Conantokins are a small family of helical peptides that are derived from the venom of predatory marine snails of the genus Conus. Conantokins act as potent and specific antagonists of the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR). They are the only naturally-derived peptides to do so. The subtypes of conantokins exhibit a surprising variability of selectivity across the NMDAR subunits, and are therefore uniquely useful in developing subunit-specific pharmacological probes.

Chemically, conantokins are unique in that they possess a number (generally 4 or 5) of gamma-carboxyglutamyl (Gla) residues, generated by the post-translational modification of glutamyl (Glu) residues. These Gla residues induce a conformational change from a 3 10 helix to an alpha helix on binding to Calcium. In the broader scheme of genetic conotoxin classification, Conanotokins are also known as "Conotoxin Superfamily B."

The word "conantokin" is derived from the Filipino word antokin, meaning sleepy.

Subtypes
Conantokin are in general named after the specific epithet of the Conus species it is found in, using single-letter abbreviations if possible. A conantokin from Conus radiatus is called Conantokin-R, but the latter-discovered ones from Conus rolani are called Canontokin-Rl. If a species makes multiple conantokins, numbers or letters are suffixed to the names. The abbreviation for "Conantokin" in these names is always "Con".

Conantokin-G
Also known as the "sleeper peptide" or CGX-1007, Con-G () is a small peptide isolated from the fish-hunting snail, Conus geographus.  It is the best-characterized conantokin, and acts as a functional inhibitor of NMDAR.

Con-G shows potential as a neuroprotective agent in ischemic and excitotoxic brain injury, neuronal apoptosis, pain, epilepsy, and as a research tool in drug addiction and Alzheimer's disease. Con-G blocks NMDAR-mediated excitatory postsynaptic currents (EPSCs). Con-G reduces the strength of excitotoxic intracellular Ca2+ actions and blocks different neuronal injuries in vitro. In certain injuries Con-G shows an exceptional prolongation of the therapeutic window.  Con-G can reverse established allodynia and can also fully reverse thermal hypersensitivity induced by nerve injury.

Conantokin-T
Con-T () is purified from the venom of the fish-hunting cone-snail, Conus tulipa. This peptide has 4 residues of Gla. Con-T acts by inhibiting NMDAR-mediated Ca2+ influx in neurons in the central nervous system.

Conantokin-R and -L
Con-R () is a highly potent anticonvulsant compound, derived from Conus radiatus.

Con-L () is an efficient anticonvulsant compound, derived from Conus lynceus. It differs from Con-R mainly in the C-terminal amino acids and, like Con-R, it induces sleep-like symptoms in young mice, with faster onset and for a longer duration.

Con-L blocks NMDA-evoked currents in a powerful way, which is only slowly reversible upon washout, similar to Con-R and Con-G.

Conantokin-Pr1, -Pr2 and –Pr3
Each peptide in this group is derived from the same species, Conus parius. Con-Pr3 () has three different post-translational modifications. Con-Pr1 () and –Pr2 () adopt α-helical conformations in the presence of Mg2+ and Ca2+, but otherwise are generally unstructured. Conantokin-Pr3 always adopts an α-helical conformation.

These peptides have highest potency for the NR2B subunits of the NMDAR.

Conantokin-P and -E
Con-P () and Con-E () were isolated from the only two fish-hunting cone snails of the Americas (Conus purpurascens and Conus ermineus, respectively).  Con-P differs from the other known conantokins in that it contains a long disulfide loop with two Gla residues.  It is less helical (estimated 44% helical content), but unlike con-G, it does not require calcium for stability of this structure.  Another notable distinction is the increased discrimination for NR2B.  Con-E is very similar in structure to Con-P, and is likely to have a similar function.

Conantokin-Rl-A
Con-Rl-A (), derived from the venom of Conus rolani, is unique among the conantokins in having two distinct conformational states between which it equilibrates.  Like Con-P and Con-E, its helical structure (estimated at 50%) does not depend on the presence or absence of calcium.  This is likely due to the fact that two of the five Gla residues present in con-G are replaced in con-Rl-A by Lys. Con-R1-A discriminates more effectively than any other known ligand between the NR2B and NR2C subunits of NMDAR.

Conantokin-Br or -S1
Con-Br (or Con-S1, ) is isolated from Conus brettinghami (now Conus sulcatus), and is the only known conantokin with a high selectivity for the NR2D subunit of NMDAR.

Synthetic derivatives

Con-G-based
Con-G[γ7A] Con-G[γ7K] and Con-G[S16Y] are synthetic Con-G peptides, where the Gla residue at position 7 is replaced with an alanine or a lysine residue, or the serine at position 16 is replaced with a tyrosine residue, respectively. Con-G[γ7A] is fourfold more potent than the native peptide, Con-G, while Con-G[γ7K] is as potent as Con-G. The first two peptides appear to distinguish NMDAR subtypes in mid-frontal gyri from those in superior temporal gyri in human brain tissue. Both of them are being researched in relation to Alzheimer's disease (AD) and all three evoked 100% inhibition of spermine-enhanced [3H]MK-801 binding. Con-G[γ7K] and Con-G[S16Y] also show positive results in morphine withdrawal.

Con-T-based
Con-T[K7γ] is a synthetic Con-T peptide, where the serine at position 7 is replaced with Gla residue. Like Con-G, it has higher affinity for Mg2+ than for Ca2+, but does not dimerize in the presence of Mg2+.

Chemistry
Biochemically, conantokins have a distinctive high γ-carboxyglutamate content and low cysteine content. Conantokins typically lack disulfide bonds, in contrast to most families of conotoxins, which have an unusually high density of disulfide cross-links.

The inhibition of NMDAR-mediated spontaneous EPSCs (sEPSCs) and NMDA-gated currents in cortical neurons might be a result of actions on both diheteromeric (NR1/NR2B) and triheteromeric (NR1/NR2A/NR2B) NMDAR.

Mode of action
Con-G does not act directly at the glycine binding site. It can attenuate both the amplitude and the decay time constant of NMDA-mediated EPSCs and significantly and reversibly affect other different properties of NMDAR-mediated sEPSCs in cultured neurons. The effect of Con-G on the frequency of the sEPSCs most likely relates to antagonizing the NMDAR.

Target
Conantokins target NMDAR. Each subtype selectively targets different subunits of the receptor.

Toxicity
Some of these peptide effects are age-dependent, such as the induction of sleep-like state in young mice and hyperactive behavior in older mice.

Intrathecal administration of doses greater than 300 pmol produced motor impairment in mice.
Con-G, Con-R and Con-L cause behavioral toxicity at similar doses. Thus the difference in the C-terminal sequence might affect the anticonvulsant and behavioral toxicity profile.

References

External links

 "conotoxin+B+superfamily" Uniprot family: "conotoxin b superfamily" - List of curated Conantokins in UniProt

Ion channel toxins
Neurotoxins
Snail toxins
NMDA receptor antagonists

Conantokin


Operation Pastorius was a failed German intelligence plan for sabotage inside the United States during World War II. The operation was staged in June 1942 and was to be directed against strategic American economic targets. The operation was named by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, chief of the German Abwehr, for Francis Daniel Pastorius, the organizer of the first organized settlement of Germans in America. The plan involved eight German saboteurs who had previously spent time in the United States.

The plan quickly failed after two of the agents, George John Dasch and Ernest Peter Burger, defected to the Federal Bureau of Investigation shortly after being deployed, betraying the other six. A military tribunal – whose constitutionality was challenged to the Supreme Court in Ex parte Quirin – sentenced all eight to death later that year. President Franklin D. Roosevelt commuted the sentences of Dasch and Burger, while the other six were executed. In 1948, Dasch and Burger were pardoned, conditional on their permanent deportation to the American occupation zone in Germany by President Harry S. Truman.

Sixteen other people would be charged with aiding those in charge of the operation.

Background
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, followed by Germany's declaration of war on the United States four days later, and the United States' declaration of war on Germany in response, Hitler authorized a mission to sabotage the American war effort and attack civilian targets to demoralize the American civilian population inside the United States. The mission was given to Abwehr chief Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the head of German military intelligence. During World War I he had organized the sabotage of French installations in Morocco, and that other German agents entered the United States to attack New York arms factories, including the destruction of munitions supplies at Black Tom Island, in 1916. He hoped that Operation Pastorius would have the same kind of success.

Agents
Recruited for Operation Pastorius were eight Germans who had lived in the United States. Two of them, Ernst Burger and Herbert Haupt, were American citizens. The others, George John Dasch, Edward John Kerling, Richard Quirin, Heinrich Harm Heinck, Hermann Otto Neubauer and Werner Thiel, had worked at various jobs in the United States. All eight were recruited into the Abwehr and were given three weeks of intensive sabotage training in the German High Command school on an estate at Quenzsee, near Berlin, Germany. The agents were instructed in the manufacture and use of explosives, incendiaries, primers, and various forms of mechanical, chemical and electrical delayed-timing devices. Considerable time was spent developing complete background "histories" they were to use in the United States. They were encouraged to converse in English and to read American newspapers and magazines to improve their English and familiarity with current American events and culture.

The team

Mission

Their mission was to sabotage American economic targets: hydroelectric plants at Niagara Falls; the Aluminum Company of America's plants in Illinois, Tennessee, and New York; locks on the Ohio River, near Louisville, Kentucky; Pennsalt Chemicals (then the Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Company) in Cornwells Heights (Bensalem), Pennsylvania; the Pennsylvania Railroad's Horseshoe Curve, a crucial railroad pass near Altoona, Pennsylvania, as well as their repair shops at Altoona; the Pennsalt cryolite (a raw material in the production of fluorine and aluminum) plant in Philadelphia; Hell Gate Bridge in New York; and Pennsylvania Station in Newark, New Jersey. The agents were also instructed to spread a wave of terror by planting explosives on bridges, railroad stations, water facilities, public places, and Jewish-owned shops. They were given counterfeit birth certificates, Social Security cards, draft deferment cards, nearly $175,000 in American money, and driver's licenses, and put aboard two U-boats to land on the east coast of the U.S.

Before the mission began it was in danger of being compromised as George Dasch, commander of the team, left confidential documents on a train, and one of the agents when drunk announced to patrons in a tavern in Paris that he was a secret agent.

On the night of 12 June 1942, the first submarine to arrive in the U.S., , landed at Amagansett, New York, about 100 miles east of New York City on Long Island, at what is now Atlantic Avenue beach. It was carrying Dasch and three other saboteurs (Burger, Quirin, and Heinck). The team came ashore wearing German Navy uniforms so that, if they were captured, they would be classified as prisoners of war rather than spies. They also brought their explosives, primers and incendiaries, and buried them along with their uniforms, and put on civilian clothes to begin an expected two-year campaign in the sabotage of American defense-related production.

When Dasch was discovered amidst the dunes by unarmed Coast Guardsman John C. Cullen, Dasch offered Cullen a $260 bribe. Cullen feigned cooperation but reported the encounter. An armed patrol returned to the site but found only the buried equipment; the Germans had taken the Long Island Rail Road from the Amagansett station into Manhattan, where they checked into a hotel and a manhunt began.

The other four-member German team commanded by Kerling landed without incident at Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, south of Jacksonville on 16 June 1942. They came on . This group came ashore wearing bathing suits, but wore German Navy hats. After landing ashore, they threw away their hats, put on civilian clothes, and started their mission by boarding trains to Chicago, Illinois and Cincinnati, Ohio.

The two teams were to meet on 4 July in a hotel in Cincinnati to coordinate their sabotage operations.

Betrayal
Dasch called Burger into their upper-story hotel room and opened a window, saying they would talk, and if they disagreed, "only one of us will walk out that door—the other will fly out this window." Dasch told him he had no intention of going through with the mission, hated Nazism, and planned to report the plot to the FBI. Burger agreed to defect to the United States immediately.

On 15 June, Dasch phoned the New York office of the FBI to explain who he was, but ended the call when the agent answering doubted his story. Four days later, he took a train to Washington, DC and walked into FBI headquarters, where he gained the attention of Assistant Director D.M. Ladd by showing him the operation's budget of $84,000 cash. None of the other six German agents were aware of the betrayal. During the next two weeks, Burger and the other six were arrested.  FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover did not mention that Dasch had surrendered himself, and claimed credit for the FBI for discovering the spy gang.

Trial and execution
Since they were caught before they could do anything, officials were initially unsure on how to proceed against the saboteurs. Attorney General Francis Biddle estimated that at best, the German saboteurs could be convicted of conspiracy and face up to three years in prison, while Burger and Haupt could be tried for treason. His alternative proposal was imprisoning them as POWs for the remainder of the war. However, Roosevelt deemed these proposals unacceptable. He said the Americans were guilty of treason and thus liable to court-martials. As for the Germans, he said they'd forfeited their right to civilian trials since they were "waging battle within our country." Roosevelt then said he wanted all of the saboteurs to be immediately executed. To do that, he told Biddle he would use his presidential powers to convene a military tribunal to prosecute the saboteurs, something not done on American soil since the end of the American Civil War. He sent another memo to Biddle, reaffirming his expectations."I want one thing clearly understood, Francis. I won't hand them over to any United States marshal armed with a writ of habeas corpus. Understand?"On 2 July 1942, President Roosevelt issued Executive Proclamation 2561, creating a military tribunal to prosecute the Germans. Placed before a seven-member military commission, the Germans were charged with the following offenses:

 Violating the law of war;
 Violating Article 81 of the Articles of War, defining the offense of corresponding with or giving intelligence to the enemy;
 Violating Article 82 of the Articles of War, defining the offense of spying; and
 Conspiracy to commit the offenses alleged in the first three charges.

The trial was held in Assembly Hall #1 on the fifth floor of the Department of Justice building in Washington, D.C., on 8 July 1942. Lawyers for the accused, who included Lauson Stone and Kenneth Royall, attempted to have the case tried in a civilian court but were rebuffed by the United States Supreme Court in Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942), a case that was later cited as a precedent for the trial by military commission of any unlawful combatant against the United States.

The trial for the eight defendants ended on 1 August 1942. Two days later, all were found guilty and sentenced to death. Roosevelt commuted Burger's sentence to life in prison and Dasch's to 30 years because they had surrendered themselves and provided information about the others. The others were executed on 8 August 1942 in the electric chair on the third floor of the District of Columbia jail and buried in a potter's field in the Blue Plains neighborhood in the Anacostia area of Washington.

Aftermath
The failure of Operation Pastorius caused Hitler to rebuke Admiral Canaris and no sabotage attempt was ever made again in the United States. During the remaining years of the war, the Germans only once more dispatched agents to the United States by submarine. In November 1944, as part of Operation Elster, the German submarine U-1230 left two SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office) spies on the coast of Maine to gather intelligence concerning American manufacturing and technical progress. After a month of high living in New York City, but no espionage gathering, one of the men turned himself in to the FBI, which captured both agents soon afterward. Both were convicted and sentenced to death, with their executions stayed throughout the duration of the war, after which their punishment was commuted by President Truman into life sentences in prison.

In 1948, President Harry S. Truman granted executive clemency to Dasch and Burger on the condition that they be deported to the American occupation zone in Germany. In Germany they were regarded as traitors who had caused the death of their comrades. Dasch died in 1992 at the age of 89 in Ludwigshafen, Germany. Burger died in 1975.

Sometime during the 1960s or 1970s, the National Socialist White People's Party placed an unauthorized monument to the executed spies in a thicket in southwest Washington, D.C., on National Park Service land. It went largely unknown and ignored for several decades; the Park Service removed it during 2010.

Sixteen people, including Herbert Haupt's mother and father, would be arrested for aiding the saboteurs. The last person to be arrested was Lutheran Pastor Carl Krepper, a member of the German-American Bund and the German-American Business League, which supported boycotting Jewish businesses. Krepper had helped establish safehouses for the saboteurs. In March 1945, he was found guilty of trading with the enemy and conspiracy to commit sabotage and sentenced to 12 years in prison. Krepper was paroled in 1951, and died in 1972.

See also
Duquesne Spy Ring in 1941
They Came to Blow Up America, a 1943 movie based on Operation Pastorius, featuring George Sanders.
Saboteur, a 1942 movie concerning acts of sabotage on the U.S. mainland during World War II.
The Ninth Man, a novel of the 1970s written by John Lee, fictional story of a ninth agent, who evaded capture.
 History of homeland security in the United States

References
Notes

Bibliography

Dobbs, Michael, Saboteurs: The Nazi Raid on America, New York: Knopf, 2004.
Rachlis, Eugene, They Came to Kill: The Story of Eight Nazi Saboteurs in America, New York: Random House, 1961.
Persico, Joseph E., Roosevelt's Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage, New York:Random House, 2001, pp. 199–205.
Federal Bureau of Investigation: George John Dasch and the Nazi Saboteurs
Lippmann, David H., World War II Plus 55, June 10-13th, 1942
Montauk Life: The Night of the Nazis
Cornell University School of Law: Ex Parte Quirin (summary)
Samaha, Joel, et al. (eds.), Transcript of Proceedings before the Military Commission to Try Persons Charged with Offenses against the Law of War and the Articles of War, Washington D.C., 8 to 31 July 1942, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2004.
Abella, Alex & Gordon, Scott, Shadow Enemies: Hitler's Secret Terrorist Plot Against the United States, Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2002.

Further information
The Facts Don't Matter  An hour-long This American Life radio episode (original air date 3/12/2004) about the events leading up to Ex parte Quirin

External links

Amagansett U.S. Life-Saving & Coast Guard Station Museum
Six Nazi  Saboteurs Executed in Washington - Ghosts of DC history blog
 - a 1943 film about saboteurs, led by a German-American, landing on Long Island

1942 in the United States
World War II espionage
Economic warfare
United States military law
Pastorius
Pastorius
American Theater of World War II
United States home front during World War II
1942 in New York (state)
1942 in Florida
1942 in Washington, D.C.
Germany–United States relations
June 1942 events

Operation Pastorius


Music television is a type of television programming which focuses predominantly on playing music videos from recording artists, usually on dedicated television channels broadcasting on satellite, cable, or Streaming Platforms.

Music television channels may host their own shows and charts and award prizes. Examples are MTV, Channel UFX, 4Music, 40 TV, Channel V, VIVA, Scuzz, MuchMusic, Kerrang! TV, RAC 105 TV, VH1, Fuse TV and Palladia.

History

Radio broadcast (1950s)
Prior to the 1950s most musical broadcasts were on a radio format. Most radio broadcasts were live music such as Classical music broadcasts—for example, the NBC Symphony Orchestra. In the 1950s broadcast television such as NBC, CBS, and ABC sought to move their popular radio broadcasts to a television format, such as Texaco Star Theater, which went from a radio broadcast to a telecast.

As networks continued to abandon radio for popular music broadcasting, the recording industry sought to influence sales by using television as a new vessel for promoting for their artists. The coordination between record companies and television saw the incorporation of musical acts in variety shows such as The Ed Sullivan Show (1948–1971), The Stage Show (1954–1956), and Texaco Star Theater (1948–1956). Columbia records was the first to utilize this method by coordinating the release of a song on CBS's Studio One and then releasing it on audio format by the label on the next day. This practice introduced the success of the televised format for musical promotion.

Performers doing specials on variety shows also became common on television. Elvis Presley performed on numerous variety shows over the span of multiple per episodes, playing rock and roll music. His most controversial performance was his appearance on Texaco Star Theater where he did his now-signature dance moves of thrusting his pelvis suggestively during a performance of "You Ain't Nothing But A Hound Dog". This performance served as an opening to have younger and newer music targeted at a younger demographic; previously broadcasts were typically targeted towards the adult audience.

Network television (1960–1980)

In the 1960s NBC, CBS and ABC formed most of the music television market establishing themselves as the main sources for current music. A main contributor to the solidification of music broadcasting was the development of programs specifically designed to showcase music acts. This led to more technicians, set designers, producers, and directors training to specifically produce television content. The programs were of better quality than in the 1950s and gave a younger, more dynamic look to preexisting shows, such as The Ed Sullivan Show. The shift in production modality started to attract corporate sponsorships such as Ford, who used ad space in The Lively Ones to promote the Fairlane sedan to young car buyers.

Record labels and performers in the 1960s sought to utilize the newly founded music driven platform to introduce audiences to international acts such as The Beatles who performed in the US for the first time on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964. The Beatles' performance served as the beginning of increased British influence in American popular culture. Other music-based variety programs gained popularity, including ABC's Shindig (1964–1966), and NBC's Hullaballoo (1965–1966), a rock and roll show targeted at young urban adults.  Another extension of the growth of television music can be seen in musical family acts of the 1970s such as The Monkees, The Partridge Family, The Jackson 5, and The Osmonds.

Cable television (1980s–2000)

On March 3, 1981, Warner-Amex introduced Music Television (MTV), the first television 24-hour cable network completely dedicated the broadcast of music videos. MTV was pitched to reach and profit from the young adult demographic. The purpose of MTV was to reuse previously made content by record labels for international audiences, which was free, and televise them in America in a top 40 Hits format.

On August 1, 1981, MTV was launched with its first broadcast of "Video Killed the Radio Star". The birth of MTV reinvented the previously successful strategies by record labels, sponsors, and performers had used on variety specials. This new network added the necessity of visual effect and video concept production to a previously mainly audio platform. This showed an influx of record labels and performers producing more high-quality videos and presenting a theme to their music and sound through visual platforms. Some record labels also decided to dedicate entire sections of their operation to music videos. In the late 1980s and early 90s MTV began cultivating a lifestyle for teen and college aged student. As video clips began to develop certain images for artist, such as Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, and New Kids on The Block, clothes and paraphernalia for these acts were also marketed along with the distribution of music.

Digital era (2000–present)

In the early 2000s with the rise of digital technologies the music industry as well as the network industry sought to elevate their platform into the digital era after the decline of cable network ratings. Network television started to broadcast reality television shows that were related but not centered to industry musical acts such as MTV Cribs, American Idol, and America's Got Talent which drew larger audiences than music videos. Certain television networks also sought to develop and broadcast their own award shows such as the Teen Choice Awards, the MTV Video Music Awards, and the American Music Awards.

In the 2010s came the appeal of providing more dynamic and fast content such as YouTube channels to premiere music videos and social media accounts with the purpose of staying relevant and continuing to distribute content to the adolescent-college age demographic. The YouTube streaming platform is now the main source for audiences to consume music video premieres and relevant content; however, MTV still runs reality television shows as well as awards shows.

Impact on the music industry
The impact that television music has had on music culture is that it allowed for aesthetic and personal style to the lead in terms of importance over sound in popular music. Before the age of MTV the term "pop" was a means to describe popular music at the given time. However, after music videos started to become more widespread the term "pop music" started to describe musical genre that was accompanied by specific aesthetics through visual art in conjunction to sound. Moreover,  to get a record deal in the time after 1981, when MTV had launched,  sound was not as important as image when it came to creating a novelty act or selling records. An example of this can be seen through Madonna and Michael Jackson who used the platform MTV to create careers that were based on music videos, choreography, and personal style over sonic performance.

The impact of music television on the music industry after the launch of MTV led to addition of specific visual art division within record labels  which had the specific intention of introducing new acts to audiences with a clear image. However this strategy sometimes was ineffective for up and coming artist since most commercial broadcasters wanted to air already established artist. Nevertheless, record companies found a way to overcome this problem by signing exclusivity deals with MTV to guarantee air play both their established artists as well their newer artists.

Additionally, a key factor in music television's success in the 80s and 90s was the evocative nature of music videos that were specifically targeted towards the teenage audience. The impact that MTV specifically had was that it was a window into popular trends and clothes  unlike in the twenty first century where trends are available through social media.

The extent of the effect of Television music after the late 90s is argumentative. In the golden era of music videos, 1985–1996, fame achieved through television was an integral part of the star-making process for the music industry. However the depletion of television rating going into the twenty first century  as well as the aspect that radio was the more dominant form of broadcast media in terms of longevity dating from the 1920s to the mid-late 1950s show that the effect of television in terms of longevity were scarce

In the late 90s the expense of creating music video grew from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands which made them less appealing as an easy market source. Starting in early 2000s YouTube and Myspace started removing the need to pay broadcasters for air time and the music industry had found a free replacement. following the launch of VEVO in 2009 the increase of music videos consumed on internet platform surpassed the expectation of record labels. Another aspect that lead to depletion of the effects of music television is that record companies were cutting video budgets and industry paper and moved most up to date content to digital platforms.

References

Music television


Percy Wilfred Northcroft (August 31, 1886 – December 20, 1967) was an American football player and Naval officer.  He played tackle for the Navy Midshipmen football team from 1905 to 1908 and was selected as an All-American in 1906 and 1908. He later served as an officer in the U.S. Navy.

Biography
Northcroft was a native of Pawtucket, Rhode Island.  He enrolled at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland in June 1905 and played at the tackle position for the Navy Midshipmen football team from 1905 to 1908.  Northcroft also competed in the weight events for the Academy's track and field team and was elected as captain of the track team in May 1908.

In 1906, Northcroft helped lead the Navy football team to a record of 8–2–2 and a 10–0 victory over Army.  In the season-ending win over Army, Northcroft kicked a field goal that was variously reported to have been from the 42-yard line or the 48-yard line.  One observer later recalled that Northcroft's long kick was made with the ball placed near the sideline and he "kicked the ball at least 20 feet above the goal posts and clear up into the end stand."  The 1906 victory broke a four-game winning streak for Army.  After the 1906 season, Northcroft was selected as a third-team All-American by Walter Camp for Collier's Weekly and a second-team All-American by Caspar Whitney for The Outing Magazine.

As a junior in 1907, Northcroft helped lead Navy to a record of 9–2–1, including eight shutouts.  The 1907 Navy team also won its second consecutive victory over Army in the last game of the season.  Following the 1907 season, Northcroft was elected by his fellow Midshipmen as the captain of the 1908 Navy football team.

As a senior in 1908, the Navy team with Northcroft as captain compiled a record of 9–2–1 and outscored its opponents by a combined score of 218 to 38.  At the end of the 1908 season, Northcroft was selected as a first-team All-American by the Chicago Inter-Ocean and a third-team All-American by Walter Camp.

In 1909, the Naval Academy tested the strength of more than 800 midshipmen at the academy  using a "Kellogg testing machine"; Northcroft was determined to be "the strong man of the whole academy" with a "multiple" of 9,275 pounds.  He also had his name engraved on the Naval Academy's Thompson trophy cup in 1909 "for having had the best influence for the betterment of athletics during the past year."

After graduating from the Naval Academy, Northcroft spent his career in the U.S. Navy.  In January 1917, he was assigned to the destroyer force of the Navy's Atlantic Fleet, serving as a lieutenant on the  .  In June 1917, following the entry of the United States into World War I, Northcroft was promoted from the rank of lieutenant (junior grade) to full lieutenant.  He continued to serve through World War II advancing through the ranks of commander and Captain.

Northcroft was also inducted into the U.S. Naval Academy's Hall of Fame for his contributions to the football teams.

Northcroft died in 1967 at age 81.  He was buried at the Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno, California.

References

1886 births
1967 deaths
All-American college football players
American football tackles
Navy Midshipmen football players
Sportspeople from Pawtucket, Rhode Island
United States Navy officers
United States Navy personnel of World War I
United States Navy personnel of World War II
Burials at Golden Gate National Cemetery

Percy Northcroft


The ugal is an instrument in the Indonesian gamelan orchestra.  It is a bronze metallophone played one handed with a small hammer, often in a dance-like manner. There are usually ten keys, giving a maximum range spanning about two octaves. Like the gangsa and gendér, they are suspended over tuned bamboo resonators.

The ugal features mainly in gamelan gong kebyar, where it carries the central melody (pokok) of the piece. Sometimes it may give its melodic duty to the jublag, where it then takes over as the leader of a kotekan.

There is often only one ugal in the kebyar ensemble, and it is usually deeper toned. It is played by one of the leaders of the ensemble. A second, higher toned ugal is sometimes used. The ugal is taller than the other gangsa, and the player sits on a short stool, so as to allow the player to cue the ensemble visually with ease.

The instrument also has 10 keys, with a range of two octaves, and is played with a hard wooden mallet, slightly larger than the other  and usually with additional ornamentations so the leader's sometimes theatrical cues actively catch the light. Its notes are an octave lower than those of the gangsa pemadé. The ugals play a combination of gangsa parts and cues, melodic solos, and the underlying melody with flourishes. The first, front ugal cues and plays elements of the polos interlocking gangsa part (the part that plays more often on the beat), and if there is a second ugal, it plays elements of the sangsih part (gangsa notes more often off the beat).

References

Gamelan instruments
Plaque percussion idiophones
Keyboard percussion instruments
Indonesian musical instruments

Ugal


Shakereh Khaleeli, ( Namazie; 1947–1991), was an Indian real estate developer and philanthropist who was murdered by her second husband, Swami Shradhananda (Murali Manohar Mishra). She had been previously married to Indian diplomat Akbar Khaleeli, the Indian envoy to Iran and Australia. They divorced in 1985 and she married Shradhananda the following year.

Her family noticed she was missing in 1991 and alerted the police. In 1994, after three years of a sting operation the Karnataka Police got an admission of murder from Shradhananda and he led the police to her remains which were buried in her own home. She had been drugged, suffocated, and buried in a coffin-like box. He was convicted of the murder in 2005 and sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 2008.

Family and background
Shakereh was born on 27 August 1947 in Madras to an Indian-Persian Muslim family. The family were also residents of Singapore since the early 1900s where Shakereh went to school.

She was the daughter of Gulam Hussain Namazie and Gauhar Taj Begum Namazie , the youngest daughter of Sir Mirza Ismail the Diwan of Mysore, Jaipur and Hyderabad. Gauhar Taj was a socialite and philanthropist involved in many charitable organisations in Singapore. Shakereh has an elder brother Mirza Karim Namazie who used to be a television journalist.

Her paternal grandfather was Mohammad Namazie, a  trader with interests in the Middle East, Southeast Asia and southern India. Ghulam Hussain Namazie's was responsible for opening Capitol Theatre, Singapore which was Singapore's first cinema hall. He was also an equestrian and involved with the Turf Club where the family horses won many prestigious trophies. Later he would join the board of the larger Namazie Group and help with their many diverse business interests especially the family's vast real estate portfolio.

First marriage
In 1965, at age 18, Shakereh married her first cousin Akbar Mirza Khaleeli from Madras. Their mothers were sisters Shah Taj Begum Khaleeli  and Gauhar Taj Namazie (both daughters of Sir Mirza Ismail).

Akbar Mirza Khaleeli was an outstanding sportsman and student who completed his schooling at Bishop Cotton Boys' School, Bangalore and later, Doveton Corrie Protestant Schools Association. He studied law at Loyola College, Chennai. He was considered the best tennis player in South India by Ramesh Krishnan but instead joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1954. He went on to serve in various posts in Delhi, Baghdad, Colombo, Paris and Amman. He served as Chief of Protocol in 1976 and later served as Indian Ambassador to Iran. Shakereh was with him throughout most of his postings, except during the time of the Iranian Revolution.

While her husband was in Iran, Shakereh moved to Bangalore and engaged in construction, following her great-grandfather Agha Aly Asker, known for his buildings in Bangalore. She first built a family home on Sankey Road, Abshot Layout, and a house for her mother on Ali Asker Road. She then redeveloped other family properties, evicting some of the tenants.
They divorced in 1984.  Akbar Khaleeli would go on to become Ambassador in Italy. High Commissioner to Australia and Advisor to the Government on Middle Eastern Affairs.

They had four daughters with Zeebundeh Khaleeli  (b. 1965 in Madras), Sabah Bakache (b. 1966 in Delhi), Rehane Yavar Dhala (b. 1969 in Paris), and Begum Esmath Khaleeli Clark (b. 1972 in Amman, Jordan).

Second marriage
Murali Manohar Mishra, who had renamed himself as Swami Shradhananda, first met Shakereh and her husband in Bangalore in 1982. Akbar Mirza Khaleeli then took up a post in Iran and, on his return, Shakereh divorced him. Six months after her divorce, in April 1986,  Shakereh "shunned her family and social norms" to marry Shradhananda. She allowed Shradhananda access to her money and property. The couple reportedly quarrelled over her relationship with her daughters.

Murder
In 1991 Sabah, Shakereh's second daughter, found that she was unable to locate her mother. Despite repeated enquiries about Shakereh's whereabouts to Shradhananda, he consistently avoided giving a proper answer. In 1992, Sabah filed for a habeas corpus at the Ashok Nagar Police Station in Bangalore. For three years Shradhananda managed to evade questions from Shakereh's family and friends, as well as legal authorities of the state. He lived lavishly in Bangalore, pretending his wife was on a perpetual holiday.

In May 1994, after sting operation, the police of Karnataka uncovered the skeletal remains of Shakereh's body buried deep in the courtyard of her own house. Shakereh's murder was considered one of the most heinous crimes of Indian criminal history, deeply affecting the nation.

Shakereh had been killed on 28 April 1991. She had been drugged, then placed on a mattress which was deposited in the coffin-like box, already lying in the pit that had been dug in preparation. When Shakereh's skeletal remains were recovered and the mattress was removed, one of her hands was found clutching the mattress which lay below her; this, along with other factors, supported the idea that she had been alive when buried.

Prosecution
Swami Shradhananda was taken into judicial custody after admitting to the crime. The case became an important milestone in the Indian judicial system, as it was the first case where the exhumation process was recorded on video, as well as the first time that DNA tests and videotapes of the exhumation were accepted as evidence in India.

Trial and sentence
The case was first brought to trial in late 1997. On 21 May 2005, the Civil and Sessions Judge B.S. Totad sentenced Swami to capital punishment by hanging. Shradhananda reportedly betrayed no emotions as he stood in the dock. The order read: "From the facts and circumstances of the case, it is clear that the said murder has created such a fear in the minds of the family and in the community to live peacefully in society. There are no mitigating circumstances or factors to award a lesser punishment ... having regard to the nature of the methodology in committing the murder for gain, it is a fit case for capital punishment." The judge directed the jail authorities not to execute the death sentence until they received confirmation from the high court.

On 12 September 2005 in the high court, a two-bench judge composed of Justices S.R. Bannurmath and A.C. Kabbin confirmed the death sentence. Terming it the "rarest of rare cases" in their order, the division bench stated: "The accused had murdered his wife in a diabolical and a well-planned scheme. As such, the death penalty imposed on him is liable to be confirmed. Anything less than a penalty of greatest severity for any serious crime is thought to be a measure of tolerance that is unwarranted and unwise. The sessions court is justified in awarding death penalty to the accused."

Appeal
An appeal notice was lodged in July 2005. On 18 February 2006 Shradhananda issued notice to the Karnataka Government on special leave petition (SLP) questioning the high court judgment that had confirmed the death sentence. The Supreme Court Bench of Justice Ashok Bhan and Justice Tarun Chatterjee stayed the high court judgment. On 22 July 2008 a life sentence for Shradhananda was ordered by the Indian Supreme Court in New Delhi.

In popular culture
In 2023, Amazon Prime Video released a four-part documentary series Dancing on the Grave produced by India Today Originals Production.

References

1947 births
1991 deaths
Businesspeople from Chennai
Indian expatriates in Singapore
Businesspeople from Bangalore
Indian real estate businesspeople
Indian philanthropists
Indian socialites
Indian murder victims
People murdered in Karnataka
Premature burials
Deaths by live burial
1991 murders in India
Indian people of Iranian descent

Shakereh Khaleeli


Augvald (Old Norse: Ǫgvaldr) was a semi-legendary Norwegian petty king portrayed in the legendary Norse sagas. If considered historical, reconstructed estimates based on saga information would have Augvald living some time in the 7th century AD. His kingdom was said to have been based in Jøsursheid, somewhere in the interior of south-western Norway. After a number of naval battles he succeeded in conquering the islands off the western coast of Rogaland. He subsequently moved his kingdom's seat to the north-east of Karmøy, the largest of those islands and adjacent to the strategically important Karmsund strait, to a site later given the name Avaldsnes, after the king. Augvald's kingdom further expanded to incorporate parts of what is today south-western Hordaland.

Augvald had several daughters, including two who notably fought alongside him as so-called shield-maidens, or female warriors. He owned and worshipped a sacred cow, which he always kept with him, believing he owed his victories to the cow and the power of its milk. Augvald was killed during a battle with his rival Ferking (in the Saga of Olaf Tryggvason called Varinn), the native king of western Karmøy, with whom his story is interlinked.

Sources
Norse sagas telling parts of the story of Augvald include the Saga of Olaf Tryggvason (both by Snorri Sturluson in Heimskringla and by Oddr Snorrason), the Saga of Half & His Heroes and the Flateyjarbok. He also appears in the later Historia rerum Norvegicarum and other works of the Icelandic historian Thormodus Torfæus, who lived and worked in Kopervik, Karmøy. In addition, Augvald is mentioned in the Avaldsnes parish register, and in local Karmøy legends. Scholars have been very sceptical about the reliability of the legendary sagas, which were dismissed as being of little value even in the early 20th century, before the establishment of general source criticism. The legendary sagas' value as sources has not been re-evaluated in recent times.

Name
Augvald's name (originally Ǫgvaldr), later attested in the genitive in af Awaldzstadom ('Awald's settlements', dative plural) in Aslak Bolt's cadastre (Norwegian "Aslak Bolts Jordebok") (A.B 52), later abbreviated to Ofstad (as recorded in Professor Ole Ryghs publicly commissioned study of old personalnames, titled "Gamle Personnavne i Norske stedsnavne"), has been interpreted in several different ways, although usually taken to mean a combination of the words "awe" and "violence" (Old Norse agi + valdr) or "awe" + "wield", meaning something like "respect-wielder" or "fear-wielder" or "he who is held in awe," derived from the West-Nordic agi meaning 'fear'.  Other interpretations include "the ruler of the coast", with ǫgð meaning stretch of coastline, or "the ruler of the island", with ogn meaning dangerous waters/island, which would imply that the king's name might originally have been either Ǫgðvaldr or Ognvaldr.

It has also been suggested that Augvald was probably an epithet gained in adulthood rather than a given name, and there has been speculation that Augvald was actually Harald Agdekonge. Some historians have alternatively suggested that Augvald could have been a title, possibly shared by many, rather than the name of a single individual, but the saga's account of Augvald may still have centred on one particularly notable individual.

Background

The sagas do not say when Augvald lived, but an early suggestion by Torfæus placed Augvald in the 3rd century AD. Modern estimates have been made based on two of his reported descendants, Geirmund and Håvard Heljarskinn, who are said to have settled Iceland as "old men" when Harald Fairhair consolidated his power in Norway. According to an estimate by Marit Synnøve Vea based on generation-cycles of 30 years (though she notes 25 years might be more accurate), Augvald would have lived in the Migration Period, with slightly varied interpretations around 580–630, around 600 or in the early 7th century. Arnfrid Opedal has considered a shorter generation-cycle of 20 years, which would place Augvald 90 years later, at the end of the 7th century.

To justify their right to rule, Norse royal families, among other things, traced their bloodlines back to divine creatures. As a member of the West-Nordic royal families, Augvald traced his ancestry back to the ancient giant Fornjót (likely another name for Ymir). According to the sagas, Augvald was the son of Rognvald, in turn the son of Rugalf, son of Gard Agdi, son of Nór—a direct descendant of Fornjót. Augvald originally had his throne at "Roga" in "Jøsursheid". Historian P. A. Munch located the name Jøsureid in Kviteseid in western Telemark, and thus placed Augvald's kingdom in the mountains between Rogaland and Telemark, concluding that the kingdom had stretched to western Telemark. Per Hernæs has on the other hand identified Jøsursheid as an old name for the moorland within Jøsenfjorden in Hjelmeland, although he questions whether conditions in the area could have allowed for the rise of a great chieftain such as Augvald.

Described as battle-hungry, Augvald carried out raids into foreign territory, gaining great wealth and honour as a result. After a series of successful naval battles, he went on to conquer the land of the Holmrygr ("island-Rugi") people, based on the islands off the western coast of Rogaland. He banished the former chieftains from the newly conquered land, and set up his new base at the most favourable location on Karmøy, the largest island in Rogaland. The site he chose was later named Avaldsnes, after Augvald. Based on archaeological findings, it is believed that the ambitions of the increasingly powerful Norwegian chieftains of the time were influenced by the Merovingian Franks, and especially Dagobert and his empire. As a builder of dynasties, Augvald has also been compared to Clovis.

Convinced that his cow was responsible for his victories, Augvald worshipped it and always kept it by his side. He also believed that the cow's milk provided special strength and vitality. According to some accounts, the cow's name was Audhumla (after Auðumbla), and it wore a golden collar around its neck.

Augvald had several daughters, including two who were female warriors, known as shield-maidens (), and who fought alongside their father in all his battles. Augvald's (unnamed) queen also gave birth to a son, Jøsur, when Augvald was away hunting with his men. Jøsur was raised by Augvald's earl Gunnvald on Stord.

Rivalry with Ferking and death
Augvald had set up his base in the north-eastern part of Karmøy, but the western part of the island was still ruled by another king, Ferking. The two were not enemies at first, but that changed after Augvald and his men attended a midwinter sacrificial banquet in Ferkingstad. What started as a friendly visit turned sour, and Augvald returned home with his men, leaving his daughters held captive at Ferkingstad.

Ferking apparently could not tolerate Augvald's overlordship of Karmøy, and he went north with his army, meeting Augvald and his army at Skeie, near Avaldsnes. In the resulting battle there many fatalities, but no clear victor. The conclusive battle took place at the Field of Stava (Stavasletta), near Ferkingstad. Ferking and his men hid between two gorges, waiting for Augvald to appear. In the fierce battle that followed Augvald and his cow were among the many who lost their lives. When his two daughters saw that Augvald was dead, they jumped into a river and drowned.

According to Snorri Sturluson, Augvald was killed by a man named Varin, although the Flateyjarbok says it was someone called Dixin. The Saga of Half & His Heroes names Augvald's killer as "Hækling's men", which possibly only refers to caped men.

Aftermath

According to historical sources, Augvald and his cow were taken from the battlefield and buried at Avaldsnes. In his Saga of Olav Tryggvason, Oddr Snorrason writes that Tryggvason excavated two mounds on Karmøy, revealing the bones of a man in one and those of a cow in the other. Local legends contradict Augvald's burial at Avaldsnes, stating instead that he was buried in Ferkingstad, on the south side of the 12th-century churchyard. A large memorial stone, still standing, was raised outside the churchyard in memory of Augvald.

In the generations following Augvald's death two royal dynasties appear to fight over the same region, the "Vikar dynasty" of Agder and Rogaland, and the "Jøsur dynasty" of Hordaland and Rogaland. If Augvald was indeed Harald Agdekonge, as suggested by some modern historians, Vikar and Jøsur could have been two warring brothers. In any event, Augvald's son Jøsur became king of Rogaland after his father's death, and reconquered parts of Hordaland. He was in turn succeeded by his son Hjør, who was buried in Rogaland. Hjør's son, Hjørleiv the Womanizer, was king of Hordaland and Rogaland, and mounted expeditions to Bjarmaland and Denmark. He eventually also captured a kingdom in Zealand, in Denmark. Hjørleiv's son Half appears as the protagonist in the Saga of Half & His Heroes.

Family tree
The following tables show the most common rendering of the family tree attributed to Augvald in the various sagas, including his ancestors and descendants.

References

Bibliography

Further reading

Historical fiction

External links
Gamle Personnavne i Norske Stedsnavne (in English: Person names in Norwegian place names)
Forgotten royal families

Norwegian petty kings
Mythological kings
Monarchs killed in action

Augvald


Aisha Khalid (born 1972 in Lahore, Pakistan) is a female contemporary visual artist, working with miniature painting, textiles, video and site specific installations in architectural spaces.

Khalid is one of a generation of artists from Pakistan who have transformed the tradition of miniature painting into an internationally celebrated form of contemporary art. In recent years, Khalid's practice has extended to significantly larger paintings, murals and installations. She is a member of what has come to be called the Pakistani 'neo-miniature' school.

Biography

Khalid graduated from the National College of Arts, Lahore in 1993 and completed her post-graduate degree Fine Art degree from Rijksakademie, Amsterdam in 2003. Khalid was schooled in classical miniature painting and has become a leading figure in developing the contemporary miniature.

She has described her two-year fellowship at the Rijksakademie as a real learning experience, due to the culture shocks she encountered. She has described how the reaction from audiences in Amsterdam to her miniatures differed compared to reactions in Pakistan:  My miniatures were considered beautiful and exotic but beyond that the viewers could not read anything significant in them. They would ask me, is it about religion, ethnicity or typical oriental traditions? It was surprising to discover the difference in perception, in Pakistan my miniature was labeled as unconventional and modern while western audiences considered them archaic.As a result, her experience in Amsterdam led her to change her style and adopt more contemporary mediums to make her work more accessible to her hosts.

Work
Khalid works with paintings, murals, video, installations, and textile works. She was initially trained as a traditional miniaturist, and is known for reviving old techniques in contemporary ways.

Themes
Many of Khalid's works deal with the theme of gender. Her work has been described as having a 'feminine sensibility', coming partly from references to traditionally feminine crafts such as textiles and needlework. This comes both from her use of textiles in her work, but also from her focus on repeated geometric patterns, taken from traditional Islamic patterns, combined with floral motifs.

In keeping with the theme of gender, she has also made repeated use of the theme of the covered or uncovered female figure, using motifs such as curtains, burqas, and flowers. This theme took on a new dimension after her fellowship at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, where she encountered familiar patterns of male dominance and female submissiveness, but with new dimensions. Her flower and curtain symbols took on new meanings: the red-light district, for example, had different types of curtains, drawn to indicate the conduct of business.

After 9/11, a new political dimension appeared in her work. Conversation, for example, is a video installation made during Khalid's time at the Rijksakademie. The work was about her response to the violence inflicted on Afghanistan in the name of counter-terrorism. Throughout the work, a rose is slowly embroidered by a brown-skinned hand, while at the same time another rose is unpicked, removed, and subsequently erased by a white hand using a needle.

Awards

Khalid received the Alice Award (artist book category) in 2012, and was a finalist for the Jameel Art Prize in 2011, winning the People's Choice Award in 2011. She is among a handful of Pakistani artists who have had solo shows of their work, including 'Two worlds as one' Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (2016); Garden of ideas, Aga Khan Museum, Toronto (2014); Larger Than Life, Whitworth Art Gallery, United Kingdom (2012); Larger Than Life, Corvi-Mora, London (2012); Pattern to Follow, Chawkandi Art, Karachi (2010); Conversations, Pump House Gallery, London (2008). She participated at the 2009 Venice Biennale, the 2011 Sharjah Biennial and 2013 Moscow Biennale.

Books and Articles

 Book: Aisha Khalid: The Divine is in the Detail (artist monograph, catalog), Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde, Dubai, 2013
 Book: Aisha Khalid: Larger than Life (artist monograph, catalog), Whitworth Art Gallery, The University of Manchester, Manchester, 2012
 Book: Aisha Khalid: Pattern to Follow (artist monograph, catalog), Gandhara-art, Hong Kong, 2010
 Book: Aisha Khalid: Name, Class, Subject (artist book, artist monograph) Raking Leaves, Colombo, 2009
 Book: Portraits & Vortexes: Aisha Khalid (artist monograph, catalog), Gandhara-art, Hong Kong, 2007
 Book: Aisha Khalid: Tales Carried by the Breath (artist monograph, catalog), Anant Art Gallery, New Delhi, 2006
 Book: Aisha Khalid 2001-2002 (artist monograph), 2002
 Book: The Eye Still Seeks: Pakistani Contemporary Art (anthology) Penguin Books India, 2015
 Book: Colour and Line: The Naqvi Collection (catalog) 2015
 Book: Art and Polemic in Pakistan: Cultural Politics and Tradition in Contemporary Miniature Painting (monograph) Tauris Academic Studies, London, 2010
 Book: Journeys of the Spirit: Pakistan Art in the New Millennium (monograph) FOMMA, Karachi, 2008
 Book: Memory, Metaphor, Mutations: Contemporary Art of India and Pakistan (monograph) Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2007
 Book: Vasl 2005-2006 (anthology) Vasl International Artists' Workshop, Karachi, 2006
 Book: Asian Art Newspaper (Vol. 8, Issue 3; Jan 2005) (magazine), Asian Art Newspaper, London, 2005
 Book: Art Tomorrow (monograph) Marc Parent/Terrail, Paris, 2002
 Book: Unveiling the Visible: Lives and Works of Women Artists of Pakistan (monograph), Sang-e-Meel Publication, Lahore, 2001
 Article: "Reinventing Tradition" by Rachel Duffell, Kee Magazine, 2010
 Article: "Reading Through the Lense of the Political: Contemporary Art in Pakistan", Asia Art Archive, Sep 2009
 Article: Pakistan's Contemporary Painting Workshop, HK, Quintessentially: Insider, 2007

References

External links

20th-century Pakistani artists
21st-century Pakistani artists
1972 births
Living people
Artists from Lahore
National College of Arts alumni

Aisha Khalid


Shannon Leigh Boxx Spearman (; born June 29, 1977) is an American retired soccer player and former member of the United States women's national soccer team, playing the defensive midfielder position. She last played club soccer for the Chicago Red Stars in the American National Women's Soccer League. She won gold medals with the United States at the 2004 Athens Olympics, 2008 Beijing Olympics, and 2012 London Olympics. She has also finished third place or better with the US at the 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015 FIFA Women's World Cups. She was a finalist for the 2005 FIFA World Player of the Year award, and won an NCAA Women's Soccer Championship with Notre Dame in 1995. Shannon Boxx announced her retirement from international and club soccer after winning the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup. She played her last game on October 21, 2015, when the USWNT tied with Brazil as part of their victory tour.

Boxx is the younger sister of Gillian Boxx, who won a gold medal at the 1996 Olympics with the United States softball team.

Boxx was diagnosed with lupus in 2007 when she was 30 years old, and went public with her diagnosis shortly before the 2012 London Olympics at which she won gold with the United States team.

Early life
The multiracial Boxx, whose biological father, was black, was raised by her white single mother in Southern California. In a 2008 interview, she remembered that she had little contact with her African American heritage until she went to Notre Dame:

Youth Club
From U/12-U/18, Boxx played for the Torrance United Waves Soccer Club, Torrance, California, and helped to lead them to 4 State Cup Championships and two trips to the USYSA National Championship Final Four in 1993 and 1994 at U/17 and U/19.

High school
From 1991 to 1995, Boxx attended South Torrance High School, where she was a four-sport athlete, playing soccer, volleyball, softball and basketball. She was named to the Parade All-America team for girls' soccer in 1995.

College
Boxx played for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish from 1995 to 1998. She helped the team win the school's first NCAA Women's Soccer Championship in 1995, beating defending champions North Carolina in the semifinal. Boxx was named to the All-Big East team in 1995, 1996 and 1997, and is tied for the most soccer games played for the Irish at 101 games.

College statistics

Professional career

1999–2000
In 1999, Boxx played for the Boston Renegades of the W-League, and then went to Germany to play for 1. FC Saarbrücken in the women's Bundesliga. However, she was unhappy and considered retiring from soccer.

WUSA
In 2001, Women's United Soccer Association began play, and Boxx was drafted by the San Diego Spirit in the third round of the entry draft, with the 19th pick overall.

In the 2001 season, Boxx started all 21 matches for the Spirit, missing 20 minutes of the entire season, and was named to the All-WUSA team. However, her playing time was reduced the following season, and in September 2002, she was sent to the New York Power, in a six-player trade that gave San Diego the first overall pick in the 2003 draft, used to select Aly Wagner.

With New York, Boxx returned to form, starting all 21 games, scoring once and assisting a career-high eight times, and was named to the 2003 All-WUSA squad. Former women's national team coach and league commissioner Tony DiCicco called Boxx "the best in our league at (defensive midfield) – physical, strong, technical".

WPS

In 2009, Boxx signed to the Los Angeles Sol for the inaugural season of Women's Professional Soccer and was named team captain. She started in 18 of the 19 matches she played for the Sol, scoring three goals with three assists. Boxx was named to the WPS First Team and played in the WPS All-Star Game. The Sol finished in first place during the regular season with a 12–3–5 record.

In 2010, she was signed to the Saint Louis Athletica during the Los Angeles Sol dispersal draft.

Later in the season after Saint Louis Athletica folded, she was traded to the FC Gold Pride. Boxx helped the team win the WPS regular season title and championship.  She started in 19 of the 20 games she played in, while scoring one goal and providing five assists. She was a WPS All-Star Game starter and received the fifth overall votes.

For the 2011 WPS season, Boxx signed with magicJack and played 833 minutes in 10 games starting in them all.  She helped the club make a run to the playoffs in the second half of the season and win the quarterfinal match against the Boston Breakers.

NWSL
In 2013, she joined Chicago Red Stars in the new National Women's Soccer League. Due to injury Boxx played 2 matches in 2013, played in 5 matches in 2014 due to pregnancy and birth of her first child, and in 2015 played 4 times due World Cup duties. On July 27, 2015, Boxx announced retirement from NWSL and Red Stars effective immediately.

International career

Although Boxx was a member of the United States Under-21 national team pool, she did not receive her first senior cap until August 2003, when U.S. national team coach April Heinrichs named her to the team's 2003 FIFA Women's World Cup squad, making her the first uncapped player to be named to a U.S. Women's World Cup squad. Prior to the call-up, following the suspension of WUSA, Boxx had planned to take a coaching position at Cal State-Dominguez Hills and pursue a graduate degree at Pepperdine University.

Boxx scored a goal in each of the two pre-World Cup friendlies, against Costa Rica and Mexico, and in the opening match of the World Cup against Sweden, Boxx became the first American woman to score three goals in her first three matches with the national team.

Boxx started five matches at the Women's World Cup, scoring again against Canada in the third place match. She was voted the player of the match against Canada by the FIFA Technical Study Group, who said Boxx "seized control of the game, spurred on her team-mates and finally scored the decisive goal in USA's victory".

Boxx started 31 of 32 national team matches she played in 2004, including all six matches at the 2004 Olympics, where she scored a goal, assisted on another and helped the team win a gold medal. She scored eight goals over the course of the year, including a hat trick against Trinidad and Tobago in an Olympic qualifying match. Boxx came in seventh in the voting for the 2004 FIFA World Player of the Year award.

In 2005, Boxx started all nine matches US national team matches, playing all but 23 minutes of all matches played. She was a finalist for the 2005 FIFA World Player of the Year, coming in third behind Birgit Prinz and Marta.

Boxx missed most of 2006, first for surgery to repair torn cartilage in her right hip, and then for torn medial collateral ligaments she suffered on her first day back in training with the national team. She returned in 2007 after an eight-month layoff, and was named to the United States' squad for the 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup. Boxx helped the team reach the semifinal match against Brazil, but she was sent off after receiving two yellow cards, and the United States went on to lose 4–0.
Boxx played every minute of all five U.S. games in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

In 2011, she played in all but one of the World Cup games, earning defensive team honors for her efforts throughout the tournament.  During the World Cup final against Japan, which went to overtime penalty shoot-out, Boxx was one of the Americans elected to take one of the penalty kicks, and had her shot saved by Japan's goalkeeper Ayumi Kaihori.

(*Correct )

International goals

In popular culture

Video games
Boxx was featured along with her national teammates in the EA Sports' FIFA video game series in FIFA 16, the first time women players were included in the game.

Ticker-tape parade and White House honor
Following the United States' win at the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup, Boxx and her teammates became the first women's sports team to be honored with a ticker-tape parade in New York City. Each player received a key to the city from Mayor Bill de Blasio. In October of the same year, the team was honored by President Barack Obama at the White House.

See also

 List of footballers with 100 or more caps
 List of Olympic medalists in football
 List of multiple Olympic gold medalists in one event
 List of multiple Olympic gold medalists
 List of 2004 Summer Olympics medal winners
 List of 2008 Summer Olympics medal winners
 All-time Los Angeles Sol roster
 All-time Saint Louis Athletica roster

References

Match reports

External links

 US Soccer player profile
 Notre Dame player profile
 Los Angeles Sol player profile
 Chicago Red Stars player profile

1977 births
Living people
United States women's international soccer players
Sportspeople from Fontana, California
Soccer players from San Bernardino County, California
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in soccer
Parade High School All-Americans (girls' soccer)
American Youth Soccer Organization women's players
Footballers at the 2004 Summer Olympics
Footballers at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Footballers at the 2012 Summer Olympics
1. FC Saarbrücken (women) players
Frauen-Bundesliga players
Notre Dame Fighting Irish women's soccer players
San Diego Spirit players
Los Angeles Sol players
Saint Louis Athletica players
FC Gold Pride players
MagicJack (WPS) players
African-American women's soccer players
American women's soccer players
FIFA Women's Century Club
2003 FIFA Women's World Cup players
2007 FIFA Women's World Cup players
2011 FIFA Women's World Cup players
2015 FIFA Women's World Cup players
National Women's Soccer League players
Chicago Red Stars players
Medalists at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Medalists at the 2004 Summer Olympics
New York Power players
FIFA Women's World Cup-winning players
Women's association football midfielders
American expatriate soccer players in Germany
Expatriate women's soccer players in Australia
People with lupus
21st-century African-American sportspeople
21st-century African-American women
American expatriate women's soccer players
20th-century African-American sportspeople
20th-century African-American women
20th-century African-American people
Women's Professional Soccer players
National Soccer Hall of Fame members
USL W-League (1995–2015) players
Boston Renegades players
Women's United Soccer Association players
South High School (Torrance, California) alumni
Expatriate women's footballers in Germany

Shannon Boxx


The Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, often abbreviated as SARM, is an independent association that is responsible for representing the governments of the many rural municipalities in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It is an official Government of Saskatchewan sanctioned corporation. There are 296 rural municipalities represented by SARM in such areas as dealing with the provincial and federal governments. The members are arranged in divisions in order to elect SARM Directors.

Board of Directors of Divisions
SARM is governed by a board of directors. There are eight people on the board of directors: the president, the vice-president, and one director from each SARM division. All board members must be elected rural municipal officials from their local municipality. The President of the Rural Municipal Administrators Association (RMAA) also sits on the board as an Ex-Officio member. The board of directors includes, as of October 2021:

 President — Ray Orb
 Vice-President — William Huber
 Division 1 - South East — Bob Moulding
 Division 2 - South Central — Cody Jordison
 Division 3 - South West — Larry Grant
 Division 4 - North East — Myron Kopec
 Division 5 - North Central —Judy Hardwood
 Division 6 - North West — Darwin Whitfield
 Ex-Officio — Guy Lagrandeur

See also
 List of regions of Saskatchewan
 List of census divisions of Saskatchewan
 List of communities in Saskatchewan
 Geography of Saskatchewan
 Politics of Saskatchewan

References

About SARM
SARM Board of Directors
SARM Members

Geographic regions of Saskatchewan


Michael Smith CC, OBC, FRS (April 26, 1932 – October 4, 2000) was a British-born Canadian biochemist. He was the winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (shared with Kary Mullis) for his work in developing site-directed mutagenesis.

After graduation with a PhD in 1956 from the University of Manchester, he studied with Dr. Har Gobind Khorana (himself a Nobel Prize winner) at the British Columbia Research Council in Vancouver, Canada.

Smith received many awards in addition to the Nobel Prize, and was known for his generosity. He gave half of the Nobel Prize money to researchers working on the genetics of schizophrenia. The other half he gave to BC Science World in Vancouver and to the Society for Canadian Women in Science and Technology. He received the Royal Bank Award in 1999, and donated the grant to the BC Cancer Foundation.

Site-specific mutagenesis
In 1978, Smith, with former Fred Sanger colleague Clyde A. Hutchison III, introduced a new technique into molecular biology. This technique, called "oligonucleotide-directed site-directed mutagenesis", showed how to find the effect of a single mutant gene. They developed a synthetic DNA. With this they compared different protein molecules to show what the mutation did.

The new technology allowed deliberate alteration of genes to change the characteristics of an organism. It helps new diagnostic strategies and new treatments for genetic diseases. It may even allow the creation of artificial forms of life.

The team's paper describing site-directed mutagenesis was published as "Mutagenesis at a specific position in a DNA sequence" in the Journal of Biological Chemistry in September 1978. For the team's work, Smith shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Kary Mullis, the inventor of the polymerase chain reaction.

Related pages
 Genetic engineering

References

1932 births
2000 deaths
English biochemists
Canadian chemists
Fellows of the Royal Society
People from Blackpool
Canadian Nobel Prize winners
British Nobel Prize winners

Michael Smith (chemist)


Colonel John Mount Batten, CB, JP (7 April 1843 – 5 March 1916) was a British soldier and landowner.

He was the eldest son of John Batten JP FSA, of Somerset, by his wife Grace Eleanor, daughter of John White of Upcerne, and was educated at Winchester. He married firstly, in 1873, Margaret Annie, eldest daughter of the Rev. John Brooks; she died in 1893. He married secondly, in 1895, Mary Edith, eldest daughter of James Sant RA and widow of H. F. Nalder; they had one son and four daughters.

Batten served in the British Army with 8th (The King's) Regiment of Foot (which was in 1881 renamed The King's (Liverpool Regiment)), from which he retired from active service with the rank of major on 9 March 1887. He was appointed lieutenant-colonel in command of the 3rd (Militia) battalion of the regiment (formerly the Duke of Lancaster's Own Rifles) on 1 October 1894, and later received the honorary rank of colonel. After the outbreak of the Second Boer War in South Africa in late 1899, the 3rd (militia) battalion was embodied for active service, with Batten in command. Following the end of the war in June 1902, the battalion returned to the United Kingdom on board the , which arrived in Southampton in September that year.

He was a member of the Army and Navy Club. He was High Sheriff of Dorset in 1903, a Justice of the Peace for Somerset and Dorset, an Alderman of Dorset County Council, and from 1905 also served as Lord Lieutenant for Dorset and Poole. He was also patron of two livings. In 1908 he was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB).

Colonel Batten lived at Upcerne, Cerne Abbas, Dorset and at Mornington Lodge, West Kensington, London W.

Despite the similarity of name, he was unrelated to the Princes of Battenberg, a morganaut branch of the House of Hesse who changed their name to Mountbatten in 1917. There is also a place called Mount Batten, part of the city of Plymouth, Devon.

References

Principal source
Who Was Who, vol. II

1843 births
1916 deaths
King's Regiment (Liverpool) officers
Companions of the Order of the Bath
Lord-Lieutenants of Dorset
People educated at Winchester College
High Sheriffs of Dorset

John Mount Batten


Scotsoun is an audio archive of works of Scottish literature, mainly of poetry in the Scots language.

The recordings were created over a period of thirty years by George Philp and Allan Ramsay and feature the voices of present poets in the language, such as William Neill, as well as audio readings, by poets and scholars, of a wide range of canonical texts, including extracts from Barbour and work of makars such as Henryson and Dunbar.

The archive is currently managed by the Scots Language Society.

Notes

External links
 Poems in the Thrie Leids o Alba

Scotsoun
Scotsoun
Scotsoun
Sound archives in the United Kingdom
Year of introduction missing

Scotsoun


In telecommunications, return loss is a measure in relative terms of the power of the signal reflected by a discontinuity in a transmission line or optical fiber.  This discontinuity can be caused by a mismatch between the termination or load connected to the line and the characteristic impedance of the line.  It is usually expressed as a ratio in decibels (dB);

where RL(dB) is the return loss in dB, Pi is the incident power and Pr is the reflected power.
Return loss is related to both standing wave ratio (SWR) and reflection coefficient (Γ).  Increasing return loss corresponds to lower SWR.  Return loss is a measure of how well devices or lines are matched.  A match is good if the return loss is high.  A high return loss is desirable and results in a lower insertion loss.

From a certain perspective 'Return Loss' is a misnomer.  The usual function of a transmission line is to convey power from a source to a load with minimal loss.  If a transmission line is correctly matched to a load, the reflected power will be zero, no power will be lost due to reflection, and 'Return Loss' will be infinite.  Conversely if the line is terminated in an open circuit, the reflected power will be equal to the incident power; all of the incident power will be lost in the sense that none of it will be transferred to a load, and RL will be zero.  Thus the numerical values of RL tend in the opposite sense to that expected of a 'loss'.

Sign
As defined above, RL will always be positive, since Pr can never exceed Pi . However, return loss has historically been expressed as a negative number, and this convention is still widely found in the literature. Strictly speaking, if a negative sign is ascribed to RL, the ratio of reflected to incident power is implied;

where RL(dB) is the negative of RL(dB).
In practice, the sign ascribed to RL is largely immaterial.  If a transmission line includes several discontinuities along its length, the total return loss will be the sum of the RLs caused by each discontinuity, and provided all RLs are given the same sign, no error or ambiguity will result.  Whichever convention is used, it will always be understood that Pr can never exceed Pi .

Electrical
In metallic conductor systems, reflections of a signal traveling down a conductor can occur at a discontinuity or impedance mismatch. The ratio of the amplitude of the reflected wave Vr to the amplitude of the incident wave Vi is known as the reflection coefficient .

Return loss is the negative of the magnitude of the reflection coefficient in dB. Since power is proportional to the square of the voltage, return loss is given by,

where the vertical bars indicate magnitude. Thus, a large positive return loss indicates the reflected power is small relative to the incident power, which indicates good impedance match between transmission line and load.

If the incident power and the reflected power are expressed in 'absolute' decibel units, (e.g., dBm), then the return loss in dB can be calculated as the difference between the incident power Pi (in absolute decibel units) and the reflected power Pr (also in absolute decibel units),

Optical
In optics (particularly in fiber optics) a loss that takes place at discontinuities of refractive index, especially at an air-glass interface such as a fiber endface. At those interfaces, a fraction of the optical signal is reflected back toward the source.  This reflection phenomenon is also called "Fresnel reflection loss," or simply "Fresnel loss'."

Fiber optic transmission systems use lasers to transmit signals over optical fiber, and a high optical return loss (ORL) can cause the laser to stop transmitting correctly. The measurement of ORL is becoming more important in the characterization of optical networks as the use of wavelength-division multiplexing increases.  These systems use lasers that have a lower tolerance for ORL, and introduce elements into the network that are located in close proximity to the laser.

where  is the reflected power and  is the incident, or input, power.

See also
 Hybrid balance
 Mismatch loss
 Signal reflection
 Time-domain reflectometer
Optical time domain reflectometer

Notes

References
Notes

Bibliography

 Federal Standard 1037C and from MIL-STD-188
 Optical Return Loss Testing—Ensuring High-Quality Transmission EXFO Application note #044

Wave mechanics
Radio electronics
Engineering ratios
Electrical parameters
Fiber optics

de:Rückflussdämpfung

Return loss


පෞද්ගලීකරණය (En=Privatization) is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency or public service from the public sector (the state or government) to the private sector (businesses that operate for a private profit) or to private non-profit organizations. In a broader sense, privatization refers to transfer of any government function to the private sector - including governmental functions like revenue collection and law enforcement.

Notes

References
 Alexander, Jason. 2009. Contracting Through the Lens of Classical Pragmatism: An Exploration of Local Government Contracting. Applied Research Project. Texas State University. http://ecommons.txstate.edu/arp/288/ .
 Dovalina, Jessica. 2006. Assessing the Ethical Issues Found in the Contracting Out Process. Applied Research Project. Texas State University. http://ecommons.txstate.edu/arp/108/ .
 Segerfeldt, Fredrik. 2006. Water for sale: how business and the market can resolve the world's water crisis. Stockholm Network. http://www.stockholm-network.org/downloads/events/d41d8cd9-Amigo%20Segerfeldt.pdf
Bernard Black et al., 'Russian Privatization and Corporate Governance: What Went Wrong? (2000) 52 Stanford Law Review 1731

Unindexed
 Zullo, Roland. (2009).  Does Fiscal Stress Induce Privatization? Correlates of Private and Intermunicipal Contracting, 1992-2002.  Governance 22.3 (July): 459-481.
 Kosar, Kevin R. (2006),  "Privatisation and the Federal Government: An Introduction", Report from the Congressional Research Service
 Bel, Germà (2006), "The coining of `privatisation´and Germany's National Socialist Party", Journal of Economic Perspectives 20(3), 187-194
 Clarke, Thomas (ed.) (1994) "International Privatisation: Strategies and Practices" Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, ISBN 3-11-013569-8
 Clarke, Thomas and Pitelis, Christos (eds.) (1995) "The Political Economy of Privatisation" London and New York: Routledge, ISBN 0-415-12705-X
 Nico Perrone (2002), Economia pubblica rimossa, Milan, Giuffrè ISBN 88-14-10088-8
 Mayer, Florian (2006) Vom Niedergang des unternehmerisch tätigen Staates: Privatisierungspolitik in Großbritannien, Frankreich, Italien und Deutschland, VS Verlag, Wiesbaden, ISBN 3-531-14918-0
 Megginson and Netter, From state to market: A survey of empirical studies on privatization,
Journal of Economic Literature 39(2), June 2001, 321-89.
 Juliet D'Souza, William L. Megginson (1999), "The Financial and Operating Performance of Privatised Firms during the 1990s" , Journal of Finance August 1999
 von Hayek, Friedrich, (1960) The Constitution of Liberty
 Smith, Adam (1994) The Wealth of Nations
 Stiglitz, Joseph Globalization and its Discontents

 von Weizsäcker, Ernst, Oran Young, and Matthias Finger (editors): Limits to Privatisation. Earthscan, London 2005 ISBN 1-84407-177-4
 Jeb Sprague, 2007. Haiti: Workers Protest Privatizatin Layoffs. Inter Press Service.
 Roger L. Kemp, PhD, "Privatization: The Provision of Public Services by the Private Sector," McFarland & Co., Jefferson, NC, USA; and London, UK., 2007.

External links

 In the Public Interest is a Resource Center on privatization and responsible contracting.
 Reports of the Public Services International Research Unit at the University of Greenwich  Research database with many articles on the effects of privatisation

ධනවාදය
Monopoly (economics)

පෞද්ගලීකරණය


The Mönchengladbach–Düsseldorf railway is a 24 km long main line on the left (western) bank of the Rhine in the Lower Rhine region of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has at least two tracks with continuous overhead electrification. The line was built by the Aachen-Düsseldorf-Ruhrort Railway Company and is one of the oldest lines in Germany, opened in 1853 and 1854.

History
The Aachen-Neuß-Düsseldorf Railway Company (Aachen-Neuß-Düsseldorfer Eisenbahngesellschaft, AND) was founded to build a railway line from Aachen via Gladbach  (now Mönchengladbach) and Neuss to Düsseldorf. This company depended on Prussian government guarantees and from 1850, it came under the management of the government-controlled Aachen-Düsseldorf-Ruhrort Railway Company (Aachen-Düsseldorf-Ruhrorter Eisenbahn), along with the Ruhrort-Crefeld District Gladbach Railway Company, which opened the Duisburg-Ruhrort–Mönchengladbach line in 1849 and 1851.

Prior to the Austro-Prussian War, the Prussian military opposed the building of fixed bridges across the Rhine for military reasons, except in fortified cities such as Cologne, Mainz, Koblenz and Düsseldorf. The line was built from Gladbach to Obercassel (now Oberkassel) and completed on 16 December 1852. Passenger services opened a month later on 17 January 1853. After completion of the line to the Belgian border at Aachen on 16 October 1854, freight traffic ran on the entire line. At the same time, Rhine station (Rheinstation) in Obercassel was opened.

In 1866, the Aachen-Düsseldorf-Ruhrort Railway Company was acquired by the Bergisch-Märkische Railway Company (Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, BME). In July 1870, the Hamm Railway Bridge was opened over the Rhine, connecting to the BME's Rheinknie station in Düsseldorf and bypassing the Neuss Hauptbahnhof–Obercassel section. In 1882, the BME was nationalised and became part of Prussian state railways. In 1891, the new Düsseldorf Hauptbahnhof was opened and the line from Mönchengladbach was realigned to run to it. The line from Neuss to Oberkassel was closed in 1996.

Current situation
Following the establishment of the Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn line S 8, part of the line was upgraded. Between Düsseldorf Hbf and Neuss Hbf, there is a separate two-track S-Bahn line next to the two-track main line.

Rail services
The route is served (as of 2018) by Regional-Express trains on lines RE 4 (Wupper-Express) and RE 13 (Maas-Wupper-Express). It is also served by S-Bahn lines S 8 (on the whole line), S 11 and S 28 (both between Düsseldorf and Neuss).

Planning
It is planned to establish a new station at Neuss Stadtwald between Neuss Hbf and Büttgen.

Notes

Railway lines in North Rhine-Westphalia
Railway lines opened in 1853
1853 establishments in Prussia
1853 establishments in Germany
Buildings and structures in Mönchengladbach
Transport in Düsseldorf
Buildings and structures in Rhein-Kreis Neuss

nl:Spoorlijn Mönchengladbach - Düsseldorf

Mönchengladbach–Düsseldorf railway


is a school of Japanese swordsmanship (kenjutsu) created by Yamaoka Tetsutaro Takayuki, more commonly known as Yamaoka Tesshū.

He studied a number of ryu over the years, most notably Jikishinkage Ryu, Hokushin Ittō-ryū and Nakanishi-ha Ittō-ryū. Tesshū received the full transmissions of both the Hokushin Ittō-ryū and the Nakanishi-ha Ittō-ryū from his teachers. In creating his own line of transmission, he named it the Itto Shoden Muto-ryu to emphasize that he was passing on the correct transmission of Ittō-ryū principles and techniques. The term muto (No-Sword) refers to Yamaoka's stated realization that the difference between the sword and the self, and between oneself and one's opponent is illusory and that the underlying unity of all is the most important thing in swordsmanship.

The school practice shugyō, (austere) training of swordsmanship, which put into test one's mental and physical capacity to the greatest levels. Today, there are very few exponents of Yamaoka's school. Itto Shoden Muto-ryu is now practiced in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture. Murakami Yasumasa, who learned from a late Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Ishida Kazuto, used to be the sixth generation head of the school.

List of heads of the school
 Founder : Tesshū Yamaoka
 2nd Head : Zenjirō Kagawa
 3rd Head : Ryūzō Ishikawa
 4th Head : Ryūnosuke Kusaka
 5th Head : Kazuto Ishida
 6th Head : Murakami Yasumasa
 7th Head : Takehiro Izaki

References

Ko-ryū bujutsu
Japanese martial arts

Itto Shoden Muto-ryu


Darcy Turenne (born March 22, 1984) is a professional freeride mountain bike athlete and filmmaker from Canada.

Career
In 2004, she began working part-time in television on Vancouver Island, and in 2007 she became the full-time host for "Ride Guide" television, broadcast on the Outdoor Life Network in Canada, and around the world on the Extreme Sports Channel. She has also been featured as a model and feature athlete in Oakley's "Uniquely" ad campaign. While doing her master's degree, she made her first documentary film about Indonesian female action sport athletes—The Eighth Parallel—which was featured in many film festivals around the world. Since then, she has directed many commercial shorts, art, and travel films.

Darcy Turenne has been featured in many mountain bike magazines, and has also gained a lot of mainstream media attention from articles and photos in Men's Journal and Rolling Stone magazine.

She has worked intensively with Norco and its engineering team to assist in designing the women's specific freeride bike the "Vixa" as well as the women's specific "Forma" series. She also appears on the September 2009 cover of Bike Magazine, as well as many other mountain bike magazine covers around the world.

Education
Darcy Turenne graduated 2002 from Highland Secondary, in Comox BC - a small town on Vancouver Island, Canada. She has a BA in Geography and Environmental Studies from the University of Victoria where she graduated in 2007. She also holds an MA in Professional Communications program with an emphasis on International and Intercultural communication from Royal Roads University.

References
 Darcy Turenne web site
 Darcy Turenne at Norco.com
 Ride Guide web site
 Darcy Turenne interview at www.pinkbike.com

Canadian female cyclists
Freeride mountain bikers
1984 births
Living people

Darcy Turenne


Founded in 1954, the Bill Williams Mountain Men of Williams, Arizona are a group of business people, doctors, judges and ranchers who re-enact the life and rides of 19th-century fur trappers. They dress in buckskin outfits, hats, boots or moccasins, and ride the trails to raise money for various charities and scholarships. The Bill Williams Mountain Men explore the mountains, canyons, and deserts of Arizona during their annual spring 200-mile Rendezvous Ride, held since they organized in 1954.

The group is named after "Old Bill Williams", a legendary fur trapper who hunted in the mountains of the area. They supported the creation of an eight-foot bronze statue of Williams, created by the sculptor by B. R. Pettit, to stand in a park honoring the mountain man in Williams, Arizona, which was named for him.  In 1981 they presented a 16" copy of a bronze statue of Williams to the newly elected US president, Ronald Reagan, at his inaugural celebration.  They ride the trail and sleep under the stars, re-enacting the rides and rendezvous of the trappers, who would come down from the mountains in the spring to sell their furs. The group participates in numerous parades and visits hospitals and schools to help keep the memory and adventures of the mountain men alive.

References

Historical reenactment groups


Hauteville-Lompnes is a former commune. It is found in the region Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes in the Ain department  in the east of France.

It is about 20 km east of Ambérieu-en-Bugey and 38 km southeast of Bourg-en-Bresse.

On 1 January 2019, it was merged into the new commune of Plateau d'Hauteville.

References

Former communes in Ain

Hauteville-Lompnes


Wil Tirion (born February 19, 1943) is a Dutch uranographer (celestial cartographer). His most famous work, Sky Atlas 2000.0, is renowned by astronomers for its accuracy and beauty. The second edition of his most complete work, Uranometria 2000.0, was published in 2001 by Willmann-Bell. He is also responsible for the sky charts found in many other publications. He was originally a graphic designer. The minor planet (asteroid) 4648 Tirion is named after him.

Works

Notes

External links
Wil Tirion's website

1943 births
Living people
20th-century cartographers
21st-century cartographers

Wil Tirion


The National People's Congress (usually abbreviated NPC) is the national legislature of the People's Republic of China. It had 2,987 members in 2013. It is the largest parliament in the world. Under China's current Constitution, the NPC is unicameral; it is not divided into a lower house and an upper house. It the power to legislate, to oversee the operations of the government, and the power to elect the major officers of state.
China

Political organizations in the People's Republic of China
Unicameral legislatures

National People's Congress


is a district of Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto, Japan, originating as an entertainment district in the Sengoku period, in front of Yasaka Shrine (Gion Shrine). The district was built to accommodate the needs of travellers and visitors to the shrine. It eventually evolved to become one of the most exclusive and well-known geisha districts in all of Japan. Gion is the Japanese translation (via Chinese Qiyuan) of the Buddhist term Jetavana.  Yasaka Shrine, located in this district is the center of the Gion faith.

The geisha in Kyoto do not refer to themselves as geisha, instead using the local term . While the term geisha means "artist" or "person of the arts", the more direct term  means essentially "a woman of art".

Divisions
Gion houses two , or geisha districts:  and . The two were originally the same district, but split many years ago. Gion Kobu is larger, occupying most of the district including the famous street Hanamikoji, while Gion Higashi is smaller and occupies the northeast corner, centered on its rehearsal hall. Despite the considerable decline in the number of geisha in Gion in the last century, the area is still famous for the preservation of forms of traditional architecture and entertainment.

Part of this district has been declared a national historical preservation district. The City of Kyoto has undertaken a number of restorative projects to enhance the beauty and historical authenticity of Kyoto's , such as relocating overhead utilities underground. Since 1986, the city has removed electric poles from a number of popular tourist destinations such as Nene no Michi (ねねの道), Hanamikoji (花見小路), and Pontocho (先斗町).

Entertainment

Geisha

Gion retains a number of old-style Japanese houses called , which roughly translates to "townhouse", some of which function as , or "teahouses", where geisha entertain guests at parties, involving singing, traditional dance performances, drinking games and conversation. Both geisha and  can be seen travelling throughout the district to attend parties, lessons and various other engagements. A number of dressing-up parlors, known as  studios, will dress tourists up as  or geisha for a fee, allowing them to walk through the streets of Gion and have their photo taken; by law in Kyoto, these tourists are required to dress inaccurately, so as not to impersonate geisha or .

Geisha and  both perform in public dance events staged yearly, such as the Miyako Odori; some also perform dances for tourists at Gion Corner.

Other
There are also many modern entertainment establishments in Gion – restaurants, bars, clubs, pachinko, off-track betting, and a very large number of tourist-oriented establishments, particularly along Shijō Street; the region is both a major tourist hub, and a popular nightlife spot for locals. Though a number of streets are modern in construction, a number of quieter streets featuring traditional architecture also exist, such as  and its environs, ranging from Shijō Street at the north end, anchored by the famous Ichiriki Tei, and running south to the major temple of Kennin-ji.

The stretch of the Shirakawa River before it enters the Kamo river is also a popular preserved area. It is lined on the south side with traditional establishments which directly face the river, and some are accessed by crossing bridges from the north side. The north side was previously also lined with buildings, but these were torn down in World War II as a fire-prevention measure, and the section is now primarily a pedestrian street, lined with cherry blossoms. These are lit up in the evening in the spring, and the area is active year-round.

Annual events

The geisha and  of Gion both perform annual public dances, as do all five geisha districts in Kyoto. The oldest of these date to the Kyoto exhibition of 1872. The more popular of these is the Miyako Odori, literally "Dances of the Old Capital" (sometimes instead referred to as the "Cherry Blossom Dances"), staged by the geisha of Gion Kobu, which dates to 1872. The dances run from April 1 through April 30 each year during the height of the cherry blossom () season. Spectators from Japan and worldwide attend the events, which range from "cheap" seats on tatami mats on the floor, to reserved seats with a small tea ceremony beforehand. Gion Higashi holds a similar dance in early November, around autumn leaves, known as Gion Odori; this is more recent and has fewer performances.

Education
The Kyoto Municipal Board of Education operates public elementary and junior high schools. Gionmachi Kitagawa and Gionmachi Minamigawa are zoned to Kaisei Elementary and Junior High School (開睛小中学校).

In popular culture
 Gion is the setting of much of Arthur Golden's novel Memoirs of a Geisha.
 Gion Kobu was also where Mineko Iwasaki lived and conducted business as a geisha, as mentioned in her autobiography Geisha of Gion.
 Gion is the setting of several films by Kenji Mizoguchi, including:
 1936
 1953
 Part of the Gion area is featured as a photo travel landscape in the 2010 racing video game Gran Turismo 5.

See also
 Kyoto hanamachi
 Miyagawachō, another district located just south of Gion
 Pontochō, another district on west side of Kamo river
 Kamishichiken, the oldest district in Kyoto

Notes

References

External links

Miyako Odori

Geography of Kyoto
Gion cult

Gion