Calendar queue

A calendar queue (CQ) is a priority queue (queue in which every element has associated priority and the dequeue operation removes the highest priority element). It is analogous to desk calendar, which is used by humans for ordering future events by date. Discrete event simulations require a future event list (FEL) structure that sorts pending events according to their time. Such simulators require a good and efficient data structure as time spent on queue management can be significant. The calendar queue (with optimum bucket size) can approach O(1) average performance. Calendar queues are closely related to bucket queues but differ from them in how they are searched and in being dynamically resized.
Implementation.
Theoretically, like a bucket queue, a calendar queue consists of an array of linked lists. Sometimes each index in the array is also referred to as a bucket. The bucket has specified width and its linked list holds events whose timestamp maps to that bucket. A desk calendar has 365 buckets for each day with a width of one day. Each array element contains one pointer that is the head of the corresponding linked list. If the array name is “month” then month[11] is a pointer to the list of events scheduled for the 12th month of the year (the vector index starts from 0). The complete calendar thus consists of an array of 12 pointers and a collection of up to 12 linked lists. In calendar queue, enqueue (addition in a queue) and dequeue (deleting from a queue) of events in FEL is based on event time.
Let the calendar queue with "n" buckets with "w" width. Then enqueue of an event with time "t" operates on bucket formula_1 . And more than two events scheduled in the bucket according to the increased timestamp. To dequeue events from the calendar queue, it keeps track of current year and day. Then it searches for the earliest event within that bucket and dequeue it. (In contrast, a bucket queue would merely return any element from the first nonempty bucket, without determining which element in that bucket is earliest.)
Calendar Queue Resize Operation.
If the number of events in the queue is much smaller or much larger than the number of buckets, it will not function efficiently. The solution is to allow the number of buckets to correspondingly grow and shrink as the queue grows and shrinks. To simplify the resize operation, the "Nb" (number of buckets) in a CQ is often chosen to be the power of two, i.e., formula_2;↵
The number of buckets is doubled or halved each time the "Ne" (number of events) exceeds 2"Nb" or decreases below "Nb"/2 respectively. When "Nb" is resized, the new width "w" has to be calculated as well. The new "w" that is adopted will be estimated by sampling the average inter-event time gap from the first few hundred events starting at the current bucket position. Thereafter, a new Calendar queue is created and all the events in the old calendar will be recopied over.


Harold Frank

Harold Frank (1921–1995) was an American abstract expressionist artist, born in Southampton, England.
Life and career.
Born in England in 1917, Harold Frank and his family immigrated to the United States via Ellis Island. He was brought up in the tenements of New York and showed a talent for drawing when young. Feeling the angst of the great depression and World War II, his search for answers to the meaning of life lead him to take up abstract expressionism:
After some time in the US Army, he traveled to Paris to study and returned to New York in the 1950s. He attended the New York Art Students League, the National Academy of Design, Pratt Institute, Chouinard Art Institute, and UCLA, where he was a colleague of Richard Diebenkorn, who had a lasting influence on his work. Other artists who affected his creative philosophy included De Kooning, Matisse, Picasso, and Rouault.
He had an extensive one-man and group exhibition record and he was shown internationally in London, Paris, Amsterdam and Aubonne, Switzerland, as well as throughout the United States from the 1960s through to the 1980s. His awards included the Adolph and Clara Obrig Award and the Sudam Silver Medal from the National Academy of Design; the National Watercolor Society's Grumbacher Award; the John Marin Memorial Award in the Watercolor U.S.A. Show and a First Prize from the Laguna Beach Museum of Art.
His subject matter included pure abstracts, landscapes, still lifes and the male and female head and figure. As many artists have done, he explored variations of each subject, experimenting with changes in medium, technique, light and color. His paintings of the female head and form quickly developed into a vehicle for his abstract interpretations. He used very quick brushwork and often labored over several pieces at the same time.
His colors are rooted in the creative freedom of the Fauvists and were applied with a craftsman's confidence and expertise.
He led a reclusive and introspective life, yet when asked, he communicated his creative experience with eloquence:
Harold Frank died in Los Angeles, California, USA, in 1995.
Education.
According to the Social Security Death Index found on Ancestry.com, Harold Frank was born in Poland on April 21, 1917 (not 1921).


Extensible programming

Extensible programming is a term used in computer science to describe a style of computer programming that focuses on mechanisms to extend the programming language, compiler and runtime environment. Extensible programming languages, supporting this style of programming, were an active area of work in the 1960s, but the movement was marginalized in the 1970s. Extensible programming has become a topic of renewed interest in the 21st century.
Historical movement.
The first paper usually associated with the extensible programming language movement is M. Douglas McIlroy's 1960 paper on macros for higher-level programming languages. Another early description of the principle of extensibility occurs in Brooker and Morris's 1960 paper on the Compiler-Compiler. The peak of the movement was marked by two academic symposia, in 1969 and 1971. By 1975, a survey article on the movement by Thomas A. Standish was essentially a post mortem. The Forth programming language was an exception, but it went essentially unnoticed.
Character of the historical movement.
As typically envisioned, an extensible programming language consisted of a base language providing elementary computing facilities, and a meta-language capable of modifying the base language. A program then consisted of meta-language modifications and code in the modified base language.
The most prominent language-extension technique used in the movement was macro definition. Grammar modification was also closely associated with the movement, resulting in the eventual development of adaptive grammar formalisms. The Lisp language community remained separate from the extensible language community, apparently because, as one researcher observed,
any programming language in which programs and data are essentially interchangeable can be regarded as an extendible [sic] language. ... this can be seen very easily from the fact that Lisp has been used as an extendible language for years.
At the 1969 conference, Simula was presented as an extensible programming language.
Standish described three classes of language extension, which he called "paraphrase", "orthophrase", and "metaphrase" (otherwise paraphrase and metaphrase being translation terms).
Death of the historical movement.
Standish attributed the failure of the extensibility movement to the difficulty of programming successive extensions. An ordinary programmer might build a single shell of macros around a base language, but if a second shell of macros was to be built around that, the programmer would have to be intimately familiar with both the base language and the first shell; a third shell would require familiarity with the base and both the first and second shells; and so on. (Note that shielding the programmer from lower-level details is the intent of the abstraction movement that supplanted the extensibility movement.)
Despite the earlier presentation of Simula as extensible, by 1975, Standish's survey does not seem in practice to have included the newer abstraction-based technologies (though he used a very general definition of extensibility that technically could have included them). A 1978 history of programming abstraction from the invention of the computer to the (then) present day made no mention of macros, and gave no hint that the extensible languages movement had ever occurred. Macros were tentatively admitted into the abstraction movement by the late 1980s (perhaps due to the advent of hygienic macros), by being granted the pseudonym "syntactic abstractions".
Modern movement.
In the modern sense, a system that supports extensible programming will provide "all" of the features described below.
Extensible syntax.
This simply means that the source language(s) to be compiled must not be closed, fixed, or static. It must be possible to add new keywords, concepts, and structures to the source language(s). Languages which allow the addition of constructs with user defined syntax include Camlp4, OpenC++, Seed7, Red, Rebol, and Felix. While it is acceptable for some fundamental and intrinsic language features to be immutable, the system must not rely solely on those language features. It must be possible to add new ones.
Extensible compiler.
In extensible programming, a compiler is not a monolithic program that converts source code input into binary executable output. The compiler itself must be extensible to the point that it is really a collection of plugins that assist with the translation of source language input into "anything". For example, an extensible compiler will support the generation of object code, code documentation, re-formatted source code, or any other desired output. The architecture of the compiler must permit its users to "get inside" the compilation process and provide alternative processing tasks at every reasonable step in the compilation process.
For just the task of translating source code into something that can be executed on a computer, an extensible compiler should:
Extensible runtime.
At runtime, extensible programming systems must permit languages to extend the set of operations that it permits. For example, if the system uses a byte-code interpreter, it must allow new byte-code values to be defined. As with extensible syntax, it is acceptable for there to be some (smallish) set of fundamental or intrinsic operations that are immutable. However, it must be possible to overload or augment those intrinsic operations so that new or additional behavior can be supported.
Content separated from form.
Extensible programming systems should regard programs as data to be processed. Those programs should be completely devoid of any kind of formatting information. The visual display and editing of programs to users should be a translation function, supported by the extensible compiler, that translates the program data into forms more suitable for viewing or editing. Naturally, this should be a two-way translation. This is important because it must be possible to easily process extensible programs in a "variety" of ways. It is unacceptable for the only uses of source language input to be editing, viewing and translation to machine code. The arbitrary processing of programs is facilitated by de-coupling the source input from specifications of how it should be processed (formatted, stored, displayed, edited, etc.).
Source language debugging support.
Extensible programming systems must support the debugging of programs using the constructs of the original source language regardless of the extensions or transformation the program has undergone in order to make it executable. Most notably, it cannot be assumed that the only way to display runtime data is in "structures" or "arrays". The debugger, or more correctly 'program inspector', must permit the display of runtime data in forms suitable to the source language. For example, if the language supports a data structure for a business process or work flow, it must be possible for the debugger to display that data structure as a fishbone chart or other form provided by a plugin.


Cuillin Bantock

Cuillin Bantock (born 29 July 1935) is a British abstract painter and zoologist. He lives and works in London, UK. Bantock worked as a professional environmentalist in London and elsewhere. His main interest was evolutionary ecology and his children's book "The Story of Life" published in 1983, is in the collections of more than 100 libraries in 2016.
Early life.
Bantock was born in Barnt Green, Worcestershire, son of Raymond Bantock and Margaret More. His grandfather was classical composer Sir Granville Bantock. Bantock read zoology at Oxford University from 1955 to 1958 and was then awarded a three-year Christopher Welch Scholarship of the University for research in developmental cytogenetics. MA and D.Phil. degrees were awarded to him in 1965.
In 1961, he studied painting for three years at Camberwell College of Art in London.
Career.
Bantock worked as a research supervisor and senior lecturer in genetics at the Polytechnic of North London from 1966 to 1989. He was a member of The Field Studies Council Executive Committee and consultant advisor to the Science Research Council (UK), the National Environmental Research Council (UK) and the National Science Foundation (USA) c.1975-1985. He was a member of the London Wildlife Executive Council 1985–1989.
His main research area was in the ecological genetics of gastropod molluscs, on which he published over 20 papers in the international scientific literature. He contributed to several scientific books. His "The Story of Life" published by Walker Books Ltd in 1983 is included in "The Museum of Science and Industry Basic List of Children's Science Books".
After his retirement in 1989, Bantock became a full-time painter. A lifelong familiarity with a particular North Welsh dune system is a constant preoccupation in all his work, both abstract and figurative. His work has been exhibited in the UK, Canada and USA. He was the co-founder of Harlech Biennale 1994 and between 1994 and 2006 he has curated and co-curated more than 40 exhibitions in a number of venues in the UK, and organized art sales. He is the author of several exhibition catalogues and essays.
He was artist adviser to Space from 1996 to 2004 and was co-founder member, company secretary and trustee of The Art in Perpetuity Trust from 1995 to 2015. He engaged in successful fund-raising from the Arts Council and other bodies.
Since 2014 he has been represented by Richeldis Fine Art.


Yoshiyuki Kubota

 is a Japanese professional shogi player, ranked 7-dan.
Early life.
Yoshiyuki Kubota was born in Adachi, Tokyo on May 18, 1972. In 1984, he won the 9th , and later that same year entered the Japan Shogi Association's apprentice school at the rank of 6-kyū under the guidance of shogi professional . He was promoted to 1-dan in 1988, and full professional status and the rank of 4-dan in April 1994.
Promotion history.
The promotion history for Kubota is as follows:


HD Schrader

HD Schrader (born 1945), born Hans-Dieter Schrader, is a German sculptor. He is known in particular for his series of works titled "Cubecracks", which may be attributed to Concrete Art.
Life.
Schrader was born in 1945 in Bad Klosterlausnitz in Thuringia, in former East Germany. He studied (among other things) constructive design (under Max Herrmann Mahlmann) at the former Werkkunstschule Hamburg (School of Applied Arts) from 1965 to 1969. Schrader had his first solo exhibition in 1969 in the Galerie des Städtebauministeriums (gallery of the ministry for urban construction) in Bonn, showing his first series of works "Quadratreihungen" (Sequences of squares) consisting of drawings and relief pictures made of perspex. The following year he went on to produce his "Kubusreihungen" (Sequences of cubes) encompassing objects, acrylic paintings, drawings and silkscreen prints. In 1972, Schrader co-founded the artists’ group International Work Group for Constructive Art (AIFKG) in Antwerp, whose members included the artists Ewerdt Hilgemann, Richard Paul Lohse, Marcello Morandini and François Morellet. Up until 1986 he participated in six symposia held by the IAFKG work group in various European countries. Schrader sparked considerably more interest in 1973 with his work "Kugel im Kubus" (Sphere in Cube), which he was commissioned to create by the City of Hamburg after winning an open competition for Hamburg artists; the work was installed on the forecourt of the Hamburger Kunstverein. In 1974, Schrader took part in the 10th Biennale Internationale d’Art Menton in France.
Since 1986 Schrader has held a position as a professor for typography at the Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts, in the department of design. He was awarded several prizes, such as, in 1990, the award "Kultur aktuell in Schleswig-Holstein" (Contemporary culture in Schleswig-Holstein) for the work of the citizens’ action group that campaigned to preserve the sculpture "Kubus-Balance" (Cube-Balance); or, in 1991, the regional art award "Landesschaupreis Schleswig-Holstein". He was commissioned by the state government in Kiel to show his installation "Kubuskoog" (Cube polder) in the German pavilion at the EXPO 2000 in Hanover. In 2005, Schrader was invited to participate in a Chinese-German symposium on painting, held in Wuyishan in China. The following year he was appointed a member of the international jury for the "Olympic Landscape Sculpture Contest" in Beijing, China.
Schrader lives and works in Hamburg and Osterhever (in northern Germany).
Work.
With their unusual angular or pointed forms Schader’s Cubecracks are initially perceived as alien bodies – whether encountered in urban surroundings or in the countryside. Their impact is reinforced by his use of signal red. As Bernhard Holeczek wrote, “how the things are made is clear to see, but not the idea they are derived from”. While a Cubecrack can be read as an autonomous sculptural sign, it at the same time also addresses the viewer as if an emissary from a foreign world, as a sign whose meaning can only be elucidated with closer knowledge of Schrader’s work. Indeed, Schrader’s Cubecracks suggest a rational system, that of a cube or a cuboid. Since 1974, Schrader has been working in drawings, paintings, objects, installations, animated film and sculptures to explore the idea of “the cube as a space of art”. Whereas certain sculptures such as those executed in plaster grow in the course of being shaped by the artist’s hand, or others such as those made of marble diminish by being hewn with hammer and chisel until they achieve their final form, Schrader’s Cubecracks arise in an entirely different manner. He dissects a cuboid form – in this case a hollow steel body in the shape of a cube – into individual sections. The cuboid Schrader used for his first Cubecracks that were exhibited in 1995/96 in the towns of Herne, Ingolstadt and Lübeck, should be imagined as three 2.5 metre cubes, one stacked upon another. Schrader cut these cuboid forms into twelve sections: in each town he distributed six of the twelve sections, bright red, in various public places, while the other six were displayed in the museum of each town. Viewers encountered them as different entities, each with its own dynamism and immediate symbolic presence. But one soon sensed that these objects were necessarily separate parts of a whole which, while no longer physically extant, was nonetheless implicitly present in each of its individual components. As Schrader commented, “It is of course what has been omitted that determines each single piece.”
Adopting an approach rooted in constructive concrete art, when Schrader begins to conceive a work of art he subjects himself to a prescribed system of rules. In the case of his Cubecracks this would be equivalent to specifying that each individual element should derive from a systematic process of dissecting the surface of a cuboid. The Cubecracks series vividly illustrates that while the ensuing formal language can be explained rationally it cannot be developed from simple deduction. Indeed, the individual Cubecracks are certainly not products of accident: on the contrary, the artist consciously selects his cuts so as to create what strikes him as the most interesting forms. They are the product of subjective decisions or his artistic instinct. Thus the steel bodies are not simply fragmentary forms as parts of a whole; rather, each one develops its own aesthetic impact and signification.
It is scarcely possible to define Schrader’s art in terms of a single element or an individual work. Nonetheless, for the series of works titled "Viereck und Viereck" (quadrilateral and quadrilateral), for example, the point of departure was a series of drawings depicting variations on two falling cubes, represented by two quadrilaterals. “The dynamism is therefore not the expression of the form but a process of transformation.” (Andrzej Turowski) It should be mentioned that variations of this series were already installed in several locations (Hünfeld, Hofbieber and Hilders, in East Hesse) as early as 1986 as part of the exhibition "Kunststrasse Rhön" (Rhön regional art trail).
In 1999, Schrader began producing the series of works titled "Elastic Cubes". Each one is assembled from eight square-section steel tubes, just enough to allow viewers to picture the framework of a cube. At each of the eight corners of the cube two square-section steel elements are held together by means of an axle or shaft – like joints on a skeleton. Since four of the twelve edges that would be required to fully construct a cube are missing, this framework of edges can be twisted or contorted. Accordingly, each Elastic Cube assumes its own individual physiognomy, if not also a personal style of movement. “As ‘figures’ they cause us almost to forget their constructional method, or at least relegate it to the background.” (Knut Nievers) Describing the effect of Elastic Cubes, Klaus Reeh wrote: “Atmosphere is ultimately Schrader’s style and, not unlike an architect, he creates sculptures that exude a powerful and lasting presence in the space surrounding them. With his Elastic Cubes he succeeded in forging a particularly aesthetic atmosphere by using means that could hardly be more minimal and as part of a process that surprises us with its simplicity.”
In 2000, Schrader presented a group of works titled "Cubes and Trees" in the park of Schloss Agathenburg. Here, the cubes and cuboids were simply conceived as bare skeleton models made of wood or aluminium. The objects can be seen through and reduce the objects’ materiality. At the same time, the bright red frames transform the previously unremarkable sites in nature where they are installed into arenas for challenging and even poetic encounters between organic forms and geometrically abstracted purity and clarity. The objects were fotographed in spring, summer, autumn and winter.


End-user programming


Hortense Gordon

Hortense Mattice Gordon (24 November 1886 – 6 November 1961), born Hortense Crompton Mattice, was a Canadian abstract artist who belonged to the Painters Eleven.
Life and early work.
Born in Hamilton, Ontario, Gordon was the youngest daughter of Sarah Louise Crompton and James Harvey Mattice. The family lived on Catharine street in central Hamilton and encouraged their children to paint and draw. While still in public school, Gordon attended Saturday morning art classes at the Hamilton Art School and received a scholarship for her efforts.
She spent a large portion of her childhood creating art in the shadow of her elder sister Marion Mattice (1878–1956). Although there was a large age difference between the two, the girls were known to be in fierce competition with each other and would often not get along.
After her father's retirement in 1903, Gordon chose to leave Hamilton to live with relatives on a 200-acre fruit farm near Chatham, Ontario. It was here where she began to study and paint china with her cousins. Realizing this was a marketable skill, she decided to rent a studio to sell her unique china pieces and teach art to locals. She held her first exhibition of china from December 14–16, 1908 at the Hotel Sanita (presently the Chatham Cultural Centre). For a number of years Gordon worked as a teacher at the Hamilton Technical School, and was known to aggressively seek out exhibition opportunities. She was well regarded not only for her china works but also a steadily growing portfolio of Canadian landscape paintings.
In 1916, Hortense's father died in Hamilton. When she returned for the funeral, she was approached by John Gordon, who suggested she consider teaching at the Hamilton Art School. She joined the staff in October 1918 and after being courted by Gordon for a number of years, the two were married on 3 August 1920. The married couple often traveled to Europe in the summers, where Gordon was inspired by the Barbizon School and other European masters. Her landscape works developed an increasingly soft, loose paint handling style and a sense of spontaneity.
Later life and the Painters Eleven.
For almost four decades, Hortense painted landscapes and still life almost exclusively. However, after the death of her husband in 1940, Hortense's style became much less inhibited.
She studied at the Cranbrook Academy of Art between 1941 and 1945 with famed abstract expressionist Hans Hofmann. Hofmann's influence and friendship pushed her to abandon strict realism and explore non-objective painting. She began to paint cubist–inspired works with jutting angles, linear forms and energetic movement.
This style gained her recognition on a national scale. She was named honorary president of the Contemporary Artists of Hamilton in 1948 and soon after joined the Painters Eleven as their oldest member in 1952. Through this group, she was inspired to create more non–objective art and she was given the opportunity to participate in high–profile exhibitions in New York and Toronto. She was made a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.
Gordon spent the last decade of her life painting countless works and showcasing her works in diverse galleries across Ontario. She was forced into the hospital with emphysema and a heart condition in 1961, and died on 6 November 1961.


Minas Avetisyan

Minas Avetisyan (, July 20, 1928 — February 23, 1975) was an Armenian painter.
Biography.
Minas Avetisyan was born in the village of Jajur, Soviet Armenia. His mother, Sofo, was a daughter of the priest from Kars. His father, Karapet, was a smith from Mush. His wife was Gayane Mamajanyan.
The main theme of his works was Armenian nature, the nature of Jajur, the religion, poor people, mountains, fields etc.
Avetisyan emerged as an artist at the "Exhibition of Five" in Yerevan (1962). Numerous specialists and visitors to the exhibition appreciated greatly his work. Avetisian's method differs from the method of plein-air painting which was once widespread in Armenian art. For him working from nature was no more than a preliminary stage, and the main portion of the work on the canvas was done in his studio.
In 1967, he first appeared on film in the censored and suppressed documentary The Color of Armenian Land by his friend Mikhail Vartanov.
In 1975, Avetisyan died under the wheels of the car, which stopped off at the sidewalk. According to some sources, he was murdered by the KGB.


Ghada Jamal (artist)

Ghada Jamal (born 1955) is an abstract artist born in Beirut, Lebanon. Jamal studied Fine Arts at the LAU Lebanese American University before relocating to California to pursue a Masters from California State University in Long Beach.
Jamal's artwork, though abstract, depicts the Middle Eastern Landscape, especially Lebanon’s, through turbulent and peaceful times; with the use of oil, acrylic, and chalk on canvas and paper, her work varies in tone from peaceful and serene images to violent and brutal expressions.
Throughout her artistic career, Jamal has explored the boundaries of Abstract art by tackling diverse topics such as the physical, emotional and spiritual devastation caused by the Lebanese civil war, Iraqi war, and Palestinian massacres; delved into the reinterpretation of Arabic music and poetry ; and revisited the idea of identity and identification, the transformation and devastation of contemporary life, the majesty of landscape and the architectural grandeur of city space.
Ghada Jamal currently lives, paints, and teaches at the Notre Dame University and the American University of Beirut in Lebanon.
Jamal's artwork has been exhibited, as part of both Solo and Group exhibitions, around the world. Her artwork is currently displayed in the United States, England, France, Jordan, and Lebanon.


Academic ranks in South Africa

Academic ranks in South Africa are the titles, relative importance and power of professors, researchers, and administrative personnel held in academia.
Overview.
Administrative ranks
In Afrikaans-speaking universities the terms rector and vice-rector are common, whereas English-speaking universities tend to favour the terms principal and vice-principal. The use of deputy vice-chancellor seems to be phasing out pro-vice-chancellor.
Professorship.
The appointment of professors follows the British system, and the term "professor" is never used for school teachers. However, since the university system has long been fractured between research-intensive and undergraduate teaching-focused universities, there is no absolute consistency. The description provided here refers to research-intensive universities, which are generally recognized as the top tier of the university system, and which are responsible for almost all university-based research and postgraduate (Honours, Masters and Doctoral) graduations. The academic ranking system is roughly as follows:
Professor positions are clearly separated from more junior faculty positions, but only (full) Professors sit on the University Senate by virtue of their positions in faculty. Other grades may be present, but only through other appointments, such as being Heads of Departments or programmes, or as elected representatives of other staff. Full "Professor" refers to the most senior academic grade, and is ideally based upon extensive publications, postgraduate supervision, academic leadership, service to the field, and recognition in the field. Professors are expected to have PhDs, but there is no equivalent to the German Habilitation system.
Several universities have created posts such as "Honorary Professor" (for appointments of lay experts) and Distinguished/Extraordinary Professor (for the most exemplary Professors). Several undergraduate teaching-focused universities award various Professorial ranks, but criteria for appointment can vary quite widely.


Kenji Kobayashi

 is a Japanese professional shogi player ranked 9-dan. He is a former director of the Japanese Shogi Association.
Early life.
Kobayashi was born in Takamatsu, Kagawa on March 31, 1957. He entered the Japan Shogi Association's apprentice school in 1972 at the rank of 6-kyū under the guidance of professional shogi player . At first, Kobayashi pursued his apprenticeship at the Japan Shogi Association's school in Tokyo; however, he soon began to have health problems, and moved to Nagoya to study under Itaya as a uchi-deshi (a live-in apprentice). He was promoted to the rank of apprentice professional 1-dan in 1974 and obtained full-professional status and the rank of 4-dan in December 1975.
Shogi professional.
Kobayashi became the 40th professional to win his 600th official game when he defeated in Meijin Class C1 tournament play on June 9, 2009.
In March 2018, Kobayashi finished the 76th Meijin Class C2 league (April 2017March 2018) with a record of 3 wins and 7 losses, earning a second consecutive demotion point which meant he was only one point away from automatic demotion to "Free Class" play. As a result, he declared his intention to the Japan Shogi Association to become a Free Class player as of April 2018 rather than risk automatic demotion.
Theoretical contributions.
Together with Masataka Sugimoto he was well-known for systematizing Fourth File Rook josekis before the advent of the Fujii System, and also as the creator of the Super Fourth File Rook opening (スーパー四間飛車).
JSA director.
Kobayashi served on the Japan Shogi Association's board of directors as a director from 1999 to 2004.
Promotion history.
The promotion history for Kobayashi is as follows:
Titles and other championships.
Kobayashi has yet to make an appearance in a major title match, but he has won two non-major shogi championships during his career: the in 1977 and the in 1994.
Awards and honors.
Kobayashi received the Japan Shogi Association's "Best New Player" (1980) and "Technique Award" (1990) Annual Shogi Awards. He also received the association's "25 Years Service Award" in 2000 for being an active professional for twenty-five years and the "Shogi Honor Award" in 2009 for winning 600 official games.


Fritz Glarner

Fritz Glarner (July 20, 1899 in Zurich – September 18, 1972 in Locarno) was a Swiss-American painter.
Glarner was a leading proponent of so-called Concrete Art, an artists' movement whose roots lead back to the painters of De Stijl and the principles of the Bauhaus. He was a disciple of Piet Mondrian, strongly influenced by Mondrian's theories of "dynamic symmetry." As he developed as an artist, his works began to be increasingly influenced by Mondrian's Neoplastic theory. His leaning toward nonrepresentational art had begun as early as 1929 in Paris, where he was a member of the Abstraction-Création group. Glarner took up Mondrian's motif of arranging simplified colors and forms on an architectural pattern. Glarner introduced a diagonal into the strict horizontal and vertical geometric aesthetic of Mondrian, creating new, yet equally systematic principles of composition that he termed "relational painting."
Like Mondrian, Glarner limited his color palette to the primaries, red, yellow and blue. He expanded Mondrian's black "line" into a broad range of grays, used both as line and, like the primaries, as geometric areas of color. Many of his works are tondos, his signature relational principles ordered within a circle. Glarner's additions and alterations in structure and color to the Mondrian style gave his works a vitality and spatial dimensions. 24 of his works are owned by Museo Cantonale d’Arte of Lugano, Switzerland. A mural by Glarner is included in The Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection in Albany, NY.
Biography.
Although Glarner was Swiss, born in Zurich, and kept close ties to his home country, he lived most of his life as an expatriate. He spent his childhood and youth in Italy and France. He studied and worked in Paris from 1923-1935. Glarner emigrated to the United States in 1936, living and working first in Manhattan and later at a studio and residence on Long Island. In 1966 he was gravely injured in rough seas on an ocean liner crossing from Europe to America. He returned to Switzerland in 1971, taking residence in Locarno. He died the next year.


Comparison of programming paradigms

This article attempts to set out the various similarities and differences between the various programming paradigms as a summary in both graphical and tabular format with links to the separate discussions concerning these similarities and differences in extant Wikipedia articles.
Main paradigm approaches.
There are two main approaches to programming:
The following are widely considered the main programming paradigms, as seen when measuring programming language popularity:
The following are common types of programming that can be implemented using different paradigms:
The subroutines that implement OOP methods may be ultimately coded in an imperative, functional, or procedural style that may, or may not, directly alter state on behalf of the invoking program. There is some overlap between paradigms, inevitably, but the main features or identifiable differences are summarized in this table:
Differences in terminology.
Despite multiple (types of) programming paradigms existing in parallel (with sometimes apparently conflicting definitions), many of the underlying "fundamental components" remain more or less the same (constants, variables, datafields, subroutines, calls etc.) and must somehow thus inevitably be incorporated into each separate paradigm with equally similar attributes or functions. The table above is not intended as a guide to precise similarities, but more of an index of where to look for more information, based on the different naming of these entities, within each paradigm. Further complicating matters are non-standardized implementations of each paradigm, in many programming languages, especially languages supporting multiple paradigms, each with its own jargon.
Language support.
Syntactic sugar is the "sweetening" of program functionality by introducing language features that facilitate a given usage, even if the end result could be achieved without them. One example of syntactic sugar may arguably be the classes used in object-oriented programming languages. The imperative language C can support object-oriented programming via its facilities of function pointers, type casting, and structures. However, languages such as C++ aim to make object-oriented programming more convenient by introducing syntax specific to this coding style. Moreover, the specialized syntax works to emphasize the object-oriented approach. Similarly, functions and looping syntax in C (and other procedural and structured programming languages) could be considered syntactic sugar. Assembly language can support procedural or structured programming via its facilities for modifying register values and branching execution depending on program state. However, languages such as C introduced syntax specific to these coding styles to make procedural and structured programming more convenient. Features of the language C# (C Sharp), such as properties and interfaces, similarly enable no new functions, but are designed to make good programming practices more prominent and natural.
Some programmers feel that these features are unimportant or even frivolous. For example, Alan Perlis once quipped, in a reference to bracket-delimited languages, that "syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon" (see Epigrams on Programming).
An extension of this is the syntactic saccharin, or gratuitous syntax that does not make programming easier.
Performance comparison.
In total instruction path length only, a program coded in an imperative style, using no subroutines, would have the lowest count. However, the binary size of such a program may be larger than the same program coded using subroutines (as in functional and procedural programming) and would reference more "non-local physical" instructions that may increase cache misses and instruction fetch overhead in modern processors.
The paradigms that use subroutines extensively (including functional, procedural, and object-oriented) and do not also use significant inline expansion (inlining, via compiler optimizations) will, consequently, use a larger fraction of total resources on the subroutine linkages. Object-oriented programs that do not deliberately alter program state directly, instead using mutator methods (or "setters") to encapsulate these state changes, will, as a direct consequence, have more overhead. This is because message passing is essentially a subroutine call, but with three added overheads: dynamic memory allocation, parameter copying, and dynamic dispatch. Obtaining memory from the heap and copying parameters for message passing may involve significant resources that far exceed those needed for the state change. Accessors (or "getters") that merely return the values of private member variables also depend on similar message passing subroutines, instead of using a more direct assignment (or comparison), adding to total path length.
Managed code.
For programs executing in a "managed code" environment, such as the .NET Framework, many issues affect performance that are significantly affected by the programming language paradigm and various language features used.
Pseudocode examples comparing various paradigms.
A pseudocode comparison of imperative, procedural, and object oriented approaches used to calculate the area of a circle (πr²), assuming no subroutine inlining, no macro preprocessors, register arithmetic, and weighting each instruction 'step' as only 1 instruction – as a crude measure of instruction path length – is presented below. The instruction step that is conceptually performing the state change is highlighted in bold typeface in each case. The arithmetic operations used to compute the area of the circle are the same in all three paradigms, with the difference being that the procedural and object-oriented paradigms wrap those operations in a subroutine call that makes the computation general and reusable. The same effect could be achieved in a purely imperative program using a macro preprocessor at only the cost of increased program size (only at each macro invocation site) without a corresponding pro rata runtime cost (proportional to "n" invocations – that may be situated within an inner loop for instance). Conversely, subroutine inlining by a compiler could reduce procedural programs to something similar in size to the purely imperative code. However, for object-oriented programs, even with inlining, messages still must be built (from copies of the arguments) for processing by the object-oriented methods. The overhead of calls, virtual or otherwise, is not dominated by the control flow alteration – but by the surrounding calling convention costs, like prologue and epilogue code, stack setup and argument passing (see here for more realistic instruction path length, stack and other costs associated with calls on an x86 platform). See also here for a slide presentation by Eric S. Roberts ("The Allocation of Memory to Variables", chapter 7) – illustrating the use of stack and heap memory use when summing three rational numbers in the Java object-oriented language.
The advantages of procedural abstraction and object-oriented-style polymorphism are poorly illustrated by a small example like the one above. This example is designed mainly to illustrate some intrinsic performance differences, not abstraction or code re-use.
Subroutine, method call overhead.
The presence of a (called) subroutine in a program contributes nothing extra to the functionality of the program regardless of paradigm, but may contribute greatly to the structuring and generality of the program, making it much easier to write, modify, and extend. The extent to which different paradigms use subroutines (and their consequent memory requirements) influences the overall performance of the complete algorithm, although as Guy Steele pointed out in a 1977 paper, a well-designed programming language implementation "can" have very low overheads for procedural abstraction (but laments, in most implementations, that they seldom achieve this in practice - being "rather thoughtless or careless in this regard"). In the same paper, Steele also makes a considered case for automata-based programming (using procedure calls with tail recursion) and concludes that "we should have a healthy respect for procedure calls" (because they are powerful) but suggested "use them sparingly"
In the frequency of subroutine calls:
Allocation of dynamic memory for message and object storage.
Uniquely, the object-oriented paradigm involves dynamic memory allocation from "heap storage" for both object creation and message passing. A 1994 benchmark - "Memory Allocation Costs in Large C and C++ Programs" conducted by Digital Equipment Corporation on a variety of software, using an instruction-level profiling tool, measured how many instructions were required per dynamic storage allocation. The results showed that the lowest absolute number of instructions executed averaged around 50 but others reached as high as 611. See also "Heap:Pleasures and pains" by Murali R. Krishnan that states "Heap implementations tend to stay general for all platforms, and hence have heavy overhead". The 1996 IBM paper "Scalability of Dynamic Storage Allocation Algorithms" by Arun Iyengar of IBM demonstrates various dynamic storage algorithms and their respective instruction counts. Even the recommended MFLF I algorithm (H.S. Stone, RC 9674) shows instruction counts in a range between 200 and 400. The above pseudocode example does not include a realistic estimate of this memory allocation pathlength or the memory prefix overheads involved and the subsequent associated garbage collection overheads. Suggesting strongly that heap allocation is a nontrivial task, one open-source software microallocator, by game developer John W. Ratcliff, consists of nearly 1,000 lines of code.
Dynamically dispatched message calls v. direct procedure call overheads.
In their Abstract "Optimization of Object-Oriented Programs Using Static Class Hierarchy Analysis", Jeffrey Dean, David Grove, and Craig Chambers of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, at the University of Washington, claim that "Heavy use of inheritance and dynamically-bound messages is likely to make code more extensible and reusable, but it also imposes a significant performance overhead, relative to an equivalent but non-extensible program written in a non-object-oriented manner. In some domains, such as structured graphics packages, the performance cost of the extra flexibility provided by using a heavily object-oriented style is acceptable. However, in other domains, such as basic data structure libraries, numerical computing packages, rendering libraries, and trace-driven simulation frameworks, the cost of message passing can be too great, forcing the programmer to avoid object-oriented programming in the “hot spots” of their application."
Serializing objects.
Serialization imposes large overheads when passing objects from one system to another, especially when the transfer is in human-readable formats such as Extensible Markup Language (XML) and JavaScript Object Notation (JSON). This contrasts with compact binary formats for non-object-oriented data. Both encoding and decoding of the objects data value and its attributes are involved in the serializing process, which also includes awareness of complex issues such as inheriting, encapsulating, and data hiding.
Parallel computing.
Carnegie-Mellon University Professor Robert Harper in March 2011 wrote: "This semester Dan Licata and I are co-teaching a new course on functional programming for first-year prospective CS majors... Object-oriented programming is eliminated entirely from the introductory curriculum, because it is both anti-modular and anti-parallel by its very nature, and hence unsuitable for a modern CS curriculum. A proposed new course on object-oriented design methodology will be offered at the sophomore level for those students who wish to study this topic."


Ralph Abraham (mathematician)

Ralph Herman Abraham (born July 4, 1936) is an American mathematician. He has been a member of the faculty of the University of California, Santa Cruz (where he is currently professor emeritus of mathematics) since 1968.
Life and work.
Abraham earned his B.S.E. (1956), M.S. (1958) and Ph.D. (1960) from the University of Michigan. Prior to joining Santa Cruz, he held positions at the University of California, Berkeley (research lecturer in mathematics; 1960-1962), Columbia University (postdoctoral fellow and assistant professor of mathematics; 1962-1964) and Princeton University (assistant professor of mathematics; 1964-1968). He has also held visiting positions in Amsterdam, Paris, Warwick, Barcelona, Basel, and Florence.
He founded the Visual Math Institute at Santa Cruz in 1975; at that time, it was called the "Visual Mathematics Project". He is editor of "World Futures" and for the "International Journal of Bifurcations and Chaos". Abraham is a member of cultural historian William Irwin Thompson's Lindisfarne Association.
Abraham has been involved in the development of dynamical systems theory since the 1960s and 1970s. He has been a consultant on chaos theory and its applications in numerous fields, such as medical physiology, ecology, mathematical economics, psychotherapy, etc.
Another interest of Abraham's concerns alternative ways of expressing mathematics, for example visually or aurally. He has staged performances in which mathematics, visual arts and music are combined into one presentation.
Abraham developed an interest in "Hip" activities in Santa Cruz in the 1960s and has a website gathering information on the topic. He credits his use of the psychedelic drug DMT for "swerv[ing his] career toward a search for the connections between mathematics and the experience of the Logos".


Curse of Turan

The Curse of Turan () is a belief that Hungarians have been under the influence of a malicious spell for many centuries. The "curse" manifests itself as inner strife, pessimism, misfortune and several historic catastrophes.
Origin.
There are different theories of origin. It is important to note, that the name for the imagined "turanian people" came into existence and spread in Hungary only after the second half of the 19th century. The first written mention of the phrase: "Turáni átok" was found in the publications of Ferenc Herczeg.
Saint Stephen and Christianity.
Perhaps the most popular origin theory is that the curse resulted from Hungary's conversion to Christianity in the year AD 1000 under King Stephen. The vanquished adherents of the old Hungarian religion cast a curse upon Christian Hungary to last either forever or perhaps for 1,000 years.
1848 revolution.
Another theory is that the curse was created as legend during the 1850s in the aftermath of the failed Hungarian Revolution of 1848, and reflected the overwhelming pessimism of this repressive decade.
National catastrophes.
Some tragic events of Hungarian history are traditionally seen as national catastrophes, manifestations of the Curse of Turan:
Personal troubles.
The curse has also been blamed for causing many troubles on a personal level. Among them are Hungary's high rate of suicide. Currently, Hungary is 25th in the world in suicide rate. In the mid 1980s, Hungary led this indicator. Hungarians have the third shortest life expectancy in Europe outside the countries of the former USSR.
Etymology.
Turan (Hungarian: "Turán") derives from the Persian توران and refers to the steppes of Central Asia, land of the Tur. This root word is likely derived from the name of an ancient king, and may also be the root of "Turk". Traditionally Magyars were considered Turkic people until the end of the 18th century.
In the 19th century, when the Curse of Turan was a very popular concept, artists searched for Asian characteristics in Hungarian folk art and called them "Turanic motifs".
Literature.
The curse became a favourite theme in Hungarian literature. A poem written in 1832 by the great 19th century Romantic poet, Mihály Vörösmarty, explains the origin of the curse as the bloody wars fought for the territory of Hungary in ancient times:
The Curse
"“Men!” said the Pannon god of bane in olden times
"
"“I bestow to you a happy land; you should fight for, if you want her.”
"
"So great, brave nations fought dauntlessly for her,
"
"And the Magyar won a bloody victory at last.
"
"Oh, but contention remained on the souls of the peoples: the land
"
"Can never become happy under this curse.
"
Az átok
""Férfiak!" így szólott Pannon vészistene hajdan,
"
""Boldog földet adok, víjatok érte, ha kell."
"
"S víttanak elszántan nagy bátor nemzetek érte,
"
"S véresen a diadalt végre kivítta magyar.
"
"Ah de viszály maradott a népek lelkein: a föld
"
"Boldoggá nem tud lenni ez átok alatt.
"


History of shogi

This article details the history of shogi. Shogi is a two-player strategy board game in the same family as Western chess, chaturanga, and Chinese xiangqi, and is the most popular of a family of chess variants native to Japan.
Arrival in Japan.
It is not clear when the ancestral chess-type game that later developed into shogi was brought to Japan. This is in contrast to the game of go, which was almost certainly brought to Japan in or around the Nara period, since a go board is stored in the treasury of . There are tales that relate that it was invented by Yuwen Yong of Northern Zhou, and that brought it back after visiting the country of Tang, but both these tales are likely to have been invented at the start of the Edo period by those keen to make a name for themselves as authorities on shogi.
There are several theories about when shogi spread to Japan, but the earliest plausible date is around the 6th century. It is thought that the pieces used in the shogi of the time were not the current five-sided pieces, but three-dimensional figures, as were used in chaturanga. This parallels the changes in chess pieces, which are more representational and less abstract than those made earlier. However, a large problem with this theory is that as pieces in this form have never been found, let alone stored in the treasury of Shōsōin, there is little physical evidence supporting it.
Another theory gives a later date, stating that shogi was brought to Japan after the start of the Nara period. However, serious doubts about this theory remain as these games are different from shogi – for example, in that pieces are placed on the intersections of lines. The games of makruk from Thailand and Cambodia and sittuyin from Myanmar have an elephant which moves in the same way as the silver general. Sittuyin also has the practice of dropping pieces. From the Song Dynasty through the Ming Dynasty, China sent great trade convoys through the southern islands and all around the Indian Ocean and also traded with Japan, so elements of South Asian chess could have reached Japan.
See also the history of chess.
Shogi in the Heian period.
One of the oldest documents indicating the existence of shogi is , written by (972 - 1027), a seven-volume work which contains a description of how to write the characters used for shogi pieces, but the most generally accepted opinion is that this section was added by a writer from a later generation. (1058–1064), written by Fujiwara Akihira also has passages relating to shogi, and is regarded as the earliest document on the subject.
The oldest archaeological evidence is a group of 16 shogi pieces excavated from the grounds of Kōfuku-ji in Nara Prefecture, and as a wooden writing plaque written on in the sixth year of Tenki (1058) was found at the same time, the pieces are thought to be of the same period. The pieces of the time appear to have been simple ones made by cutting a writing plaque and writing directly on the surface, but they have the same five-sided shape as modern pieces. As "Shin Saru Gakuki", mentioned above, is of the same period, this find is backed up by documentary evidence.
The dictionary of common folk culture, , which it is estimated was created between 1210 and 1221, a collection based on the two works and , thought to have been written by , describes two forms of shogi, large (dai) shogi and small (shō) shogi. So as not to confuse these with later types of shogi, in modern times these are called Heian shogi (or Heian small shogi) and Heian dai shogi. Heian shogi is the version on which modern shogi is based, but it is written that one wins if one's opponent is reduced to a single king, apparently indicating that at the time there was no concept of pieces in the hand.
The pieces used in these variants of shogi consist of those used in Heian shogi: the king, gold general, silver general, knight, lance, and pawn, and those used only in Heian great shogi: the copper general, iron general, side mover, tiger, flying dragon, free chariot and go between. According to Kōji Shimizu, chief researcher at the Archaeological Institute of Kashihara, Nara Prefecture, the names of the Heian shogi pieces keep those of chaturanga (general, elephant, horse, chariot and soldier), and add to them the five treasures of Buddhism (jewel, gold, silver, katsura tree, and incense). There is also a theory by Yoshinori Kimura that while chaturanga was from the start a game simulating war, and thus pieces were discarded once captured, Heian shogi involved pieces kept in the hand.
Development of medieval shogi.
Around the 13th century, the game of dai shogi, created by increasing the number of pieces in Heian shogi, was played, and the game of sho shogi, which adds the rook, bishop and drunken elephant from dai shogi to Heian shogi. Around the 14th century, as the rules of dai shogi had come to be considered too complicated, they were simplified, creating the game of chu shogi. Nevertheless, dai shogi was remembered, as known from a by Kobayashi Kiyochika of two players of dai shogi. Chu shogi, like its parent dai shogi, contains many distinct pieces, such as the queen (identical with Western chess) and the lion (which moves like a king, but twice per turn, potentially being able to capture twice, among other idiosyncrasies). Chu shogi rivalled sho shogi in popularity until the introduction of drops in the latter, upon which standard shogi became ascendant, although chu shogi was still commonly played until about World War II, especially in Kyoto.
It is thought that the rules of modern shogi were fixed in the 16th century, when the drunken elephant was removed from the set of pieces. According to , a set of shogi rules published in 1696, during the Genroku period, it states that the drunken elephant piece was removed from the game of sho shogi by Emperor Go-Nara during the Tenmon period (1532–1555), but whether or not this is true is not clear.
As many as 174 shogi pieces have been excavated from the Ichijōdani Asakura Family Historic Ruins, which are thought to be from the latter half of the 16th century. Most of these pieces are pawns, but there is also one drunken elephant, leading to the hypothesis that in this period variations of shogi with and without the drunken elephant existed side by side.
One point of note in the history of this family of games is that it was during this period that the unique rule in Japanese shogi was developed whereby captured pieces (pieces in the hand) could be returned to the board. It is thought that the rule of pieces in the hand was proposed around the 16th century, but there is also a theory that this rule existed from the time of Heian sho shogi.
In the Edo period, more shogi variants with yet more pieces were proposed: tenjiku shogi, dai dai shogi, maka dai dai shogi, tai shogi (also called "dai shogi", but termed "tai shogi" to avoid confusing the two) and taikyoku shogi. However, it is thought that these forms of shogi were only played to a very limited extent.
Modern shogi.
Modern shogi (hon shogi), like go, was officially approved by the Tokugawa shogunate. In 1612, the shogunate passed a law giving endowments to shogi players including () and (who was given the name after his death). These iemotos (families upholding the tradition of go or shogi) gave themselves the title of (literally, places of go) and , places of shogi. The first O-hashi Shu-kei received fifty koku of rice and five men. In the Kan'ei period (around 1630), the tournament, where games were played before a shōgun, was held. During the time of the eighth shōgun, Tokugawa Yoshimune, a system was established where the castle shogi tournament was held once a year on the 17th day on Kannazuki, and today the corresponding day in the modern calendar, November 17, has been designated Shogi Day.
The , who were the iemotos of shogi, were paid endowments. Over the reign of the shogunate, the title of meijin became a hereditary title of the Ōhashi family and one of its branches, and the Itō family. Today the title of meijin is still used, for the winner of the Meijin-sen competition. It became a tradition for shogi players inheriting the title of meijin to present a collection of shogi puzzles to the shogunate government.
A number of genius shogi players emerged who were not hereditary meijin. was born in the mid-Edo period, and showed promise as a potential meijin, but died young and never inherited the title (which was bestowed on him posthumously). Kanju was a skilled composer of shogi puzzles, and even today his collection of puzzles is well known as one of the greatest works of its kind. In the late Edo period, came to prominence. As he was one of the "Arino group" of amateur shogi players, the rank of meijin was out of his reach, but he was feared for his skill, being said to have "the ability of a 13-dan player", and was later termed a (literally, wise man or master of shogi). More than a few count Sōho as one of the greatest shogi players in history.
Newspaper shogi and the formation of shogi associations.
After the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate, the three shogi families were no longer paid endowments, and the iemoto system in shogi lost its power. The lines of the three families ended, and the rank of meijin came to be bestowed by recommendation. The popularity of amateur shogi continued in the Meiji period, with shogi tournaments and events held all over Japan, and , played wherever people gathered, in bath houses or barber's shops. However, it is thought that, with the exception of a handful of high-ranking players at the end of the 19th century, it was impossible to make a living as a professional shogi player during this period.
From around 1899, newspapers began to publish records of shogi matches, and high-ranking players formed alliances with the aim of having their games published. In 1909, the was formed, and in 1924, the was formed, with , the thirteenth-generation Meijin, at its head. This was an early incarnation of the modern , founded in 1947.
The "meijin" system and title matches.
In 1935, Kinjiro Sekine stepped down from the rank of meijin, which then came to be conferred based on ability in the short term, rather than recommendation as before. The first (known officially at the time as the ) was held over two years, with Yoshio Kimura (木村義雄) becoming the first Meijin in 1937. This was the start of the (see titleholder system).
Later, in 1950, the (9-dan title match) (renamed the (10-dan title match) in 1962) and the (King title match) were founded.
The tournament was started in 1953 and became a title match in 1983. In 1960 the was founded, and later the in 1962, and the in 1974. The Jūdan-sen was changed to become the in 1988, completing the modern line-up of seven title matches.
The ages of Ōyama and Habu.
After the Second World War, SCAP (occupational government mainly led by US) tried to eliminate all "feudal" factors from Japanese society and shogi was included in the possible list of items to be banned along with Bushido (philosophy of samurai) and other things. The reason for banning shogi for SCAP was its exceptional character as a board game seen in the usage of captured pieces. SCAP insisted that this could lead to the idea of prisoner abuse. But Kozo Masuda, then one of the top professional shogi players, when summoned to the SCAP headquarters for an investigation, criticized such understanding of shogi and insisted that it is not shogi but western chess that potentially contains the idea of prisoner abuse because it just kills the pieces of the opponent while shogi is rather democratic for giving prisoners the chance to get back into the game. Masuda also said that chess contradicts the ideal of gender equality in western society because the king shields itself behind the queen and runs away. Masuda's assertion is said to have eventually led to the exemption of shogi from the list of items to be banned.
It was considered to be nearly impossible to hold all the titles at once, but in 1957, Kōzō Masuda took all three of the titles which existed at the time (Meijin, Kudan and Ōshō), to become a . However, another player later took these three titles from Masuda, and went on in 1959 to take the newly founded titles of Ōi and Kisei, to become a - . Ōyama went on to defend these titles for six years, a golden age which became known as the "Ōyama age". Ōyama reached a total of 80 title holding periods, an unprecedented achievement at the time, when there were fewer titles than at present.
After the number of titles increased to seven in 1983, it was believed to be impossible to hold all of them at once, but in 1996, Yoshiharu Habu became the first , beginning an age known as the "Habu age". Since then, there has never been a time when he was without a title, and on July 5, 2012, Habu surpassed Ōyama's record, achieving a total of 81 title holding periods.
The birth of the women's game.
While there are both men and women among the ranks of professional shogi players, no woman player has yet won through the pro qualifier leagues (新進棋士奨励会 "shinshin kishi shōreikai)" to become an officially certified professional player (棋士 "kishi)." This served to slow the spread of the game among women, and to overcome the problem, the system of professional woman shogi players (女流棋士 "joryū kishi)" was introduced.
In 1966, Akiko Takojima (蛸島彰子) left the pro-qualifier leagues at the 1-dan level and became the first professional woman shogi player. However, at the time women's contests were not held, and so her only work as a professional was giving shogi lessons. In 1974, the first women's contest, the Women's Meijin Title Match (女流名人位戦 "joryū meijin-sen)," was held, which Takojima won, becoming the first woman "meijin." 1974 is often considered to be the year in which women's shogi began, and indeed the Ladies Shogi Professional Organization (女流棋士会 "joryū kishi kai)" celebrates "anniversary parties" counting from this year.
As of 2014 there are more than 50 professional women players, and as well as the Universal Cup Women's Meijin Title Match　(ユニバーサル杯女流名人戦), there is also the Mynabi Women's Open (マイナビ女子オープン),　the Ricoh Cup Women's Ōza Title Match (リコー杯女流王座戦), the Women's Ōi Title Match (女流王位戦), the Kirishima Shuzo Cup Women's Ōshō Title Match (女流王将戦), the Ōyama Meijin Cup Kurashiki–Tōka Title Match (大山名人杯倉敷藤花戦), a total of six competitions. In addition, some standard professional tournaments has a women's section, in which the top women in each tournament compete.
Trends in the world of amateur shogi.
Shogi is also well known among the general public (amateurs). Two different rating systems based dan and kyu ranks are used, one for amateurs and one for professionals, with the highest ranks at amateur level, 4-dan or 5-dan, being equivalent to 6-kyu at the professional level. In the past, there were games between amateurs and professionals, but these were generally special match-ups organised by newspapers or magazines, or instructional games at events or shogi courses.
However, sometimes there are amateurs with an ability to rival professionals, some of whom earn a living as , gamblers playing for stakes. made enough to live on as a shinken-shi, before taking the entrance exam and turning professional in 1944. He later challenged Yasuharu Ōyama in the Meijin-sen, but did not manage to take the title of meijin from him. was another shinken-shi, who beat one professional after another in special matches, and won the title of amateur meijin twice in a row, putting him ahead of the crowd in the amateur world. Later, due in part to the instigation of Ōyama, the then chairman of the , a vote was held on whether to accept Koike among their ranks, but there were concerns about his behaviour, and the vote went against him. Although he never became a professional, after his death, television programmes and books telling his story were produced, and he now has more fans all over Japan than when he was alive.
In recent times, the gap in ability between strong amateurs and professionals continues to diminish, and there are even official professional tournaments in which those with the best results in can take part. Some amateurs, including , , , , , and have been called "pro killers", and recently two young players, and have been making waves in the amateur world.
The number of players who have left the pro qualifier leagues and gone on to have success as amateurs has increased. retired from the qualifier leagues due to age restrictions, but went on to compete as an amateur in professional matches. His performance in the was particularly notable, and at one point he won over 70% of his matches with professionals. Segawa submitted a petition requesting entry to the professional ranks to the Japan Shogi Association, and was granted exceptional permission to take the entrance exam. He is the first person to become a professional after retiring from the pro qualifier leagues.
In 2006, the Shogi Association officially admitted the entrance of amateurs and women professionals to the ranks of , and announced details of an entrance exam for the 4-dan level (entering the level of the ) and the . Unless exceptional permission is granted, applicant normally need to have experience in the pro qualifier leagues, and cannot become professionals if they have retired from the leagues, but given the reforms taking place in the Association, it would be by no means unlikely if another Shōji Segawa were to appear.
The spread of shogi outside Japan.
The game of shogi has developed independently inside Japan, and its pieces are differentiated by Japanese characters written on them, factors which have impeded the spread of the game outside Japan. By way of comparison, the game of go has spread internationally for a combination of many reasons, including the facts that it originated in China, its rules are (more or less) unified at an international level, it is played using black and white stones, and that it does not resemble games unique to another country (as is the case with shogi, which is one of many games resembling chess).
An early, detailed description of the game in English appears in the Narrative of the Perry Expedition, in a report by Dr. Daniel S. Green who chanced upon the game a rainy night in Hakodate, and learned to play the game. The first shogi game played in the United States was in June 1860 in Philadelphia during the first visit to the country by a Japanese diplomatic delegation.
However, in the 1990s, efforts to make shogi popular outside Japan began in earnest. It has grown to be particularly popular in the People's Republic of China, and especially Shanghai. The January 2006 edition of states that Shanghai has a shogi population of 120,000 people. The game has been relatively slow to spread to countries where Chinese characters are not in common use, although attempts have been made to aid adoption by replacing the names of pieces with symbols indicating how they move.
Changes in the shogi population.
According to the by the , the "shogi population" (the number of people of 15 years or over who play at least one game of shogi a year) fell from 16.8 million in 1985 to 9 million in 2004, and 8.4 million in 2006, and is continuing to fall gradually.
During the above period, in which the shogi population fell by a half, shogi has often appeared in the general media, for example Yoshiharu Habu's achievement of taking all seven titles in one year (1996), the airing of the NHK TV novel (1996), the reporting of the affair between and , Shōji Segawa taking the professional entrance exam (2005), and the debate about the management of the meijin-sen being passed to a different body (2006). However, none of these led to the birth of a "shogi boom", and in some cases unfavourable media reports accelerated the decline in the number of shogi fans.
The number of 10- to 19-year-olds playing go is said in the "Leisure White Paper" above to have increased due to the story "Hikaru no Go", serialised in Weekly Shōnen Jump. (The overall go population is decreasing.) However, the 2006 Leisure White Paper reports that go is most popular among those in their 60s, while shogi is most popular between those aged 10 to 19.
From around 1996, internet shogi programs such as and , which allow users to play games over the internet without the need for an actual shogi set, grew to be widely used. At present, many games are played using services such as , and Yahoo! Japan Games.
Computer shogi.
Computers have steadily improved in playing shogi since the 1980s. Champion Habu estimated the strength of the 2006 world computer shogi champion Bonanza at the level of 2 dan shoreikai. Tools to help shogi programmers are Shogidokoro, annual computer tournaments and the Floodgate shogi server. The Japan Shogi Association restricts professionals from playing computers.


Random-access stored-program machine

In theoretical computer science the random-access stored-program (RASP) machine model is an abstract machine used for the purposes of algorithm development and algorithm complexity theory.
The RASP is a random-access machine (RAM) model that, unlike the RAM, has its program in its "registers" together with its input. The registers are unbounded (infinite in capacity); whether the number of registers is finite is model-specific. Thus the RASP is to the RAM as the Universal Turing machine is to the Turing machine. The RASP is an example of the von Neumann architecture whereas the RAM is an example of the Harvard architecture.
The RASP is closest of all the abstract models to the common notion of computer. But unlike actual computers the RASP model usually has a very simple instruction set, greatly reduced from those of CISC and even RISC processors to the simplest arithmetic, register-to-register "moves", and "test/jump" instructions. Some models have a few extra registers such as an accumulator.
Together with the register machine, the RAM, and the pointer machine the RASP makes up the four common sequential machine models, called this to distinguish them from the "parallel" models (e.g. parallel random-access machine) [cf. van Emde Boas (1990)].
Informal definition: random-access stored-program model (RASP).
Nutshell description of a RASP:
The reader will remember that the UTM is a Turing machine with a "universal" finite-state table of instructions that can interpret any well-formed "program" written on the tape as a string of Turing 5-tuples, hence its universality. While the classical UTM model expects to find Turing 5-tuples on its tape, any program-set imaginable can be put there given that the Turing machine expects to find them—given that its finite-state table can interpret them and convert them to the desired action. Along with the program, printed on the tape will be the input data/parameters/numbers (usually to the program's right), and eventually the output data/numbers (usually to the right of both, or intermingled with the input, or replacing it). The "user" must position the Turing machine's head over the first instruction, and the input must be placed in a specified place and format appropriate to both the program-on-tape and the finite-state machine's instruction-table.
The RASP mimics this construction: it places the "program" and "data" in the holes (registers). But unlike the UTM the RASP proceeds to "fetch" its instructions in a sequential manner, unless the conditional test sends it elsewhere.
A point of confusion: two sets of instructions: Unlike the UTM, the RASP model has two sets of instructions – the state machine table of instructions (the "interpreter") and the "program" in the holes. The two sets do not have to be drawn from the same set.
An example of a RAM working as a RASP.
The following example of a program will move the contents of register (hole) #18 to register (hole) #19, erasing contents of #18 in the process.
 5: 03 18 15 JZ 18,15 ; if [18] is zero, jump to 15 to end the program
 02 18 DEC 18 ; Decrement [18]
 01 19 INC 19 ; Increment [19]
 03 15 05 JZ 15, 5 ; If [15] is zero, jump to 5 to repeat the loop (use Halt to simulate unconditional jump)
 15: 00 H ; Halt
 18: n ; Source value to copy
 19: ; Destination for copy
The "program"-instructions available in this RASP machine will be a simple set to keep the example short:
To ease the example we will equip the "state machine" of the RAM-as-RASP with the primitive instructions drawn from the same set, but augmented with two indirect copy instructions:
As the RASP machine's state machine interprets the program in the registers, what exactly will the state machine be doing? The column containing the exclamation mark ! will list in time sequence the state machine's actions as it "interprets" converts to action the program:
Tradition divides the state-machine's actions into two major "phases" called "Fetch" and "Execute". We will observe below that there are "sub-phases" within these two major phases. There is no agreed-to convention; every model will require its own precise description.
Fetch phase.
The state machine has access to all the registers, both directly and indirectly. So it adopts #1 as "the program counter" PC. The role of the "program" counter will be to "keep the place" in the program's listing; the state machine has its own state register for its private use.
Upon start, the state machine expects to find a number in the PC—the first "Program-Instruction" in the program (i.e. at #5).
The point of the above detour is to show that life is much easier when the state machine has access to two kinds of indirect copy:
The following example shows what happens during the state-machine's "fetch" phase. The state-machine's operations are listed on the column labelled "State machine instruction ↓". Observe that at the end of the fetch, register #2 contains the numerical value 3 of the "operation code" ("opcode") of the first instruction JZ:
Parse phase.
Now that the number of the program-instruction (e.g. 3 = "JZ") is in register #2 -- the "Program-Instruction Register" PIR—the state machine proceeds to decrement the number until the IR is empty:
If the IR were empty before decrement then the program-instruction would be 0 = HALT, and the machine would jump to its "HALT" routine. After the first decrement, if the hole were empty the instruction would be INC, and the machine would jump to instruction "inc_routine". After the second decrement, the empty IR would represent DEC, and the machine would jump to the "dec_routine". After the third decrement, the IR is indeed empty, and this causes a jump to the "JZ_routine" routine. If an unexpected number were still in the IR, then the machine would have detected an error and could HALT (for example).
Execute phase, JZ_routine.
Now the state machine knows what program-instruction to execute; indeed it has jumped to the "JZ_routine" sequence of instructions. The JZ instruction has 2 operands (i) the number of the register to test, and (ii) the address to go to if the test is successful (the hole is empty).
(i) Operand fetch which register to test for empty?: Analogous to the fetch phase, the finite state machine moves the contents of the register pointed to by the PC, i.e. hole #6, into the Program-Instruction Register PIR #2. It then uses the contents of register #2 to point to the register to be tested for zero, i.e. register #18. Hole #18 contains a number "n". To do the test, now the state machine uses the contents of the PIR to indirectly copy the contents of register #18 into a spare register, #3. So there are two eventualities (ia), register #18 is empty, (ib) register #18 is not empty.
(ia): If register #3 is empty then the state machine jumps to (ii) Second operand fetch fetch the jump-to address.
(ib): If register #3 is not empty then the state machine can skip (ii) Second operand fetch. It simply increments twice the PC and then unconditionally jumps back to the instruction-fetch phase, where it fetches program-instruction #8 (DEC).
(ii) Operand fetch jump-to address. If register #3 is empty, the state machine proceeds to use the PC to indirectly copy the contents of the register it points to (#8) into "itself". Now the PC holds the jump-to address 15. Then the state machine unconditionally goes back to the instruction fetch phase, where it fetches program-instruction #15 (HALT).
Execute phase INC, DEC.
The following completes the RAM's state-machine interpretation of program-instructions, INC h, DEC h and thus completes the demonstration of how a RAM can "impersonate" a RASP:
Without indirect state-machine instructions INCi and DECi, to execute the INC and DEC "program"-instructions the state machine must use indirect copy to get the contents of the pointed-to register into spare register #3, DEC or INC it, and then use indirect copy to send it back to the pointed-to register.
Alternate instructions: Although the demonstration resulted in a primitive RASP of only four instructions, the reader might imagine how an additional instruction such as "ADD " or "MULT ,⟪h>might be done.
Self-Modifying RASP programs.
When a RAM is acting as a RASP, something new has been gained: unlike the RAM, the RASP has the capacity for self-modification of its "program"-instructions (the state-machine instructions are frozen, unmodifiable by the machine). Cook-Reckhow (1971) (p. 75) comment on this in their description of their RASP model, as does Hartmanis (1971) (pp. 239ff)
An early description of this notion can be found in Goldstine-von Neumann (1946):
Such an ability makes the following possible:
RASP program-instruction set of Cook and Reckhow (1973).
In an influential paper Stephen A. Cook and Robert A. Reckhow define their version of a RASP:
Their purpose was to compare execution-times of the various models: RAM, RASP and multi-tape Turing machine for use in the theory of complexity analysis.
The salient feature of their RASP model is no provision for indirect program-instructions (cf their discussion p. 75). This they achieve by requiring the program to modify itself: if necessary an instruction can modify the "parameter" (their word, i.e. "operand") of a particular instruction. They have designed their model so each "instruction" uses two consecutive registers, one for the "operation code" (their word) and the parameter "either an address or an integer constant".
Their RASP's registers are unbounded in capacity and unbounded in number; likewise their accumulator AC and instruction counter IC are unbounded. The instruction set is the following:
References.
Often both the RAM and RASP machines are presented together in the same article. These have been copied over from Random-access machine; with a few exceptions, these references are the same as those at Register machine.


Graham Brightwell

Graham Brightwell is a British mathematician working in the field of discrete mathematics.
Currently a professor at the London School of Economics, he has published nearly 100 papers in pure mathematics, including over a dozen with Béla Bollobás. His research interests include random combinatorial structures; partially ordered sets; algorithms; random graphs; discrete mathematics and graph theory. (Bollobás supervised his PhD on "Linear Extensions of Partially Ordered Sets" at Cambridge, awarded 1988.)
Othello.
Brightwell started playing Othello in 1985, after finding himself sharing an apartment with fellow mathematician and Othello player Imre Leader. He has finished three times as runner-up in the World Othello Championship and is a 5-time British Champion, and has served as chairman of the British Othello Federation and as editor of the British Othello Newsletter.
He created the Brightwell Quotient, often used in Othello tournaments, to resolve ties.


Higher order message

A higher order message (HOM) in a computer programming language is a form of higher-order programming that allows messages that have other messages as arguments. The concept was introduced at MacHack 2003 by Marcel Weiher and presented in a more complete form in 2005 by Marcel Weiher and Stéphane Ducasse. Loops can be written without naming the collections looped over, higher order messages can be viewed as a form of point-free or tacit programming.
Examples.
In ordinary Smalltalk code, without using HOM, obtaining a collection of the employees that have a salary of 1000 would be achieved with the following code:
 salaried := employees select: [ :each | each hasSalary: 1000 ]
However, using HOM, it can be expressed as follows:
 salaried := employees select hasSalary: 1000.
Here, codice_1 is a higher order message, and codice_2 is understood to be called on the select message itself, rather than on its result. The Smalltalk language was not modified to implement this feature. Instead, codice_1 returns a message that reifies the codice_1 send, which then interprets the codice_2 message.
Another example is the use of future message sends in the Croquet Project:
 (cube future:1000) addRotationAroundY:10.
In this example, the codice_6 message causes the codice_7 message to be sent to the cube object after 1 second.
Adoption.
The reference implementation in Objective-C leverages the trait that in Objective-C, objects that don't understand a message sent to them, still get it delivered in a special hook method, called codice_8. Higher order messaging was implemented in a number of languages that share this feature including Ruby and Smalltalk.
ECMAScript Harmony's Proxies documentation specifically mentions higher order messages as an application for their Catchall Proxies.
Similar concepts in other languages.
The programming language J distinguishes between verbs and adverbs. Adverbs modify the functioning of verbs. This is similar to higher order messages (the adverbs) modifying the messages that follow (the verbs). In the Croquet example above, the codice_9. message is still sent and has its normal meaning, but its delivery is modified by the codice_10 message, it will be sent sometime in the future.


Ladislas Kijno

Ladislas Kijno (June 27, 1921 – November 27, 2012) was a French painter. Born in Warsaw, he moved with his family to France in 1925, settling in the community of Nœux-les-Mines in the Pas-de-Calais. Before becoming a painter he studied philosophy with Jean Grenier.
In 1991, the French magazine "L'Amateur d'Art" was devoted to him, with an interview with Jean-Pierre Thiollet entitled "Ladislas Kijno: 'Je suis un moine de l'Art!'" (I'm an Art Monk!)


Che Baraka

""My work is your inspiration and your inspiration is my work."
Che Baraka (born 1953) is an American mixed media artist whose conceptional and abstract paintings have been exhibited across the United States. Baraka was born in Chicago, Illinois. His work has been included in numerous exhibitions and collections throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Early life.
Baraka moved to Jackson, Mississippi, when he was six. He later lived in San Antonio, Texas, and New Orleans, Louisiana. In Mississippi, Baraka "was exposed to the profound beginnings of America's Civil rights movement that in Birmingham Alabama with the young Baptist minister, Martin Luther King." Exeter Academy showed interest in the young artist and sent a scholar to recruit him.
His spiritual guide and first mentor was a young civil rights activist, Jesse Morris. Thanks to him, Baraka developed his creativity and expanded his views of the world.
Education.
Baraka attended the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, New York, graduating with honors and a BFA. He received an MFA in Arts Administration at New York University.


Dorothy Heller

Dorothy Heller (1917 – 2003) was an American painter.
Born in New York City, Heller was an Abstract Expressionist who studied at the Art Students League of New York and was a pupil of Hans Hoffman. She worked in acrylic, and exhibited widely during her career in solo and group shows throughout the United States. Three of her drawings, two nudes and a figure study, are owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and her work may also be found in the collections of the Wadsworth Athenaeum, the Allen Memorial Art Museum, and the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. A collection of her papers and other miscellany is held by the Archives of American Art of the Smithsonian Institution.


Robert Shaw (physicist)

Robert Stetson Shaw (born 1946) is an American physicist who was part of Eudaemonic Enterprises in Santa Cruz in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In 1988 he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for his work in chaos theory.
Chaos theory.
Shaw was one of the pioneers of chaos theory and his work at University of California, Santa Cruz on the subject was among the first research into the relationship between predictable motion and chaos in a landmark PhD thesis.
He was part of the Dynamical Systems Collective with J. Doyne Farmer, Norman Packard, and James Crutchfield. The collective, also known as the Santa Cruz Chaos Cabal, was best known for its work in probing chaotic systems for signs of order.
A documentary is being made about Shaw's life, his art, and his science, entitled "Strange Attractors: a movie for curious people".
Roulette.
While at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Shaw also worked briefly with the Eudaemons, a group of physicists attempting to create a computer capable of predicting the outcome of a game of roulette.
Illustrations.
Shaw's younger brother, Chris, an artist and filmmaker, produced illustrations for Shaw's papers and thesis, and also for those of Shaw's PhD advisers Ralph Abraham and William Burke. One cosmological painting of consecutive universes exploding and imploding in alternating Big Bangs and Big Crunches in Burke's cosmology textbook hangs on a wall at the American Center for Physics.


Fritz Bultman

Fritz Bultman (April 4, 1919 – July 20, 1985) was an American abstract expressionist painter, sculptor, and collagist and a member of the New York School of artists.
Biography.
A. Fred Bultman was the second child and only son of A. Fred and Pauline Bultman. His family was prominent in New Orleans, where his father owned a Catholic funeral company. By the age of thirteen he was interested in art, and worked with Morris Graves, who was a family friend. As a high school junior in 1935 Fritz went to study in Munich for two years, and there boarded with Maria Hofmann, the wife of artist and teacher Hans Hofmann. After returning to the United States he studied with Hofmann in New York City and Provincetown, Massachusetts. Despite his father's wishes that he become an architect, with Hofmann's encouragement he decided instead to continue his study of art. In 1944 he bought a house in Provincetown, and thenceforth Bultman and his wife Jeanne divided their time between Cape Cod and New York City.
His early paintings have been described as "rough and painterly", an amalgam of symbolism and geometry.
Bultman was exhibiting with other abstract expressionists by the late 1940s, and in 1950 was aligned with the group of New York School artists, nicknamed the "Irascibles" in an article in Life magazine, who signed a letter to the Metropolitan Museum of Art protesting the institution's conservative policies. With the assistance of a grant from Italy he studied bronze casting in Florence in 1951; subsequently he was the sole abstract expressionist to fully integrate sculpture into his oeuvre.
Affected by anxiety and depression, Bultman worked little between 1952 and 1956, and resumed painting and sculpting after undergoing Freudian analysis. At a time when African Americans were prohibited from visiting white museums in the south, in 1963 Bultman and his wife led a group of prominent New York artists and writers in the creation of a collection of modern art for Tougaloo College, a black institution in Jackson, Mississippi. Bultman was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in 1964-5 to work in Paris. In the 1960s Bultman began to make large collages, using pre-painted paper cut or torn and assembled into shapes reminiscent of his figurative drawings and more abstract sexual symbolism. In 1976 he started making stained glass windows with the aid of his wife. Bultman died of cancer in 1985.
Assessment.
To Robert Motherwell, Bultman was "one of the most splendid, radiant and inspired painters of my generation.", and David Houston, curator of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans called him "an important artist from the South who was part of that great moment that changed the American cultural landscape."
It has been suggested that Bultman's career and subsequent reputation suffered from the vagaries of chance: he was not available for inclusion in the now iconic photo shoot for Life magazine that helped establish the reputations of the New York School painters; another possibility, according to Motherwell, was Bultman's lack of interest in "art world politics".


Ranks and insignia of Organisation Todt

Ranks and insignia of Organisation Todt show the pay grades, wage groups and paramilitary ranks used by the Organisation Todt.
Ranks and Pay Grades of OT Organic Staff.
Source:
Ranks and Wage Groups of OT Contractor Staff.
Sources:
Wage groups for front workers and OT legionaries.
Source:


Jean McEwen

Jean Albert McEwen (1923 – 1999) was a Canadian painter known for his abstract paintings.
Early life.
McEwen was born in 1923 Montreal to a Scottish father and French-Canadian mother. He began his working life as a pharmacist, having received a degree in pharmacy from the University of Montreal in 1947.
Art career.
McKewen was self-taught as a painter. His first exhibition, was the 1949 "Annual Spring Exhibition", a group show Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Following the positive reception of his work as a painter in Montreal, he quit his job as a pharmacist and left Montreal for Paris. In Paris, he visited museums and was introduced to the painters Jean-Paul Riopelle and Sam Francis.
From 1982 to 1994, he was professor at Concordia University.
In 1998, he received the Prix Paul-Émile-Borduas from the Government of Quebec.
In 1987, McEwen's work was the subject of a retrospective Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, and a second commemorative exhibition in 2019.
Collections.
His work is included in the collections of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, the Museum of Modern Art, New York the National Gallery of Canada, and the Art Gallery of Ontario.


List of bad luck signs

Bad luck is an unpredictable outcome that is unfortunate. This is a list of signs believed to bring bad luck according to superstitions:


Edward Kelly (painter)

Edward Kelly (born 1946) is a contemporary English painter.
He was born in Liverpool, England in 1946. He studied at Liverpool College of Art between 1963–67, during which time he studied in Italy under a John Moores Travel Scholarship. He took a Higher Diploma at Birmingham College of Art between 1967–68, and taught at Chelsea College of Art from 1974 to 1996.
His solo exhibitions include the Bootle Art Gallery, Liverpool (1969), the Camden Arts Centre, London (1982), Air Gallery, London (1985), Kapil Jariwala Gallery, London (1987, 1991), Arts in Mann Gallery, Isle of Man (1991), Smith Janwala Gallery, London (1994), Courtyard, Hereford (2005), Martin's Gallery, Cheltenham (2006), House of Manannan and Manx Museum, Isle of Man (2012)
, Artwave West, Dorset (2012).
In 1969 he exhibited with Sylvia Goth at the Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool as a John Moores scholar. In 1980 he exhibited with Simon Willis at Bedford Way Gallery in London. In 1999 to 2001 he exhibited in group shows at Culture Gallery, Broadway, New York. In 2012 he filmed an interview with playwright Peter Terson, excerpts of which were screened at the British Film Institute.
Ken Kiff praised his "hard won images" in 1987.
Environmental campaigner.
Edward Kelly moved from London to an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in the Wye Valley in the mid 1980s. During the late 1990s increasing trend towards use of agricultural polytunnels have come to dominate the landscape in some parts of the Wye Valley, and in particular near the artist's residence. He launched the Campaign for Polytunnel Control which seeks that erection of polytunnels should be controlled by planning permission, owing to their massive scale and visual impact. In relation to the campaign Edward Kelly has been interviewed by national press and has appeared in national newspapers and on TV and presented at various government hearings and government reports.
He was portrayed as a character in Pentabus Theatre Company's play "Strawberry Fields" that dealt with the issues associated with migrant workers in industrial scale strawberry farms.


MDY (date)


Joseph Hertzberg

Joseph Hertzberg (; 1870) was a Russian Jewish writer and translator.
Biography.
Hertzberg was born in Mogilev in the Pale of Settlement at the beginning of the nineteenth century. There he received a sound education, and mastered the Russian, German, French, and English languages.
He contributed largely to Hebrew periodicals, and wrote a popular Hebrew translation of Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's "Harmonie de la Nature", published in Vilna as "Sefer sulem ha-teva" (1850) with an approbation by Isaac Baer Levinsohn. Hertzberg also translated into Hebrew Moses Mendelssohn's "Morgenstunden, oder Vorlesungen über das Dasein Gottes", Immanuel Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason", Salomon Munk's "Palestine", and some volumes of Heinrich Graetz's "Geschichte der Juden". He left in manuscript a volume of poems entitled "Alummat Yosef".


Michael Schultheis

Michael Schultheis (born October 10, 1967) is an American painter trained in mathematics and economics. He paints geometric forms and their corresponding real equations to conceptually render the geometry through an art style termed "analytical expressionism”. His work is part of collections at the Tacoma Art Museum, the National Academy of Sciences and Washington State University.
Schultheis grew up in Washington state and holds advanced degrees in economics from Washington State University and Cornell University, and spent a year abroad in Siena, Italy studying history and Italian.
During his early years working in software development, Schultheis said he was captivated and inspired by the beauty of the half-erased chalkboards and whiteboards, with its many layers of mathematical formulas, equations and ghost-like erasures and shapes. He said his paintings are a visually expressive approach to analytical ideas, expanding the definition of conceptual geometry in art. Schultheis says he likens the canvas to chalkboard and paints math equations, their geometric forms that visually render in his mind, and the relationships that develop into geometric models describing narratives about the human condition. His paintings present these geometric equations and forms through a visual mathematical process, language and rendering.
Schultheis has lectured at Washington State University, Seattle University and The Wentworth Institute of Technology with regards to his art and its relation to mathematics.
Collections.
Schultheis' work can be found in the collections of:


Tatsuya Futakami

 is a deceased Japanese professional shogi player who achieved the rank of 9-dan. He is a former president of the Japan Shogi Association as well as a former Kisei and Ōshō title holder.