The National Research Universal (NRU) reactor was a 135 MW nuclear research reactor built in the Chalk River Laboratories, Ontario, one of Canada's national science facilities. It was a multipurpose science facility that served three main roles. It generated radionuclides used to treat or diagnose over 20 million people in 80 countries every year (and, to a lesser extent, other isotopes used for non-medical purposes). It was the neutron source for the NRC Canadian Neutron Beam Centre: a materials research centre that grew from the Nobel Prize-winning work of Bertram Brockhouse. It was the test bed for Atomic Energy of Canada Limited to develop fuels and materials for the CANDU reactor. At the time of its retirement on March 31, 2018, it was the world's oldest operating nuclear reactor.

History
The NRU reactor design was started in 1949. It is fundamentally a Canadian design, significantly advanced from NRX. It was built as the successor to the NRX reactor at the Atomic Energy Project of the National Research Council of Canada at Chalk River Laboratories. The NRX reactor was the world's most intense source of neutrons when it started operation in 1947. It was not known how long a research reactor could be expected to operate, so the management of Chalk River Laboratories began planning the NRU reactor to ensure continuity of the research programs.

NRU started self-sustained operation (or went "critical") on November 3, 1957, a decade after the NRX, and was ten times more powerful. It was initially designed as a 200 MW reactor, fueled with natural uranium. NRU was converted to 60 MW with highly-enriched uranium (HEU) fuel in 1964 and converted a third time in 1991 to 135 MW running on low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel.

On Saturday, 24 May 1958 the NRU suffered a major accident. A damaged uranium fuel rod caught fire and was torn in two as it was being removed from the core. The fire was extinguished, but a sizeable quantity of radioactive combustion products had contaminated the interior of the reactor building and, to a lesser degree, an area of the surrounding laboratory site. The clean-up and repair took three months. NRU was operating again in August 1958. Care was taken to ensure no one was exposed to dangerous levels of radiation and staff involved in clean-up were monitored over the following decades. A corporal named Bjarnie Hannibal Paulson who was at the clean up developed unusual skin cancers and received a disability pension.

NRU's calandria, the vessel which contains its nuclear reactions, is made of aluminum, and was replaced in 1971 because of corrosion. The calandria has not been replaced since, although a second replacement is likely needed. An advantage of NRU's design is that it can be taken apart to allow for upgrade and repair.

In October 1986, the NRU reactor was recognized as a nuclear historic landmark by the American Nuclear Society.  Since NRX was decommissioned in 1992, after 45 years of service, there has been no backup for NRU.

In 1994, Bertram Brockhouse was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, for his pioneering work carried out in the NRX and NRU reactors in the 1950s. He gave birth to a scientific technique which is now used around the world.

In 1996, AECL informed the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (then known as the Atomic Energy Control Board) that operation of the NRU reactor would not continue beyond December 31, 2005. It was expected that a replacement facility would be built inside that time. However, no replacement was built and in 2003, AECL advised the CNSC that they intended to continue operation of the NRU reactor beyond December 2005. The operating licence was initially extended to July 31, 2006, and a 63-month licence renewal was obtained in July 2006, allowing operation of the NRU until October 31, 2011.

In May 2007, the NRU set a new record for the production of medical isotopes.

In June 2007, a new neutron scattering instrument was opened in NRU. The D3 Neutron Reflectometer is designed for examining surfaces, thin films and interfaces. The technique of Neutron Reflectometry is capable of providing unique information on materials in the nanometre length scale.

2007 shutdown

On November 18, 2007, the NRU reactor was shut down for routine maintenance.  This shutdown was voluntarily extended when AECL decided to install seismically qualified emergency power systems (EPS) to two of the reactor's cooling pumps (in addition to the AC and DC backup power systems already in place), as required as part of its August 2006 operating license extension by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC). This resulted in a worldwide shortage of radioisotopes for medical treatments because AECL had not pre-arranged for an alternate supply.  On December 11, 2007, the House of Commons of Canada, acting on what the government described as "independent expert" advice, passed emergency legislation authorizing the restarting of the NRU reactor with one of the two seismic connections complete (one pump being sufficient to cool the core), and authorizing the reactor's operation for 120 days without CNSC approval.  The legislation, C-38, was passed by the Senate and received Royal Assent on December 12. Prime Minister Stephen Harper accused the "Liberal-appointed" CNSC for this shutdown which "jeopardized the health and safety of tens of thousands of Canadians".  Others viewed the actions and priorities of the Prime Minister and government in terms of protecting the eventual sale of AECL to private investors.  The government later announced plans to sell part of AECL in May 2009.

The NRU reactor was restarted on December 16, 2007.

On January 29, 2008, the former President of the CNSC, Linda Keen, testified before a Parliamentary Committee that the risk of fuel failure in the NRU reactor was "1 in 1000 years", and claimed this to be a thousand times greater risk than the "international standard".  These claims were refuted by AECL.

On February 2, 2008, the second seismic connection was complete.  This timing was well within the above 120-day window afforded by Bill C-38.

2009 Shutdown

In mid-May 2009 a heavy water leak at the base of the reactor vessel was detected, prompting a temporary shutdown of the reactor.  The leak was estimated to be 5 kg (<5 litres) per hour, a result of corrosion. This was the second heavy water leak since late 2008. The reactor was defuelled and drained of all of its heavy water moderator. No administrative levels of radioactivity were exceeded, during the leak or defuelling, and all leaked water was contained and treated on site.

The reactor remained shut down until August 2010. The lengthy shutdown was necessary to defuel the reactor, ascertain the full extent of the corrosion to the vessel, and finally to effect the repairs — all with remote and restricted access from a minimum distance of 8 metres due to the residual radioactive fields in the reactor vessel. The 2009 shutdown occurred at a time when only one of the other four worldwide regular medical isotope sourcing reactors was producing, resulting in a worldwide shortage.

Decommissioning
On March 31, 2018, following government direction to shut down operations, NRU was permanently shut down ahead of decommissioning scheduled to start in 2028.

Production of isotopes

With the construction of the earlier NRX reactor, it was possible for the first time to commercially manufacture isotopes that were not commonly found in nature. In the core of an operating reactor there are billions of free neutrons. By inserting a piece of target material into the core, atoms in the target can capture some of those neutrons and become heavier isotopes. Manufacturing medical isotopes was a Canadian medical innovation in the early 1950s.

The NRU reactor continued the legacy of NRX and until it was decommissioned March 31, 2018 produced more medical isotopes than any facility in the world.
Cobalt-60 from NRU is used in radiation therapy machines that treat cancer in 15 million patients in 80 countries each year. The NRU produced about 75% of the global supply. The decay of Cobalt-60 results in the emission of high energy photons.
Technetium-99m from NRU used in the diagnosis of 5 million patients each year represented about 80 per cent of all nuclear medicine procedures.  The NRU produced over half of the world's total supply. Technetium-99m emits less energy as it decays than most gamma emitters, roughly as much as the X-rays from an X-ray tube.  This can act as an in situ source for a special camera that creates an image of the patient called a SPECT scan.  NRU actually produced the more stable parent isotope, molybdenum-99, which is shipped to medical labs.  There it decays into technetium-99m, which is separated and used for testing.
NRU produced xenon-133, iodine-131 and iodine-125, which are used in a variety of diagnostic and therapeutic applications.
Carbon-14 produced in NRU was sold to chemistry, bioscience and environmental labs where it is used as a tracer.
 Iridium-192 from NRU is used in several industries to inspect welds or other metal components to ensure they are safe for use.

The core of the NRU reactor was about  wide and  high, which is unusually large for a research reactor. That large volume enabled the bulk production of isotopes. Other research reactors in the world produce isotopes for medical and industrial uses, for example the European High Flux Reactor at Petten in the Netherlands, Maria Reactor in Poland, and the OPAL reactor in Australia which began operation in April 2007.

NRU was originally scheduled to shut down in October 2016.  With no stable isotope manufacturer ready to step in until 2018, the Canadian Government allowed the NRU to produce Isotopes until March 2018.

Neutron beam research
The NRU reactor is home to Canada's national facility for neutron scattering: the NRC Canadian Neutron Beam Centre. Neutron scattering is a technique where a beam of neutrons shines through a sample of material, and depending on how the neutrons scatter from the atoms inside, scientists can determine many details about the crystal structure and movements of the atoms within the sample.

An early pioneer of the technique was Bertram Brockhouse who built some of the early neutron spectrometers in the NRX and NRU reactors and was awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize in physics for the development of neutron spectroscopy.

The NRC Canadian Neutron Beam Centre continues that field of science today, operating as an open-access user facility allowing scientists from across Canada and around the world to use neutrons in their research programs.

It is common for a developed country to support a national facility for neutron scattering and one for X-ray scattering. The two types of facility provide complementary information about materials.

An unusual feature of the NRU reactor as Canada's national neutron source is its multipurpose design: able to manufacture isotopes, and support nuclear R&D at the same time as it supplies neutrons to the suite of neutron scattering instruments.

The NRU reactor is sometimes (incorrectly) characterized as simply a nuclear research facility. Neutron scattering however is not nuclear research, it is materials research. Neutrons are an ideal probe of materials including metals, alloys, biomaterials, ceramics, magnetic materials, minerals, polymers, composites, glasses, nano-materials and many others. The neutron scattering instruments at the NRC Canadian Neutron Beam Centre are used by universities and industries from across Canada every year because knowledge of materials is important for innovation in many sectors.

Nuclear power research and development

The NRU reactor has test facilities built into its core that can replicate conditions inside a large electricity-producing reactor. NRU itself does not generate steam (or electricity); its cooling water heats up to approximately 55 degrees Celsius. Inside the test facilities though, high temperatures and pressures can be produced. It is essential to test out different materials before they are used in the construction of a nuclear generating station.

The fundamental knowledge gained from NRU enabled the development of the CANDU reactor, and is the foundation for the Canadian nuclear industry.

See also

 Nuclear fission
 Neutron scattering
 Nuclear power
 Nuclear waste
 Nuclear power in Canada

References

External links
The NRU Reactor
NRC Canadian Neutron Beam Centre
Nuclear Accidents (Georgia State University)
"The Canadian Nuclear FAQ" by Dr. Jeremy Whitlock (in particular see the section "NRU Safety" regarding the Nov-Dec 2007 shutdown of isotope production)
The Society for the Preservation of Canada's Nuclear Heritage, Inc.

Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
Nuclear medicine organizations
Neutron-related techniques
Nuclear accidents and incidents
Nuclear research reactors
Nuclear technology in Canada

National Research Universal reactor


Liu Yin (劉隱) (874 – 4 April 911), formally Prince Xiang of Nanhai (南海襄王), later further posthumously honored Emperor Xiang (襄皇帝) with the temple name of Liezong (烈宗) by his younger brother Liu Yan, was a warlord late in the Chinese Tang dynasty and Tang's succeeding dynasty Later Liang of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, who ruled Qinghai Circuit (清海, headquartered in modern Guangzhou, Guangdong) as its military governor (Jiedushi).  It was on the basis of his rule that Liu Yan was later able to establish the state of Southern Han.

Background
Liu Yin was born in 874, during the reign of Emperor Xizong of Tang.  His father, whose name was variously referred to as Liu Qian or Liu Zhiqian, was a low-level officer at Guang Prefecture (廣州), the capital of Qinghai (then known as Lingnan East Circuit (嶺南東道)).  His mother Lady Wei was a niece to Lingnan East's then-military governor Wei Zhou (韋宙).  Liu Qian eventually came to control Feng Prefecture (封州, in modern Zhaoqing, Guangdong) as its prefect.  Liu Yin was his oldest son, and he had two younger ones, Liu Tai (劉台), also born of Lady Wei, and Liu Yan, born of his concubine Lady Duan.  (Lady Wei had killed Lady Duan out of a jealous rage after finding out about Lady Duan, whom Liu Qian had kept in a house away from their mansion.  When Liu Qian subsequently buried Lady Duan, at her burial location was a stone tablet that bore the characters of Yin, Tai, and Yan, and he used those characters to name his three sons.)

As prefect of Feng Prefecture
In 894, Liu Qian died, and Liu Yin was observing a period of mourning when it was said that a group of about 100 soldiers and civilians were planning a disturbance.  Liu Yin slaughtered them.  Thereafter, then-military governor of Lingnan East, Liu Chonggui (劉崇龜), made him a Lingnan East officer and gave him one of the titles that Liu Qian held, the defender of Heshui Base (賀水鎮, in modern Nanning, Guangxi).  Shortly after, Liu Chonggui commissioned him the prefect of Feng Prefecture.

In 896, a new military governor of the circuit (which had been renamed Qinghai by that point), Li Zhirou the Prince of Xue, commissioned by then-reigning Emperor Zhaozong (Emperor Xizong's brother and successor), was reporting to Qinghai.  Instead of preparing to welcome him, however, the Qinghai officers Lu Ju (盧琚) and Tan Hongqi (譚弘玘) instead prepared to resist him and took up defensive positions, with Tan defending Duan Prefecture (端州, in modern Zhaoqing).  Tan tried to enter an alliance with Liu Yin to defend against Li, and promised to give his daughter to Liu in marriage.  Liu pretended to agree, but instead, under the guise that he was going to go to Duan Prefecture to marry Tan's daughter, ambushed Tan and killed him.  He then attacked Guang Prefecture and killed Lu, and then welcomed Li to Guang Prefecture to take command.  Li commissioned Liu as the commander of the Qinghai army (行軍司馬, Xingjun Sima).

As Qinghai officer
In 898, Zeng Gun (曾袞) the prefect of Shao Prefecture (邵州, in modern Shaoguan, Guangdong) attacked Guang Prefecture, and was joined by the Guang Prefecture officer Wang Gui (王瓌, who commanded a fleet).  Liu Yin defeated them, and when the Shao Prefecture officer Liu Tong (劉潼) subsequently attacked Zhen (湞州) and Han (浛州) (both in modern Qingyuan, Guangdong), Liu defeated and killed him.

In 900, Emperor Zhaozong commissioned the chancellor Xu Yanruo to replace Li Zhirou as military governor of Qinghai, but before Xu could get to Qinghai, Li died.  When Xu arrived at Qinghai, he made Liu his deputy military governor and entrusted the affairs of the circuit to Liu.  When Xu himself died in 901, he left a will recommending Liu as the acting military governor.  Emperor Zhaozong subsequently commissioned Cui Yuan, but when Cui reached Jiangling, he heard that Qinghai was overrun by bandits and also feared that Liu would not yield authority to him, and therefore requested recall to the imperial government; Emperor Zhaozong agreed and did so, but did not name Liu military governor at that time.

In 902, Lu Guangchou the prefect of Qian Prefecture (虔州, in modern Ganzhou, Jiangxi) attacked Qinghai Circuit and captured Shao Prefecture and put Chao Prefecture (潮州, in modern Chaozhou, Guangdong) under siege, Liu defeated him and tried to recapture Shao.  Liu Yan advised him not to, pointing out that Lu's army was still strong, but Liu Yin did not listen to him and attacked Shao anyway.  At that time, the water level on the river was high, and Liu Yin was not able to get food supplies to the army on time.  A counterattack by Lu and his officer Tan Quanbo defeated him and forced his withdrawal, allowing Lu to retain Shao.

In 904, by which time the powerful warlord Zhu Quanzhong the military governor of Xuanwu Circuit (宣武, headquartered in modern Kaifeng, Henan) was in effective control of the imperial government, having assassinated Emperor Zhaozong and replaced him with his son Emperor Ai, Liu Yin bribed Zhu and requested to be commissioned military governor.  Zhu agreed, and Liu was subsequently given the military governorship.

As military governor
In 905, Emperor Ai bestowed the honorary chancellor designation of Tong Zhongshu Menxia Pingzhangshi (同中書門下平章事) on Liu Yin.

In 907, Zhu Quanzhong forced Emperor Ai to yield the throne to him, ending Tang and starting a new Later Liang as its Emperor Taizu.  He gave Liu Yin the greater honorary chancellor title of Shizhong (侍中) and created him the Prince of Dapeng.

In 908, Ma Yin the Prince of Chu to the north of Qinghai, sent his officer Lü Shizhou (呂師周) to attack Qinghai, capturing six prefectures (Zhao (昭州, in modern Guilin, Guangxi), He (賀州, in modern Hezhou, Guangxi), Wu (梧州, in modern Wuzhou, Guangxi), Meng (蒙州, in modern Wuzhou), Gong (龔州, in modern Guigang, Guangxi), and Fu (富州, in modern Hezhou)) from Qinghai.

Also in 908, Later Liang's Emperor Taizu sent the officials Zhao Guangyi (趙光裔) and Li Yinheng (李殷衡) as emissaries to Liu to commission him as the military governor of both Qinghai and Jinghai (靜海, headquartered in modern Hanoi, Vietnam) Circuits.  Liu accepted the commissions but then detained Zhao and Li and did not permit them to return to the Later Liang court.

In 909, Emperor Taizu created Liu the Prince of Nanping.

In or sometime before 910, Liu Yin had sent Liu Yan to attack Ningyuan Circuit (寧遠, headquartered in modern Yulin, Guangxi), which consisted of its capital Rong Prefecture (容州) and Gao Prefecture (高州, in modern Maoming, Guangdong) and which was then governed by Pang Juzhao (龐巨昭), but Liu Yan was defeated by Pang.  Still, believing that he could not prevail over Liu Yin, Pang surrendered Ningyuan to Chu in 910.  Ma stationed his general Yao Yanzhang at Rong Prefecture.  Later in the year, Emperor Taizu created Liu Yin the Prince of Nanhai.

In 911, Liu Yin fell ill.  He submitted a recommendation that Liu Yan succeed him, and then died.  Subsequently, Liu Yan took over the circuit.

Personal information
 Father
 Liu Zhiqian or Liu Qian, posthumously honored Emperor Shengwu with the temple name of Daizu
 Mother
 Lady Wei, posthumously honored Empress Wu
 Wife?/Concubine?
 Lady Yan, mother of Princess Qingyuan
 Children
 Princess Zengcheng (增城公主), wife of Changhe's emperor Zheng Min (鄭旻)
 Liu Hua, the Princess Qingyuan (清遠公主 劉華), married Min's emperor Wang Yanjun
 At least one son

References

Citations

Bibliography
 History of the Five Dynasties, vol. 135.
 New History of the Five Dynasties, vol. 65.
 Zizhi Tongjian, vols. 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 265, 266, 267, 268.
 Spring and Autumn Annals of the Ten Kingdoms (十國春秋), vol. 58.

Lingnan jiedushi
Warlords
Jiedushi of Vietnam
Later Liang (Five Dynasties) jiedushi
Tang dynasty generals from Guangdong
874 births
911 deaths
Tang dynasty jiedushi of Lingnan Circuit

Liu Yin (Southern Han)


Santo Monti (1855 - June 4, 1923) was an Italian priest and historian.

Monti was born in Como. He studied for the Catholic priesthood at the Villoresi di Monza seminary. He was ordained as a priest in 1879. The Bishop of Como encouraged Monti to study theology in Rome. Monti received his degree in theology in 1880. His first job as a priest was in Urio, a small town in Province of Como. Then he was a priest at the church of San Giorgio in Como until 1881. After 1881 he was the chaplain of the church's cemetery.

He was very active in the cultural life of Como. In 1888 he became vice-president of the Como Historical Society. In 1906 he became the president of the society. He served as the president until he died in 1923. He was also the curator of the Civic Museum of Como and a member of the Provincial Commission for the Conservation of Monuments. Monti died in Como.

References

Italian historians
Italian Roman Catholic priests
People from Como
1855 births
1923 deaths

Santo Monti


Klang Box was a special-edition boxed set compilation of music by Kraftwerk, issued in the UK in May 1997 as a promotional item ahead of Kraftwerk's 24 May appearance at the Tribal Gathering Festival, held at Luton Hoo, England.

Klang Box contained four 12-inch singles of original recordings compiled from the Trans-Europe Express, Computer World and Electric Café albums, including a rare instrumental edit of "Trans-Europe Express".

The box was assigned the catalogue number Klang Box 101 and, according to an accompanying EMI press release, "1000 copies of 'Trans Europe Express' (b/w an instrumental version of the track previously unreleased), 'Numbers,' 'Musique Non Stop,' and 'Home Computer' (b/w "It's More Fun to Compute") are being manufactured, and 250 boxes with a Kraftwerk T-shirt will be made to hold the 4 12-inch records."

Contents
 "Trans-Europe Express" / "Trans-Europe Express·Instr·"  (Klang DJ 101)
 "Numbers" / "Numbers"  (Klang DJ 102)
 "Musique Non-Stop" / "Musique Non-Stop"  (Klang DJ 103)
 "Home Computer" / "It's More Fun to Compute"  (Klang DJ 104)
 Black XL-size T-shirt with a robot motif and the name Kraftwerk (identical to the design on the front lid of the box)

Kraftwerk albums
1997 compilation albums
EMI Records compilation albums

Klang Box


Kenneth Yakpawolo Best (born 28 October 1938) is a Liberian journalist who founded the Liberian newspaper The Daily Observer and a paper of the same name in The Gambia.

He is the nephew of Americo-Liberian journalist of Caribbean descent Albert Porte.

Biography
Best was born in October 1938 in Harrisburg, St. Paul River in Montserrado County, Liberia to Americo-Liberian parents of West Indian descent. He studied at St. Patrick's Elementary School on Snapper Hill, Monrovia. He entered Booker Washington Institute in 1959, graduating with a diploma in agriculture. On 2 December 1963, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in English and political science from Cuttington University (CU) after studying there since 1960. During his years in CU, he ran a literary magazine, the Cuttington Review,. On 3 December 1963, he was appointed Assistant to the Dean of Liberal Arts of the University of Liberia. Between 1963 and 1965, he was a journalist at the Press and Publications Bureau for the Liberian government. In April 1964, he became an information officer for the Department of Information and Cultural Affairs in Tolbert's government. He studied journalism at the Institut für Publizistik in Berlin, West Germany and later at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, New York, where he received a Master's in Comparative Journalism in 1967.

In 1968, he returned home to Liberia and became the Director of Press and Publications. In 1972, he became Assistant Minister for Information in the Liberian Ministry of Information, Cultural Affairs and Tourism (MICAT). He moved to Kenya in late 1973 and worked as information director of All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC) in Nairobi. He resigned from the AACC in 1980 and returned to Liberia.

In February 1981, Best and his wife founded the Daily Observer, Liberia's first independent daily newspaper. Under the Presidency of Samuel Doe, the Daily Observer was subject to sustained political harassment.

The First Liberian Civil War caused Best to relocate his family by fleeing to The Gambia on 1 August 1990. There he founded Gambia's first daily newspaper on 11 May 1992, again called The Daily Observer. In October 1994, following  Yahya Jammeh's military coup, Best was expelled from Gambia, after the newspaper ran a series of stories that were critical of AFPRC on human rights violations, although the newspaper was allowed to continue, it was eventually shutdown by tax authorities on 23 August 2017 for non-compliance of its tax obligations. Best, along with several of his reporters was arrested on 21 October 1994 and detained for 36 hours, before being deported back to Liberia on 30 October 1994.

He and his family moved to the United States and was granted political asylum in January 1995. In 1999, he sold The Daily Observer to businessman Amadou Samba, who was supported by Jammeh. He returned to Liberia in June 2005 and relaunched his old newspaper. He continued to serve as the publisher and editor of the Liberian Daily Observer, which continued to criticize the government. In 2012, Best published The Evolution of Liberia's Democracy: A Brief look at Liberia's Electoral History – 1847-2011.

He married Mae Gene Traub on July 17, 1971. The couple have eight children, including two adopted children.

Awards

Best was named one of International Press Institute's 50 World Press Freedom Heroes in 2000.

Works
Cultural Policy in Liberia, 1974
African Challenge, 1975
"My Fight for Press Freedom", in New African, August 1991.
The Evolution of Liberia's Democracy: A Brief look at Liberia's Electoral History – 1847-2011, 2012

References

1938 births
Living people
People from Monrovia
Gambian journalists
Liberian journalists
Americo-Liberian people
20th-century Liberian people

Kenneth Best


Tadeusz Andrzejewski (1923–1961) was a Polish archeologist and Egyptologist.

Life
Andrzejewski was born in Łódź. After leaving school, he joined the staff of the Warsaw National Museum in the 1940s, and was appointed to a post in University of Warsaw, 1951.

In 1951 Tadeusz became secretary of the Polish Archaeological Mission in Cairo and 1959 he assisted Kazimierz Michałowski at the excavations at Mirmeki, 1956, then spent four years at Tell Atrib, (1957–1961) in the Nile Delta.

During his last year there he made an independent survey of many of the archaeological sites of the Delta and prepared a report on them; during the reconstruction work carried out by the Polish Archeological Institute at the temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari he was responsible for the epigraphic work.

The Egyptian Antiquities Service also appointed him to publish the tomb of Ramesses III, all the notes for this being almost completed at his death.

Andrzejewski also took part in the 1959 Polish expedition to Nubia and made the documentation survey of Faras. He published two books in French, 23 articles, a history of Ancient Egypt, a book on Egyptian poetry, a new commentary on Bolesław Prus' historical novel Pharaoh, Księga Umarłych piastunki Kai, and many others.

See also
List of Poles
List of Egyptologists

20th-century Polish archaeologists
Polish Egyptologists
1923 births
1961 deaths
Polish expatriates in Egypt

Tadeusz Andrzejewski


Ṣadr ad-Dīn Muḥammad Shīrāzī, more commonly known as Mullā Ṣadrā (; ) (c. 1571/2 – c. 1635/40 CE /  980 – 1050 AH), was a Persian Twelver Shi'i Islamic mystic, philosopher, theologian, and 'Ālim who led the Iranian cultural renaissance in the 17th century.  According to Oliver Leaman, Mulla Sadra is arguably the single most important and influential philosopher in the Muslim world in the last four hundred years.

Though not its founder, he is considered the master of the Illuminationist (or, Ishraghi or Ishraqi) school of Philosophy, a seminal figure who synthesized the many tracts of the Islamic Golden Age philosophies into what he called the Transcendent Theosophy or al-hikmah al-muta'āliyah.

Mulla Sadra brought "a new philosophical insight in dealing with the nature of reality" and created "a major transition from essentialism to existentialism" in Islamic philosophy, although his existentialism should not be too readily compared to Western existentialism. His was a question of existentialist cosmology as it pertained to God, and thus differs considerably from the individual, moral, and/or social, questions at the heart of Russian, French, German, or American Existentialism.

Mulla Sadra's philosophy ambitiously synthesized Avicennism, Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi's Illuminationist philosophy, Ibn Arabi's Sufi metaphysics, and the theology of the Sunni Ash'ari school of Kalam into the framework of Twelver Shi'ism.

His main work is The Transcendent Philosophy of the Four Journeys of the Intellect, or simply Four Journeys, In which he attempted to reach Sufism and prove the idea of Unity of Existence by offering a new intake and perspective on Peripatetic philosophy that was offered by Alpharabius and Avicenna in the Islamic world.

Biography

Early life
Mulla Sadra was born in Shiraz, Iran, to a notable family of court officials in 1571 or 1572,
In Mulla Sadra's time, the Safavid dynasty governed over Iran. Safavid kings granted independence to Fars Province, which was ruled by the king's brother, Mulla Sadra's father, Khwajah Ibrahim Qavami, who was a knowledgeable and extremely faithful politician. As the ruler of the vast region of Fars Province, Khwajah was rich and held a high position. He had no children, but after much prayer and supplication, God gave him a son, whom the family named Muhammad but called Sadra. Years later, Sadra was nicknamed "Mulla", that is, "great scientist". Sadra was Khwajah's only child. In that time it was customary that the children of aristocrats were educated by private teachers in their own palace. Sadra was a very intelligent, strict, energetic, studious, and curious boy and mastered all the lessons related to Persian and Arabic literature, as well as the art of calligraphy, during a very short time. Following old traditions of his time, and before the age of puberty, he also learned horse riding, hunting and fighting techniques, mathematics, astronomy, some medicine, jurisprudence, and Islamic law. However, he was mainly attracted to philosophy and particularly to mystical philosophy and gnosis.

In 1591, Mulla Sadra moved to Qazvin and then, in 1597, to Isfahan to pursue a traditional and institutional education in philosophy, theology, Hadith, and hermeneutics. At that time, each city was a successive capital of the Safavid dynasty and the center of Twelver Shi'ite seminaries. Sadra's teachers included Mir Damad and Baha' ad-Din al-`Amili.

Teachers
Mulla Sadra became a master of the science of his time. In his own view, the most important of these was philosophy. In Qazvin, Sadra acquired most of his scholarly knowledge from two prominent teachers, namely Baha' ad-Din al-`Amili and Mir Damad, whom he accompanied when the Safavid capital was transferred from Qazvin to Isfahan in 1596 CE / 1006 AH. Shaykh Baha was an expert in Islamic sciences but also a master of astronomy, theoretical mathematics, engineering, architecture, medicine, and some fields of secret knowledge. Mir Damad also knew the science of his time but limited his domain to jurisprudence, hadith. and mainly philosophy. Mir Damad was a master of both the Peripatetic (Aristotelian) and Illuminationist schools of Islamic philosophy. Mulla Sadra obtained most of his knowledge of philosophy and gnosis from Damad and always introduced Damad as his true teacher and spiritual guide.

After he had finished his studies, Sadra began to explore unorthodox doctrines and as a result was both condemned and excommunicated by some Shi'i ʿulamāʾ. He then retired for a lengthy period of time to a village named Kahak, near Qom, where he engaged in contemplative exercises. While in Kahak, he wrote a number of minor works, including the Risāla fi 'l-ḥashr and the Risāla fī ḥudūth al-ʿālam .

Return to Shiraz
In 1612, Ali Quli Khan, son of Allāhwirdī Ḵhān and the powerful governor of Fārs, asked Mulla Sadra to abandon his exile and to come back to Shiraz to teach and run a newly bulit madrasa (Khan School, Persian: مدرسه خان). Mulla Sadra devoted his rest of life to teach the intellectual sciences, particularly his own teachings Transcendent Theosophy.

During his time in Shīrāz, Ṣadrā began writing treatises that synthesized wide-ranging strands of existing Islamic systems of thought at Khan School. The ideas of his school, which may be seen as a continuation of the School of Iṣfahān of Mīr Dāmād and Shaykh Bahāʾī, were promulgated after Sadrā's death by his pupils, several of whom would become sought-after thinkers in their own right, such as, Mullā Muḥsin Fayḍ Kāshānī (Mulla Sadra's son-in-law), and ʿAbd Razzāḳ Lāhidjī.

Although Ṣadrā's influence remained limited in the generations after his death, it increased markedly during the 19th century, when his ideas helped inspire a renewed Akhbārī tendency within Twelver Shīʿism. In recent times, his works have been studied in Iran, Europe, and America.He died in Basra after the Hajj and was buried in the present-day city of Najaf, Iraq.

Philosophical ideas

Existentialism
Although Existentialism as defined nowadays is not identical to Mulla Sadra's definition, he was the first to introduce the concept. According to Mulla Sadra, "existence precedes the essence and is thus principal since something has to exist first and then have an essence." It is notable that for Mulla Sadra this was an issue that applied specifically to God and God's position in the universe, especially in the context of reconciling God's position in the Qur'an with the Greek-influenced cosmological philosophies of Islam's Golden Era.

Mulla Sadra's metaphysics gives priority to existence over essence (i.e., quiddity). That is to say, essences are variable and are determined according to existential "intensity" (to use Henry Corbin's definition). Thus, essences are not immutable. The advantage to this schema is that it is acceptable to the fundamental statements of the Qur'an, even as it does not necessarily undermine any previous Islamic philosopher's Aristotelian or Platonic foundations.

Indeed, Mulla Sadra provides immutability only to God, while intrinsically linking essence and existence to each other, and to God's power over existence. In so doing, he provided for God's authority over all things while also solving the problem of God's knowledge of particulars, including those that are evil, without being inherently responsible for them — even as God's authority over the existence of things that provide the framework for evil to exist. This clever solution provides for freedom of will, God's supremacy, the infiniteness of God's knowledge, the existence of evil, and definitions of existence and essence that leave the two inextricably linked insofar as humans are concerned, but fundamentally separate insofar as God is concerned.

Perhaps most importantly, the primacy of existence provides the capacity for God's judgement without God being directly, or indirectly, affected by the evil being judged. God does not need to possess sin to know sin: God is able to judge the intensity of sin as God perceives existence.

One result of Sadra's existentialism is "The unity of the intellect and the intelligible" (Arabic: Ittihad al-Aaqil wa l-Maqul. As Henry Corbin describes:

Substantial motion
Another central concept of Mulla Sadra's philosophy is the theory of "substantial motion" (Arabic:al-harakat al-jawhariyyah), which is "based on the premise that everything in the order of nature, including celestial spheres, undergoes substantial change and transformation as a result of the self-flow (sarayan al-wujud) and penetration of being (fayd) which gives every concrete individual entity its share of being. In contrast to Aristotle and Avicenna who had accepted change only in four categories, i.e., quantity (kamm), quality (kayf), position (wad') and place ('ayn), Sadra defines change as an all-pervasive reality running through the entire cosmos including the category of substance (jawhar)."

Existence as reality

Mulla Sadra held the view that Reality is Existence. He believed that an essence was by itself a general notion, and therefore and does not, in reality, exist.

To paraphrase Fazlur Rahman on Mulla Sadra's Existential Cosmology: Existence is the one and only reality. Existence and reality are therefore identical. Existence is the all-comprehensive reality and there is nothing outside of it. Essences which are negative require some sort of reality and therefore exist. Existence therefore cannot be denied. Therefore, existence cannot be negated. As Existence cannot be negated, it is self-evident that it Existence is God. God should not be searched for in the realm of existence but is the basis of all existence. Reality in Arabic is "Al-Haq", and is stated in the Qur'an as one of the Names of God.

To paraphrase Mulla Sadra's Logical Proof for God:
There is a being
This being is a perfection beyond all perfection
God is Perfect and Perfection in existence
Existence is a singular and simple reality
That singular reality is graded in intensity in a scale of perfection
That scale must have a limit point, a point of greatest intensity and of greatest existence
Therefore, God exists

Causation
Sadra argued that all contingent beings require a cause which puts their balance between existence and non-existence in favor of the former; nothing can come into existence without a cause. Since the world is therefore contingent upon this First Act, not only must God exist, but God must also be responsible for this First Act of creation.

Sadra also believed that a causal regress was impossible because the causal chain could work only in the matter that had a beginning, middle, and end:

 a pure cause at the beginning
 a pure effect at the end
 a nexus of cause and effect

The Causal Nexus of Mulla Sadra was a form of Existential Ontology within a Cosmological Framework that Islam supported. For Mulla Sadra the Causal "End" is as pure as its corresponding "Beginning", which instructively places God at both the beginning and the end of the creative act. God's capacity to measure the intensity of Existential Reality by measuring Causal Dynamics' and their Relationship to their Origin, as opposed to knowing their effects, provided the Islamically-acceptable framework for God's Judgement of Reality without being tainted by its Particulars. This was an ingenious solution to a question that had haunted Islamic philosophy for almost one thousand years: How is God able to judge sin without knowing sin?

Truth
For Mulla Sadra a true statement is a statement that is true to the concrete facts in existence. He held a metaphysical and not a formal idea of truth, claiming that the world consists of mind-independent objects that are always true and truth is not what is rationally acceptable within a certain theory of description. In Mulla Sadra's view one cannot have access to the reality of being: only linguistic analysis is available. This theory of Truth has two levels: the claim that a proposition is true if it corresponds to things in reality; and that a proposition can be true if it conforms with the actual thing itself.

Methodology

Janan Izadi believes that Hikmat Muta'aliyah is of a metalanguage according to Mehdi Haeri Yazdi. That approach could evaluate the power of epistemology in Mulla Sadra's philosophical views. However, there are, primarily, two groups on Mulla Sadra's methodology. One group basically disagreed with any kind of systematizing of knowledge and methodological approach in Hekmat Muta'aliyyah. The other group believe in being structured of Mulla Sadra's view. They maintain that there is a consistency and methodological approach for Mulla Sadra. In fact, the metalanguage approach could be considered in latter not the former.

List of known works
Sharh Usool Al-Kafi شرح اصول الکافي Exegesis of one of the most Important Hadith collection in Shi'a school of thought, Al-Kafi contains Narrations from Twelve Divinely appointed Imams from Household of Prophet Muhammad
 Hikmat Al Muta'alyahfi-l-asfar al-'aqliyya al-arba'a [The Transcendent theosophy in the Four Journeys of the Intellect], a philosophical encyclopedia and a collection of important issues discussed in Islamic philosophy, enriched by the ideas of preceding philosophers, from Pythagoras to those living at the same time with Mulla Sadra, and containing the related responses on the basis of new and strong arguments. In four large volumes; also published several times in nine smaller volumes.  He composed this book gradually, starting in about 1015 A.H. (1605 A.D.); its completion took almost 25 years, until some years after 1040 A.H. (1630 A.D.). Book is also translated in Urdu by Indian scholar Abul Ala Maududi by the name of Asfar e Arba.
 al-Tafsir (A commentary upon the Qur'an)
 Diwan Shi'r (Collection of Poems), a number of scholarly and mystic poems in Persian.
 Si Asl, Mulla Sadra's only extant book of philosophy in Persian. Here, by resorting to the main three moral principles, he has dealt with moral and educative subjects related to scientists, and advised his contemporary philosophers.
 Sharh al-hidayah, a commentary on a book called Hidayah, which had been written on the basis of Peripatetic philosophy.
 'Arshiyyah, also called al-Hikmat al-'arshiyyah, a referential book about Mulla Sadra's philosophy. As in al-Mazahir, he has tried to demonstrate the Beginning and the End concisely but precisely. This book has been translated by Professor James Winston Morris into English with an informative introduction.
 al-Mabda' wa'l-ma'ad, also called al-Hikmat al-muta'aliyyah, considered to be a summary of the second half of Asfar. He called this book the Beginning and the End, since he believed at heart that philosophy means the knowledge of the Origin and the Return.
 al-Mazahir  This book is similar to al-Mabda' wa'l-ma'ad, but is shorter than it. It is, in fact, a handbook for familiarizing readers with Mulla Sadra's philosophy.
 Huduth al-'alam, on the issue of the origination of the world, which is a complicated and disputable problem for many philosophers. He proved his solid theory through the theory of the trans-substantial motion.
 Iksir al-'arifin, a gnostic and educative book.
 al-Hashr, a theory of the resurrection of animals and objects in the Hereafter.
 al-Masha'ir, on existence and its related subjects. Professor Henry Corbin has translated it into French and written an introduction to it. This book has recently been translated into English, too.
 al-waridat al-qalbiyyah, a brief account of important philosophical problems, it seems to be an inventory of the Divine inspirations and illuminations he had received all through his life.
 Iqad al-na'imin, on theoretical and actual gnosis, and on the science of monotheism. It presents some guidelines and instructional points to wake up the sleeping.
 al-Masa'il al-qudsiyyah, a booklet deals mainly with issues such as existence in mind and epistemology. Here, Mulla Sadra has combined epistemology and ontology.
 al-Shawahid al-rububiyyah, a philosophical book, written in the Illuminationist style, and represents Mulla Sadra's ideas during the early periods of his philosophical thoughts.
 al-Shawahid al-rububiyyah, a treatise not related to Mulla Sadra's book of the same name (see above). It is an inventory of his particular theories and opinions which he had been able to express in philosophical terms.
 Sharh-i Shafa, a commentary upon some of the issues discussed in the part on theology (Ilahiyyat) in Ibn-Sina's al-Shifa.
 Sharh-i Hikmat al-ishraq, a useful and profound commentary or collection of glosses on Suhrawardi's Hikmat al-ishraq and Qutb al-Din Shirazi's commentary upon it.
 Ittihad al-'aquil wa'l-ma'qul, a monographic treatise on the demonstration of a complicated philosophical theory, the Union of the Intellect and the Intelligible, which no one could prove and rationalize prior to Mulla Sadra.
 Ajwibah al-masa'il, consisting of at least three treatises in which Mulla Sadra responds to the philosophical questions posed by his contemporary philosophers.
 Ittisaf al-mahiyyah bi'l wujud, a monographic treatise dealing with the problem of existence and its relation to quiddities.
 al-Tashakhkhus, explaining the problem of individuation and clarified its relation to existence and its principality, which is one of the most fundamental principles he has propounded.
 Sarayan nur wujud, a treatise dealing with the quality of the descent or diffusion of existence from the True Source to existents (quiddities).
 Limmi'yya ikhtisas al-mintaqah, A treatise on logic, this work focuses on the cause of the specific form of the sphere.
 Khalq al-a'mal, a treatise on man's determinism and free will.
 al-Qada' wa'l-qadar, on the problem of Divine Decree and Destiny.
 Zad al-Musafir, demonstrating resurrection and the Hereafter following a philosophical approach.
 al-Mizaj, a treatise on the reality of man's temperament and its relation to the body and soul.
  Mutashabihat al-Qur'an, a treatise consists of Mulla Sadra's interpretations of those Qura'nic verses which have secret and complicated meanings. It is considered as one of the chapters in [Mafatih al-ghayb].
 Isalat-i Ja'l-i wujud, on existence and its principality as opposed to quiddities.
 al-Hashriyyah, a treatise on resurrection and people's presence in the Hereafter, it deals with man's being rewarded in paradise and punished in hell.
 al-alfazh al-mufradah, an abridged dictionary for interpreting words in the Qur'an.
 Radd-i shubahat-i iblis, explaining Satan's seven paradoxes and providing the related answers.
 Kasr al-asnam al-jahiliyyah (Demolishing the idols of the periods of barbarism and man's ignorance). His intention here is to condemn and disgrace impious sophists.
 al-Tanqih, dealing with formal logic.
 al-Tasawwur wa'l-tasdiq, a treatise dealing with issues of the philosophy of logic and inquiries into concept and judgment.
 Diwan Shi'r (Collection of Poems), a number of scholarly and mystic poems in Persian.
 A Collection of Scientific-Literary Notes, some short notes of his own poetry, the statements of philosophers and gnostics, and scientific issues have been left from his youth, which comprise a precious collection. This book can familiarize the readers with subtleties of Mulla Sadra's nature. These notes were compiled in two different collections, and it is likely that the smaller collection was compiled on one of his journeys.
 Letters: except for a few letters exchanged between Mulla Sadra and his master, Mir Damad, none of his letters has survived. These letters have been presented at the beginning of the 3-volume

Commemoration

Mulla Sadra's Commemoration Day (Persian: روز بزرگداشت) is annually held in Iran at the first of Khordad (the third month of the Solar Hijri calendar); on the other hand, this day (1st-Khordad) has been registered among the occasions of Iranian calendars.

See also
 List of Iranian scientists
 Iranian philosophy
 List of Shi'a Muslims
 Al Akbariyya (Sufi school)
 Hossein Nasr
 Kalam
 Islamic philosophy
 Irfan

Notes

References

Further reading
Works by Mulla Sadra
 The Wisdom of the Throne, James Morris (trans.), Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1981.
 The Elixir of the Gnostics, Willaim Chittick (trans.), Provo, Brigham Young University Press, 2003.
 On the Hermeneutics of the Light Verse of the Qur'an, Latimah Peerwani (trans.), Londra, ICAS, 2004.
 The Book of Metaphysical Penetrations. A Parallel English-Arabic Text translated by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Provo, Brigham Young University Press, 2014.

Studies
 Syed Amir Raza, Wisdom of the Unseen: An Inquiry Into the Reality of Things, Pakistan: Wasila Society, 2008
 Christian Jambet, The Act of Being: The Philosophy of Revelation in Mulla Sadra, Trans. Jeff Fort, New York: Zone Books, 2006.
 Ibrahim Kalin, Knowledge in Later Islamic Philosophy: Mulla Sadra on Existence, Intellect, and Intuition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010
 Zailan Moris, Revelation, Intellectual Intuition and Reason in the Philosophy of Mulla Sadra: An Analysis of the Al-Hikmah Al-'arshiyyah, London: Routledge Curzon, 2003.
 Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Sadr al-Din Shirazi and his Transcendent Theosophy: Background, Life and Works, 2nd ed., Tehran: Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, 1997.
 Fazlur Rahman, The Philosophy of Mulla Sadra, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1975.
 Sajjad Rizvi, Mulla Sadra Shirazi: His Life, Works and Sources for Safavid Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

External links
 MOLLĀṢADRĀ ŠIRĀZI an article by Sajjad H. Rizvi in Encyclopædia Iranica
 Mulla-Sadra an article in Encyclopædia Britannica Online

 Mulla Sadra an article in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
 Mulla Sadra (Sadr al-Din Muhammad al-Shirazi) (1571/2-1640) an article in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  (2.11 MiB) by Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai
 Sadra Islamic Philosophy research Institute

16th-century Iranian philosophers
17th-century Iranian philosophers
People from Shiraz
Islamic philosophers
Akbarian Sufis
Iranian Sufis
17th-century Muslim scholars of Islam
Iranian Shia scholars of Islam
1570s births
1640 deaths
Burials in Iraq
Philosophers of history
Philosophers of psychology
Metaphysicians
16th-century writers from Safavid Iran
17th-century writers from Safavid Iran
Safavid theologians
Existentialists
Religious existentialism
Iranian Shia clerics
Iranian male writers
Islamic studies scholars
Ibn Arabi

Mulla Sadra


A ruminant is an ungulate that eats and digests plant-based food such as grass.

Ruminating mammals include cattle, goats, sheep, giraffes, bison, yaks, water buffalo, deer, camels, alpacas, llamas, wildebeest, antelope, pronghorn, and nilgai. All of them are Artiodactyla, cloven-hoofed animals.

The word "ruminant" comes from the Latin word ruminare which means "to chew over again". They have a more complex digestive system than other vegetarians. Digestion of food is always done mainly by microorganisms, and in ruminants it is digested twice.

An example of a grass-eater which is not a ruminant is the horse. Horse excrement leaves the work of digestion half-done. This is very obvious to see in comparison to that of a ruminant.

How rumination works

Rumination works by chewing and swallowing in the normal way to begin with, and then regurgitating the semi-digested cud to re-chew it and to get the most food value out of it.

Rumination makes the half-digested food particles smaller, before they can go through the process of digestion.

Details
The primary difference between a ruminant and non-ruminants (such as people, horses, and pigs) is that ruminants have a four-compartment stomach.

The four parts of the stomach are the rumen, reticulum, omasum, and abomasum. In the first two chambers, the rumen and the reticulum, the food is mixed with saliva and separates into layers of solid and liquid material. Solids clump together to form the cud or bolus.

The cud is then regurgitated (brought up to the mouth) and chewed slowly. Fiber, especially cellulose, is broken down by microbial gut flora (bacteria, archaea, protozoa, and fungi).

Even though the rumen and reticulum have different names, they are the same functional space, as the digesta (food material) can move back and forth between them.

The digesta then passes into the next chamber, the omasum, where water and many of the mineral elements are absorbed into the blood stream.

After this the digesta is moved to the true stomach, the abomasum. Digestion takes place here.

The digesta is finally moved into the small intestine, where nutrients are absorbed. Water is absorbed in the large intestine, leaving the waste.

Almost all the glucose produced by breaking down cellulose is used by microbes in the rumen, and so ruminants get little glucose from the small intestine. Instead, glucose for a ruminants' brain function and lactation, if needed, is made by the liver.

Where ruminants are found
There are 3.5 billion domestic ruminants, with about 95% being cattle, goats and sheep.

There are also about 75 million wild ruminants. They can be found anywhere except for the continents Australia and Antarctica. Most of them are in Europe, Africa and Asia.

References

Ungulates

Ruminant


"The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio" is a short story by Ernest Hemingway published in his 1933 collection of short stories Winner Take Nothing. The original title of the story was "Give Us a Prescription, Doctor". "The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio" later appeared in Hemingway's 1961 short story collection The Snows of Kilimanjaro.

The story takes place in a hospital run by a convent. The story focuses around a Mexican gambler named Cayetano, who was shot in a small town in Montana, a nun who aspires to be a saint and prays for everything or anything, and a writer named Mr. Frazer, who is ill, and constantly listens to the radio. To ease Cayetano's perceived loneliness, the nun asks the police "to send some Mexicans up to see poor Cayentano." The police send three Mexican musicians who are friends of the person who shot Cayetano. One of the three musicians tells Frazer: "Religion is the opium of the poor." The musician then says that he has never tried opium because "It seems it is very bad. One commences and cannot stop. It is a vice." Frazer then asks if all people need an opium to keep them from suffering too much. The nun had prayer, the doctors had humor, Cayetano had gambling and now the music of the three, and Frazer had his radio.

The story was dramatized for television in a one-hour adaptation shown in 1960. The television version starred Eleanor Parker, Richard Conte, and Charles Bickford. It was co-directed by Albert Marre, who directed the original stage production of Man of La Mancha.

References

External links

Short stories by Ernest Hemingway
1933 short stories

The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio


Henri Gaston Busignies (29 December 1905 – 20 June 1981) was an electrical engineer who made major contributions to radar, radio communication, and radio navigation. He held 140 patents, many of them secret.

Biography
Busignies became interested in amateur radio at an early age, and graduated from the Jules Ferry College in Versailles. In 1926 he received his degree in electrical engineering from the Institute Normal Electro Technique in Paris, having obtained his first patent, for a radio compass.

In 1928 Busignies joined ITT Corporation's Paris Laboratories, where he developed radio direction finders, airplane radio navigation devices, and early radar systems. In 1936 his equipment automatically guided an airplane from Paris to Réunion island off the coast of Madagascar, in the first practical demonstration of an aircraft guidance system.

During World War II his inventions were instrumental in radio direction finding, including four secret patents relating to the automatic high-frequency direction finding (Huff-Duff) system used to locate German U-boats. Busignies had escaped from German-occupied Paris with his wife and working models, ultimately making his way to the United States, where the inventions were implemented first along the East Coast, then the West Coast, with another 30 to 40 fixed stations located around the world. About 1,000 smaller systems were installed on aircraft carriers and destroyers, as well as a further 1,500 mobile systems for the Army Signal Corps. He was also closely involved in early development of Moving Target Indication (MTI) radar during the war.

After the war, Busignies remained in the United States, where he rose steadily through ranks of ITT's senior management, ultimately becoming the corporation's Chief Scientist. His inventions included contributions to Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) technology, conical scanning and 3-dimensional radar, gunfire and shell trajectory control, and deception systems. He also played a large role in development of ILS, TACAN, VORTAC, phased arrays for communications, and the use of dipole needles in orbit for reflection of radio waves (Project West Ford). He retired from ITT in 1975.

Busignies was an IEEE Fellow, and given an honorary Doctor of Science by Newark College of Engineering (1958), and the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute (1971). He received numerous other awards and honors during his career, including notably the IRI Medal from the Industrial Research Institute (1971), the IEEE Edison Medal (1977), and the Armstrong Medal from the Radio Club of America. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering (1966), and served as chairman of several of its committees.

References

Sources
IEEE History Site
Memorial Tributes: National Academy of Engineering, Volume 2 (1984), pp. 28-34.

1905 births
1981 deaths
People from Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine
French electrical engineers
Fellow Members of the IEEE
History of air traffic control
IEEE Edison Medal recipients
Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering
People associated with radar
French telecommunications engineers

Henri G. Busignies


The Yellow Ticket is a 1931 pre-Code American drama film based on the 1914 play of the same name by Michael Morton, produced by the Fox Film Corporation, directed by Raoul Walsh, and starring Elissa Landi, Lionel Barrymore and Laurence Olivier. Boris Karloff appears briefly in a small supporting role. The picture is also a noteworthy example of productions from the pre-Code era in that it includes brief nudity.

The original play, presented on Broadway, ran from January to June 1914 and starred Lionel's younger brother John Barrymore opposite Florence Reed. This film is the third American adaptation of the play. The first two are The Yellow Passport from 1916 and The Yellow Ticket from 1918. A German version, Der Gelbe Schein, was also filmed and released in 1918.

Plot
When martial law is declared in Russia, all Jews are restricted to their villages. The authorities are unsympathetic to Marya (Elissa Landi), who desperately wants to travel to St. Petersburg to see her dying father. Marya learns that a special card, called "the yellow ticket", is issued to prostitutes and allows them to travel freely.

Marya manages to get a yellow ticket. In St. Petersburg, Baron Andrey (Lionel Barrymore), a corrupt police official, prevents his lecherous nephew, Captain Nikolai, from forcing himself on Marya. She later meets Julian (Laurence Olivier), a British journalist, and tells him about injustices the government has kept him from learning about, including the yellow ticket. When Julian's articles are published, Andrey, a womanizer, guesses that Marya has been giving him information.

Cast

 Elissa Landi as Marya Kalish
 Lionel Barrymore as Baron Igor Andrey
 Laurence Olivier as Julian Rolfe
 Walter Byron as Count Nikolai
 Arnold Korff as Grandfather Kalish
 Mischa Auer as Melchior
 Edwin Maxwell as Police Agent
 Rita La Roy as Fania Rubinstein
 Sarah Padden as Mother Kalish
 Boris Karloff as Orderly

See also
 Boris Karloff filmography
 Laurence Olivier on stage and screen
 The Yellow Passport (1916 film based on same play)
 The Yellow Ticket (1918 film)
 Der Gelbe Schein (1918 German film with Pola Negri; English titles The Yellow Ticket and The Devil's Pawn)
 The Black Pass (Czarna ksiazeczka, a 1915 lost Polish short by Aleksander Hertz also with Pola Negri)

References

External links

1931 films
1931 drama films
Fox Film films
American drama films
American black-and-white films
Remakes of American films
Films directed by Raoul Walsh
Films scored by Hugo Friedhofer
Films with screenplays by Jules Furthman
Films about Jews and Judaism
Films set in 1913
Films set in 1914
Films set in Russia
Sound film remakes of silent films
1930s American films
1930s English-language films
English-language drama films

The Yellow Ticket


The Battle of the Alamo took place in 1836 at the Alamo in what is now San Antonio, Texas, United States. Texas then belonged to Mexico, but many people wanted to have their own new country since they did not like Mexican rule. Over 100 of them, including former U.S. Representative Davy Crockett, were at the Alamo.

Under the Spanish Empire, the Alamo had been a mission like a church. The Mexican Army of several thousand arrived, led by General Antonio López de Santa Anna. For 13 days, the Mexican Army surrounded the Alamo, and it finally attacked on March 6, 1836.  All 187 men from Texas were killed.

General Sam Houston felt that holding San Antonio was unnecessary and impossible. That made him send Jim Bowie with orders to destroy the Alamo and to return with all of the men and the artillery that were stationed there. Bowie went against his orders and failed to defend the city, which he had thought to be his duty.

1836
1830s in Texas
Alamo
History of San Antonio, Texas
19th century in Mexico
March events

Battle of the Alamo


The Devonshire Club was a London gentlemen's club which was established in 1874 and was disbanded in 1976. Throughout its existence it was based at 50 St James's Street. The major Liberal club of the day was the Reform Club, but in the wake of the 1868 Reform Act's extension of the franchise, the waiting list for membership from the larger electorate grew to such an extent that a new club was formed to accommodate these new Liberal voters. The clubhouse was on the western side of St James's Street. The original intention was to call it the 'Junior Reform Club', along the model of the Junior Carlton Club formed in 1866, but complaints from the Reform Club's members led it to being named the Devonshire, in honour of its first chairman, the Duke of Devonshire, an aristocrat from a long line of Liberals.

The club was fortunate in obtaining the St James's Street premises of Crockford's Club, a renowned eighteenth century club which had closed down in 1845. The Devonshire did well in its first decade, but found itself in an awkward position from the 1880s upon the establishment of the National Liberal Club. With a further extension of the franchise in 1885, the much larger National Liberal was aimed at these new electors, and the Devonshire came to possess neither the prestige of Brooks's or the Reform, nor the broader appeal of the National Liberal. The Devonshire soon lost its political flavour.

In the 1960s the Golfers Club shared the premises using a club room at the back of the building and there was also a Masonic temple on site, catering for those lodges without premises.

After a great deal of financial trouble in the 1970s (mirrored in many other clubs of the time, including the Reform, the Carlton, the St James's, the United University, the Junior Carlton, the Army and Navy, and the United Service Club), it finally closed in 1976, with its membership being absorbed by the East India Club.

Further reading
Henry Turner Waddy, The Devonshire Club and Crockford's (E. Nash, 1919) Full text out of copyright and available at archive.org
Lejeune, Anthony, with Malcolm Lewis, The Gentlemen's Clubs of London (Bracken Books, 1979, reprinted 1984 and 1987)

See also
List of gentlemen's clubs in London

Gentlemen's clubs in London
1874 establishments in England
1976 disestablishments in England
Defunct clubs and societies of the United Kingdom
Defunct organisations based in London
Grade II* listed buildings in the City of Westminster
Grade II listed buildings in the City of Westminster

Devonshire Club


The Wroclaw University of Economics and Business (Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny we Wrocławiu) is one of ten public universities located in Wrocław, Poland. Originally established in 1947 as a private business school (then named Wyższa Szkoła Handlowa, or "Trade College"), it was nationalized in 1954 under the name Wyższa Szkoła Ekonomiczna ("College of Economics"). In October 1974 it was named  after the Polish economist Oskar Lange, although his name does not occur in the official English name of the university. Changing the name to the Wrocław University of Economics (Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny we Wrocławiu) in 2008 removed Oskar Lange from the name of the university.

The main campus with three out of four departments is located on Ulica Komandorska near the center of Wrocław, whereas one faculty (Regional Economy and Tourism) resides in a separate campus in Jelenia Góra.

The university comprises the following schools (faculties):
School of Economic Sciences
School of Engineering and Economics
School of Management, Computer Science and Finance
School of Economics, Management and Tourism (Jelenia Góra)

Altogether it employs 784 academic teachers including 142 professors. There is strong interest in economic studies, in the current academic year  the university has about 14,000 students, and so far it has produced over 70,000 graduates.

Rectors
 Kamil Stefko (1947–1950)
 Stefan Górniak (1950–1952)
 Antoni Wrzosek (1952–1955)
 Krzysztof Jeżowski (1955–1956)
 Wincenty Styś (1956–1959)
 Adam Chełmoński (1959)
 Józef Fiema (1955–1966)
 Józef Popkiewicz (1966–1979)
 Józef Kaleta (1979–1987)
 Wiesław Pluta (1987–1990)
 Józef Kaleta (1990–1993)
 Andrzej Baborski (1993–1999)
 Marian Noga (1999–2005)
 Bogusław Fiedor (2005-2012)
 Andrzej Gospodarowicz (2012-2016)
 Andrzej Kaleta (since 2016)

Researchers and alumni

 Leszek Czarnecki – richest Polish acc (Forbes, 2008)
 Krzysztof Jajuga – chief of CFA Society of Poland
 Marian Noga – Monetary Policy Council
 Jerzy Szmajdziński – Ministry of National Defence (Poland)
 Grzegorz Marek Michalski

Gallery

References

External links

Wrocław University of Economics
Economics schools

Wrocław University of Economics


Alma de Bretteville Spreckels (March 24, 1881 – August 7, 1968) was a wealthy socialite and philanthropist in San Francisco, California. She was known both as "Big Alma" (she was  tall) and "The Great Grandmother of San Francisco". Among her many accomplishments, she persuaded her first husband, sugar magnate Adolph B. Spreckels, to donate the California Palace of the Legion of Honor to the city of San Francisco.

Early life
She was born Alma Charlotte Corday le Normand de Bretteville in the Sunset District of San Francisco, the fifth of six children of Viggo and Mathilde de Bretteville, two Danish immigrants. The family was very poor during her early childhood. Viggo descended from Franco-Danish nobility through his grandfather who emigrated during the French Revolution (one of Napoleon III's generals was his uncle) and used that as an excuse to avoid working while simultaneously deriding the "nouveau riche" of California. In contrast, Mathilde had enough ingenuity and business sense to open a combination Danish bakery–laundry service–massage parlor which became the family's source of income. At age 14, Alma quit school to work full-time for the family business. Meanwhile, she had developed a love of art and enrolled in the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art to study painting. While there, she earned money by being a nude model. Now flush with cash, she became popular around town, and found herself intimately involved with a miner named Charlie Anderson. After their relationship deteriorated, she gained a bit of notoriety for having successfully sued him for "personal defloweration".

Alma de Bretteville met her future husband thanks to the rumor she modeled for the Dewey Monument by Robert Aitken, which can be found in Union Square. Legend holds that Aitken hired Alma de Bretteville Spreckels to model for the statue, but a 1902 article detailing the monument's construction stated that Aitken's model was Clara Petzold, who later became a noted photographer. Regardless, this statue was selected from a number of entries and only barely made the cut, thanks to the crucial vote of the chair of the Citizens' Committee, Adolph Spreckels. Although he was 24 years older than she was, he was smitten by Alma, and after a five-year courtship, they married on May 11, 1908. Because he was head of the Spreckels Sugar Company, she often referred to her husband as her "sugar daddy".

Initially, they lived in Adolph's house in Sausalito, where their first daughter, Alma Emma, was born in 1909, but he soon purchased a property in Pacific Heights where, after the existing homes on it were relocated, Adolph built a new mansion, the Spreckels Mansion in the Beaux-Arts style, completed in c.1912 (it is most recently the home of author Danielle Steel). In the meantime, son Adolph Bernard Jr. was born in 1911, followed by another daughter, Dorothy Constance, in 1913. It was after Dorothy's birth that Spreckels learned her husband had contracted syphilis before their marriage, as he began showing symptoms of the disease. Fortunately for her, she never caught it from him.

In 1912, Eliot O'Donnell published "The Sorcery Club", a tall tale of the occult largely set in San Francisco. Alma makes an appearance in Chapter VI as 'Ella Crockford, the wife of the California Street Sugar King', and is blackmailed for various entertaining but disreputable actions.

Palace of the Legion of Honor

After the mansion was completed, Spreckels began throwing opulent parties befitting a woman of her status. Although attended by local celebrities such as author Jack London and sculptor Earl Cummings, there were a number of people who were disdainful of her earlier infamy and snubbed her invitations. This motivated her to gain some respectability for herself, which she did by going to Paris. There, she met entertainer Loie Fuller and through Fuller, other artists, most notably Auguste Rodin. With Fuller's encouragement and contacts, Alma Spreckels eventually became one of the more influential art collectors in the U.S.

She returned from Paris right after the beginning of World War I. Having purchased a number of Rodin's works directly from the artist, she had them displayed at the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition. It was there that Spreckels fell in love with the French Pavilion, which was a temporary building constructed only of a wood frame covered with staff, a kind of faux stone made from a mixture of plaster and burlap-type fiber. She decided to have a permanent and exact replica of the building constructed so she could permanently contain her burgeoning art collection, but it would be another nine years before this dream could come to fruition.

In the intervening time, she busied herself with charity auctions, raising money for war-torn France, Belgium, and Romania. For one such event at the Palace Hotel, she was able to obtain donations from U.S. presidents and other renowned individuals. Her own collection was not spared: her prized Rodin The Genius of War also went on the auction block.

After some persuading, Adolph eventually agreed to fund Spreckels' museum project. To acquire more art and financial support, Spreckels returned to Europe. The French government agreed to supply some, and Queen Marie of Romania donated a replica of her Byzantine Golden Room. While Spreckels was in Europe, President Warren G. Harding requested her help in compiling a report on post-war working conditions for women for the Department of Labor's Women's Bureau, which she dutifully carried out.

In 1921, ground was broken for the Palace of the Legion of Honor Museum in Lincoln Park, San Francisco. As Spreckels envisioned it, the building is an almost exact, full-scale replica of the French Pavilion from the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition, which in turn was a three-quarter-scale version of the Palais de la Légion d'Honneur in Paris designed by George Applegarth and H. Guillaume. At the close of the exposition, which was located just a few miles away in the current Marina district, the French government granted Adolph permission to construct a permanent replica of the French Pavilion. The museum opened on November 11, 1924, six months after Adolph's death. During the dedication ceremony, the Counsellor of State of France announced that Spreckels had been awarded the Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur.

Remarriage
Spreckels continued her charity rummage sales during the Great Depression, this time expanded to thrift shops, which were eventually given to The Salvation Army to operate. She also continued her devotion to the arts, obtaining more and more works for her museum as well as coordinating and partially funding the development of the Maryhill Museum of Art in Maryhill, Washington, after the death of her friend Samuel Hill.

Spreckels met Elmer Awl, a Santa Barbara rancher and businessman, during her inquiries into the Samarkand Hotel, a Persian-themed hotel which had fallen into disrepair. She purchased the property for $55,000 in 1937 and proceeded to renovate it, hoping to provide another home for her now-overflowing art collection. Spreckels and Awl hit it off immediately and were married in 1939. Awl moved to San Francisco, but the hotel was not particularly successful and Spreckels sent him back to Santa Barbara to manage the business, but he was also unable to stem the losses. They decided to rid themselves of it, but could not find a buyer. Eventually, the hotel was swapped for a dairy farm in Marin County worth $80,000.

When the U.S. was drawn into World War II, Awl, as a member of the United States Coast Guard Reserve, was called to active duty. While he was away, Spreckels formed a new charity, the San Francisco League for Servicemen, which gathered supplies for the Army and Navy. She even donated her vast Sonoma County ranch to the Army to use as a recreational facility. Near the end of the war, Spreckels discovered that Awl had been having an affair with her niece Ulla, and she quickly divorced him in 1943, while he was still stationed in Central America.

Later life
Spreckels' last major project was the construction of the San Francisco Maritime Museum. When it opened in 1951, her collection of model ships that had been on display at the 1939–40 Golden Gate International Exposition was the main exhibit. However, she had had a feud with museum founding director Karl Kortum and as a result, did not receive much recognition for her role in that museum's establishment.

After her son Adolph's death in 1961, she lived mostly in seclusion, visiting only with her daughters and grandchildren. She died in 1968 of pneumonia at age 87.

Further reading

References

External links
 Genealogy  on Pierfit geneanet
Alma de Bretteville Spreckels at Find a Grave

American art collectors
American socialites
People from San Francisco
Philanthropists from California
1881 births
1968 deaths
Deaths from pneumonia in California
Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour
American people of Danish descent

Alma de Bretteville Spreckels


Bon Air is a town in Talladega County, Alabama, United States. It incorporated in 1932. At the 2010 census the population was 116, up from 96 in 2000.

Geography
Bon Air is located at .

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , of which , or 0.45%, is water.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there were 96 people, 41 households, and 25 families residing in the town. The population density was . There were 44 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the town was 93.75% White and 6.25% Black or African American.

There were 41 households, out of which 19.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 48.8% were married couples living together, 12.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 39.0% were non-families. 36.6% of all households were made up of individuals, and 9.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.34 and the average family size was 3.08.

In the town, the population was spread out, with 18.8% under the age of 18, 6.3% from 18 to 24, 34.4% from 25 to 44, 32.3% from 45 to 64, and 8.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 43 years. For every 100 females, there were 84.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 95.0 males.

The median income for a household in the town was $33,125, and the median income for a family was $36,667. Males had a median income of $30,000 versus $17,083 for females. The per capita income for the town was $13,075. There were 13.3% of families and 29.0% of the population living below the poverty line, including 59.1% of under eighteens and 22.2% of those over 64.

Climate
The climate in this area is characterized by hot, humid summers and generally mild to cool winters.  According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Bon Air has a humid subtropical climate, abbreviated "Cfa" on climate maps.

References

External links

Towns in Talladega County, Alabama
Towns in Alabama

Bon Air, Alabama


Stephen Charles Mortimer  (born 15 July 1956), also nicknamed "Turvey", is an Australian former rugby league footballer who played as a . Mortimer played a Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs club record 272 first-grade games between 1976 and 1988, winning four premierships with the club during the 1980s. Mortimer's two younger brothers, Peter and Chris, also played for the club.

Background
Mortimer was born in the Sydney suburb of Yagoona and raised in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, the eldest son of Ian and Elaine Mortimer's four sons. His brothers (Peter, Chris, and Glen) also played rugby league and were famously known as the Mortimer brothers.

Mortimer's junior club was the Kooringal Magpies. He then played for Wagga Wagga's Turvey Park club, with "Turvey" becoming one of Mortimer's nicknames.

Playing career

Spotted by Peter "The Bullfrog" Moore, when playing for Riverina in the 1975 Amco Cup, Mortimer tore his future club Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs to pieces and was Man of the Match despite Riverina losing. 'Bullfrog', when asked about Mortimer's performance uttered the words "will never play against Canterbury-Bankstown ever again", and true to Bullfrog's word he never did. Mortimer captained Canterbury to Premierships in 1984 and 1985 and was a member of the 1980 and 1988 triumphs.

His performances in the 1980 and 1985 victories were vintage Mortimer. In the 1980 decider, he saved three certain Eastern Suburbs tries through superb cover tackles (a great Mortimer trademark). In the 1985 Grand Final it was Mortimer's captaincy and direction that controlled Canterbury field position and possession as they buried St George into submission following a try to brother Peter Mortimer in the 29th minute. Mortimer captained Canterbury to a narrow loss in the 1986 Grand Final, which Parramatta won 4–2 in a tryless game, and also played in the 1979 Grand Final loss to St George. On both occasions Mortimer was the sole reason Canterbury were in the match.

During Mortimer's final five seasons at Canterbury-Bankstown he formed a great halves combination with the master of support play in Terry Lamb. During their five years together in the blue and white, the Bulldogs made four Grand Finals and won three of them. Lamb was a non-playing reserve in the 1985 Grand Final win over St George after being ruled out due to injury, and Mortimer missed 68 minutes of the 1988 Grand Final win over Balmain in the first Grand Final played at the Sydney Football Stadium (Turvey had broken his arm during the Bulldogs Round 21 match against St George at Belmore, but recovered sufficiently to take his place in Phil Gould's side on GF day).

Lamb would later captain the Bulldogs between 1990 and 1995 and usher in a new breed of Bulldogs that weren't around in the Mortimer era. Mortimer received an offer to switch clubs in 1987 and very nearly joined the Bob Fulton coached Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles, but stayed put at Canterbury (Manly won the premiership that year while the Bulldogs finished only 1 point out of the finals). He was advised to retire after 1988 rather than join another club, which ensured his status as one of the most loyal players to play the game of rugby league.

Surprisingly, despite their success when playing together at Canterbury, Mortimer and Lamb only ever partnered each other once in the halves for New South Wales. This was in Game 2 of the 1984 State of Origin series on a very wet and muddy Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG), with Queensland winning 14–2. They never got the chance to play together for Australia as Queensland captain Wally Lewis was the test five-eighth and also test captain from 1984.

Despite troubles at Canterbury during his latter years, including a well publicised feud with Warren Ryan who coached the team from 1984 to 1987, Mortimer was a one-club man and retired playing 272 first grade games, which at the time was the most for one NSWRL club. It was also around this time that when appearing before the NSWRL Judiciary, the chairman of the judiciary, Sydney lawyer Jim Comans who was leading the campaign to stamp out violence in the game, told Mortimer that if he appeared before him again "Rugby league will be just a memory for you".'.

Mortimer's representative career faced challenges from other great halfbacks of his era including Tommy Raudonikis, Steve Morris, Kevin Hastings and most notably Peter Sterling.

Despite the presence of great halfbacks, Mortimer played 16 matches for New South Wales between 1977 and 1985, including nine under the State of Origin banner. Mortimer captained the Blues in 1984/85 in three matches (all victories) and was the first captain to lead New South Wales to State of Origin success in 1985. He was also named man-of-the-match in the final game of the 1984 State of Origin series at Brisbane's Lang Park. Mortimer is credited as the player who finally brought passion into the Blues Origin jersey and led a new wave of NSW players that would be the core of the team for many years to come including those such as Wayne Pearce, Brett Kenny, Michael O'Connor, Garry Jack, Royce Simmons, Steve Roach, Noel Cleal, Ben Elias, and his brother Chris Mortimer.

Mortimer played 8 Test matches for Australia between 1981 and 1984 where he scored two tries in his Test debut against France at the SCG with Australia winning 43–2. Also making his debut in that Test match was future rugby league immortal Wally Lewis, who played outside Mortimer at five-eighth. Between 1980 and 1985, the breakdown of appearances for halfbacks at Test level was Steve Mortimer 8 Tests, Peter Sterling (Parramatta) 6 Tests, Mark Murray (Qld) 6 Tests and Des Hasler (Manly-Warringah) 1 Test. Mortimer was named vice-captain of Australia's 1985 mid-season tour of New Zealand, but made himself unavailable due to business reasons, with Murray and Hasler sharing the halfback position. Mortimer later regretted standing down as a major conflict erupted between coach Terry Fearnley and captain Wally Lewis. Fearnley was NSW coach in 1985 and Mortimer previously played alongside Lewis in Test and Kangaroo Tour campaigns (Mortimer and Lewis were room-mates on the undefeated 1982 Kangaroo tour where both actually lost their test spot to Sterling and Brett Kenny). He believed that had he toured New Zealand he might have been able to calm the situation between the coach and the captain.

Coaching career

Mortimer played under four coaches during his 13 seasons at Canterbury. His enterprising and brilliant style of football was encouraged and enhanced under the coaching of Malcolm Clift and Ted Glossop. Mortimer's style was reined in during the "Wozzaball" era under Warren Ryan between 1984 and 1987. Mortimer and Ryan often clashed but through all of that they formed one of the most successful coach-captain combinations winning two Premierships and runners-up another year during Ryan's four years at Canterbury, which Mortimer was captain for all that period except the first half of the 1984 season. Mortimer's performance in the 1985 Grand Final was one of his finest tactical efforts where he followed Ryan's game plan to a tee with the Mortimer's kicking game with his bombs into the ingoal area too much for the St. George Dragons to handle.

Mortimer's final year at Canterbury was under the coaching of Phil Gould where he stood down from the captaincy after Round 5. Mortimer's performances on the field were vintage but a virus and broken wrist cut his appearances to just 14 and also played 5 games as a fresh replacement. The NSWRL allowed teams for the first time outside of semi-finals to have fresh reserves for club matches and Gould utilised Mortimer when he returned from a virus to great effect including one match and his only time against Allan Langer where in 31 minutes Mortimer turned a club match against Brisbane Broncos on its head to win Man of the Match. He broke his wrist in the second last round but was fit enough to be a reserve in the Grand Final victory against Balmain Tigers. Fittingly Mortimer was the last player to touch the ball in a dash from dummy half.

Administration

The Bulldogs salary cap crisis in 2002 saw Mortimer return to Canterbury to save the club from trouble. He led from the front with the passion and dedication he displayed on the field. The Bulldogs emerged from the dramas with flying colours for the 2003 season. They fell one game short of the Grand Final but the signs were there for a big 2004. Dramas in the pre-season saw Mortimer stand down as chief executive officer but the foundations he put in place and the players he helped recruit saw Canterbury under the coaching of Steve Folkes win their 8th Premiership.

Mortimer will be remembered as one of the all-time great halfbacks, a player who brought the passion into the State of Origin for New South Wales, a great captain for his state and country and a great ambassador for the sport of rugby league on and off the field.

Outside football
In 1988, Mortimer was awarded the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) for his services to rugby league.

Mortimer, after his playing days, set up a very successful "Shuffleboard" business, which focused on a game used mostly by 'retirement homes'. He has made several media appearances and was a member of Channel Seven's Sports World programme in the early 1990s and Fox Sports NRL coverage. From 2005, he was regularly seen on Sky News as their rugby league expert.

On 24 October 2000, Mortimer was recipient of the Australian Sports Medal.

In February 2008, Mortimer was named in the list of Australia's 100 Greatest Players (1908–2007) which was commissioned by the NRL and ARL to celebrate the code's centenary year in Australia.

Personal life
Mortimer and his wife Karen Mortimer have three children; son Matthew Mortimer, son Andrew Mortimer, and daughter Erin Mortimer.

Health
In 2021, Mortimer was diagnosed with dementia. In November 2021, he was hospitalised after having a heart attack and pneumonia the following month. In January 2022, he was hospitalised for bronchitis and was sent to a care home the following month due to his dementia.

See also
Mortimer family

References

External links
Steve Mortimer at eraofthebiff.com

1956 births
Living people
Australia national rugby league team players
Australian rugby league administrators
Australian rugby league coaches
Australian rugby league players
Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs captains
Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs players
Clive Churchill Medal winners
Steve
New South Wales Rugby League State of Origin captains
New South Wales Rugby League State of Origin players
Recipients of the Australian Sports Medal
Recipients of the Medal of the Order of Australia
Rugby league halfbacks
Rugby league players from Wagga Wagga

Steve Mortimer


The Borda House, located on 27, 29 and 33 Madero Street, and 26-28 Bolivar streets in the historic center of Mexico City, originally belonged to the Frenchman José de la Borda (Joseph de Laborde) who was one of the richest men in New Spain in the 18th century. It stands out due to its notable architectural features such as the sculpted stone decorative details on the ground floor. The original building encompassed the entire city block. It had various inner courtyards, and Borda had an ironwork balcony built all the way around the building, supported by angles in the shape of rooster feet. This allowed one to walk all the way around the building on the outside.

The original building
This mansion was built as a gift for Borda's wife of 16 years, Teresa Verdugo y Aragonés and it was intended to rival that of Hernán Cortés and his descendants. It is located near the old monastery of San Francisco and the Palace of Iturbide. It was built by the most famous architect of the time, Francisco Antonio Guerrero y Torres covered an entire city block, bounded by 2nd San Francisco, Coliseo, Colegio de Niñas and Espiritu Santo Streets. Today these streets are known as Madero, Bolivar, 16 de Septiembre and Motolinia. It had three floors, covered in red tezontle rock and grey white sandstone. Near the main entrance was a large niche with a statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe. The original building had two floors with ironwork railing that wound around the entire building on the second and third floors.

The interior had a monumental library, four dining rooms, 25 alcoves, three kitchens, two stables, three offices and two chapels. The entire interior was richly decorated with carpets, heavy curtains, paintings, porcelain, clocks, sculptures, and richly carved furniture.

The current building
Over the centuries, the mansion was fragmented and most of it demolished, leaving today five plots, four of which contain the original façade and double balcony. The building on 28 Bolivar street which houses the Hotel Coliseo has an early 20th-century façade, but the lower inner part is original of the Casa Borda. At the beginning of the 20th century, number 33 on Madero street was home to the Salón Rojo, one of the first movie houses in the city. The Salón Rojo was created by Salvador Toscano and then reinaugurated by German Camus and featured an electric escalator. In the 1950s, it housed an upscale carpet business and then it was a post office. In the later 20th century, it was bought by the Santander Serfin bank and part of it used as the Serfin Museum. The museum offered a small collection of indigenous clothing and colonial-era garb. It has a kind of embroidery and featherwork "dictionary" designed to explain the significance of the different designs found in the exhibits. Unfortunately, it closed a few years ago. Number 26 on the Bolivar side is the only remaining plot which has all the original interiors from the 18th century, all the other plots were demolished, with just the façades remaining. It housed the Harem Baths in the first part of the 20th century, remaining as a witness a tile panel representing Neptune on the stables court. At the beginning of the new millennium, it was completely renovated and rescued by the Yturbe family.

References

Museums in Mexico City
Historic house museums in Mexico
Houses in Mexico City
Historic center of Mexico City
Houses completed in the 18th century
Spanish Colonial architecture in Mexico

Borda House, Mexico City


A six-legged walking robot should not be confused with a Stewart platform, a kind of parallel manipulator used in robotics applications.

A hexapod robot is a mechanical vehicle that walks on six legs.  Since a robot can be statically stable on three or more legs, a hexapod robot has a great deal of flexibility in how it can move.  If legs become disabled, the robot may still be able to walk.  Furthermore, not all of the robot's legs are needed for stability; other legs are free to reach new foot placements or manipulate a payload.

Many hexapod robots are biologically inspired by Hexapoda locomotion – the insectoid robots.  Hexapods may be used to test biological theories about insect locomotion, motor control, and neurobiology.

Designs

Hexapod designs vary in leg arrangement.  Insect-inspired robots are typically laterally symmetric, such as the RiSE robot at Carnegie Mellon. A radially symmetric hexapod is ATHLETE (All-Terrain Hex-Legged Extra-Terrestrial Explorer) robot at JPL.

Typically, individual legs range from two to six degrees of freedom.  Hexapod feet are typically pointed, but can also be tipped with adhesive material to help climb walls or wheels so the robot can drive quickly when the ground is flat.

Locomotion

Most often, hexapods are controlled by gaits, which allow the robot to move forward, turn, and perhaps side-step.  Some of the
most common gaits are as follows:
 Alternating tripod: 3 legs on the ground at a time.
 Quadruped.
 Crawl: move just one leg at a time.
Gaits for hexapods are often stable, even in slightly rocky and uneven terrain.

Motion may also be nongaited, which means the sequence of leg motions is not fixed, but rather chosen by the computer in response to the sensed environment.  This may be most helpful in very rocky terrain, but existing techniques for motion planning are computationally expensive.

Biologically inspired

Insects are chosen as models because their nervous system are simpler than other animal species. Also, complex behaviours can be attributed to just a few neurons and the pathway between sensory input and motor output is relatively shorter. Insects' walking behaviour and neural architecture are used to improve robot locomotion. Conversely, biologists can use hexapod robots for testing different hypotheses.

Biologically inspired hexapod robots largely depend on the insect species used as a model. The cockroach and the stick insect are the two most commonly used insect species; both have been ethologically and neurophysiologically extensively studied. At present no complete nervous system is known, therefore, models usually combine different insect models, including those of other insects.

Insect gaits are usually obtained by two approaches: the centralized and the decentralized control architectures. Centralized controllers directly specify transitions of all legs, whereas in decentralized architectures, six nodes (legs) are connected in a parallel network; gaits arise by the interaction between neighbouring legs.

List of robots
Hexbug (insectoid toy robot)
Stiquito (inexpensive insectoid robot)
Rhex
Whegs
LAURON

See also
Biomechanics
Insects
Mondo spider
Robotics
Robot locomotion
Stewart platform

References

External links
Poly-pedal Laboratory at Berkeley (USA).
Biological Cybernetics/Theoretical Biology (Germany).

Robot kinematics

Robot locomotion

Hexapod (robotics)