title: Nilo-Saharan languages

text: Dimmendaal et al. consider the evidence for the inclusion of Kadu and Songhay too weak to draw any conclusions at present, whereas there is some evidence that Koman and Gumuz belong together and may be Nilo-Saharan.


title: Nilo-Saharan languages

text: In summarizing the literature to date, Hammarström et al. in "Glottolog" do not accept that the following families are demonstrably related with current research:


title: Nilo-Saharan languages

text: Proposals for the external relationships of Nilo-Saharan typically center on Niger–Congo: Gregersen (1972) grouped the two together as "Kongo–Saharan". However, Blench (2011) proposed that the similarities between Niger–Congo and Nilo-Saharan (specifically Atlantic–Congo and Central Sudanic) are due to contact, with the noun-class system of Niger–Congo developed from, or elaborated on the model of, the noun classifiers of Central Sudanic.


title: Nilo-Saharan languages

text: Nilo-Saharan languages present great differences, being a highly diversified group. It has proven difficult to reconstruct many aspects of Proto-Nilo-Saharan. Two very different reconstructions of the proto-language have been proposed by Lionel Bender and Christopher Ehret.


title: Nilo-Saharan languages

text: The phonemes correspond to coronal plosives, the phonetic details are difficult to specify, but clearly, they remain distinct from and supported by many phonetic correspondences (another author, C. Ehret, reconstructs for the coronal area the sound and which perhaps are closer to the phonetic detail of , see infra)


title: Nilo-Saharan languages

text: Bender gave a list of about 350 cognates and discussed in depth the grouping and the phonological system proposed by Ch. Ehret. Blench (2000) compares both systems (Bender's and Ehret's) and prefers the former because it is more secure and is based in more reliable data. For example, Bender points out that there is a set of phonemes including implosives , ejectives and prenasal constants , but it seems that they can be reconstructed only for core groups (E, I, J, L) and the collateral group (C, D, F, G, H), but not for Proto-Nilo-Saharan.


title: Nilo-Saharan languages

text: Ehret's maximalist system has been criticized by Bender and Blench. These authors state that the correspondences used by Ehret are not very clear and because of this many of the sounds in the table may only be allophonic variations.


title: Nilo-Saharan languages

text: "Note": In table cells with slashes, the singular form is given before the slash, while the plural form follows the slash.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: Gordon Bitner Hinckley (June 23, 1910 – January 27, 2008) was an American religious leader and author who served as the 15th President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from March 1995 until his death in January 2008 at age 97. Considered a prophet, seer, and revelator by church members, Hinckley was the oldest person to preside over the church in its history until Russell M. Nelson surpassed his age in 2022.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: Hinckley's presidency was noted for the building of temples, with more than half of existing temples being built under his leadership. He also oversaw the reconstruction of the Nauvoo Illinois Temple and the building of the 21,000 seat Conference Center. During his tenure, "" was issued and the Perpetual Education Fund was established. At the time of his death, approximately one-third of the church's membership had joined the church under Hinckley's leadership.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: Hinckley was awarded ten honorary doctorate degrees, and in 2004 the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George W. Bush. He also received the Boy Scouts of America's highest award, the Silver Buffalo, and served as chairman of the Church Boards of Trustees/Education. Hinckley died of natural causes on January 27, 2008. His wife, Marjorie Pay, died in 2004. He was succeeded as church president by Thomas S. Monson, who had served as his first counselor in the First Presidency, and, more importantly, was the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles; according to LDS doctrine and practice, Monson was Hinckley's anticipated successor.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: Hinckley was born on June 23, 1910, in Salt Lake City, Utah, to prominent LDS writer and educator Bryant S. Hinckley and his wife Ada Bitner. He grew up on a residential farm in East Millcreek. His home library contained approximately 1,000 volumes of literature, philosophy and history. He graduated from LDS High School in 1928, then attended the University of Utah, where he majored in English literature and minored in Latin and ancient Greek, graduating with a B.A. in 1932. Hinckley became a missionary for the LDS Church, an unusual occurrence for Depression-era Latter-day Saints. He served in the London-based British Mission from 1933 to 1935. He later wrote the words for LDS hymn no. 135, "My Redeemer Lives".


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: Hinckley returned to the United States in 1935 after completing a short tour of the European continent, including preaching in both Berlin and Paris. He was given an assignment by his mission president, Joseph F. Merrill, to meet with the church's First Presidency and request that better materials be made available to missionaries for proselytizing. As a result of this meeting, Hinckley received employment as executive secretary of the church's Radio, Publicity and Missionary Literature Committee (he had received schooling as a journalist in college). Hinckley's responsibilities included developing the church's fledgling radio broadcasts and making use of the era's new communication technologies.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: One of the projects Hinckley oversaw in the late 1930s was development of the church's exhibit for the Golden Gate International Exposition.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: In 1935 Hinckley also worked as a seminary teacher for the Church Educational System. He however decided to focus solely on the work with the Radio, Publicity and missionary literature committee.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: Starting in 1937, he served on the Sunday School General Board. After the Second World War, during which he left full-time LDS Church employ to work for a time with the Rio Grande Western Railroad, Hinckley served as executive secretary to the church's Missionary Committee. He also served as the church's liaison to Deseret Book, working with Deseret Book's liaison to the church, Thomas S. Monson. At various times, especially in the late 1940s, Hinckley was also a reporter for the "Church News", a publication of the "Deseret News".


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: In the early 1950s, Hinckley was part of a committee that considered how to present the temple ordinances at the Swiss Temple. The concern was how this could be done when a need existed to provide them in at least 10 languages; the concern was eventually solved through the use of a film version of the endowment. Hinckley's background in journalism and public relations prepared him well to preside over the church during a time when it has received increasing media coverage. He had learned to use new technology to spread the word of God, developed positive relationships with people of other faiths, and studied and written works of Church history. These experiences would serve as a foundation for the service he would give for the rest of his life.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: In 1957, Hinckley was named to the board of directors of KSL. Shortly after he was named to the executive committee of the board.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: On April 29, 1937, Hinckley married Marjorie Pay (November 23, 1911 – April 6, 2004) in the Salt Lake Temple. They had five children, including Richard G. Hinckley, an LDS Church general authority since 2005, and Virginia Hinckley Pearce, a former member of the church's Young Women general presidency.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: Another of their daughters, Kathleen Hinckley Barnes Walker, co-authored several books with Virginia, and ran an events company. Her first husband, Alan Barnes, died in 2001 and in 2004 she married M. Richard Walker. The Walkers served from 2005 to 2008 as president and matron of the Salt Lake Temple and lived in Preston, England, from 2011 to 2013, while Richard served as president of the Missionary Training Center.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: Hinckley's other son, Clark, has also served in several church leadership positions, including stake president, as president of the church's Spain Barcelona Mission (2009 to 2012), and from 2015 to 2018, he was the first president of the Tijuana Mexico Temple.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: After returning to East Millcreek at the end of employment with the railroad, Hinckley was called as a counselor in the presidency of the church's East Millcreek Stake. He later served as president of that stake, until about six months after his call as an Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. During his time as stake president Hinckley oversaw the building of several chapels.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: In the April 1958 general conference, Hinckley became a church general authority as an Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, a position that was later discontinued. One of his first assignments as a general authority was participating in the dedication the same month of the New Zealand Temple. In August 1958, Hinckley traveled to England, where he was involved in the London Temple open house and dedication. As a general authority, Hinckley continued to work with the missionary department, and after the death of Richards, he worked closely with Henry D. Moyle.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: In early 1960, Hinckley was given responsibility for overseeing LDS Church operations in Asia. His first trip there in the spring of 1960 lasted two months and involved going to Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, and the Philippines. In the Philippines, he worked on getting government approval for missionaries to be sent. He returned to Asia on a second trip in April 1961, which included a meeting to inaugurate missionary work in the Philippines. During this trip he also was in Seoul, South Korea during the May 16 coup. Hinckley wired a story on the coup to the "Deseret News".


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: In June 1961, Hinckley was one of the general authority presenters at the first Missionary President training seminar and was involved in the presentation of the first standardized missionary lesson plan.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: In September 1961, Hinckley became an apostle in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He filled a vacancy created by Hugh B. Brown being added to the First Presidency as the third counselor to David O. McKay.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: After his call as an apostle, Hinckley continued to be a leader in the missionary department, with Boyd K. Packer serving as one of his key aides. Hinckley was also appointed the chair of the all-church coordinating council's children's section.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: Hinckley also continued to oversee the church's operations in Asia. In February 1962, he made the first trip to Asia on which he was accompanied by his wife, Marjorie. On the trip, they visited the Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea On his return, he held training seminars with missionaries in California and Illinois in co-operation with Moyle, and he later held training seminars in all 23 missions in Europe. The seminars were credited with being the main force behind higher rates of conversion over the coming summer.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: Also in 1962, Hinckley was involved in the negotiations that lead to the LDS Church purchasing the shortwave radio station WRUL.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: Meanwhile, Hinckley also dedicated a chapel in French Polynesia on the island of Huahine. A group of Latter-day Saints returned to their home island on their boat, which sank with 15 drowning. Hinckley canceled his return to Utah and took a voyage on a sailing vessel to preside at the funeral.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: In late 1963, Hinckley made another tour of the Philippines, Japan and South Korea, this time bringing not only his wife but also their 10-year-old daughter. In the spring of 1964, the "Improvement Era" published a series or articles on the church in Asia and identified Hinckley as president of the "Hawaiian-Oriental Missions."


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: In 1964, Hinckley was appointed a board member of KIRO-TV and KIRO-AM/FM, which the LDS Church had just purchased. When the church formed Bonneville International Corporation later in 1964, Hinckley was named a vice president, a member of the board of directors, and a member of the executive committee.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: Hinckley circumnavigated the world on a trip with his wife in late 1964. He first stopped in Tokyo for a missionary conference. He then traveled to South Korea, Hong Kong, and the Philippines, as he had before. Next, he went to Thailand and held a meeting with the few church members, all of whom expatriates, in the country at the time. Hinckley then traveled to Saigon and met with about 60 church members, mostly American military personnel. There were two Vietnamese citizens who had joined the LDS Church at the meeting in Saigon. Finally, he visited Singapore and then went to India.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: In India, he went to Madras and then Coimbatore, where Hinckley met Paul Thirithuvodoss, who had written to the church headquarters to ask for baptism. Hinckley went to Medukerai to see a school run by Thirithuvodoss. Hinckley decided not to baptize Thirithuvodoss at the time.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: The Hinckleys then traveled to Beirut, where they met with a small group of church members, and then on to Jerusalem. From there, they traveled to Greece, where they met with another small group of church members. They then proceeded to Frankfurt, where they stayed in the home of Ezra Taft Benson, who presided the European Mission, and his wife, Flora. The Hinckleys then went to Brussels before they returned to Utah.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: In July 1965, Hinckley went to Hawaii, where he was involved with the first LDS temple services in Japanese.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: Also in 1965, Hinckley was involved in negotiations with United States Selective Service officials that led to the establishment of a quota of one LDS missionary, who would otherwise be drafted, being able to leave from a ward or branch every six months, with the quota transferable within any given LDS district or stake.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: In the late 1960s, Hinckley was a key person in formulating official LDS Church statements, such as the 1968 statement on the sale of liquor by the drink.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: In the early 1970s, Hinckley served as chair of the executive committee of the Church Board of Education.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: In 1972, Hinckley became the initial head of the LDS Church's public affairs department. In September 1972, Hinckley and his wife traveled with church president Harold B. Lee and his wife, Joan, on a tour of the United Kingdom, Greece, Israel, and Italy. The visit included meetings with church members in Rome; a group of LDS youth at an event at the Santa Severa resort on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea; and meetings with Church members in Florence, Pisa and Milan. In Milan, they held a press conference, which was attended by only one journalist, Michele Straniero. He interviewed Lee and Hinckley for an hour and not only published work in "La Stampa" from the interview but also used it as the starting point to a book on Mormonism that he later wrote.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: Also in the 1970s, Hinckley had supervisory assignments for the church in South America and later in Europe. He served on the church's executive committees for temples, missionary work, welfare services, priesthood, and the military.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: Hinckley was the chair of the executive committee over the 1980 commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the organization of the LDS Church.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: On July 23, 1981, Spencer W. Kimball appointed Hinckley as a counselor in the First Presidency. After first counselor N. Eldon Tanner died in 1982, Kimball did not appoint a new counselor. As the 1980s progressed, more of the day-to-day affairs of the First Presidency fell to the healthier Hinckley. By 1984, Hinckley was the only publicly-active member of the First Presidency.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: In 1984, the church formed Area Presidencies. Until then, church headquarters administered national and multinational areas. The Area Presidencies decentralized administration with presidencies living in locations around the world.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: During his time in Kimball's presidency, Hinckley presided over the dedication of 16 LDS temples. Among them was the Manila Philippines Temple. Hinckley dedicated it 18 years after he had dedicated the first Philippine LDS chapel. At the time of Kimball's death, Hinckley had dedicated nearly half of the then 36 temples.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: After Kimball's death in November 1985, Ezra Taft Benson became President of the Church. Benson named Hinckley as first counselor and Thomas S. Monson as second counselor. In the early 1990s, Benson developed serious health problems, which removed him from public view. Hinckley and Monson carried out many of the duties of the First Presidency until Benson died in 1994.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: During the presidencies of Kimball and Benson, most of the new temples dedicated were dedicated by Hinckley. When Benson died in 1994, about half of all operating temples had been dedicated by Hinckley.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: Meanwhile, the Mark Hofmann document forgeries, bombings, and investigation occurred. "The news interest was global" and "the whole episode achieved epic proportions." Several books describe the acquisition of supposed historical documents by Hinckley and others such as the secret sale of the Stowell document describing Joseph Smith's "money-digging pursuits." Using $15,000 of church funds, Hinckley bought the document from Hofmann. Two years later, Hofmann leaked its existence to the Mormon history community. Upon press inquiries, Hinckley acknowledged the document and released it. Later, bombing investigators proved that Hofmann had forged the document.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: In 1992, Hinckley made an official visit to Rome and he presented a copy of the "Encyclopedia of Mormonism" to the Vatican.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: After Benson's death, Howard W. Hunter became president and retained Hinckley and Monson as counselors in the First Presidency. With Hunter as President of the Church, the title of President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles fell to Hinckley because the tradition of seniority.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: When Hunter died after a presidency of nine months, Hinckley succeeded to the presidency of the church at the age of 84 on March 12, 1995. Hinckley immediately showed a change in approach and tone from his predecessors by making the meeting with the press. There, his call was announced at an actual press conference, and reporters were invited to ask questions, which sent the reporters scrambling to figure out what they would actually ask. On November 2, 2006, Hinckley surpassed David O. McKay to become the oldest LDS Church president in history.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: Hinckley was known for accelerating the building of temples. When he became president, there were 47 operating temples in the church. At the time of his death, there were 124, over two thirds of which had been dedicated or rededicated under Hinckley, with 14 others announced or under construction. Hinckley oversaw other significant building projects, including the construction of the Conference Center and extensive renovations of the Salt Lake Tabernacle.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: On September 23, 1995, Hinckley released "," a statement of belief and counsel regarding the sanctity of the family and marriage; it was prepared by the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve. In February 1996, there were more church members outside than inside the United States. Also in 1996, "60 Minutes" aired an interview of Hinckley by Mike Wallace during a segment on the LDS Church. In 1998, Hinckley was a guest on CNN's "Larry King Live". Until his death, Hinckley maintained a friendship with both Wallace and Larry King.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: In November 2000, Hinckley spoke to the youth of the church and gave them six traits to work on, named the "Six Be's" (Be Grateful, Be Smart, Be Clean, Be True, Be Humble, Be Prayerful), which were first introduced in his "New York Times" Bestseller "Standing for Something" and later expanded on in "Way to Be".


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: On March 31, 2001, Hinckley announced the creation of the Perpetual Education Fund, an endowment that provides loans to students in developing nations. On October 22, 2002, Hinckley participated in the dedication of the Gordon B. Hinckley Building at Brigham Young University–Idaho in Rexburg, Idaho. That was the first building at BYU–Idaho to be named for a living church president.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: In April 2003, Hinckley gave a sermon that addressed the ongoing War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War, which had started just two weeks earlier. He said that "as citizens we are all under the direction of our respective national leaders. They have access to greater political and military intelligence than do the people generally. He added, "Furthermore, we are a freedom-loving people, committed to the defense of liberty wherever it is in jeopardy." He also noted, "It may even be that [the Lord] will hold us responsible if we try to impede or hedge up the way of those who are involved in a contest with forces of evil and repression."


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: In March 2005, Hinckley, together with Thomas S. Monson and James E. Faust, celebrated their tenth anniversary as the First Presidency, the second time in the history of the church that a First Presidency had continued for such a period of time without personnel changes (the first time occurring between October 1934 and May 1945, when J. Reuben Clark and David O. McKay served as counselors to Heber J. Grant).


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: On January 24, 2006, Hinckley underwent surgery to remove cancerous growths from his large intestine. He was also then diagnosed with diabetes. In June 2006, Hinckley traveled to Iowa City, Iowa, to speak at a commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the start of the Mormon handcart companies. On June 23, 2006, his 96th birthday, Hinckley participated in a groundbreaking ceremony at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah, for a new building that was to be named in his honor. The building was named the Gordon B. Hinckley Alumni and Visitors Center and was completed and dedicated on Hinckley's 97th birthday.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: On March 31, 2007, Hinckley rededicated the Salt Lake Tabernacle after extensive renovation. One of Hinckley's last public appearances was on January 4, 2008, when he offered the prayer at the rededication of the Utah State Capitol. His final public appearance was a week before his death, the dedication of the Garden Park Ward building on January 20, 2008.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: During his tenure as president, Hinckley gave over 2,000 speeches. He traveled nearly a million miles over a lifetime to more than 160 countries, as he met with church members and dedicated meetinghouses and temples.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: Hinckley's annual speeches at BYU were the subject of a study by the National Center for Voice and Speech at the University of Utah to analyze how the human voice changes with age. The 36 speeches by Hinckley that were analyzed ranged from 1958, when he was 47–48, to 2007, the year prior to his death. The study showed how his voice started dropping in pitch in his 50s and continued until he was 70, when he began to develop a higher, thinner "old person" voice. By his 80s, his voice became increasingly wavery and the rate of his speech began to slow, and by his 90s, he would slur words. Hinckley was a good subject for the study, as the annual addresses were meticulously recorded and transcribed, in addition, he did not smoke, drink, sing, or engage in other activities that would put unnatural strain on his voice.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: When Hinckley became president, he had dedicated 23 of the church's 47 temples and had rededicated four of the remaining 24. As president, Hinckley presided at the dedication of 65 additional temples. Hinckley also rededicated five temples while president of the church, four of which he had dedicated initially. In all, Hinckley dedicated or rededicated 92 different temples, 70 of which as president of the church, at 97 different dedicatory services.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: On June 23, 2004 (Hinckley's 94th birthday), U.S. President George W. Bush awarded Hinckley the Presidential Medal of Freedom in a ceremony at the White House. The press release put forth by the White House stated: "Gordon B. Hinckley ... has inspired millions and has led efforts to improve humanitarian aid, disaster relief, and education funding across the globe."


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: Hinckley received many educational honors, including the Distinguished Citizen Award from Southern Utah University, Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Utah, and 10 honorary doctorates from schools including Westminster College, Utah State University, Utah Valley University, University of Utah, Brigham Young University, Brigham Young University–Idaho, Weber State University, and Southern Utah University. He received the Silver Buffalo Award, which is the highest honor bestowed by the Boy Scouts of America, and was honored by the National Conference for Community and Justice for his contributions to tolerance and understanding in the world. In 1996, Hinckley received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member and philanthropist Jon Huntsman Sr.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: On January 27, 2008, Hinckley died at the age of 97 while surrounded by family in his Salt Lake City apartment. According to a church spokesman, the death was due to "causes incident to age." The "Deseret Morning News" reported that Hinckley had just gone through a treatment of chemotherapy a few days earlier, and had "worked until the very end." The day following Hinckley's death, thousands of LDS youth in six states organized a social network campaign to dress in "Sunday Best" to honor Hinckley. Funeral services were held on February 2, 2008, at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, which was attended by tens of thousands.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: Hinckley was buried at the Salt Lake City Cemetery next to his wife, who had died almost four years earlier. Some of the soil that was used to bury him was imported from the grounds of the Preston England Temple in Lancashire; this was done because Hinckley had been a missionary in this region of England. Hinckley was succeeded as president by Thomas S. Monson on February 3, 2008.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: In 2012, a 50-year longitudinal study of the development of Hinckley's voice, based on addresses he gave at BYU, was published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. The study gave insight into the changes in the voices of aging adults.


title: Gordon B. Hinckley

text: Hinckley's teachings as an apostle were the 2017 course of study in the LDS Church's Sunday Relief Society and Melchizedek priesthood classes.


title: Ducati Motor Holding

text: Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A. () is the motorcycle-manufacturing division of Italian company Ducati, headquartered in Bologna, Italy. The company is directly owned by Italian automotive manufacturer Lamborghini, whose German parent company is Audi, itself owned by the Volkswagen Group.


title: Ducati Motor Holding

text: In 1926 Antonio Cavalieri Ducati and his three sons, Adriano, Marcello, and Bruno, founded "Società Scientifica Radiobrevetti Ducati" (SSR Ducati) in Bologna to produce vacuum tubes, condensers and other radio components. In 1935 they had become successful enough to enable construction of a new factory in the Borgo Panigale area of the city. Production was maintained during World War II, despite the Ducati factory being a repeated target of Allied bombing. It was finally destroyed by around 40 Consolidated B-24 Liberators on 12 October 1944 as part of the United States Army Air Forces's Operation Pancake, which involved some 700 aircraft flying from airfields in the Province of Foggia.


title: Ducati Motor Holding

text: Meanwhile, at the small Turinese firm SIATA ("Società Italiana per Applicazioni Tecniche Auto-Aviatorie"), Aldo Farinelli began developing a small pushrod engine for mounting on bicycles. Barely a month after the official liberation of Italy in 1944, SIATA announced its intention to sell this engine, called the "Cucciolo" (Italian for "puppy," in reference to the distinctive exhaust sound) to the public. The first Cucciolos were available alone, to be mounted on standard bicycles, by the buyer; however, businessmen soon bought the little engines in quantity, and offered complete motorized-bicycle units for sale.


title: Ducati Motor Holding

text: In 1950, after more than 200,000 Cucciolos had been sold, in collaboration with SIATA, the Ducati firm finally offered its own Cucciolo-based motorcycle. This first Ducati motorcycle was a 48 cc bike weighing , with a top speed of , and had a giving just under . Ducati soon dropped the Cucciolo name in favor of "55M" and "65TL".


title: Ducati Motor Holding

text: When the market moved toward larger motorcycles, Ducati management decided to respond, making an impression at an early-1952 Milan show, introducing their 65TS cycle and Cruiser (a four-stroke motor scooter). Despite being described as the most interesting new machine at the 1952 show, the Cruiser was not a great success, and only a few thousand were made over a two-year period before the model ceased production.


title: Ducati Motor Holding

text: In 1953, management split the company into two separate entities, Ducati Meccanica SpA and Ducati Elettronica, in acknowledgment of its diverging motorcycle and electronics product lines. Dr. Giuseppe Montano took over as head of Ducati Meccanica SpA and the Borgo Panigale factory was modernized with government assistance. By 1954, Ducati Meccanica SpA had increased production to 120 bikes a day.


title: Ducati Motor Holding

text: In the 1960s, Ducati earned its place in motorcycling history by producing the fastest 250 cc road bike then available, the Mach 1. In the 1970s Ducati began producing motorcycles with large-displacement V-twin engines, which Ducati branded as "L-twin" for their 90° angle, and in 1973, introduced their trademarked desmodromic valve design. In 1985, Cagiva bought Ducati and planned to rebadge Ducati motorcycles with the "Cagiva" name. By the time the purchase was completed, Cagiva kept the "Ducati" name on its motorcycles. Eleven years later, in 1996, Cagiva accepted the offer from Texas Pacific Group and sold a 51% stake in the company for US$325 million; then, in 1998, Texas Pacific Group bought most of the remaining 49% to become the sole owner of Ducati. In 1999, TPG issued an initial public offering of Ducati stock and renamed the company "Ducati Motor Holding SpA". TPG sold over 65% of its shares in Ducati, leaving TPG the majority shareholder. In December 2005, Ducati returned to Italian ownership with the sale of Texas Pacific's stake (minus one share) to Investindustrial Holdings, the investment fund of Carlo and Andrea Bonomi.


title: Ducati Motor Holding

text: In April 2012, Volkswagen Group's Audi subsidiary announced its intention to buy Ducati for € (US$). Volkswagen chairman Ferdinand Piëch, a motorcycle enthusiast, had long coveted Ducati, and had regretted that he passed up an opportunity to buy the company from the Italian government in 1984. Analysts doubted a tiny motorcycle maker would have a meaningful effect on a company the size of Volkswagen, commenting that the acquisition has "a trophy feel to it," and, "is driven by VW's passion for nameplates rather than industrial or financial logic". Italian luxury car brand Lamborghini was strengthened under VW ownership. AUDI AG's Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. subsidiary acquired 100 percent of the shares of Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A. on 19 July 2012 for € (US$).


title: Ducati Motor Holding

text: Ducati is best known for high-performance motorcycles characterized by large-capacity four-stroke, 90° V-twin engines, with a desmodromic valve design. Ducati branded his configuration as L-twin because one cylinder is vertical while the other is horizontal, making it look like a letter "L". Ducati's desmodromic valve design is nearing its 50th year of use. Desmodromic valves are closed with a separate, dedicated cam lobe and lifter instead of the conventional valve springs used in most internal combustion engines in consumer vehicles. This allows the cams to have a more radical profile, thus opening and closing the valves more quickly without the risk of valve-float, which causes a loss of power that is likely when using a "passive" closing mechanism under the same conditions.


title: Ducati Motor Holding

text: While most other manufacturers use wet clutches (with the spinning parts bathed in oil) Ducati previously used multiplate dry clutches in many of their motorcycles. The dry clutch eliminates the power loss from oil viscosity drag on the engine, even though the engagement may not be as smooth as the oil-bath versions, but the clutch plates can wear more rapidly. Ducati has converted to wet clutches across their current product lines.


title: Ducati Motor Holding

text: Ducati also extensively uses a trellis frame, although Ducati's MotoGP project broke with this tradition by introducing a revolutionary carbon fibre frame for the Ducati Desmosedici GP9.


title: Ducati Motor Holding

text: The chief designer of most Ducati motorcycles in the 1950s was Fabio Taglioni (1920–2001). His designs ranged from the small single-cylinder machines that were successful in the Italian 'street races' to the large-capacity twins of the 1980s. Ducati introduced the Pantah in 1979; its engine was updated in the 1990s in the Ducati SuperSport (SS) series. All modern Ducati engines are derivatives of the Pantah, which uses a toothed belt to actuate the engine's valves. Taglioni used the Cavallino Rampante (identified with the Ferrari brand) on his Ducati motorbikes. Taglioni chose this emblem of courage and daring as a sign of respect and admiration for Francesco Baracca, a World War I fighter pilot who died during an air raid in 1918.


title: Ducati Motor Holding

text: In 1973, Ducati commemorated its 1972 win at the Imola 200 with the production model green frame Ducati 750 SuperSport.


title: Ducati Motor Holding

text: Ducati also targeted the offroad market with the two-stroke Regolarità 125, building 3,486 models from 1975 to 1979, but the bike was not successful.


title: Ducati Motor Holding

text: In 1975, the company introduced the 860 GT, designed by noted car stylist Giorgetto Giugiaro. Its angular lines were unique, but raised handlebars made for an uncomfortable seating position at high speeds and also caused steering issues. The 860GT's angular styling was a sales disaster, and it was hurriedly re-designed for the 1976 season with a more rounded fuel tank.


title: Ducati Motor Holding

text: In 1975 Ducati offered hand-built production racers, the 'square case' 750SS and later 900SS models, built in limited numbers. Sales of the 900SS proved so strong, and sales of the 860GT/GTE/GTS so weak, that production of the 900SS was ramped up, and it became Ducati's #1 selling model.


title: Ducati Motor Holding

text: Ducati's liquid-cooled, multi-valve 90° V-twins, made from 1985 on, are known as "Desmoquattro" ("desmodromic valve four"). These include the 851, 916 and 996, 999 and a few predecessors and derivatives.


title: Ducati Motor Holding

text: The Ducati Paso was introduced in 1986 with the Paso 750, followed in 1989 with the Paso 906. The final version came in 1991 with the 907IE (Iniezione Elettronica), now without the name "Paso". The design was from the hand of Massimo Tamburini, who also designed the Ducati 916 and MV Agusta F4. The Paso was a typical "you love it, you hate it" bike. However, at that time it looked like that all-enclosed bodywork would be the future for all motorcycles. The Paso design was copied for the and . Together with Tamburini's Bimota DB1, they were enormously influential in terms of styling.


title: Ducati Motor Holding

text: In 1993, Miguel Angel Galluzzi introduced the Ducati Monster, a naked bike with exposed trellis and engine. Today the Monster accounts for almost half of the company's worldwide sales. The Monster has undergone the most changes of any motorcycle that Ducati has ever produced.


title: Ducati Motor Holding

text: In 1993, Pierre Terblanche, Massimo Bordi and Claudio Domenicali designed the Ducati Supermono. A 550 cc single-cylinder lightweight "Catalog Racer". Only 67 were built between 1993 and 1997.


title: Ducati Motor Holding

text: In 1994, the company introduced the Ducati 916 model designed by Massimo Tamburini, a water-cooled version that allowed for higher output levels and a striking new bodywork that had aggressive lines, an underseat exhaust, and a single-sided swingarm. Ducati has since ceased production of the 916, supplanting it (and its progeny, the 748, 996 and 998) with the 749 and 999.


title: Ducati Motor Holding

text: In 2006, the retro-styled Ducati PaulSmart 1000 LE was released, which shared styling cues with the 1973 750 SuperSport (itself a production replica of Paul Smart's 1972 race winning 750 Imola Desmo), as one of a SportClassic series representing the 750 GT, 750 Sport, and 750 SuperSport Ducati motorcycles.


title: Investment fund

text: An investment fund is a way of investing money alongside other investors in order to benefit from the inherent advantages of working as part of a group such as reducing the risks of the investment by a significant percentage. These advantages include an ability to:


title: Investment fund

text: It remains unclear whether professional active investment managers can reliably enhance risk adjusted returns by an amount that exceeds fees and expenses of investment management. Terminology varies with country but investment funds are often referred to as investment pools, collective investment vehicles, collective investment schemes, managed funds, or simply funds. The regulatory term is undertaking for collective investment in transferable securities, or short collective investment undertaking (cf. Law). An investment fund may be held by the public, such as a mutual fund, exchange-traded fund, special-purpose acquisition company or closed-end fund, or it may be sold only in a private placement, such as a hedge fund or private equity fund. The term also includes specialized vehicles such as collective and common trust funds, which are unique bank-managed funds structured primarily to commingle assets from qualifying pension plans or trusts.


title: Investment fund

text: Investment funds are promoted with a wide range of investment aims either targeting specific geographic regions ("e.g.," emerging markets or Europe) or specified industry sectors ("e.g.," technology). Depending on the country there is normally a bias towards the domestic market due to familiarity, and the lack of currency risk. Funds are often selected on the basis of these specified investment aims, their past investment performance, and other factors such as fees.


title: Investment fund

text: The first (recorded) professionally managed investment funds or collective investment schemes, such as mutual funds, were established in the Dutch Republic. Amsterdam-based businessman Abraham van Ketwich (also known as Adriaan van Ketwich) is often credited as the originator of the world's first mutual fund.


title: Investment fund

text: The term "collective investment scheme" is a legal concept deriving initially from a set of European Union Directives to regulate mutual fund investment and management. The Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities Directives 85/611/EEC, as amended by 2001/107/EC and 2001/108/EC (typically known as UCITS for short) created an EU-wide structure, so that funds fulfilling its basic regulations could be marketed in any member state. The basic aim of collective investment scheme regulation is that the financial "products" that are sold to the public are sufficiently transparent, with full disclosure about the nature of the terms.


title: Investment fund

text: In the United Kingdom, the primary statute is the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, where Part XVII, sections 235 to 284 deal with the requirements for a collective investment scheme to operate. It states in section 235 that a "collective investment scheme" means "any arrangements with respect to property of any description, including money, the purpose or effect of which is to enable persons taking part in the arrangements (whether by becoming owners of the property or any part of it or otherwise) to participate in or receive profits or income arising from the acquisition, holding, management or disposal of the property or sums paid out of such profits or income".


title: Investment fund

text: The nature of the vehicle and its limitations are often linked to its constitutional nature and the associated tax rules for the type of structure within a given jurisdiction.


title: Investment fund

text: The net asset value (NAV) is the value of a vehicle's assets minus the value of its liabilities. The method for calculating this varies between vehicle types and jurisdiction and can be subject to complex regulation.


title: Investment fund

text: An open-end fund is equitably divided into shares which vary in price in direct proportion to the variation in value of the fund's net asset value. Each time money is invested, new shares or units are created to match the prevailing share price; each time shares are redeemed, the assets sold match the prevailing share price. In this way there is no supply or demand created for shares and they remain a direct reflection of the underlying assets.


title: Investment fund

text: A closed-end fund issues a limited number of shares (or units) in an initial public offering (or IPO) or through private placement. If shares are issued through an IPO, they are then traded on a stock exchange. or directly through the fund manager to create a secondary market subject to market forces.


title: Investment fund

text: The price that investors receive for their shares may be significantly different from net asset value (NAV); it may be at a "premium" to NAV (i.e., higher than NAV) or, more commonly, at a "discount" to NAV (i.e., lower than NAV).


title: Investment fund

text: In the United States, at the end of 2018, there were 506 closed-end mutual funds with combined assets of $0.25 trillion, accounting for 1% of the U.S. industry.


title: Investment fund

text: Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) combine characteristics of both closed-end funds and open-end funds. They are structured as open-end investment companies or UITs. ETFs are traded throughout the day on a stock exchange. An arbitrage mechanism is used to keep the trading price close to net asset value of the ETF holdings.


title: Investment fund

text: In the United States, at the end of 2018, there were 1,988 ETFs in the United States with combined assets of $3.3 trillion, accounting for 16% of the U.S. industry.


title: Investment fund

text: Unit investment trusts (UITs) are issued to the public only once when they are created. UITs generally have a limited life span, established at creation. Investors can redeem shares directly with the fund at any time (similar to an open-end fund) or wait to redeem them upon the trust's termination. Less commonly, they can sell their shares in the open market.


title: Investment fund

text: Unlike other types of mutual funds, unit investment trusts do not have a professional investment manager. Their portfolio of securities is established at the creation of the UIT.


title: Investment fund

text: In the United States, at the end of 2018, there were 4,917 UITs with combined assets of less than $0.1 trillion.


title: Investment fund

text: Some collective investment vehicles have the power to borrow money to make further investments; a process known as gearing or leverage. If markets are growing rapidly this can allow the vehicle to take advantage of the growth to a greater extent than if only the subscribed contributions were invested. However this premise only works if the cost of the borrowing is less than the increased growth achieved. If the borrowing costs are more than the growth achieved a net loss is achieved.


title: Investment fund

text: This can greatly increase the investment risk of the fund by increased volatility and exposure to increased capital risk.


title: Investment fund

text: Gearing was a major contributory factor in the collapse of the split capital investment trust debacle in the UK in 2002.


title: Investment fund

text: Some vehicles are designed to have a limited term with enforced redemption of shares or units on a specified date.


title: Investment fund

text: Many collective investment vehicles split the fund into multiple classes of shares or units. The underlying assets of each class are effectively pooled for the purposes of investment management, but classes typically differ in the fees and expenses paid out of the fund's assets.


title: Investment fund

text: These differences are supposed to reflect different costs involved in servicing investors in various classes; for example:


title: Investment fund

text: In some cases, by aggregating regular investments by many individuals, a retirement plan (such as a 401(k) plan) may qualify to purchase "institutional" shares (and gain the benefit of their typically lower expense ratios) even though no members of the plan would qualify individually.


title: Investment fund

text: One of the main advantages of collective investment is the reduction in investment risk (capital risk) by diversification. An investment in a single equity may do well, but it may collapse for investment or other reasons (e.g., Marconi). If your money is invested in such a failed holding you could lose your capital. By investing in a range of equities (or other securities) the capital risk is reduced.


title: Investment fund

text: Collective investments by their nature tend to invest in a range of individual securities. However, if the securities are all in a similar type of asset class or market sector then there is a systematic risk that all the shares could be affected by adverse market changes. To avoid this systematic risk investment managers may diversify into different non-perfectly-correlated asset classes. For example, investors might hold their assets in equal parts in equities and fixed income securities.


title: Investment fund

text: If one investor had to buy a large number of direct investments, the amount this person would be able to invest in each holding is likely to be small. Dealing costs are normally based on the number and size of each transaction, therefore the overall dealing costs would take a large chunk out of the capital (affecting future profits).


title: Investment fund

text: An investor that chooses to use an investment fund as a way to invest his or her money does not need to spend as much personal time making investment decisions, doing investment research, or performing actual trades. Instead, these actions and decisions will be done by one or more fund managers managing the investment fund.


title: Investment fund

text: The fund manager managing the investment decisions on behalf of the investors will of course expect remuneration. This is often taken directly from the fund assets as a fixed percentage each year or sometimes a variable (performance based) fee. If the investor managed their own investments, this cost would be avoided.


title: Investment fund

text: Often the cost of advice given by a stockbroker or financial adviser is built into the vehicle. Often referred to as commission or load (in the U.S.) this charge may be applied at the start of the plan or as an ongoing percentage of the fund value each year. While this cost will diminish your returns it could be argued that it reflects a separate payment for an advice service rather than a detrimental feature of collective investment vehicles. Indeed, it is often possible to purchase units or shares directly from the providers without bearing this cost.


title: Investment fund

text: Although the investor can choose the type of fund to invest in, they have no control over the choice of individual holdings that make up the fund.


title: Investment fund

text: If the investor holds shares directly, he has the right to attend the company's annual general meeting and vote on important matters. Investors in a collective investment vehicle often have none of the rights connected with individual investments within the fund.


title: Investment fund

text: Each fund has a defined investment goal to describe the remit of the investment manager and to help investors decide if the fund is right for them. The investment aims will typically fall into the broad categories of Income (value) investment or Growth investment. Income or value based investment tends to select stocks with strong income streams, often more established businesses. Growth investment selects stocks that tend to reinvest their income to generate growth. Each strategy has its critics and proponents; some prefer a "blend" approach using aspects of each.


title: Investment fund

text: Funds are often distinguished by asset-based categories such as "equity", "bonds", "property", etc. Also, perhaps most commonly funds are divided by their "geographic markets" or "themes".


title: Investment fund

text: In most instances whatever the investment aim the fund manager will select an appropriate index or combination of indices to measure its performance against; e.g. FTSE 100. This becomes the benchmark to measure success or failure against.


title: Investment fund

text: The aim of most funds is to make money by investing in assets to obtain a real return (i.e. better than inflation). The philosophy used to manage the fund's investment vary and two opposing views exist.


title: Investment fund

text: Active management—Active managers seek to outperform the market as a whole, by selectively holding securities according to an investment strategy. Therefore, they employ dynamic portfolio strategies, buying and selling investments with changing market conditions, based on their belief that particular individual holdings or sections of the market will perform better than others.


title: Investment fund

text: Passive management—Passive managers stick to a portfolio strategy determined at outset of the fund and not varied thereafter, aiming to minimize the ongoing costs of maintaining the portfolio. Many passive funds are index funds, which attempt to replicate the performance of a market index by holding securities proportionally to their value in the market as a whole. Another example of passive management is the "buy and hold" method used by many traditional unit investment trusts where the portfolio is fixed from outset.


title: Investment fund

text: Additionally, some funds use a hybrid management strategy of enhanced indexing, in which the manager minimizes costs by broadly following a passive indexing strategy, but has the discretion to actively deviate from the index in the hopes of earning modestly higher returns.


title: Investment fund

text: When analysing investment performance, statistical measures are often used to compare 'funds'. These statistical measures are often reduced to a single figure representing an aspect of past performance:


title: Investment fund

text: A common concern with any investment is that you may lose the money you invest—your capital. This risk is therefore often referred to as capital risk.


title: Investment fund

text: If the assets you invest in are held in another currency there is a risk that currency movements alone may affect the value. This is referred to as currency risk.


title: Investment fund

text: Many forms of investment may not be readily salable on the open market (e.g. commercial property) or the market has a small capacity and investments may take time to sell. Assets that are easily sold are termed "liquid" therefore this type of risk is termed liquidity risk.


title: Investment fund

text: For an open-end fund, there may be an initial charge levied on the purchase of units or shares this covers dealing costs, and commissions paid to intermediaries or salespeople. Typically this fee is a percentage of the investment. Some vehicles waive the initial charge and apply an exit charge instead. This may be gradually disappearing after a number of years. Closed-end funds traded on an exchange are subject to brokerage commissions, in the same manner as a stock trade.


title: Investment fund

text: The vehicle will charge an annual management charge (AMC) to cover the cost of administering the vehicle and remunerating the investment manager. This may be a flat rate based on the value of the assets or a performance related fee based on a predefined target being achieved.


title: Investment fund

text: Dual priced vehicles have a buying (offer) price and selling or (bid) price. The buying price is higher than the selling price, this difference is known as the "spread" or "bid–offer spread". The difference is typically 5% and may be varied by the vehicle's manager to reflect changes in the market; the amount of variation may be limited by the vehicles rules or regulatory rules. The difference between the buying and selling price includes initial charge for entering the fund.


title: Investment fund

text: The internal workings of a fund are more complicated than this description suggests. The manager sets a price for creation of units/shares and for cancellation. There is a differential between the cancellation and bid prices, and the creation and offer prices. The additional units are created are place in the "managers box" for future purchasers. When heavy selling occurs units are liquidated from the "managers box" to protect the existing investors from the increased dealing costs. Adjusting the bid/offer prices closer to the cancellation/creation prices allows the manager to protect the interest of the existing investors in changing market conditions. Most unit trusts are dual priced.


title: Investment fund

text: Single priced vehicles notionally have a single price for units/shares and this price is the same if buying or selling. As single prices vehicle cannot adjust the difference between the buying and selling price to adjust for market conditions, another mechanism, the "dilution levy" exists. SICAVs, OEICs and U.S. mutual funds are single priced.


title: Investment fund

text: A dilution levy can be charged at the discretion of the fund manager, to offset the cost of market transactions resulting from large un-matched buy or sell orders. For example, if the volume of purchases outweigh the volume of sales in a particular trading period the fund manager will have to go to the market to buy more of the assets underlying the fund, incurring a brokerage fee in the process and having an adverse effect on the fund as a whole ("diluting" the fund). The same is the case with large sell orders. A dilution levy is therefore applied where appropriate and paid for by the investor in order that large single transactions do not reduce the value of the fund as a whole.


title: Investment fund

text: Investment funds are regulated by the Investment Company Act of 1940, which broadly describes three major types: open-end funds, closed-end funds, and unit investment trusts.


title: Investment fund

text: Open-end funds called mutual funds and ETFs are common. As of 2019, the top 5 asset managers accounted for 55% of the 19.3 trillion in mutual fund and ETF investments. However, for active management, the top 5 account for 22% of the market, with the top 10 accounting for 30% and the top 25 accounting for 39%. BlackRock and Vanguard are the top two when including passive investments.


title: Investment fund

text: The top 5 active management funds in 2018 were Capital Group Companies (using American Funds brand), Fidelity Investments, Vanguard, T. Rowe Price, and Dimensional Fund Advisors; in 2008, the list included PIMCO and Franklin Templeton.


title: Investment fund

text: Closed-end funds are less common, with around $277 billion in assets under management as of 2019, including about $107 billion in equities and $170 billion in bonds; market leaders include Nuveen and BlackRock.


title: Investment fund

text: Both funds are run by Investment Company (KUA - kompania z upravlinnya actyvami). Funds and companies regulated and supervised by DKTsPFR (Securities and stock market state commission)


title: Investment fund

text: We could say that a mutual fund is a pool of money which belongs to many investors. Otherwise a M/F is the common cashier of many investors who trust a third party to operate and manage their wealth. Moreover, they order this third party which in Greece is called A.E.D.A.K. (Mutual Fund Management Company S.A.) to spread their money in many different investment products such as shares, bonds, deposits, repo etc. Those companies in Greece may provide services according to article 4 of Law 3283/2004. People who own units (shares) of a mutual fund are called unitholders. In Greece co-unitholders, which are persons participating in the same units of M/F have exactly the same rights as the unitholder (according to the Law for the deposits in common account 5638/1932). The unitholders have to sign and accept the document which describes the purpose of the Mutual Fund, how it operates, and anything concerning the Fund. This document is the regulation of the M/F. The property of each M/F by law have to be under the control of a bank legally operating in Greece (Greek or foreign). The bank is the custodian of the M/F and except of the custody of the fund also controls the lawfulness of all movements of the management company. The Supervisory and Regulatory Body of M.F. Management Companies and Portfolio Investment Companies is the Greek Capital Market Commission. It comes under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of National Economy and controls the operation of all M/Fs available in Greece. All investors have to be very careful and about the risk they undertake. They have to have in mind that all investments have a certain degree of risk. Risk–free investments does not exist.


title: Abscissa and ordinate

text: In common usage, the abscissa refers to the ("x") coordinate and the ordinate refers to the ("y") coordinate of a standard two-dimensional graph.


title: Abscissa and ordinate

text: The distance of a point from the y-axis, scaled with the x-axis, is called abscissa or x coordinate of the point. The distance of a point from x-axis scaled with the y-axis is called ordinate.


title: Abscissa and ordinate

text: For example, if (x, y) is an ordered pair in the Cartesian plane, then the first coordinate in the plane (x) is called the abscissa and the second coordinate (y) is the ordinate.


title: Abscissa and ordinate

text: In mathematics, the abscissa (; plural "abscissae" or "abscissas") and the ordinate are respectively the first and second coordinate of a point in a Cartesian coordinate system:


title: Abscissa and ordinate

text: Usually these are the horizontal and vertical coordinates of a point in plane, the rectangular coordinate system. An ordered pair consists of two terms—the abscissa (horizontal, usually "x") and the ordinate (vertical, usually "y")—which define the location of a point in two-dimensional rectangular space:


title: Abscissa and ordinate

text: The abscissa of a point is the signed measure of its projection on the primary axis, whose absolute value is the distance between the projection and the origin of the axis, and whose sign is given by the location on the projection relative to the origin (before: negative; after: positive).


title: Abscissa and ordinate

text: The ordinate of a point is the signed measure of its projection on the secondary axis, whose absolute value is the distance between the projection and the origin of the axis, and whose sign is given by the location on the projection relative to the origin (before: negative; after: positive).


title: Abscissa and ordinate

text: Though the word "abscissa" (Latin; "linea abscissa", "a line cut off") has been used at least since "De Practica Geometrie" published in 1220 by Fibonacci (Leonardo of Pisa), its use in its modern sense may be due to Venetian mathematician Stefano degli Angeli in his work "Miscellaneum Hyperbolicum, et Parabolicum" of 1659.


title: Abscissa and ordinate

text: In his 1892 work "" (""Lectures on history of mathematics""), volume 2, German historian of mathematics Moritz Cantor writes:


title: Abscissa and ordinate

text: At the same time it was presumably by [Stefano degli Angeli] that a word was introduced into the mathematical vocabulary for which especially in analytic geometry the future proved to have much in store. […] We know of no earlier use of the word "abscissa" in Latin original texts. Maybe the word appears in translations of the Apollonian conics, where [in] Book I, Chapter 20 there is mention of "ἀποτεμνομέναις," for which there would hardly be a more appropriate Latin word than .


title: Abscissa and ordinate

text: The use of the word “ordinate” is related to the Latin phrase “linea ordinata applicata”, or “line applied parallel”.


title: Abscissa and ordinate

text: In a somewhat obsolete variant usage, the abscissa of a point may also refer to any number that describes the point's location along some path, e.g. the parameter of a parametric equation. Used in this way, the abscissa can be thought of as a coordinate-geometry analog to the independent variable in a mathematical model or experiment (with any ordinates filling a role analogous to dependent variables).


title: Wampum

text: Wampum is a traditional shell bead of the Eastern Woodlands tribes of Native Americans. It includes white shell beads hand-fashioned from the North Atlantic channeled whelk shell and white and purple beads made from the quahog or Western North Atlantic hard-shelled clam.


title: Wampum

text: In New York, wampum beads have been discovered dating before 1510. Before European contact, strings of wampum were used for storytelling, ceremonial gifts, and recording important treaties and historical events, such as the Two Row Wampum Treaty and the Hiawatha Belt. Wampum was also used by the northeastern Indigenous tribes as a means of exchange, strung together in lengths for convenience. The first colonists understood it as a currency and adopted it as such in trading with them. Eventually, the colonists applied their technologies to more efficiently produce wampum, which caused inflation and ultimately its obsolescence as currency.


title: Wampum

text: The term "wampum" is a shortening of "wampumpeag", which is derived from the Massachusett or Narragansett word meaning "white strings of shell beads". The Proto-Algonquian reconstructed form is thought to be "(wa·p-a·py-aki)", "white strings".


title: Wampum

text: The term "wampum" (or "wampumpeag") initially referred only to the white beads which are made of the inner spiral or columella of the channeled whelk shell "Busycotypus canaliculatus" or "Busycotypus carica". "Sewant" or "suckauhock" beads are the black or purple shell beads made from the quahog or poquahock clamshell "Mercenaria mercenaria". "Sewant" or z"eewant" was the term used for this currency by the New Netherland colonists. Common terms for the dark and white beads are "wampi" (white and yellowish) and "saki" (dark). The Lenape name for Long Island is "Sewanacky", reflecting its connection to the dark wampum.


title: Wampum

text: Wampum beads are typically tubular in shape, often a quarter of an inch long and an eighth of an inch wide. One 17th-century Seneca wampum belt featured beads almost 2.5 inches (65 mm) long. Women artisans traditionally made wampum beads by rounding small pieces of whelk shells, then piercing them with a hole before stringing them. Wooden pump drills with quartz drill bits and steatite weights were used to drill the shells. The unfinished beads would be strung together and rolled on a grinding stone with water and sand until they were smooth. The beads would be strung or woven on deer hide thongs, sinew, milkweed bast, or basswood fibers.


title: Wampum

text: The process to make wampum was labor-intensive with stone tools. Only the coastal tribes had sufficient access to the basic shells to make wampum. These factors increased its scarcity and consequent value among the European traders. The introduction of European metal tools revolutionized the production of wampum, and by the mid-seventeenth century, production numbered in the tens of millions of beads. Dutch colonists discovered the importance of wampum as a means of exchange between tribes, and they began mass-producing it in workshops. John Campbell established such a factory in Pascack, New Jersey, which manufactured wampum into the early 20th century. Eventually the primary source of wampum was that manufactured by colonists, a market glutted by the Dutch.


title: Wampum

text: The weaving of wampum belts is a sort of writing by means of belts of colored beads, in which the various designs of beads denoted different ideas according to a definitely accepted system, which could be read by anyone acquainted with wampum language, irrespective of what the spoken language is. Records and treaties are kept in this manner, and individuals could write letters to one another in this way.


title: Wampum

text: Wampum belts were used as a memory aid in oral tradition, and were sometimes used as badges of office or as ceremonial devices in Indigenous cultures, such as the Iroquois. For example, the 1820 "New Monthly Magazine" reports on a speech given by chief Tecumseh in which he vehemently gesticulated to a belt as he pointed out treaties made 20 years earlier and battles fought since then.


title: Wampum

text: Wampum strings may be presented as a formal affirmation of cooperation or friendship between groups, or as an invitation to a meeting.


title: Wampum

text: The Iroquois used wampum as a person's credentials or a certificate of authority. It was also used for official purposes and religious ceremonies, and as a way to bind peace between tribes. Among the Iroquois, every chief and every clan mother has a certain string of wampum that serves as their certificate of office. When they pass on or are removed from their station, the string will then pass on to the new leader. Runners carrying messages during colonial times would present the wampum showing that they had the authority to carry the message.


title: Wampum

text: As a method of recording and an aid in narrating, Iroquois warriors with exceptional skills were provided training in interpreting the wampum belts. As the Keepers of the Central Fire, the Onondaga Nation was also trusted with the task of keeping all wampum records. Wampum is still used in the ceremony of raising up a new chief and in the Iroquois Thanksgiving ceremonies.


title: Wampum

text: Wampum was central to the giving of names, in which the names and titles of deceased persons were passed on to others. Deceased individuals of high office are quickly replaced, and a wampum inscribed with the name of the deceased is laid on the shoulders of the successor, who may shake it off and reject the transfer of name. The reception of a name may also transfer personal history and previous obligations of the deceased (e.g., the successor of a person killed in war may be obligated to avenge the death of the name's previous holder, or care for the deceased person's family as their own).


title: Wampum

text: ... the Iroquoians (Five Nations and Huron alike) shared a very particular constitution: they saw their societies not as a collection of living individuals but as a collection of eternal names, which over the course of times passed from one individual holder to another.


title: Wampum

text: Just as the wampum enabled the continuation of names and the histories of persons, the wampum was central to establishing and renewing peace between clans and families. When a man representing his respective social unit met another, he would offer one wampum inscribed with mnemonic symbols representing the purpose of the meeting or message. The wampum, thus, facilitated the most essential practices in holding the Iroquois society together.


title: Wampum

text: When Europeans came to the Americas, they adopted wampum as money to trade with the native peoples of New England and New York. Wampum was legal tender in New England from 1637 to 1661. It continued as currency in New York until 1673 at the rate of eight white or four black wampum equalling one "stuiver", meaning that the white had the same value as the copper duit coin. The colonial government in New Jersey issued a proclamation setting the rate at six white or three black to one penny; this proclamation also applied in Delaware. The black shells were rarer than the white shells and so were worth more, which led people to dye the white and dilute the value of black shells.


title: Wampum

text: In the writings of Robert Beverley Jr. of Virginia Colony about tribes in Virginia in 1705, he described "peak" as referring to the white shell bead, valued at 9 pence a yard, and "wampom peak" as denoting the more expensive dark purple shell bead, at the rate of 1 shilling and 6 pence (18 pence) per yard. He added that these polished shells with drilled holes were made from the "cunk" (conch), while another currency of lesser value called was fashioned from the cockleshell.


title: Wampum

text: Wampum briefly became legal tender in North Carolina in 1710, but its use as common currency died out in New York by the early 18th century.


title: Bobi Wine

text: Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, known by his stage name Bobi Wine, is a Ugandan politician, singer, and actor. He is a former Member of Parliament for Kyadondo County East constituency in Wakiso District, in Uganda's Central Region. He also leads the National Unity Platform political party. In June 2019, he announced his candidacy for the 2021 Ugandan presidential election. He participated in the 2021 election where he lost to the incumbent Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, a result which Kyagulanyi and a large section of the public strongly disputed.


title: Bobi Wine

text: On December 14, 2021, he was placed under house arrest by the Government of Uganda. He has continued to protest his arrest.


title: Bobi Wine

text: Kyagulanyi was born in Nkozi Hospital, where his mother worked. He grew up in the Kamwokya slum in the northeastern part of Kampala, the capital city of Uganda.


title: Bobi Wine

text: Kyagulanyi attended Kitante Hill School, where he attained his Uganda Certificate of Education in 1996, as well as Kololo Senior Secondary School, where he attained his Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education in 1998. He then attended Makerere University in Kampala, where he studied music, dance, and drama, graduating with a diploma in 2003. In 2016, Kyagulanyi returned to university to study law at the International University of East Africa.


title: Bobi Wine

text: Kyagulanyi began his music career in the early 2000s, and adapted the stage name Bobi Wine. His first singles "Akagoma", "Funtula", and "Sunda" (featuring Ziggy D) brought him success in the East African music scene. His music has been characterised as reggae, dancehall, and afrobeat, often with a socially conscious message. He was the leader of the group Fire Base Crew until its disbandment, after which he started a new group known as Ghetto Republic of Uganja. He has released more than 70 songs over 15 years.


title: Bobi Wine

text: Bobi Wine’s major music genre has always been Afrobeat music. Bobi Wine’s music was being sold and promoted by the late Kasiwukira. He acknowledged receiving receipts of 60M from his music sales in just one month from Kasiwukira. He has a fully Monetized YouTube channel with tens of millions of views. He has held various concerts and performances in addition to brand endorsements all that bring income to him. He owns a commercial production studio in Kamwokya known as FireBase records.


title: Bobi Wine

text: Kyagulanyi is also a film actor, mainly starring in local Ugandan movies. In 2010, he was cast in Cleopatra Kyoheirwe's drama film "Yogera". In 2015, he was cast in a lead role in the Twaweza-supported film "Situka" with Hellen Lukoma. He has also worked on a number of other films, including "Divizionz".


title: Bobi Wine

text: In April 2017, Kyagulanyi announced his candidacy for parliament in a by-election for Kyadondo County East constituency. His door-to-door walking campaign attracted attention both in Uganda and abroad. He won the contest by a wide margin, beating two seasoned candidates: Sitenda Sebalu of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party and Apollo Kantinti of the main opposition party Forum for Democratic Change (FDC).


title: Bobi Wine

text: In 2018, Kyagulanyi gained increasing fame, championing the victories in most of the by-elections by the candidates he campaigned for, thus beating out NRM and FDC candidates.


title: Bobi Wine

text: On 14 August 2018, supporters of the independent candidate for parliament Kassiano Wadri allegedly obstructed and attacked President Museveni's convoy in the northern town of Arua, near Gulu. Museveni's motorcade was allegedly pelted with stones, leading to clashes between security forces and protesters. Later, Kyagulanyi, an outspoken critic of Museveni, revealed through a social media post that police had intentionally shot at his vehicle, killing his driver. Kyagulanyi had endorsed Wadri's candidacy against the official pro-Museveni candidate in Arua.


title: Bobi Wine

text: Kyagulanyi was arrested on 15 August 2018 for possible charges of unlawful possession of firearms and incitement to violence, after which he was brought in front of a military court and charged with the former the following day. "The Times" reported that Kyagulanyi appeared to have been beaten before appearing in court. Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago, a lawyer who has represented detained MPs, said that Kyagulanyi was in a worrying state of health and needed urgent medical attention. The government has repeatedly denied allegations of torture. Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye called a press conference, where he demanded the MP's immediate release.


title: Bobi Wine

text: With popular protests growing in Uganda demanding Kyagulanyi's release, and heated discussions in the Ugandan Parliament, the Ugandan State prosecution withdrew the charges filed during Kyagulanyi's second appearance in front of the General Court Martial in Gulu on 23 August 2018. The prosecution indicated it would further pursue possible charges in a civilian court for a possible trial of the MP. Upon release, Kyagulanyi was rearrested and charged with treason in a civilian court. In September 2018, Kyagulanyi was released on bail and travelled to the United States for medical treatment for injuries he allegedly received in custody. The Ugandan government banned his supporters from gathering on the day of his release, and on the day of his return from the United States. He eventually addressed his supporters in a gathering outside his home upon his return to Uganda on 20 September 2018.


title: Bobi Wine

text: In August 2019, Kyagulanyi was charged with "intent to alarm, annoy or ridicule" President Museveni for his role in the Arua incident the previous year. The charges came a day after the death of Ziggy Wine, a fellow Ugandan musician and staunch critic of Museveni, who was kidnapped and tortured by unknown assailants.


title: Bobi Wine

text: On 22 April 2019, Kyagulanyi was detained while attempting to make his way to a planned concert at his private club in southern Kampala, which was cancelled by police. He was accused of leading a protest in the city the previous year without prior police authorisation; the protest was held against the "social media tax" which took effect in July 2018. On 29 April 2019, on his way to the offices of the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) to honour a summons and provide a statement on the cancelled concert, Kyagulanyi was again arrested and taken to Buganda Road Court, where he was charged with disobedience of statutory duty and remanded to Luzira Maximum Security Prison until his bail hearing on 2 May. In a statement the following day, Amnesty International demanded his immediate release and urged the Ugandan government to "stop misusing the law in a shameless attempt to silence him for criticizing the government." On the day of the hearing, which was conducted via video conferencing (the first time in the history of Uganda's justice system), Kyagulanyi was granted bail and released from prison, with the court also barring him from holding unlawful demonstrations.


title: Bobi Wine

text: On 24 July 2019, Kyagulanyi formally announced his bid to run for president in the 2021 general election. On 22 July 2020, he announced that he had joined the National Unity Platform party, becoming elected its president and presidential flag-bearer in the upcoming February 2021 general election. Kyagulanyi was formally nominated to run for the highest office of presidency on 3 Nov 2020. Shortly after his nomination, Kyagulanyi was arrested by the Ugandan military.


title: Bobi Wine

text: On 6 November 2020, he launched his campaign manifesto in Mbarara (western Uganda) after state operatives cordoned off his NUP party offices preventing him from launching the manifesto from there as planned.


title: Bobi Wine

text: On 18 November 2020, Ssentamu was arrested in Luuka District (Eastern Uganda) and detained at Nalufenya Police Station in Jinja for 3 days. According to the Daily Monitor news paper, "Police accused Mr Kyagulanyi of having more than 200 supporters recommended by the EC to contain further spread of Covid-19."


title: Bobi Wine

text: His arrest was met by wide spread demonstration around the country mostly in parts of Kampala, Masaka, Jinja, Mukono, Mbale and Wakiso. Although the Uganda police alleged that only 54 people were killed, human right activists put the figure to more than 100 murdered and several others injured,


title: Bobi Wine

text: Wine's bodyguard Francis Senteza was killed on 27 December 2020, after being run over by a truck belonging to the military police. He was attacked while helping to transport a journalist critically injured by tear gas during an earlier confrontation between the police and a group of Bobi Wine's supporters. Another journalist was also wounded in the incident.


title: Bobi Wine

text: On 16 January the electoral commission announced that Museveni won reelection with 58,6% of the vote. Wine refused to accept the results, claiming that the election was the most fraudulent in Uganda's history.


title: Bobi Wine

text: Wine was placed on house arrest on 15 January, shortly after casting his vote for the presidential election. The military surrounded his home and did not let anyone in or out for several days, despite Wine claiming he has run out of food. The U.S. ambassador to Uganda, Natalie E. Brown was not allowed to visit or leave food for him as the military blocked the convoy. Wine was released on 26 January after the Ugandan High Court ordered security forces to end the house arrest.


title: Bobi Wine

text: On 1 February, Wine challenged the 2021 elections in court, but later ordered his lawyers to withdraw the case citing bias from the judges, after photos were seen of the chief justice with President Museveni, who was the correspondent party to the lawsuit.


title: Bobi Wine

text: Kyagulanyi has supported several practical projects to improve conditions for the poor. In 2012, he started a campaign to promote more regular cleaning in hospitals, sanitation, garbage management, and hand-washing to prevent disease. A YouTube video from September 2012 shows him joining Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago in cleaning up Kamwookya, the slum neighborhood where Kyagulanyi grew up. The same year, he also donated funds to build pit latrines and construct a drainage channel in Kisenyi II, a Kampala slum that the "New Vision" described as being "characterized by filth, crowded shanty structures, poor sanitation and lack of basic social facilities." Kyagulanyi explained that he embarked on the project "because these are my people, and no matter where I go, this will always be home."


title: Bobi Wine

text: He has also campaigned for malaria prevention, with donations to Nakasongola Health Centre, and references to the disease in his songs.


title: Bobi Wine

text: In August 2013, Kyagulanyi visited the Bundibugyo Refugee Camp in Bundibugyo District, along with representatives from Save the Children, UNHCR, and the Red Cross, to deliver funds and supplies. The following month, he was named as a parenting ambassador by Twaweza, an NGO that focuses on education and citizen engagement in East Africa; his message in this partnership was to promote responsible parenting among his Ugandan fans. In an interview about the project, he said that "education is what will ultimately change the course of our country and as an artiste and a father, I believe we can all make a difference in our children’s learning."


title: Bobi Wine

text: In 2014, Kyagulanyi was named as an ambassador for Save the Children's EVERY ONE campaign, joining a team of 14 Ugandan artists who recorded a special song and video about maternal and child health. Other leading artists in the video included Jose Chameleone, and Radio and Weasel, who made up the Goodlyfe Crew. Kyagulanyi and his wife Barbara travelled to hospitals throughout Uganda, including Nakaseke Hospital, meeting with midwives and health workers to popularize the campaign. Save the Children also took him to other regions for the campaign, including Nyumanzi Refugee Settlement in northwestern Uganda for South Sudanese people.


title: Bobi Wine

text: Currently, Bobi Wine is the Patron of a girls and teen mothers empowerment Non Government Organisation called Caring Hearts Uganda, founded by his wife Barbie Kyagulanyi. About Caring Hearts Uganda - NonProfit for menstrual health in Uganda. Bobiwine"s Show which was scheduled to happen on 08 october 2022 was canceled by the UNITED ARAB EMIRATES GOVERNMENT on unknown grounds, prior to his arrival he was detained at the Dubai airport for 10hours, he was later released and he spoke to his supporters, the show proceeds were meant to repatriate stranded ugandans in the United Arab Emirates.https://mobile.twitter.com/HEBobiwine/status/1578697821850476544


title: Bobi Wine

text: Kyagulanyi is often outspoken about political and social issues in Uganda, generating some controversy. Until January 2019, he had a long-standing feud with fellow Ugandan musician Bebe Cool, who has sung in support of President Museveni and the NRM, while Kyagulanyi has supported opposition interests.


title: Bobi Wine

text: In July 2014, it was announced that Kyagulanyi was to perform in the United Kingdom at The Drum Arts Centre in Birmingham and the Troxy in London. This led to calls for a ban because of his lyrics expressing opinions against homosexuality. Both venues subsequently cancelled Kyagulanyi's appearances. In a May 2016 Twitter exchange with ULC Monastery LGBTI, an American Christian group that promotes tolerance toward the LGBT community, Kyagulanyi suggested that he had moved away from his previous homophobic comments, but did not specifically state that his views on homosexuality had changed.


title: Bobi Wine

text: In 2015, Kyagulanyi publicly defended the Buganda kingdom's fundraising efforts as it was harshly criticized by the outspoken Sheikh Muzaata, stirring up a war of words. Kyagulanyi has at times been known as "Omubanda wa Kabaka" (the king's rogue) for his devotion to the Kabaka (King) of Buganda.


title: Bobi Wine

text: In April 2016, when Uganda's only radiotherapy machine in Mulago broke down, Kyagulanyi took a leading position in widespread public anger at the slow official response, and posted a critique of the government's handling of public health care, challenging the country's leaders to make better use of citizens' taxes.


title: Bobi Wine

text: Throughout the 2015–16 election period, Kyagulanyi refocused his messages to call for tolerance of different views. Kyagulanyi's public calls for calm activism during the 2016 election, with songs such as "Dembe", provoked mixed reactions from different political interests in Uganda. During this period, the Uganda Communications Commission denied that it had banned "Dembe" from Ugandan radio. Three months after the election, the U.S. Ambassador to Uganda Deborah R. Malac invited Kyagulanyi to a formal embassy event, and commented that he was a positive influence for local youth.


title: Bobi Wine

text: When the Ugandan government turned off social media during the 2016 election, Kyagulanyi used a virtual private network (VPN) to post on his defiance to the communications shutdown on his Facebook page while also pointing out that the government continued to use social media during the shutdown they initiated. Kyagulanyi was later chosen as a panelist to speak about freedom of expression on World Press Freedom Day in Kampala in May 2016. In March 2016, he defended the right of his artistic rivals to express views that Kyagulanyi himself does not support.


title: Bobi Wine

text: In August 2020, Kyagulanyi was dragged to court on charges of falsifying information, obtaining registration by false pretense and uttering false documents.


title: Bobi Wine

text: On 3 November 2020, Kyagulanyi was arrested after his nomination to the election body for the upcoming general election was certified. A statement on his official Twitter account said he was violently arrested outside the nomination venue, temporarily blinded and brutalized by police and the military.


title: Bobi Wine

text: While studying at Makerere University, Kyagulanyi met his wife, Barbara Itungo, who at the time was an S6 student at Bweranyangi Girls' Senior Secondary School. Their wedding took place in August 2011 after ten years of living together. They have four children. Kyagulanyi and his family reside in Magere Village, Wakiso District, where he ensures they "go together to dig and get food, whenever we can. I do that because I want them to learn to live an ordinary life, not as a celebrity's children."


title: Bobi Wine

text: On 10 February 2015, Kyagulanyi's father died after a lengthy battle with diabetes. The vigil and burial attracted hundreds of mourners including government officials and other celebrities. One month later, Kyagulanyi released the song "Paradiso", which carries the message of valuing your parents while they are still alive.


title: Jin Ping Mei

text: Jin Ping Mei () — translated into English as The Plum in the Golden Vase or The Golden Lotus — is a Chinese novel of manners composed in vernacular Chinese during the latter half of the 16th century during the late Ming dynasty (1368–1644). Consisted of 100 chapters, it was published under the pseudonym Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng (), "The Scoffing Scholar of Lanling," but the only clue to the actual identity is that the author hailed from Lanling County in present-day Shandong. The novel circulated in manuscript as early as 1596, and may have undergone revision up to its first printed edition in 1610. The most widely read recension, edited and published with commentaries by Zhang Zhupo in 1695, deleted or rewrote passages important in understanding the author's intentions.


title: Jin Ping Mei

text: The explicit depiction of sexuality garnered the novel a notoriety akin to "Fanny Hill" and "Lolita" in English literature, but critics such as the translator David Tod Roy see a firm moral structure which exacts retribution for the sexual libertinism of the central characters.


title: Jin Ping Mei

text: "Jin Ping Mei" takes its name from the three central female characters—Pan Jinlian (, whose given name means "Golden Lotus"); Li Ping'er (, literally "Little Vase"), a concubine of Ximen Qing; and Pang Chunmei (, "Spring plum blossoms"), a young maid who rose to power within the family. Chinese critics see each of the three Chinese characters in the title as symbolizing an aspect of human nature, such as "mei" (), plum blossoms, being metaphoric for sexuality.


title: Jin Ping Mei

text: David Tod Roy calls the novel "a landmark in the development of the narrative art form—not only from a specifically Chinese perspective but in a world-historical context...noted for its surprisingly modern technique" and "with the possible exception of "The Tale of Genji" ( 1010) and "Don Quixote" (1605, 1615), there is no earlier work of prose fiction of equal sophistication in world literature." "Jin Ping Mei" is considered one of the six classics of Chinese novels.


title: Jin Ping Mei

text: "Jin Ping Mei" is framed as a spin-off from "Water Margin". The beginning chapter is based on an episode in which "Tiger Slayer" Wu Song avenges the murder of his older brother by brutally killing his brother's former wife and murderer, Pan Jinlian. The story, ostensibly set during the years 1111–1127 (during the Northern Song dynasty), centers on Ximen Qing (), a corrupt social climber and lustful merchant who is wealthy enough to marry six wives and concubines.


title: Jin Ping Mei

text: After Pan Jinlian secretly murders her husband, Ximen Qing takes her as one of his wives. The story follows the domestic sexual struggles of the women within his household as they clamor for prestige and influence amidst the gradual decline of the Ximen clan. In "Water Margin", Ximen Qing is brutally killed in broad daylight by Wu Song; in "Jin Ping Mei", Ximen Qing in the end dies from an overdose of aphrodisiacs administered by Jinlian to keep him aroused. The intervening sections, however, differ in almost every way from "Water Margin". In the course of the novel, Ximen has 19 sexual partners, including his six wives and mistresses, and a male servant. There are 72 detailed sexual episodes.


title: Jin Ping Mei

text: For centuries identified as simply pornographic and officially banned most of the time, the book has nevertheless been read surreptitiously by many of the educated class. The early Qing dynasty critic Zhang Zhupo remarked that those who regard "Jin Ping Mei" as pornographic "read only the pornographic passages." The influential author Lu Xun, writing in the 1920s, called it "the most famous of the novels of manners" of the Ming dynasty, and reported the opinion of the Ming dynasty critic, Yuan Hongdao, that it was "a classic second only to "Shui Hu Zhuan"." He added that the novel is "in effect a condemnation of the whole ruling class."


title: Jin Ping Mei

text: The American scholar and literary critic Andrew H. Plaks ranks "Jin Ping Mei" as one of the "Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel" along with "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Water Margin", and "Journey to the West", which collectively constitute a technical breakthrough and reflect new cultural values and intellectual concerns. It has been described as a "milestone" in Chinese fiction for its character development, particularly its complex treatment of female figures. Phillip S. Y. Sun argued that although in craftsmanship it is a lesser work than "Dream of the Red Chamber", it surpasses the latter in "depth and vigour".


title: Jin Ping Mei

text: The story contains a surprising number of descriptions of sexual objects and coital techniques that would be considered fetish today, as well as a large number of bawdy jokes and oblique but titillating sexual euphemisms. Some critics have argued that the highly sexual descriptions are essential, and have exerted what has been termed a "liberating" influence on other Chinese novels that deal with sexuality, most notably the "Dream of the Red Chamber". David Tod Roy (whose translation of the novel was published 1993–2013) sees an "uncompromising moral vision," which he associates with the philosophy of Xunzi, who held that human nature is evil and can be redeemed only through moral transformation.


title: Jin Ping Mei

text: The identity of the author has not yet been established, but the coherence of the style and the subtle symmetry of the narrative point to a single author. The British orientalist Arthur Waley, writing before recent research, in his Introduction to the 1942 translation suggested that the strongest candidate as author was Xu Wei, a renowned painter and member of the "realistic" Gong'an school of letters, urging that a comparison could be made of the poems in the "Jin Ping Mei" to the poetic production of Xu Wei, but left this task to future scholars.


title: Jin Ping Mei

text: The "morphing" of the author from Xu Wei to Wang Shizhen would be explained by the practice of attributing "a popular work of literature to some well-known writer of the period". Other proposed candidates include Li Kaixian and Tang Xianzu. In 2011, Zhejiang University scholar Xu Yongming argued that Bai Yue was possibly the author.


title: Jin Ping Mei

text: The novel contains extensive quotations and appropriations of the writings of other authors. According to "The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature", "Jin Ping Mei" sources include vernacular stories, pornography, histories, dramas, popular songs, jokes, and prosimetric narratives, as well as texts far outside of the parameters of the literary, such as official gazettes, contracts, and menus."


title: Matthew Glave

text: Matthew Glave (born August 19, 1963) is an American actor best known for his roles in "The Wedding Singer", "Picket Fences", "Baby's Day Out", "ER", "Stargate SG-1", "Army Wives", "Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce", and "Angie Tribeca".


title: Matthew Glave

text: Glave has appeared in numerous television shows, including recurring roles as Deputy Bud Skeeter on "Picket Fences", Dr. Dale Edson in "ER", Colonel Paul Emerson in "Stargate SG-1", and Lt. Colonel Evan Connors in "Army Wives".


title: Matthew Glave

text: He also had a guest role on 2 episodes of "Charmed" as Curtis Williamson, a doctor who gained the Charmed Ones' powers through blood transfusions.


title: Matthew Glave

text: In 1997, Glave appeared in Quincy Long's play "The Joy of Going Somewhere Definite" at the Mark Taper Forum, costarring with Gregg Henry and Frederick Coffin.


title: Matthew Glave

text: He has also appeared in "Cheers", "NYPD Blue", "Millennium", "The X-Files", "Will & Grace", "", "Nikita", and "The Rookie", among others. He played the philandering "1980's guy" fiancé Glenn Gulia to Drew Barrymore's character in 1998's "The Wedding Singer", alongside Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore. He also played the brother to Mark Wahlberg in the movie "Rock Star", in 2000. He played Bennington Cotwell in the 1994 film "Baby's Day Out". He also played antagonistic Brick Davis in the 2001 comedy film "Corky Romano". In 2011, he played the antagonist Dr. Olson in Disney Channel's "The Suite Life Movie". He also played Wayne in "My Name Is Earl".


title: Matthew Glave

text: He appeared in the second episode ABC drama series "Revenge", as a wealthy Wall Street hedge fund manager Bill Harmon, in September 2011. He has also made appearances in "The Closer" and the film "Argo".


title: Matthew Glave

text: Glave also appeared in the re-imagined "Hawaii Five-0" TV series, guest-starring in the Season 4 episode, "Na hala a ka makua (Sins of the Father)", playing a fake FBI agent who is actually infamous gangster Julian Lynch.


title: Matthew Glave

text: He starred in the 2018 feature film "Funny Story", written and directed by Michael J. Gallagher, which co-starred Emily Bett Rickards. The film premiered at the 2018 Slamdance Film Festival in Utah, and went on to win the Audience Award at the Sonoma International Film Festival in California. Glave won the Best of the Fest, Best Actor Award at the Breckenridge Festival of Film in September 2018, and is nominated in the Leading Actor in a Feature category at the Southampton International Film Festival, due to be awarded in October 2018.


title: Puma Swede

text: Johanna Jussinniemi (born 13 September 1976), better known by her stage name Puma Swede, is a Swedish pornographic actress and feature dancer. The first part of her stage name comes from the sports car, the Ford Puma. Since 2005, she has appeared in over 200 movies.


title: Puma Swede

text: She was born in Sweden of Finnish descent; both her parents were Finns, and she has resided in California since 2004. She worked as a computer sales representative in Sweden and later on as a glamour model before moving into adult films. She initially only performed in girl–girl scenes, but made her hardcore boy–girl debut in the 2005 video "School of Hardcore" by the studio AntiInnocence Video, with whom she was previously a contract performer.


title: Puma Swede

text: She received a 2009 AVN Award nomination for Web Starlet of the Year, and a 2009 XBiz Award nomination for Web Babe/Starlet of the Year. In 2010, she made her first mainstream film appearance, a cameo in the comedy "The 41-Year-Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall and Felt Superbad About It" with comedian/actor Bryan Callen, formerly of MADtv fame.


title: Puma Swede

text: In October 2012, she released her autobiography published by Lind & Co. The autobiography tells the cautious tale of her life paying specific attention to her childhood growing up, her introduction into the adult industry and her troubled relationship with and divorce from Sunit Patel.