and forecasting. The stakeholders of such systems may be forced to build a parallel network of new interfaces to track onboarding of new hires, planned retirements, and divestment, which works against one of the aims of master data management.

People, process and technology
Master data management is enabled by technology, but is more than the technologies that enable it.  An organisation's master data management capability will include also people and process in its definition.

People
Several roles should be staffed within MDM. Most prominently the Data Owner and the Data Steward. Probably several people would be allocated to each role, each person responsible for a subset of Master Data (e.g. one data owner for employee master data, another for customer master data).

The Data Owner is responsible for the requirements for data quality, data security etc. as well as for compliance with data governance and data management procedures. The Data Owner should also be funding improvement projects  in case of deviations from the requirements.

The Data Steward is running the master data management on behalf of the data owner and probably also being an advisor to the Data Owner.

Process
Master data management can be viewed as a "discipline for specialized quality improvement" defined by the policies and procedures put in place by a data governance organization.  It has the objective of providing processes for collecting, aggregating, matching, consolidating, quality-assuring, persisting and distributing master data throughout an organization to ensure a common understanding, consistency, accuracy and control, in the ongoing maintenance and application use of that data.

Processes commonly seen in master data management include source identification, data collection, data transformation, normalization, rule administration, error detection and correction, data consolidation, data storage, data distribution, data classification, taxonomy services, item master creation, schema mapping, product codification, data enrichment, hierarchy management, business semantics management and data governance.

Technology
A master data management tool can be used to support master data management by removing duplicates, standardizing data (mass maintaining), and incorporating rules to eliminate incorrect data from entering the system in order to create an authoritative source of master data. Master data are the products, accounts and parties for which the business transactions are completed.

Where the technology approach produces a "golden record" or relies on a "source of record" or "system of record", it is common to talk of where the data is "mastered".  This is accepted terminology in the information technology industry, but care should be taken, both with specialists and with the wider stakeholder community, to avoid confusing the concept of "master data" with that of "mastering data".

Implementation models
There are a number of models for implementing a technology solution for master data management.  These depend on an organisation's core business, its corporate structure and its goals. These include:

 Source of record
 Registry
 Consolidation
 Coexistence
 Transaction/centralized

Source of record
This model identifies a single application, database or simpler source (e.g. a spreadsheet) as being the "source of record" (or "system of record" where solely application databases are relied on). The benefit of this model is its conceptual simplicity, but it may not fit with the realities of complex master data distribution in large organisations.

The source of record can be federated, for example by groups of attribute (so that different attributes of a master data entity may have different sources of record) or geographically (so that different parts of an organisation may have different master sources).  Federation is only applicable in certain use cases, where there is clear delineation of which subsets of records will be found in which sources.

The source of record model can be applied more widely than simply to master data, for example to reference data.

Transmission of master data
There are several ways in which master data may be collated and distributed to other systems. This include:

 Data consolidation – The process of capturing master data from multiple sources and integrating into a single hub (operational data store) for replication to other destination systems.
Data federation – The process of providing a single virtual view of master data from one or more sources to one or more destination systems.
 Data propagation – The process of copying master data from one system to another, typically through point-to-point interfaces in legacy systems.

Change management in implementation
Master data management can suffer in its adoption within a large organization if the "single version of the truth" concept is not affirmed by stakeholders, who believe that their local definition of the master data is necessary.  For example, the product hierarchy used to manage inventory may be entirely different from the product hierarchies used to support marketing efforts or pay sales reps.  It is above all necessary to identify if different master data is genuinely required.  If it is required, then the solution implemented (technology and process) must be able to allow multiple versions of the truth to exist, but will provide simple, transparent ways to reconcile the necessary differences. If it is not required, processes must be adjusted.  Without this active management, users that need the alternate versions will simply "go around" the official processes, thus reducing the effectiveness of the company's overall master data management program.

See also
 Business semantics management
 Customer data integration
 Data governance
 Data integration
 Data steward
 Data visualization
 Enterprise information integration
 Information management
 Linked data
 Master data
 Operational data store
 Product information management
Record linkage
 Reference data
 Semantic Web
 Single customer view
 Web data integration

References

External links
 Reprise: When is Master Data and MDM Not Master Data or MDM?

Business intelligence
Data management
Data warehousing
Information management

Master data management


The Abraham Lincoln Association (ALA) is an American association advancing studies on Abraham Lincoln and disseminating scholarship about Lincoln. The ALA was founded in 1908 to lead a national celebration of Lincoln's 100th birthday and continues to mark his birthday with an annual banquet and symposium. The ALA holds no archive of materials and instead functions primarily as a scholarly forum.  It remains "the nation's oldest and largest Lincoln organization."

History

The ALA was formed in 1908 as the Lincoln Centennial Association to help lead the national celebrations of Lincoln's one hundredth birthday. The ALA's founders included United States Supreme Court Chief Justice Melville Weston Fuller, financier John Whitfield Bunn, United States Federal Judge J. Otis Humphrey, Speaker of the House Joseph G. Cannon, Illinois Governor Charles S. Deneen, Vice President Adlai E. Stevenson, and Illinois Senator Shelby Cullom.

In 1925, under the leadership of ALA President Logan Hay, Paul M. Angle became the ALA's first executive secretary. Angle led an effort in 1929 to change the organization's name to the Abraham Lincoln Association and, together with Benjamin Thomas and Harry Pratt, established the association's research and publication programs.

Under the leadership of president George W. Bunn, the ALA launched the Abraham Lincoln Quarterly, a scholarly publication that would replace prior ALA publications, and a massive project to collect and transcribe all of Abraham Lincoln's known writings which eventually culminated in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler, Marion Dolores Pratt, and Lloyd A. Dunlap. It was published in 8 volumes (plus an index) between 1953 and 1955, with two supplemental volumes published in 1974 and 1990. The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln found critical success but strained the ALA financially. Throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s the ALA continued undertaking various commemoration projects and engaging in scholarship.

In early 1995, several acclaimed historians—including Harold Holzer and then-ALA president Frank J. Williams—left the ALA board of directors and formed their own scholarly group, the Lincoln Forum, following "policy disagreements, alleged conflicts of interest, strong personalities and claims from out-of-town historians that they had been refused access to Lincoln materials." In 2005, with the opening of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, scholars of both organizations came together to "mend damaged fences from what's been called a 'civil war' within the Lincoln academic community."

Governance
The ALA is governed by a board of directors made up of nationally renowned Lincoln scholars and philanthropists dedicated to the ALA's cause. The ALA's board of directors include:

 Kenneth L. Anderson
 William Bartelt
 Roger D. Billings Jr.
 Michael F. Bishop
 Roger D. Bridges
 Michael Burlingame
 Julie Cellini
 Joshua Claybourn
 James Cornelius
 Christopher DeRose
 Guy C. Fraker
 Joseph E. Garrera
 Donald R. Graham
 Allen C. Guelzo
 Kathryn M. Harris
 David Joens
 Ron J. Keller
 Michelle A. Krowl
 John Lupton
 David Leroy
 Sue Massie
 Dan Monroe
 James W. Patton III
 Tiffany A. Player
 Mark Pohlad
 Roger D. Rudich
 Scott T. Schroeder
 William G. Shepherd
 Ronald D. Spears
 Ruth E. Squillace
 Brian J. Steenbergen
 Robert A. Stuart Jr.
 James L. Swanson
 Louise Taper
 Daniel R. Weinberg
 Jonathan W. White
 Bob Willard
 Stephen M. Young

Publications

The ALA's semi-annual Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association is the only journal devoted exclusively to the history and legacies of Abraham Lincoln. Historian David Herbert Donald said "The Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association is the most important periodical in the field of Lincoln studies. As a Lincoln biographer, I rely on it heavily for both ideas and information." The ALA also publishes a quarterly newsletter, For the People. Most of the ALA's publications are available to the public on its website.

The ALA's crowning publication is The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler, Marion Dolores Pratt, and Lloyd A. Dunlap. It was published in 8 volumes (plus an index) between 1953 and 1955, with two supplemental volumes published in 1974 and 1990 and is now available online to the public at the association's website. Basler's Collected Works has become a standard resource for Lincoln and Civil War scholarship, but it suffers from limitations and omissions. Collected Works did not include incoming correspondence to Lincoln, which denies the reader important context. New technology and the development of documentary editing as a discipline allows for more faithful renditions of the texts. And in the nearly 60 years since the publication of Collected Works, many new Lincoln documents have been discovered, providing new opportunities for historical scholarship.

Events and programs

Banquet and symposium
The ALA hosts an annual banquet and symposium each year on Lincoln's birthday (February 12). Past speakers include Michael Beschloss (2008), Jon Meacham (2007 and 2022), and Doris Kearns Goodwin (2006). On February 12, 2009, President Barack Obama attended the ALA celebration as the guest of honor, giving a speech titled "What the People Need Done".

Awards
The ALA sponsors several awards, including the Spirit of Abraham Lincoln Award, the Logan Hay Medal, Lincoln the Lawyer Award, Hay-Nicolas Dissertation Prize Winner, and a Student Award.

The Hay-Nicolas Dissertation Prize recognizes and encourages young scholars who conduct research on Abraham Lincoln and his times. It is awarded each year by the ALA and Abraham Lincoln Institute to recognize the best dissertation dealing with Lincoln and his legacy. The ALA and Abraham Lincoln Institute select the recipients.

References

External links

Abraham Lincoln Association Serials
Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association (JALA)

Abraham Lincoln
1908 establishments in the United States
Historians of Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln Association


The femoral neck (femur neck or neck of the femur) is a flattened pyramidal process of bone, connecting the femoral head with the femoral shaft, and forming with the latter a wide angle opening medialward.

Structure
The neck is flattened from before backward, contracted in the middle, and broader laterally than medially.

The vertical diameter of the lateral half is increased by the obliquity of the lower edge, which slopes downward to join the body at the level of the lesser trochanter, so that it measures one-third more than the antero-posterior diameter.

The medial half is smaller and of a more circular shape.

The anterior surface of the neck is perforated by numerous vascular foramina.

Along the upper part of the line of junction of the anterior surface with the head is a shallow groove, best marked in elderly subjects; this groove lodges the orbicular fibers of the capsule of the hip joint.

The posterior surface is smooth, and is broader and more concave than the anterior: the posterior part of the capsule of the hip-joint is attached to it about 1 cm above the intertrochanteric crest.

The superior border is short and thick, and ends laterally at the greater trochanter; its surface is perforated by large foramina.

The inferior border, long and narrow, curves a little backward, to end at the lesser trochanter.

Angle of inclination
The angle is widest in infancy, and becomes lessened during growth, so that at puberty it forms a gentle curve from the axis of the body of the bone. In the adult, the neck forms an angle of about 125° with the body, but this varies in inverse proportion to the development of the pelvis and the stature. The angle decreases during the period of growth, but after full growth has been attained it does not usually undergo any change, even in old age; it varies considerably in different persons of the same age. Coxa vara is a deformity of the hip, whereby the angle between the head and the shaft of the femur is reduced to less than 120 degrees. Its opposite is coxa valga.

In the female, in consequence of the increased width of the pelvis, the neck of the femur forms more nearly a right angle with the body than it does in the male.

It is smaller in short than in long bones, and when the pelvis is wide.

In addition to projecting upward and medialward from the body of the femur, the neck also projects somewhat forward; the amount of this forward projection is extremely variable, but on an average is from 12° to 14°.

Fracture

A fracture of the femoral neck is classified as a type of hip fracture. It is often due to osteoporosis; in the vast majority of cases, a hip fracture is a fragility fracture due to a fall or minor trauma in someone with weakened osteoporotic bone. Most hip fractures in people with normal bone are the result of high-energy trauma such as car accidents, falling from heights, or sports injuries.

For low-grade fractures (Garden types 1 and 2), standard treatment is fixation of the fracture in situ with screws or a sliding screw/plate device. In elderly patients with displaced or intracapsular fractures many surgeons prefer to undertake a hemiarthroplasty, replacing the broken part of the bone with a metal implant. In elderly patients who are medically well and still active, a total hip replacement may be indicated.

Additional images

References

External links

Bones of the lower limb
Femur

Femoral neck


Pelecanus schreiberi is a fossil pelican described by Storrs Olson from Early Pliocene (5.3 to 3.6 million year old) deposits in the Yorktown Formation of North Carolina. It was a large species with distinctive features suggesting that it represents an extinct lineage with no living descendants.   The specific epithet commemorates Ralph W. Schreiber (1942–1988), a former curator of birds at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and an authority on pelicans.

Collected in 1972 by one Gerard R. Case from a mine on the southern side of the Pamlico River near Aurora, North Carolina, the holotype is a right lower third of a femur of an egg-laying female. The denseness of the medullary bone indicated this last fact as it is a feature of living egg-laying female pelicans. The features of the femur allowed it to be classified as a pelican, but quite different from living species. Some foot bones (phalanges) have also been found. An incomplete quadrate bone and axis vertebra without a spine from a mine of the same age in Polk County in central Florida are tentatively considered to be the same species. These remains are from the Bone Valley Formation, of nearly the same age as the Yorktown Formation.

The female is around the same size as the largest individual great white pelicans (Pelecanus onocrotalus) or Dalmatian pelicans (P. crispus), so a male could have been even larger – possibly the largest living or fossil pelican recorded, rivalled only by subfossil remains of a New Zealand pelican that has been described as a subspecies of the Australian pelican (P. conspicillatus) and a mysterious late Miocene species Pelecanus odessanus from Ukraine.

References

Pelecanus
Pliocene birds
Fossil taxa described in 1999
Pliocene birds of North America

Pelecanus schreiberi


Claudio Cantelli, Jr. (born May 20, 1989 in Guarapuava) is a professional racing driver from Brazil.

Career

Formula Renault 2.0
After an early career in karting, in which he became a national champion, Cantelli made his single-seater debut in 2006 in the Brazilian Formula Renault 2.0 series. Driving for Dragão Motorsport and Cesário F.Renault, he took two podium places and three fastest laps to finish ninth in the standings.

During the same year, he also contested six races of the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 championship with Graff Racing, scoring a single point to be classified in 29th position. At the end of the season, Cantelli took part in the four-race British Formula Renault 2.0 Winter Series, held at Brands Hatch and Croft. Racing for the Position 1 team, he finished the championship in eleventh place.

International Formula Master
In 2007, Cantelli took part in the inaugural International Formula Master championship, which acted as a support series to the World Touring Car Championship. He scored a single point in the second race at Pau to end the season in 28th place.

Formula Renault 3.5 Series
In March 2008, Cantelli joined the new Ultimate Signature team to contest the Formula Renault 3.5 Series. He took part in the first five races of the season with the team, but was replaced by Esteban Guerrieri after the Monaco round. After missing the following event at Silverstone, Cantelli returned to the series at the Hungaroring, replacing Aleix Alcaraz at Italian team RC Motorsport. He finished in the points on one occasion, at the Nürburgring, to claim 28th place in the final standings.

Formula Three
After taking part in FR3.5 winter testing, Cantelli returned to South America in 2009 to compete in the South American Formula 3 Championship. Driving for Bassan Motorsport, he took three race victories and a further three podium places to finish as runner-up behind series champion Leonardo Cordeiro.

Racing record

Career summary

Complete Formula Renault 3.5 Series results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

References

External links

1989 births
Living people
Brazilian people of Italian descent
Brazilian racing drivers
Formula 3 Sudamericana drivers
Formula Renault Eurocup drivers
British Formula Renault 2.0 drivers
Brazilian Formula Renault 2.0 drivers
International Formula Master drivers
World Series Formula V8 3.5 drivers
RC Motorsport drivers
JD Motorsport drivers
Graff Racing drivers
Signature Team drivers
Jenzer Motorsport drivers
People from Guarapuava

Claudio Cantelli


Approximately 180-220 million young people live with disabilities globally, with 80% living in the developing world, therefore lacking access to education, healthcare and employment [1]. Disability includes physical, mental or mental illness. Many young people live a healthy and stable life, although people with disabilities may have more obstacles than those without because of their possible limitations, created by physical weakness and social incapacity..

Disability and education

Legal regulations in the United States
Before the 1970s, there were no major federal laws that protected the civil or constitutional rights of Americans with disabilities. The civil rights movement started off the "disability rights movement", which focused on social and therapeutic services for those with disabilities, and in 1975 the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was created. This law establishes the rights of children with disabilities to attend public schools, to receive services designed to meet their needs free of charge, and to receive instruction in regular education classrooms alongside non-disabled children.

The IDEA also authorized federal grants to states to cover some of the costs of special education services for youth aged three to twenty-one. Additions to the law focused on improving access to general education and curriculum (inclusion programs), developing appropriate assessments, implementing appropriate disciplinary procedures and alternative placements, and creating transition services for youth leaving the education system. This transition can be difficult for youth with a disability if it is too sudden- many of these youth struggle with the independence that graduation allows. In 2004, additions were made to promote better accountability for results, enhance parent involvement, encourage the use of proven practices and materials (increase research on current practices), and reduce administrative burdens for teachers, states and local school districts. Before 1975, only one in five children with identified disabilities attended public school, and many states explicitly excluded children with certain types of disabilities from school; these included children who were blind or deaf, and children labeled "emotionally disturbed" or "mentally retarded".

Current special education system
The current special education system can offer many different supports and services including transportation, speech-language pathology and audiology services, psychological services, physical and occupational therapy, therapeutic recreation, counseling services including rehabilitation counseling, orientation, and mobility services, medical services for diagnostic or evaluation purposes, school health services, social work services in school, and parent counseling and training children. Each unique student and their unique symptoms of their disability is going to require different supports from another youth with a disability (even if it is the same disability). Within the classroom, there are many different ways that teachers and administration can adjust their work to meet the needs of the youth in their classroom with disabilities. Just a few of these adaptations are curriculum modification, small-group or individual instruction, and teachers who are especially skilled in motivating students, adapting instructional materials, teaching reading skills and language arts, and managing student behaviors. Specific accommodations might include tutors or aides, more time for students to take tests, alternative tests or assessments, modified grading standards, slower-paced instruction, shorter or different assignments, more frequent feedback, a reader or interpreter, a peer tutor, or special behavior management approaches and programs.

Challenges and hardships

Family effects

Being a youth with a disability can create a financial burden on the individual, as well as to those who provide care and support. Their families also incur extra direct and indirect costs. Families with disabled youth spend money on health care, therapeutic, behavioral, or educational services; transportation; caregivers; and other special needs services. Indirect costs include reductions in parents' ability to work because of additional time that is required to care for a child with a disability combined with high costs or unavailability of adequate child care. This is a similar problem to one that many families face, but disabled youth may live at home longer or require more attention. These costs alone can decrease the financial stability of a family.  Having a child with disabilities increases the likelihood that the mother (or less often the father) will either curtail hours of work or stop working altogether.  One study showed that a decline in employment of 9% for mothers with a disabled child relative to all mothers, with a resultant estimate of approximately $3,150 in lost pay. In addition, mothers who continue to work are estimated to reduce time worked by around two hours a week, with a range of between half an hour and five hours a week.

Families with more resources may be able to maintain financial stability, even with the financial strain of having a youth with a disability. These resources may provide treatment, affordable housing, therapy, etc. for a youth with special needs. As a conclusion from the research listed above, these children are more likely to be able to function independently from their family, and live on their own at an earlier age, than those from families that may not be able to afford these extra resources.

Poverty
Eighty percent of people with disabilities live in resource-poor societies. They are often considered to be a burden, and carry a very negative social stigma. Many are unable to contribute to society, attend school, or find work.

Disabled youth in the justice system

In the justice system, youth are disproportionately male, poor and have significant learning or behavioral disabilities to the extent that they require services listed under the IDEA. There are 1345,000 youth incarcerated in the U.S. system, and 30%-70% of these individuals are youth with disabilities.
Psychiatric disorders occur more often among prisoners than among those outside of prison. Such illnesses relate to at least some of the difficulties former inmates experience after they are released. Those who were diagnosed with a mental disability may have a harder time readjusting to life outside of prison after being released; this often consists of repetition of crime, or difficulty maintaining independent stability financially or emotionally.

See also

 Accessibility
 Disability
 Index of youth articles
 List of disability rights organizations
 Special Olympics

References

Disability
Youth
Disability
Adolescent medicine

Youth and disability


Kizito Maria Kasule (born 1967) is a Ugandan artist and entrepreneur. His work has been shown throughout East Africa, Belgium, Austria, Germany, Australia, and France, as well as in Denmark and Norway. He has been a lecturer at Makerere University since 1992.

Kasule opened the Nagenda International Academy of Art and Design (NIAAD), a school of higher education in art, in 2006.

Early life
Kizito Maria was born on 1967 a rural village in Uganda. He was the youngest among 12 brothers and sisters. His parents owned a small family-run coffee plantation. At the age of 11 his father demanded that his son quit school and work in the family plantation instead. The young Kizito refused to quit his studies and in return was forced by his father to leave his home. The next few months Kizito lived as a street child, knocking on random doors and offering to work in return for food and shelter. Eventually he was picked by a local man and allowed to reside with him. The next couple of years Kizito spent studding in the morning and working in several coffee plantations at the afternoon in order to pay for his tuition and keep.

In 1987 a civil war broke out in the north of Uganda. Two years later, at the age of 16, Kizito was arrested and sent to a military camp. He labored as a grave digger for fellow prisoners who were executed. One day, after finishing digging several graves, he and his cellmates were ordered to stand at the edge of the graves in front of a firing squad. The soldiers then started executing the prisoners one-by-one, sparing only Kizito's life due to the acquaintance between his dad and one of the camp's officers, who allowed Kizito's escape. He then escaped Uganda with a fake ID. He returned three years later and attended Makerere University in Kampala. In 1992 Kizito graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art.

Career
In 1994 he held his first solo exhibition, which received positive reviews.

In 2003 Kizito completed his PhD in art history from Makerere University and won a scholarship to Burren College of Art in Ireland.

Kizito Maria is also a philanthropist and community activist. His main community project is the art college of NIAAD which educates teens and other young Ugandans. In 2009 NIAAD joined with the Israeli non-profit organization Brit Olam to create the "Muse Uganda" project. The project houses and educates disadvantaged youth from Uganda and enables them to join the NIAAD academy as regular students at a subsidized price.

Kizito Maria Kasule is currently Dean of Fine arts at Maragret Trowell School of Art and design at Makerere university, Kampala, Uganda.

Exhibitions

Selected solo exhibitions
2014    Kunst Rett Vest, Asker and Galleri Stilart, Gran, Norway

2011    Makerere University Gallery, Kampala, Uganda

2009    Makerere University Gallery, Kampala, Uganda

2008    La Fontaine Gallery, Kampala, Uganda

2006    Sakaraga Gallery, New York, USA

2004    Windhoek College of Art, Windhoek, Namibia

2000    National Museum of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya

2000    Paris Gallery, New York, US

1998    German Cultural Centre, Kampala, Uganda

1998    Tulifanya Gallery, Kampala, Uganda

Selected group exhibitions
2014    Dronninglund Kunstcenter, Denmark

2012    Diani Art Gallery, Mombasa, Kenya

2008    Kultur Stationen, Skørping, Denmark

2005    Burren College of Art Gallery, Ballyvaughan, Ireland

1999    University of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia

1995    Modern ART, Uganda Austria collaboration, Kampala, Uganda

1995    Art
Space Gallery, Johannesburg, South-Africa

1994    Nommo Gallery, Kampala, Uganda

1994    Art Africa Exhibition 7th pan African Congress, Kampala, Uganda

References

3. www.kizitomariakasule.com

Ugandan painters
Living people
1969 births
Academic staff of Makerere University
20th-century painters
21st-century painters

Kizito Maria Kasule


Rockdale is an extinct town in the northwest United States, in King County, Washington. The GNIS classifies it as a populated place.

A post office called "Rockdale" was established  in 1912, and remained in operation until 1915. The community in the Cascade Range was named for the abundance of rock near the original town site. Just south of Snoqualmie Pass, it was at the west portal of the Snoqualmie Tunnel, constructed by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (The Milwaukee Road) from 1912 to 1914.

The elevation is approximately  above sea level; it is south of and about  above the eastbound lanes of Interstate 90, formerly U.S. Route 10.

The tunnel and right-of-way is now a rail trail, part of Iron Horse State Park.

References

Ghost towns in King County, Washington
Ghost towns in Washington (state)
Geography of King County, Washington

Rockdale, Washington


Edina Realty Home Services, based in Edina, Minnesota, is a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate and a wholly owned subsidiary of HomeServices of America, Inc. Edina Realty is the largest real estate company in Minnesota by sales volume and transaction sides. In 2016, the company conducted over 33,000 real estate transactions and $8.7 billion in sales volume.

Edina Realty has more than 75 real estate offices and 2,500 realtors operating in Minnesota and western Wisconsin. Edina Realty Home Services includes Edina Realty, Edina Realty Title, Edina Realty Mortgage and Edina Realty Relocation.

Background
Edina Realty was established in 1955 by Emma Rovick.  The company's first real estate office was located at 50th and France Avenue in Edina, Minnesota.

The firm has acquired several real estate firms. During 2007 and 2008, Edina Realty acquired 17 real estate firms throughout the Midwest.

Leadership
Greg Mason, President and CEO, Edina Realty Home Services

Sharry Schmid, President, Edina Realty

Joe Brown, President, Edina Realty Mortgage

Brad Fisher, President, Edina Realty Title

Other company affiliates
Edina Realty Mortgage – Wholly owned subsidiary of HomeServices Lending and HomeServices of America, Inc., a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate. Founded in 1983, Edina Realty Mortgage is an Equal Housing Lender. NMLSR ID 490683.

Edina Realty Title – 19 closing centers in Minnesota and western Wisconsin.

Edina Realty Insurance – Wholly owned comprehensive insurance provider for home, car and other belongings.

Edina Realty Foundation – A non-profit, private foundation supported through donated funds and volunteer time by Edina Realty sales associates, employees and Edina Realty Home Services. The foundation offers financial support to nonprofit organizations that work with the homeless or toward homelessness prevention. Since its inception in 1996, the Foundation has raised $9 million.

References

External links
 Edina Realty Website
 Edina Realty Fact Sheet

Companies based in Edina, Minnesota
Real estate companies established in 1955
Real estate services companies of the United States
Berkshire Hathaway

Edina Realty


Spectrum FM is an English language radio station in parts of southern Spain. It broadcasts to the Costa del Sol, Costa Blanca, Costa Almeria, Costa Calida, Costa Blanca, Tenerife, Mallorca, Canary Islands and the cities of Benidorm, Marbella, Murcia, Málaga, Algeciras and Alicante.

Programmes
A mix of 1980s, 1990s and current chart music for an English-speaking audience. Over the years, presenters have included Mark Goodier, John Morgan, Graham Torrington and Mark Dennison. Spectrum FM offers local, national and international news and cultural information to help foreign residents and visitors to integrate more easily into Spanish life.

References

External links
Spectrum FM official website

Radio stations in Spain

Spectrum FM


Betsy Mix Cowles (February 9, 1810 – July 25, 1876) was an early leader in the United States abolitionist movement. She was an active and influential Ohio-based reformer, and was a noted feminist and an educator. She counted among her friends and acquaintances people such as Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Henry C. Wright, and Abby Kelley Foster.

Early life

She was born in Bristol, Connecticut, the eighth child of Giles Hooker Cowles and Sally White Cowles. Cowles did not marry and supported herself as a teacher and school system administrator in Ashtabula County, Ohio, where Cowles and her family settled.

Edwin Cowles, publisher of the Cleveland Leader in Cleveland, Ohio, and Alfred Cowles, Sr. who owned one third of the Chicago Tribune, were sons of her brother Edwin Weed Cowles and Almira Mills Foote.

Accomplishments

Betsey Mix Cowles is known for her contributions to education, abolitionism, and women's rights in Ohio. As early as the late 1820s and early 1830s, she and her sister began opening infant schools in northeastern Ohio. Infant schools were a predecessor to kindergartens. After obtaining a degree from Oberlin College in 1840s, Cowles began a formal career as a teacher. She taught at a number of grammar schools, in addition to serving as a principal and evidentially as superintendent of the Painesville, Ohio, school system. It was very unusual to see women superintendents in the mid-19th century.

Even before she began teaching, Cowles was very interested in abolitionism. She became actively involved in a number of abolitionist organizations, often serving in leadership positions. Beginning in 1835, Cowles served as the secretary of the Ashtabula Female Anti-Slavery Society, one of the larger such organizations in the state with more than four hundred members. She began giving public speeches about abolitionism, gaining a reputation for her ability to articulate the importance of the anti-slavery cause. Even former slave and prominent abolitionist Frederick Douglass respected her abilities. In addition to her interests in the state of Ohio, Cowles was becoming prominent at the national level as well. Not everyone approved of her popularity, however. Many people believed that women should not speak in public, and Cowles's speeches left her open to criticism. In spite of this concern, she continued to actively participate in the anti-slavery movement.

In addition to working for the end of slavery in the United States, Cowles was very critical of what she viewed as the hypocrisy of many Ohioans. While they were willing to criticize slavery, many did not want to give free blacks rights in Ohio. Cowles spoke out against the Jim Crow Laws, which kept African Americans from voting in the state. At one point, she even quit a job when the school she was working at refused to admit black students.

Like many women who participated in the abolitionist cause, Cowles became interested in women's rights as well. In 1850, Ohio's first women's rights convention, the Ohio Women's Convention, met in Salem, Ohio. The attendees elected Cowles as president of the convention. Delegates knew that later in the year the state of Ohio was planning to convene a new constitutional convention, and the women wanted to have input into what rights women would be granted within the new Constitution of 1851. Cowles's election as convention president reflected her prominence and the amount of respect she had earned by this time.

In the late 1850s, Cowles's attention turned to higher education for women teachers. After briefly teaching at the McNeely Normal School in Hopedale, Ohio, she began teaching at the Illinois State Normal School in 1857.

On March 22, 2003, Cowles's former home in Austinburg, Ohio (currently owned by descendant Margaret Cowles Ticknor) was dedicated by the Ohio Historical Society as a known underground railroad station.

Chronology of her life

1811 Cowles family settles in Austinburg, Ohio.
1827-32 (approximately) Betsy began teaching in area schools and in southeastern New York.
1830 Death of her mother, Sally White Cowles.
1832 Studied infant school in New York City.
1832-33 Conducted an infant school in Kinsman, Ohio.
1834 Secretary of the Young Ladies' Society for Intellectual Improvement in Austinburg.
1835 Death of her father, Giles Hooker Cowles.
1835 Principal leader of antislavery in Ashtabula County; organizer and secretary of the Ashtabula County Female Anti-Slavery Society.
1838-40 One of the first students of the Ladies' course at Oberlin College; member of third female graduating class.
1840-43 Taught in Portsmouth, Ohio.
1843-48 Preceptress of female department of Grand River Institute in Austinburg.
1845 Became a Garrisonian Abolitionist through influence of Abby Kelley Foster.
1846-47 Conducted antislavery fairs in Ohio; attended antislavery fairs and meetings in Boston.
1848 May have attended Woman's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York.
1848 Teacher and principal of female department of grammar school in Massillon, Ohio.
1850-55 Superintendent of girls' grammar school and girls' high school in Canton, Ohio.
1850 Presiding officer of first Woman's Rights Convention in Ohio at Salem, Ohio.
1851 Attended Akron Woman's Rights Convention and gave report on "Labor and Wages."
1852 Member of executive committee of newly formed Ohio Woman's Rights Association.
1856-58 Supervisor of practice teachers and model school at the McNeely Normal School in Hopedale, Ohio.
1858 Instructor, Illinois State Normal University at Bloomington.
1858-60 Superintendent of schools in Painesville, Ohio.
1860-62 Taught in Delhi, New York.
1862 Retired to Austinburg, Ohio, because of eye trouble.
1865 Lost sight of one eye.
1869 Death of her sister Cornelia Cowles.
1876, July 25 Death of Betsy Mix Cowles.

Notes

External links

 "Betsy Mix Cowles at Ohio History Central"
 "Betsy Mix Cowles at Kent State Library"
 "Betsy Mix Cowles at Oberlin College"

People from Austinburg, Ohio
1810 births
1876 deaths
Oberlin College alumni
Feminism and history
Underground Railroad people
Activists from Ohio
People from Bristol, Connecticut
Women civil rights activists

Betsy Mix Cowles


The Sid Ahmed el Maghrun concentration camp was an Italian concentration camp established in El Magrun (also known as Sid Ahmed el Maghrun) in the Italian colony of Libya during the Pacification of Libya that occurred from 1928 to 1932. The camp is recorded as having a population of 13,050 people.

See also
 Italian concentration camps
 Italian concentration camps in Libya
 Italian Libya
 Pacification of Libya

References

Italian concentration camps
Italian Libya

Sid Ahmed el Maghrun concentration camp


The Watchfulness Committee of Antifascist Intellectuals (Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes, CVIA) was a French political organization created in March 1934, in the wake of the February 6, 1934 riots organized by far right leagues, which had led to the fall of the second Cartel des gauches (Left-Wing Coalition) government. Founded by Pierre Gérôme, philosopher Alain, physicist Paul Langevin and ethnologist Paul Rivet, it edited a newsletter, Vigilance, and boasted more than 6,000 members at the end of 1934. The CVIA had an important role in the unification of the three left-wing families (Radical-Socialist Party, French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO, socialist party) and Communist Party) which led to the Popular Front in 1936. It divided itself however on the attitude to adopt toward Nazi Germany: while most members opposed the appeasement policy which led to the November 1938 Munich Agreement, some upheld pacifism over all.

Foundation of the CVIA

The Committee was founded in March 1934 under the initiative of Pierre Gérôme (pseudonym of François Walter, who worked doing audits at the Cour des Comptes). Pierre Gérôme had first contacted the CGT trade union, in particular André Delmas and Georges Lapierre, who directed the Syndicat national des instituteurs (SNI), a teachers' trade union affiliated to the CGT. Three important personalities took part in the Antifascist Committee's foundation: Paul Rivet, a socialist ethnologist, philosopher Alain, often considered as the thinker of the Radical-Socialist Party (although his anti-militarism and resistance toward all powers might lead him to be categorized as an anarchist or libertarian thinker), and physicist Paul Langevin, close to the communist party (PCF).

The founding text of the CVIA, a manifest titled Aux travailleurs (To Labor, March 5, 1934), had an immediate success. In a few weeks, the Committee boasted 2,300 members, and at the end of 1934, more than 6,000 members (teachers, writers, journalists, etc.) Gathering the three left-wing families (Radical-Socialist, SFIO and Communist Party), the Committee retrospectively appears as a precursor to the Popular Front (1936–38) led by Léon Blum.

Antifascism and pacifism: divisions among the Committee

The Committee was torn apart as soon as 1936, dividing itself on the issue of pacifism and the appeasement policy towards Adolf Hitler. Supporters of a firm attitude toward Hitler left the CVIA in two successive moments: first at the June 1936 Congress, with Paul Langevin's departure from the CVIA's head; and after the November 1938 Munich Agreement between Germany, France and the UK. In this last occasion, France divided itself into Munichois (partisans of the accords and of the appeasement policy) and Anti-Munichois, opposed the accords — this division line did not follow the left/right wing separation, with members from each side supporting both options. Whilst head of the government Édouard Daladier was acclaimed at his return from Munich, the realist pacifist tendency of the CVIA, represented by Paul Rivet and Pierre Gérôme, left the Committee at this occasion, thus leaving only the most radical pacifists in the Committee (Alexandre, Léon Emery). A few of the most radical pacifists would go as far as collaborating with the German troops in the hope of a reestablishment of the Republic (replaced after the 1940 Battle of France by the reactionary "French State" led by Marshall Pétain). These pacifists would gather themselves into the Ligue de la pensée française (French Thought League).

Despite these divisions, the Comité de vigilance, as it was popularly known, remained an important moment of the history of antifascism and of the left-wing in France. It had an important role in unifying the various perspectives from the parties that composed the Popular Front (Radical-Socialist Party, SFIO and PCF), and it created a lasting antifascism political tradition, which doubtlessly had its shares in the creation of the French Resistance. Paul Rivet, for example, would be a member of the Resistant Groupe du musée de l'Homme (musée de l'Homme group).

Members of the CVIA

Founders
Pierre Gérôme (pseudonym of François Walter)
Paul Rivet (socialist ethnologist)
Alain (philosopher)
Paul Langevin (communist physicist)
André Delmas (SNI, CGT)
Georges Lapierre (SNI, CGT)

Other members
Michel Alexandre and Jeanne Alexandre (close to philosopher Alain)..
Jean Baby
Victor Basch
Marcel Bataillon
Albert Bayet
Henri Bouche (aeronautics specialist and author of "Non! La Guerre n'est pas Fatale!")
André Chamson
Georges Canguilhem
Francis Delaisi (socialist journalist and economist, member of the Human Rights League (LDH), of the CVIA; collaborated during the Occupation).
Jean Guéhenno
René Iché
Jules Isaac (historian, author of the famous school-manual Malet-Isaac).
Frédéric Joliot-Curie
Paul Nizan
André Malraux
René Gosse (SFIO, for a short time PCF, dean of the faculty of sciences in Grenoble, resistant killed in 1943).
Roger Hagnauer (educator, PCF, CGT-FO).
Jean Lescure (secretary of Jean Giono, worked at the radio and in theaters, including resistant activities during Vichy).
  Marcel Lefrancq (Belgian Communist Party)
Simone Weil (social critic, philosopher, mystic)

See also
 Alianza de Intelectuales Antifascistas
 No pasarán
Antifascism
History of the Left in France

References

Bibliography
 Nicole Racine-Furlaud, "Pacifistes et antifascistes. Le Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes" in Des années trente. Groupes et ruptures, textes réunis par Anne Roche et Christian Tarting, Paris, Editions du CNRS, 1985.
 Nicole Racine, "Le Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes" in Dictionnaire historique de la vie politique française, sous la direction de J-F Sirinelli, PUF, 1995.

External links
 Univ-Paris 1 and

Political movements
Contemporary French history
French Third Republic
Anti-fascist organizations
Left-wing advocacy groups in France
Organizations established in 1934
1934 establishments in France
1939 disestablishments in France


Queen Esther whose name was originally Hadassah is a woman from the Book of Esther. She was the cousin and ward of Mordechai and was married to Ahaseurus. Mordechai warned her to keep the fact she was a Jew a secret and she did until she found out from Mordechai about Haman's plan to kill all Jews so she told Ahaseurus the truth about her religion to try to stop Haman.

Old Testament people

Queen Esther


The All-Union Science Production Association Biopreparat (, lit: "biological preparation") was the Soviet agency created in April 1974, which spearheaded the largest and most sophisticated offensive biological warfare programme the world has ever seen. It was a vast, ostensibly civilian, network employing 30–40,000 personnel and incorporating five major military-focused research institutes, numerous design and instrument-making facilities, three pilot plants and five dual-use production plants. The network pursued major offensive research and development programmes which genetically engineered microbial strains to be resistant to an array of antibiotics. In addition, bacterial agents were created with the ability to produce various peptides, yielding strains with wholly new and unexpected pathogenic properties.

History

Origins
The origins of the Biopreparat network are closely connected with the creation in the 1950s by the USSR, under the leadership of Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, of biological warfare mobilisation facilities hidden within newly built civil production plants. The construction of the first major dual-use plant, the Berdsk Chemical Factory, located 26 km south of Novosibirsk, began in 1957 in response to a decree by the USSR Council of Ministers on the development of the Soviet chemical and microbiological industry. A second dual-use facility, the Omutninsk Chemical Factory, located in Vostochnyi, 150 km north-east of Kirov, was created in accordance with a decree issued on the 2 August 1958 by the CPSU and the Council of Ministers. The idea behind the new plants was that in the event of wartime emergency they could switch from the output of civil microbiological products to the production of military biological agents. Both the Berdsk and the Omutninsk facilities were transferred to Biopreparat upon its creation in 1974.

Another key institution which Biopreparat was to draw heavily upon for the recruitment of scientific personnel with knowledge of biological weapons was the Scientific-Research Technical Bureau (Nauchno-issledovatel'skoe tekhnicheskoe byuro or NITB). It was created in August 1958 under the USSR Ministry of Defence's Fifteenth Administration, which at this time managed the Soviet Union's BW programme. NITB had the task of developing technology for use in the creation of dual-use pharmaceutical and microbiological enterprises. It also had the responsibility of maintaining the military components of the Soviet dual-use facilities in a constant state of readiness. Most of the key staff members at NITB were transferred to Biopreparat in 1974.

Establishment
On the 24 April 1974, the USSR's Main Administration of the Microbiological Industry (Glavmikrobioprom) issued Order 131 DSP which created the All-Union Science Production Association Biopreparat. On the 26 June 1974, a number of the Soviet Union's existing dual-use BW facilities were transferred to the new agency. These included the Berdsk Chemical Factory and the Omutninsk Chemical Factory. The Biopreparat project was reportedly initiated by academician Yuri Anatol'evich Ovchinnikov, who convinced General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev that development of biological weapons was necessary. The research at Biopreparat constituted a violation of the terms of the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972, which outlawed biological weapons.

Exposure in the West
Biopreparat's research and development (R&D) programmes were from the very outset subject to extraordinary levels of secrecy and compartmentalization. The first significant intelligence reaching the West regarding the nature and extent of this Soviet covert BW effort resulted from the defection to the UK in October 1989 of a high-level Biopreparat scientist, Vladimir Artemovich Pasechnik (1937–2001). The latter was able to provide a detailed account of the vast scope of Moscow's clandestine program. As a result of Pasechnik's testimony, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and US President George H. W. Bush were able to apply pressure on Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to open up Russia's germ warfare facilities to a team of outside inspectors. When the inspectors toured four of the sites in 1991, they were met with denials and evasions. Production tanks, the purpose of which seemed to be to manufacture large quantities of hazardous materials, were clean and sterile when presented to inspectors. Laboratories had been stripped of equipment before being presented to inspectors.

Pasechnik's revelations that the program was much greater in scope than previously suspected were confirmed in 1992 with the travel to the United States of Colonel Kanatzhan Baizakovich Alibekov (b. 1950). The latter, who subsequently adopted the name of Ken Alibek, had served as First Deputy Director of Biopreparat from 1988 to 1992.  Alibekov later wrote the book Biohazard (1999) detailing publicly his extensive inside knowledge of the structure, goals, operations and achievements of Biopreparat. He was also featured in the October 13, 1998 episode of Frontline entitled "Plague War".

Changing role of Biopreparat, 1985 - present
Biopreparat had three distinct, and, at times overlapping, phases of its existence. From its origins in April 1974 through to the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991, and indeed for some undetermined time thereafter, it was engaged in a major offensive BW research programme. It also maintained five dual-use manufacturing plants. In March 1985, with the election by the Politboro of Mikhail Gorbachev as General Secretary of the CPSU, Biopreparat increased in size and political importance and began to emerge also as a major player with regard to the civil biopharmaceutical sector. By 1988, in this second phase, the Biopreparat network incorporated no less than 40 facilities, operating in 15 different cities and had control of domestic production of vaccines, antibiotics and other essential medicines. It was precisely at this moment that Alibekov emerged as a key interlocutor between Biopreparat and a number of Western pharmaceutical companies. In the third and final phase  during the 2000s, Biopreparat was divested of control of nearly all R&D institutes and manufacturing facilities. Henceforward, it assumed a highly diminished role, focused on export control and other matters and only maintained a small headquarters staff.

Operations
Biopreparat was a system of nominally civilian, research and design institutes, pilot plants and dual-use manufacturing facilities located mainly at sites in European Russia, in which a small army of scientists and technicians worked on bacterial and viral pathogens with a view to developing a new generation of biological weapons. It incorporated capacity with the potential to produce weaponized anthrax in the Soviet Union and was a leader in the development of new bioweapons technologies.

Facilities
The project incorporated the following R&D, design, pilot plant and production facilities:
 All-Union Scientific-Research Design Institute of Applied Biochemistry (VNIIbiokhimmashproekt), Moscow
 All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Applied Microbiology (VNII PM), Obolensk
 All-Union Institute of Highly Pure Biochemical Preparations (VNII OChB), Leningrad
 All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Molecular Biology (VNII MB), Kol'tsovo
 Institute of Immunology, Lyubuchany
 Experimental Design Bureau of Precision Biological Engineering (OKB TBM), Kirishi
 Experimental Design Bureau of Automation Equipment (OKBA), Yoshkar-Ola
 Stepnogorsk Scientific Experimental-Industrial Base (SNOPB), Stepnogorsk, northern Kazakhstan
 Berdsk Scientific Experimental-Industrial Base (BNOPB), Berdsk
 Omutninsk Scientific Experimental Industrial Base (ONOPB), Omutninsk
 Berdsk Chemical Factory, Berdsk
 Omutninsk Chemical Factory, Omutninsk

Pathogens
Research was conducted on a range of bacterial and viral pathogens with a view to their potential weaponization. These included:
 Bacillus anthracis (the causative agent of anthrax)
 Yersinia pestis (the causative agent of plague)
 Francisella tularensis (the causative agent of tularaemia)
 Brucella sp. (the causative agent of Brucellosis)
 Smallpox virus
 Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus
 Marburg virus
 Machupo virus

The only reliable data with regard to production capacity of weaponised agents concerns SNOPB (Stepnogorsk). Here, the plant is estimated to have incorporated capacity for the production of around 300 metric tonnes of weaponized B. anthracis spores per ten-month production cycle.

Leaders

Directors
Major General (Reserves) Vsevolod Ivanovich Ogarkov (April 1974–1979)

Colonel (Reserves) Anatolii Anatol'evich Miklashevskii (1979)

Lieutenant General (Reserves) Yurii Tikhonovich Kalinin (1980 – April 2001)

First Deputy Directors
Major General (Reserves) Anatoliy Vorobyev (1978–1988)

Colonel (Reserves) Kanatzhan Alibekov (1988–1992)

See also
 Soviet biological weapons program
 Ken Alibek (defected in 1992)
 Yuri Ovchinnikov
 Poison laboratory of the Soviet secret services
 Sergei Popov (defected in 1992)
 Porton Down - Comparable facility in England
 Dugway Proving Ground and Fort Detrick - Comparable facilities in the United States.

References

External links
 pbs.org
 the-scientist.com
 Information about Biopreparat from FAS
  MIT Technology Review article featuring a lecture by Dr. Serguei Popov, a former Biopreparat researcher working on recombinant DNA techniques for developing novel biological weapons

 Is Ebola Pox The Ultimate Doomsday Virus Being Readied For Release?

Biological warfare
Medical research institutes in the Soviet Union
Soviet biological weapons program
Defence companies of the Soviet Union
1973 establishments in the Soviet Union
Pharmaceutical companies of the Soviet Union

Biopreparat


Chauncey Brooks McCormick (December 7, 1884 – September 8, 1954) was an American businessman and art collector in the McCormick family.

Life
His mother was Eleanor Brooks, daughter of Walter Brooks of Baltimore.
His father was William Grigsby McCormick (1851–1941), whose father William Sanderson McCormick (1815–1865) was one of the founders of McCormick  Harvester, which merged in 1902 with the Deering Harvester Company founded by William Deering and others to form International Harvester Corporation. His father founded Kappa Sigma Fraternity, and owned insurance and real estate businesses before becoming a member of the New York Stock Exchange.
Chauncey Brooks McCormick was born December 7, 1884, the sixth of seven children.

He attended Groton School and graduated from Yale University in 1907. During the summer of 1905 he worked as a common laborer in the McCormick factory. After graduation he worked for the Paris office of International Harvester. In 1907 he was gored by a wild elk while on the private game preserve of  Percy Raymond Greist.

On July 6, 1914, McCormick married Charles Deering's daughter Marion Deering (1886–1965) in Paris. When the engagement was announced in June, her parents objected because "McCormick did not take life seriously enough". After a civil ceremony, the religious rite required in France was held at her uncle James Deering's Paris residence. The couple was still in France when it became involved in World War I in August.
He joined the American Expeditionary Forces with the rank of captain, using his connections to supply food and medical supplies to refugees. In 1918 Herbert Hoover sent him to Poland to organize aid there.
France awarded the Croix de guerre for his services.

After the war they moved to St. James Farm in DuPage County, Illinois, west of Chicago near modern Warrenville, Illinois. It was just south of the estate of his cousin Robert Rutherford "Colonel" McCormick (1880–1955) called Cantigny.
In 1925 he became a trustee of the Art Institute of Chicago, and became president in 1944.
In 1927 he became chairman of the art committee for the 1933 world's fair known as the Century of Progress, and arranged for "the biggest, most comprehensive, most valuable loan exhibition ever assembled in the U. S."
Financial problems associated with the Great Depression threatened to reduce the effort to showing popular pictures that would pay off expenses. McCormick used his connections instead to lobby for displaying the most important works he could find. They included James Abbott McNeill Whistler's portrait of his mother known as Whistler's Mother, which was sent from the Louvre with an armed guard of US troops for a tour that included a stop at the Chicago fair.
On June 10, 1929, he purchased (with cousin Robert) the estate originally built around 1822 by his great grandfather Reuben Grigsby (1780–1863) known as Hickory Hill.

McCormick was a member of the International Harvester Board of Directors from 1936 until his death in 1954. Although he never ran for public office, he was a delegate to the 1936 Republican National Convention. During World War II he was Chairman of the Commission for Polish Relief, and also worked on reconstruction efforts of Poland after the war.
He died on September 8, 1954, while at a vacation home in Seal Harbor, Maine, and left his papers to the Newberry Library.

His widow Marion McCormick also became a patron of art in Chicago and "one of the nation's richest women" when she died in 1965. Their son Brooks McCormick (1917–2006) was the last family member to head International Harvester. Two other sons were C. Deering McCormick and Roger McCormick.
The Warrenville estate is now the St. James Farm Forest Preserve, at .
One of their paintings, Femme aux Bras Croisés (Woman With Crossed Arms) by Pablo Picasso from his blue period, was auctioned off for US$55 million in 2000.
Marion's sister Barbara Deering (1888–1987) married Richard Ely Danielson and also donated works to the Art Institute of Chicago.

Family tree

References

External links
 Chauncey McCormick papers at Newberry Library

1884 births
1954 deaths
McCormick family
Yale University alumni
Groton School alumni
People from Mount Desert Island
American art collectors
Businesspeople from Chicago
Illinois Republicans
United States Army personnel of World War I
Military personnel from Illinois

Chauncey McCormick


Larry the Lobster was the subject of a comedy sketch by Eddie Murphy that was aired live on Saturday Night Live on April 10, 1982.

Background

In an early example of interactive television, Murphy held Larry, a live lobster, aloft and declared that the show's audience would determine whether he lived or died.

Murphy then read two "900" phone numbers, one for those who wanted to spare Larry, and another for those who wanted to see him cooked. Calls cost $0.50 each. Murphy tended to read the number to save Larry very quickly, as opposed to his giving the number to cook Larry very slowly and clearly. Updates on the voting were given by other cast members over the course of the episode, and in the span of 30 minutes, viewers made nearly 500,000 calls, sending phone traffic soaring.

The heavy phone use stood as a record or near-record for many years. The spike in traffic perplexed AT&T employees, who eventually figured out that the program was responsible.

Though the phone network survived the spike, it was sufficiently threatening to operations that AT&T established communication with the television networks so that they could be warned of potentially disruptive future events; this system remained in use until at least 2006.

Larry was initially spared by about 12,000 votes. 239,096 callers voted to save him and 227,452 voted for him to be boiled.

On the following week's episode during NewsBreak, however, Eddie Murphy raised the subject of Larry the Lobster again, saying that he had received letters protesting the crustacean's treatment the previous week, including one that contained the racist barb "that man is sick, and I thought those people didn't like seafood." Murphy then displayed a boiled lobster on a plate, announced that Larry's stay of execution had been revoked, and ate it while giving some to NewsBreak anchors Brian Doyle-Murray and Christine Ebersole.

The following season, a similar sketch allowed viewers to call one of two numbers to decide whether or not to allow Andy Kaufman to continue appearing on the show. Several allusions to the Larry the Lobster sketch were made—Mary Gross at one point said it was "time to boil the water" when she saw that "Dump Andy" was in the lead.

This event is cited to this day in discussions of classic comedy routines, cruelty to animals, and in rosters of famous animals.

See also
 Sniffy the rat
 Marco Evaristti
 Cheeseface

References

Individual lobsters
Interactive television
Saturday Night Live sketches
Saturday Night Live in the 1980s
1982 in American television

Larry the Lobster


The Festspielhaus Baden-Baden is Germany's largest opera house. It is the second largest opera house in Europe. It has 2,500 seats. The Festspielhaus Baden-Baden is in Baden-Baden at the place of the former railroad station. The historic station building was combined into the Festspielhaus and is now the entrance building. The Festspielhaus was opened in 1998. After a difficult starting time due to financial problems it managed to become successful. Today it has five festival periods and a rich cultural program.

Other websites
 Official Website
 Festspielhaus Baden-Baden in the Baden-Baden City Wiki
 Festspielhaus Baden-Baden  at Baden-Baden.de

Baden-Baden
Buildings and structures in Baden-Württemberg
Opera houses in Germany

Festspielhaus Baden-Baden


Jorge Carrera Andrade was an Ecuadorian poet, historian, author, and diplomat during the 20th century. He was born in Quito, Ecuador in 1902. He died in 1978. During his life and after his death he has been recognized with Jorge Luis Borges, Vicente Huidobro, Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz and Cesar Vallejo as one of the most important Latin American poets of the twentieth century.

Writing and diplomatic career
His writing was published in Aurora Estrada y Ayala's literary magazine, "Proteo" which she started in 1922. Other contributors to the magazine included future Nobel Laureate Gabriela Mistral.

From 1928 to 1933 Carrera first experienced traveling in Europe. He served as Ecuadorian Consul in Peru, France, Japan and the United States. Later he became Ambassador to Venezuela, the United Kingdom, Nicaragua, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. He also served as Secretary of State of Ecuador.

While living in the United States, Carrera developed many literary relationships with American writers, in particular Muna Lee whose critically acclaimed translation of his poetry, Secret Country, was published in 1946. His work was praised and championed by John Malcolm Brinnin, H.R. Hays, Archibald MacLeish, Carl Sandburg, William Jay Smith and William Carlos Williams. Carrera Andrade's poetic work developed for half a century in a number of volumes published worldwide.

In 1972 his Obra poetica completa, which gathers the totality of his lyric work, appeared in Quito. Most of his poetry has been translated into French, English, Italian and German. He also published books of essays, history and an autobiography, El volcan y el colibri (The Volcano and the Hummingbird) (1970).

After Carrera's diplomatic career ended in 1969, he was appointed distinguished visiting professor at Stony Brook University on Long Island, where he lectured for two academic years. He spent his last years in his native city of Quito, as director of the National Library of Ecuador. During his life and after his death he has been recognized with Jorge Luis Borges, Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz and Cesar Vallejo as one of the most important Latin American poets of the twentieth century.

A celebrated poet
In 2002 the Republic of Ecuador celebrated the century of his birth. In the same year a group of Ecuadorian intellectuals gathered in Cuenca, Ecuador, to examine the life and work of Carrera Andrade.

The Indonesian composer Ananda Sukarlan has set some of his short poems "Microgramas" to music for medium voice and piano. Commissioned by the Ecuador Embassy in Jakarta (Indonesia), they were premiered by the composer himself with the tenor William Prasetyo in October 2023.

Bibliography

Prose In English
 Carrera Andrade, Jorge, "The New American and His Point of View Toward Poetry," tr. H.R. Hays, Poetry (Chicago), LXII, 1943, P. 88–105
 H.R. Hays, "Jorge Carrera Andrade: Magician of Metaphors", Books Abroad (Norman, OK), XVII, No. 2, 1943, P. 101–105.
 The Rediscovery of Jorge Carrera Andrade: A Celebration at Assumption College, An Introduction by Steven Ford Brown
"Jorge Carrera Andrade in America" (Jacket magazine (Australia), July 2000)

Books In English
 Century of The Death of The Rose: The Selected Poems of Jorge Carrera Andrade, 1926–1976, translated from the Spanish by Steven Ford Brown, (second printing) University of Georgia Press: Athens, 2020 (introduction, poetry).
 Micrograms, tr. Alejandro de Acosta and Joshua Beckman, Wave Books: Seattle, 2011 (essay, poetry).
 Microgramas, Introduction by J. Enrique Ojeda, poetry translated from the Spanish by Steven Ford Brown, Orogenia Corporacion Cultural: Quito, 2007 (essay, poetry).
 Century of The Death of The Rose: The Selected Poems of Jorge Carrera Andrade, 1926–1976, translated from the Spanish by Steven Ford Brown, NewSouth Books: Louisville and Montgomery, 2002 (poetry).
 Reflections on Latin American Literature, tr. Don and Gabriela C. Bliss, State University of New York Press: Albany, 1973 (essays).
 The Selected Poems of Jorge Carrera Andrade, tr. H.R. Hays, State University of New York Press: Albany, 1972 (poetry).
 Secret Country, tr. Muna Lee, MacMillan: New York, 1946 (poetry).
 To The Oakland Bridge, tr. Eleanor Turnbull, Stanford University Press: Palo Alto, 1941 (poetry).

Books In Spanish
Autobiography
 The Volcano and The Hummingbird, Puebla, Mexico: Editorial Jose M. Caijica Jr., S.A., 1970.

Essays
 Interpretations of Hispano-America, Quito: Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana, 1967.
 Latitudes, Quito: Talleres Graficos Nacionales, 1934; Buenos Aires: Editor "Parseo",1940.
 History (A three volume history of Ecuador)
 The Kingdom of Quito or Street of The Sun, Quito: Case de la Cultura Ecuatriana, 1963.
 Gallery of Mystics and Insurgents, Quito: Casa de la Ecuatoriana, 1959.
 Earth Always Green, Paris: Ediciones Internacionales, 1955.

Memoir
 Traveller Through Countries and Books, Quito: Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana, 1961.

Poetry
 Poesia ultima, ed. with introduction, J. Enrique Qjeda, New York: Las Americas Publishing Co., 1968.
 Planetary Man, Quito: Editorial Elan, 1963.
 Family of Night, Paris: Libreria Espanola de Ediciones, 1953.
 Place of Origin, Caracas: Editions: Suma, 1944.
 Secret Country, Tokyo, Editions Aisa America, 1940.
 Anthology of Pierre Reverdy, Tokyo: Editions Asia America, 1939.
 Biography for The Use Of Birds, Paris: Cuadernos del Hombre Nuevo, 1937; French translation by Edmond Vandercammen, Brussels: Les Cahiers du Journal des Poetes, 1937.
 Time Manual, Madrid: Editions Literatura: PEN Coleccion, 1935; French translation by Adolphe de Falgairolle, Paris: Editions Rene Debresse, 1936.
 Earth and Sea Bulletines (Foreword by Gabriela Mistral), Barcelona: Editorial Cervantes, 1930.
 Indian Poems, Quito: Editorial Elan, 1928.
 Wreath of Silence, Quito: Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana, 1926.

References

External links
The Official Jorge Carrera Andrade Website
The Rediscovery of Jorge Carrera Andrade: A Celebration at Assumption College, An Introduction by Steven Ford Brown
"Jorge Carrera Andrade in America" (Jacket magazine (Australia), July 2000)
Steven Ford Brown, Twelve Poems by Jorge Carrera Andrade (Jacket magazine (Australia), July 2000)
Jorge Carrera Andrade Special Collection, Stony Brook University Libraries
J. Enrique Ojeda: Specialist on Jorge Carrera Andrade
Three Poems by Jorge Carrera Andrade (The Cortland Review, May 1999)
Biografia de Jorge Carrera Andrade (Biografias y vidas)
Yashar Ahad Saremi, Poem by Jorge Carrera Andrade translated into Persian (World Literature, June 20, 2008)
H.R. Hays, "Jorge Carrera Andrade: Magician of Metaphors" (Jacket magazine (Australia), July 2000)

Ecuadorian male writers
Ecuadorian diplomats
1900s births
1978 deaths
People from Quito
Ambassadors of Ecuador to Venezuela
Ambassadors of Ecuador to the United Kingdom
Ambassadors of Ecuador to Nicaragua
Ambassadors of Ecuador to France
Ambassadors of Ecuador to Belgium
Ambassadors of Ecuador to the Netherlands
20th-century Ecuadorian poets
20th-century male writers

Jorge Carrera Andrade


Francis Bell ( – 9 September 1879), was a British railway engineer, who worked extensively in Australia, and was involved in a number of important railway construction projects and bridges.

Career
Bell commenced his engineering career in 1837, building railways in England and Scotland, and also worked under Sir John Macneill MInstCE, on the Great Southern and Western Railway in Ireland.

By 1853, Bell had migrated to Australia, and in January 1854, in Victoria, was the engineer on the A£1,000,000 prospectus for the Geelong–Ballarat railway line.  He was also listed as the surveyor for the Colonial Insurance Company, and there are a number of tender advertisements, for reinstatement for damaged buildings. In 1855, he presented a well received paper on the merits of iron truss bridges to the Victorian Institute for the Advancement of Science (later the Royal Society of Victoria). Other works he designed included  of the railway line from  to , prior to 1858, the design and construction of the Melbourne and Essendon Railway in 1859, and works for the Yarra Yarra Mining Company, and Sandridge Lagoon, Port Melbourne.

Bell was responsible for a number of fairly similar wrought iron lattice truss road and rail bridges, several of which were fabricated from components supplied by Messrs. Lloyds, Fosters, and Company's Wednesbury, Old Park Ironworks, Staffordshire. The West Maitland Bridge was the sixth bridge this firm exported for Bell, with the others including the Hawthorn Railway Bridge and Hawthorn Road Bridge over the River Yarra, in Melbourne, the Prince Alfred Bridge at Gundagai, and the Pitnacree and Dunmore bridges in New South Wales.

His expertise was sought for a number of Melbourne civic works projects as he gave evidence to the Victorian Royal Commissions on the River and Harbour Trust in 1858 and 1860, and to the Select Committees on the Railway Department in 1860 and on the Central Railway Terminus in 1861 and in the same year was a member of the Royal Society of Victoria's Sanitary Committee. Bell was a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers (MInstCE).

Bell was City Engineer for the City of Sydney from approximately 1871 to 1879, a member of the Sewerage and Health Board, and was responsible for improving the storage capacity of the Botany watershed and planned a system for sewering the city in the direction of Bondi.

Personal life
Bell was the sixth son of John Bell, of Belfast, Ireland. He was married on 17 June 1858 at the Cathedral, Newcastle, New South Wales to Jane Eliza Livingstone, youngest daughter of Captain Alexander Livingstone of Newcastle. In May 1872, he was living in St. Leonards, on the North Shore of Sydney, when his wife gave birth to a daughter. His youngest daughter married Charles Wade, who, amongst other things, became Premier of NSW in 1907, was the Agent-General for NSW in 1917, and was knighted in 1918.

Bell died in 1879 at his residence in , Sydney, and was buried at the Rookwood Necropolis.

References

1813 births
1879 deaths
Engineers from Melbourne
Australian civil engineers
Burials at Rookwood Cemetery
Irish emigrants to colonial Australia

Francis Bell (engineer)


The Symmes Mission Chapel was a historic church building in the city of Fairfield, Ohio, United States.  A simple structure constructed in the 1840s, it was named a historic site in the 1980s, but it is no longer standing.

History
One of the leading members of the congregation that built the Symmes Mission Chapel was Benjamin Symmes, who along with Abram Huston and John Mesler helped to found the Old School Presbyterian congregation in the late 1830s.  Most of the members were drawn from Presbyterian churches in Hamilton, Springdale, and Ross, so the congregation was founded in the locality known as Symmes Corners in order to be convenient for all of the members.  Shortly after the organization of the congregation, the original church building was constructed at a cost of $1,180 on land donated by Benjamin Symmes, seemingly in 1843.  It was the primary home of the eighty-member congregation for some years, but by the 1850s the majority of the members lived southward in far northern Hamilton County, so a new building was constructed near Pleasant Run, and the old building was ultimately abandoned by the congregation.  However, it remained in use by others in the community until 1968, either as a church or as a school, and it had come into the possession of Fairfield's historical society by 1980.

Architecture
A simple weatherboarded building, the chapel was two stories tall with a shallow gabled roof.  A doorway was placed in the middle of the front, with one window above and to each side, while the sides of the building, much longer than the front, were pierced with a few windows in the middle and rear.  Built without a basement, the building rested on a foundation of ashlar, while the roof was ultimately covered with asphalt shingles.  Inside, a stairway in the rear (near the pulpit) permitted access to the upper floor.  The sanctuary was decorated with ornamental woodwork, including bullseye designs, while much of the interior was covered with tongue and groove panelling.  A small vernacular building, it lacked other significant elements, such as traditional ecclesiastical architecture and virtually all ornamentation traditionally applied to churches.

Historic site
In 1980, the church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, qualifying because of its historically significant architecture.  Far from qualifying for grand architecture, it qualified because of its simple design: it represented what was once a common country church design, free of ornament and built for functional purposes.  By that time, it was one of very few pre-Civil War buildings remaining in Fairfield, which was quickly becoming more and more of an exurb in the Cincinnati metropolitan area.  Six years later, the church was recorded by personnel from Butler County's Citizens for Historic and Preservation Services as part of a historic preservation survey, the Ohio Historic Inventory.  Noting the church's place among contemporary commercial development, the surveyor observed deterioration in both interior and exterior, and by that time the building was seemingly close to collapse.  Today, the building is gone, with an empty lot occupying its place, although the historical society still owned the empty lot as of the end of 2013.

References

External links
Pleasant Run Presbyterian Church, daughter of this congregation

Churches completed in 1843
Buildings and structures in Butler County, Ohio
National Register of Historic Places in Butler County, Ohio
Demolished churches in Ohio
Fairfield, Ohio
Former Presbyterian churches in the United States
Presbyterian churches in Ohio
Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio
U.S. Route 127
Vernacular architecture in Ohio
1843 establishments in Ohio

Symmes Mission Chapel


Hawkins Cookers Limited Inc and formerly known as Pressure Cookers and Appliances Ltd, is an Indian company which manufactures pressure cookers and cookware. The company is based in Mumbai and has three manufacturing plants at Thane, Hoshiarpur and Jaunpur. It manufactures under brand names of Hawkins, Futura, Contura, Hevibase, Big Boy, Miss Mary and Ventura. Hawkins is one of the largest pressure cooker manufacturers in India and exports its products to more than 65 countries.

Hawkins Cookers was started in 1959 by H. D. Vasudeva as Pressure Cookers and Appliances Ltd, in technical collaboration with L G Hawkins & Co Ltd of England. L G Hawkins and Company Limited was founded by Leonard George Hawkins in 1913 and manufactured home appliances.

The company was initially known as Pressure Cookers and Appliances Ltd and manufactured and marketed of Hawkins pressure cooker under agreement with L G Hawkins & Co Ltd of England. In 1986, the company acquired the present name.

L G Hawkins and Company Limited was bought by Pye Ltd. in 1939. In 1962, Pye acquired Ekco & Co Ltd and L G Hawkins was merged with similar Ekco activities to form Ekco Hawkins and later Ekco Hastings. Pye was later acquired by Philips in 1986. Ekco-Hawkins later became Philips Small Domestic Appliances Product Division and products were rebadged as Philips, but was closed down in the late 1998, due to overseas competition and Philips global rationalization. The Hawkins Universal trademark was acquired by Hawkins Cookers Ltd in 1986 and company name was changed from Pressure Cookers & Appliances Ltd to Hawkins Cookers Ltd.

The company is traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange under the symbol HWKN. It has raised funds through "fixed deposits", a term for high-interest term deposits issued by industrial companies rather than banks.

Hawkins has sold over 72 million pressure cookers worldwide. Today, it makes 88 different models of pressure cookers in 13 different types. All Hawkins pressure cookers are listed by Underwriters Laboratories Inc., USA, an independent institution testing products for public safety. Hawkins pressure cookers feature an inside-fitting lid, which cannot be opened until the steam pressure inside the cooker falls to a safe level. Hawkins was listed as India's most trusted kitchen appliances brand by The Brand Trust Report 2015.

External links
 Official Website
 The Economic Times – Hawkins Cookers Limited – Company History (Data Source: Asian CERC IT Ltd.)

References

Cooking appliance brands
Indian brands
Home appliance manufacturers of India
Manufacturing companies based in Mumbai
Indian companies established in 1959
Manufacturing companies established in 1959
1959 establishments in Bombay State
Companies listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange

Hawkins Cookers


is a Japanese game designer, director and producer, most known for being a creator of the Animal Crossing series.

He was born in 1965 in Tokyo, Japan and grew up in Chiba Prefecture. He began work at Nintendo in 1986 and spent some time doing promotional artwork before starting as a designer on Super Mario Bros. 3. He first served as director for Star Fox in 1993. Other games he has directed include Super Mario World, Star Fox 2, Wave Race 64, and Yoshi's Story.

Eguchi served as a senior producer of his own EAD software development group, but currently serves as the Deputy General Manager of Nintendo's Entertainment Planning & Development division.

After Nintendo's acquisition of SRD Co., Ltd. (System Research and Development) in 2022, Eguchi was chosen to be the Nintendo representative at the group as part of the board of directors of the company.

Work on Animal Crossing

Eguchi is credited with the creation of the Animal Crossing series. Mental Floss writes that "Animal Crossing was inspired by Eguchi's experiences...when he was a 21 year-old graduate who'd taken the decisive step of moving from Chiba, where he'd grown up and studied, to Nintendo's HQ in Kyoto." And in addition: "Eguchi wanted to recreate the feeling of being alone in a new town, away from friends and family."

In an interview with Edge, Eguchi described the beginnings of Animal Crossing:
"Animal Crossing features three themes: family, friendship and community. But the reason I wanted to investigate them was a result of being so lonely when I arrived in Kyoto! Chiba is east of Tokyo and quite a distance from Kyoto, and when I moved there I left my family and friends behind. In doing so, I realised that being close to them – being able to spend time with them, talk to them, play with them – was such a great, important thing. I wondered for a long time if there would be a way to recreate that feeling, and that was the impetus behind the original Animal Crossing."

And in an interview with Gamasutra he also described the game's role in a family like his:
"Another thing is that I'd always get home really late. And my family plays games, and would sometimes be playing when I got home. And I thought to myself – they're playing games, and I'm playing games, but we're not really doing it together. It'd be nice to have a play experience where even though we're not playing at the same time, we're still sharing things together. So this was something that the kids could play after school, and I could play when I got home at night, and I could kind of be part of what they were doing while I wasn't around. And at the same time they get to see things I've been doing. It was kind of a desire to create a space where my family and I could interact more, even if we weren't playing together."

Works

References

External links
 Iwata Asks: Wii Sports - Development Staff Interview
 Iwata Asks: Animal Crossing: City Folk - Development Staff Interview
 Iwata Asks: Wii Music - Development Staff Interview
 Iwata Asks: Wii Sports Resort - Development Staff Interview
E3 2005 interview with IGN
2006 interview with Kikizo
E3 2006 interview with IGN
E3 2006 interview with Game|Life

1965 births
Japanese video game designers
Japanese video game directors
Living people
Nintendo people
People from Chiba Prefecture
Designers from Tokyo

Katsuya Eguchi