Classification.

Levantine Arabic is most closely related to North Mesopotamian Arabic, Anatolian Arabic and Cypriot Arabic.

North Levantine Arabic.

Dialects of North Levantine Arabic include:

South Levantine Arabic.

Dialects of South Levantine Arabic include:

Geographical distribution.

Levantine Arabic is spoken in the fertile strip on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, and is traditionally divided into two groups:

History.

Although small communities of Arabic speakers were present prior to the Muslim conquest of the Levant, it is widely accepted that during the Roman and Byzantine periods, varieties of Greek-influenced Aramaic were the dominant spoken language of Palestine. The language shift from Aramaic to Arabic, both Semitic languages, that began in the 7th century after the conquests, was not a sudden switch from one language to another, but a long process over several generations, likely with an extended period of bilingualism. Some communities, such as the Samaritans, retained Aramaic well into the Muslim period, and a few small Aramaic-speaking villages had remained until the recent Syrian Civil War.

Northern Old Arabic.

Ancient Arabia was home to a continuum of Central Semitic languages in antiquity which stretched from the southern Levant to Yemen. The isoglosses associated with Arabic are clustered at the northern end of this continuum, in the northern Hijaz and the southern Levant. This may be in part due to a lack of documentation, but it is clear that Central Arabia was home to languages quite distinct from Arabic. Thus, Arabic can be said to have emerged in the second millennium BC and spread into the peninsula, replacing its sister languages on the Central Semitic continuum.  The primary division between Arabic dialects in ancient times was between Northern Old Arabic, spoken in the southern Levant, and Old Hijazi, spoken in the northern, and later central Hijaz. The main representatives of Northern Old Arabic were Safaitic, Hismaic, and Nabataean Arabic. Tens of thousands of graffiti in the Safaitic and Hismaic scripts cover the deserts of southern Syria and present-day Jordan. The Safaitic inscriptions sometimes exhibit the article ʾ(l), a shared areal isogloss with the Arabic substrate of the Nabataean inscriptions. Many Safaitic inscriptions exhibit all of the features typical of Arabic. The Hismaic script was used to compose two long texts in an archaic stage of Arabic before the language acquired the definite article.

Spread of Old Hijazi.

Before the mid-sixth century, the coda of the definite article almost never exhibits assimilation to the following coronals and its onset is consistently given with an /a/ vowel. By the mid-sixth century CE in the dialect of Petra, the onset of the article and its vowel seem to have become weakened. There, the article is sometimes written as /el-/ or simply /l-/. A similar, but not identical, situation is found in the texts from the Islamic period. Unlike the pre-Islamic attestations, the coda of the article in the conquest Arabic assimilates to a following coronal consonant. The Arabic transcribed in the 1st century AH papyri clearly represents a different strand of the Arabic language, likely related to Old Hijazi and the QCT.  The Damascus Psalm Fragment, dated to the mid- to late 9th century but possibly earlier, provides a glimpse of the vernacular of at least one segment of Damascene society during that period. Its linguistic features also shed light on a pre-grammarian standard of Arabic and the dialect from which it sprung, likely Old Hijazi.

Early Modern Levantine Arabic.

The "Compendio" of Lucas Caballero (1709) contains a description of spoken Damascene Arabic in the early 1700s. In some respects, the data given in this manuscript correspond to modern Damascene Arabic. For example, the allomorphic variation between -"a"/-"e" in the feminine suffix is essentially identical. In other respects, especially when it comes to insertion and deletion of vowels, it differs from the modern dialect. The presence of short vowels in /zibībih/ and /sifīnih/ point to an earlier stage of linguistic development, before elision led to the modern "zbībe" and "sfīne", though the orthography of the manuscript is in this respect unclear.

Contact with Northwest Semitic.

Canaanite.

The existence of Hismaic and Safaitic varieties without a definite article strongly suggests that their ancestor lacked a morphological means of definiteness. The definite article entered these varieties through contact with Northwest Semitic languages in the southern Levant. Evidence for such contact is given by a possibly bilingual North Arabian-Canaanite inscription containing a prayer to the gods Malkom, Kemōš, and Qaws.

Aramaic.

There is evidence that a peripheral variety of Aramaic with archaic phonology existed in the southern Levant and possibly northern Arabia during the late first millennium BCE. This variety retained a velar/uvular realization of *"ṣ́", as evidenced by an inscription with a prayer to the deity "Rqy".  Nabataean Aramaic was extremely close to, but not identical with, Achaemenid Official Aramaic and may have been connected with the wider speech area. The use of the direct object marker "yt" /yāt/ seems to have been taken over from a Western form of Aramaic with which the inhabitants of the Nabataean kingdom may have been in contact.  The coexistence of Nabataean and Jewish Palestinian Aramaic in contracts from the Dead Sea show that Nabataeans were indeed exposed to other forms of Aramaic. The continuity of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, the emergence of Samaritan as well as Christian Palestinian Aramaic as written languages, and the eventual development of vocalization traditions makes it possible to define Western Aramaic as a dialect group more clearly in the later Roman period than before.  The degree to which Aramaic survived as a vernacular in Palestine after the 8th century CE is difficult to assess. One may suppose that the modern Western Aramaic dialects still spoken in the Christian mountain villages of Maʿlūla, Baḫʿa, and Ǧubb ʿAdīn in the Antilebanon once have evolved from the same linguistic matrix as the older, now extinct Western Aramaic varieties that appear in the inscriptions and manuscript traditions of late Roman Palestine.  The existence of Aramaic substrate elements in Palestinian Arabic, the supplanting language of Palestinian Aramaic dialects, is widely accepted and is especially evident in the lexical component.

Comparative Studies.

The US Defense Language Institute published two comparative texts for Levantine Arabic, one with Egyptian Arabic and another with Moroccan Arabic, to help learners of LA learn and distinguish between them.

Levantine Arabic (autonym:,,, ) is a sprachbund of modern spoken Arabic in the Levant.

黎凡特阿拉伯语(اللهجة الشامية),也叫东部阿拉伯语,是在黎凡特地区广泛使用的一种阿拉伯语变体。它是五种(一说六种)主要的阿拉伯语变体之一。与其他地方的阿拉伯语变体一样,黎凡特阿拉伯语通常在口语中使用;而书面和媒体则多用现代标准阿拉伯语。


Italian influence in Paris in the 17th century.

The period between the regency of Catherine de' Medici in France (1559–1589) and that of Marie de' Medici (1610–1642) saw a great flourishing of the Italian mannerist style in France, A community of artists from Florence, including the sculptor Francesco Bordoni, who helped design the statue of King Henry IV of France built on the Pont Neuf, and fountain technician Thomas Francini, who had worked on fountains in the new gardens of the Medici villas in Florence and Rome, found eager royal patrons in France. Soon features of the Italian Renaissance garden, such as elaborate fountains and the grotto, a simulated cave decorated with sculpture, appeared in the first Gardens of the French Renaissance at Fontainebleau and other royal residences.

Construction.

Marie de' Medici, as widow of Henry IV and mother and regent of King Louis XIII of France, began construction of her own palace, which she called the Palais des Medicis, between 1623 and 1630, on the left bank of Paris. The new palace was modeled after the Palazzo Pitti in her native Florence, and the gardens around the palace were modeled after those of the Boboli Gardens in Florence. The Palace was the work of architect Salomon de Brosse, but the fountain and grotto was most probably the work of Tommaso Francini, the Intendant General of Waters and Fountains of the King. Francini, who emigrated to France at the invitation of Henry IV in 1598 and was naturalized in 1600, had built grottos and fountains in the Italian style for the marquis de Gondi and for the royal chateau of Henry IV at Saint-Germain-en-Laye.  The first difficulty of construction was the lack of water in the Left Bank of Paris. Unlike the Right Bank, where the water table was near the surface, and there were many wells and two aqueducts which served the city, the water table on the Left Bank was deep underground and all water had to be carried from the Seine. As a result, the city had expanded far from the Right Bank of the Seine, but had hardly grown at all on the Left Bank. This problem was finally solved by the construction of the aqueduct of Arcueil, between 1613-1623.

19th Century modifications.

After the death of Marie de' Medici, the Palace and fountain went through a series of owners. By the middle of the 18th century, when the fountains of Versailles and the Garden à la française were in fashion, the Medici Fountain fell into disrepair. The two original statues at the top of the fountain, by the sculptor Pierre Biard, two nymphs pouring water from pitchers, had disappeared, and the wall of the Orangerie, against which the fountain was placed, was crumbling.  In 1811, at the instructions of Napoleon Bonaparte, the grotto was restored by the neoclassical architect Jean Chalgrin, the architect of the Arc de Triomphe, who replaced the simple water fountain in the niche of the grotto with two streams of water, and added a white marble statue representing Venus in her bath.  In 1864, during the Second French Empire, Baron Haussmann planned to build the rue de Medicis through the space occupied by the fountain. The lateral arcades of the fountain and the crumbling old orangerie behind it had already been torn down in 1855. From 1858 to 1864, The new architect, Alphonse de Gisors, moved the fountain thirty meters to make room for the street, and radically changed its setting and appearance.  Since the fountain no longer stood against a wall, the Fontaine de Léda, displaced from another neighborhood, was placed directly behind it. (See the Fountain of Leda, below.) He replaced the two original statues of nymphs at the top of the statue with two new statues, representing the Rivers Rhone and Seine. He restored the coat of arms of the Medici family over the fountain, which had been defaced during the Revolution. He inserted two statues into the niches, one representing a faun and the other a huntress, above which are two masks, one representing comedy and the other tragedy. He removed the simple basin and water spout which had been in the niche and replaced them with a long tree-shaded basin. Finally, he removed the statue of Venus and replaced her with a group of statues by Auguste Ottin, representing the giant Polyphemus, in bronze, discovering the lovers Acis and Galatea, in white marble. That is the fountain as it appears today.

The Hidden Fountain - the Fountain of Léda.

The fountain which Gisors placed behind the Medici Fountain had a history of its own. The Fontaine de Léda had been constructed in 1806-1809, during the First Empire, at the corner of rue Vaugirard and rue du Regard. It was the work of architect François-Jean Bralle and sculptor Achille Valois. The bas-relief of the fountain depicts the story of Leda and the Swan; Leda holds the swan on her knees, and the figure of Amor is shooting an arrow at her from the corner of the sculpture. Water flowed from the beak of the swan down to a hemispherical basin at the foot of the fountain.  In 1856, when Baron Haussmann wanted to extend the rue de Rennes, the chief of the service of Promenades and Plantations of Paris, Gabriel Davioud, who designed most of the city's fountains, benches, gates and other urban architectural decorations during the Second Empire, and who was himself a sculptor, wanted to preserve the fountain, and in 1858 he had it moved to the Jardin du Luxembourg. Since it was a wall fountain, it had to be attached to something, so he placed it on the back of the Medici Fountain, where it still remains, unnoticed by passers-by. (See also Fountains in Paris.).

The Medici Fountain () is a monumental fountain in the Jardin du Luxembourg in the 6th arrondissement in Paris. It was built in about 1630 by Marie de' Medici, the widow of King Henry IV of France and regent of King Louis XIII of France. It was moved to its present location and extensively rebuilt in 1864-66.

美第奇喷泉(法语:"La fontaine Médicis")是巴黎第六区卢森堡公园内的雕塑喷泉,是在1630年,由法国国王亨利四世的遗孀,路易十三的摄政王太后玛丽·德·美第奇兴建。1864-66年移至现址重建。


Taxonomy and naming.

The yellow-tailed black cockatoo was first described in 1794 by the English naturalist George Shaw as "Psittacus funereus", its specific name "funereus" relating to its dark and sombre plumage, as if dressed for a funeral. The French zoologist Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest reclassified it in the new genus "Calyptorhynchus" in 1826. The genus name is derived from the Greek words καλυπτός ("calyptos") "hidden" and ῥύγχος ("rhynchos") "beak".  The ornithologist John Gould knew the bird as the funereal cockatoo. "Yellow-tailed black cockatoo" has been designated the official name by the International Ornithologists' Union (IOC). Other common names used include yellow-eared black cockatoo, and "wylah". "Wy-la" was an aboriginal term from the Hunter Region of New South Wales, while the Dharawal name from the Illawarra region is "Ngaoaraa". Scientist and cockatoo authority Matt Cameron has proposed dropping the "black" and shortening the name to "yellow-tailed cockatoo", explaining that shorter names are more widely accepted.  Within the genus, the yellow-tailed and the two Western Australian white-tailed species, the short-billed and long-billed black cockatoos, form the subgenus "Zanda". The red-tailed and glossy black cockatoos form the other subgenus, "Calyptorhynchus". The two groups are distinguished by their juvenile food begging calls and the degree of sexual dimorphism: males and females of the latter group have markedly different plumage, whereas those of the former have similar plumage.  The three species of the subgenus "Zanda" have been variously considered as two, then as a single species for many years. In a 1979 paper, Australian ornithologist Denis Saunders highlighted the similarity between the short-billed and the southern race "xanthanotus" of the yellow-tailed and treated them as a single species, with the long-billed as a distinct species. He proposed that Western Australia had been colonised on two separate occasions, once by a common ancestor of all three forms (which became the long-billed black cockatoo), and later by what has become the short-billed black cockatoo. However, an analysis of protein allozymes published in 1984 revealed the two Western Australian forms to be more closely related to each other than to the yellow-tailed, and the consensus since then has been to treat them as three separate species.  Within the species, two subspecies are recognised:

Description.

The yellow-tailed black cockatoo is in length and 750–900 grams in weight. It has a short mobile crest on the top of its head, and the plumage is mostly brownish-black with paler feather-margins in the neck, nape, and wings, and pale yellow bands in the tail feathers. The tails of birds of subspecies "funereus" measure around, with an average tail length longer than "xanthanotus". Male "funereus" birds weigh on average around and females weigh about. Birds of the "xanthanotus" race on the mainland average heavier than the Tasmanian birds; the males on the mainland weigh on average around 630 g and females, while those on Tasmania average 583 and respectively. Both mainland and Tasmanian birds of the "xanthanotus" race average about in tail length. The plumage is a more solid brown-black in the eastern subspecies, while the southern race has more pronounced yellow scalloping on the underparts.  The male yellow-tailed black cockatoo has a black bill, a dull yellow patch behind each eye, and pinkish or reddish eye-rings. The female has grey eye-rings, a horn-coloured bill, and brighter and more clearly defined yellow cheek-patches. Immature birds have duller plumage overall, a horn-coloured bill, and grey eye-rings; The upper beak of the immature male darkens to black by two years of age, commencing at the base of the bill and spreading over ten weeks. The lower beak blackens later by four years of age. The elongated bill has a pointed maxilla (upper beak), suited to digging out grubs from tree branches and trunks. Records of the timing of the eye ring changing from grey to pink in male birds are sparse, but have been recorded anywhere from one to four years of age. Australian farmer and amateur ornithologist John Courtney proposed that the similarity between juvenile and female eye rings prevented adult males becoming aggressive to younger birds. He also observed the eye rings to flush brighter in aggressive males. Moulting appears to take place in stages over the course of a year, and is poorly understood.  The yellow-tailed black cockatoo is distinguished from other dark-plumaged birds by its yellow tail and ear markings, and its contact call. Parts of its range overlap with the ranges of two cockatoo species that have red tail banding, the red-tailed cockatoo and the glossy black cockatoo. Crow species may appear similar when seen flying at a distance; however, crows have shorter tails, a quicker wing beat, and different calls.  An all-yellow bird lacking black pigment was recorded in Wauchope, New South Wales, in December 1996, and it remained part of the local group of cockatoos for four years. Birds with part-yellow plumage have been recorded from different areas in Victoria.

Distribution and habitat.

The yellow-tailed black cockatoo is found up to above sea level over southeastern Australia including the island of Tasmania and the islands of the Bass Strait (King, Flinders, Cape Barren islands), and also on Kangaroo Island. On Tasmania and the islands of the Bass Strait it is the only native black-coloured cockatoo. On the mainland, it is found from the vicinity of Gin Gin and Gympie in south and central eastern Queensland, south through New South Wales, where it occurs along the Great Dividing Range and to the coast, and into and across most of Victoria bar the northern and northwestern corner, to the Coorong and Mount Lofty Ranges in southeastern South Australia. A tiny population numbering 30 to 40 birds inhabits the Eyre Peninsula. There they are found in sugar gum ("Eucalyptus cladocalyx") woodland in the lower peninsula and migrate to the mallee areas in the northern peninsula after breeding. There is evidence that birds on the New South Wales south coast move from elevated areas to lower lying areas towards the coast in winter. They are generally common or locally very common in a wide range of habits, although they tend to be locally rare at the limits of their range. Their breeding range is restricted to areas with large old trees.  The birds may be found in a variety of habitats including grassy woodland, riparian forest, heathland, subalpine areas, pine plantations, and occasionally in urban areas, as long as there is a plentiful food supply. They have also spread to parts of suburban Sydney, particularly on or near golf courses, pine plantations and parks, such as Centennial Park in the eastern suburbs. It is unclear whether this is adaptive or because of loss of habitat elsewhere. In urban Melbourne, they have been recorded at Yarra Bend Park. The "Black Saturday bushfires" of 2009 appear to have caused sufficient loss of their natural habitat for them to have been sighted in other parts of the urban areas of Melbourne as well.

Ecology and behaviour.

Yellow-tailed black cockatoos are diurnal, raucous and noisy, and are often heard before being seen. They make long journeys by flying at a considerable height while calling to each other, and they are often seen flying high overhead in pairs, or trios comprising a pair and their young, or small groups. Outside of the breeding season in autumn or winter they may coalesce into flocks of a hundred birds or more, while family interactions between pairs or trios are maintained. They are generally wary birds, although they can be less shy in urban and suburban areas. They generally keep to trees, only coming to ground level to inspect fallen pine or "Banksia" cones or to drink. Flight is fluid and has been described as "lazy", with deep, slow wingbeats.  Tall eucalypts that are emergent over other trees in wooded areas are selected for roosting sites. It is here that the cockatoos rest for the night, and also rest to shelter from the heat of the day. They often socialise before dusk, engaging in preening, feeding young, and flying acrobatically. Flocks will return to roost earlier in bad weather.  The usual call is a high-pitched wailing contact call, "kee-ow... kee-ow... kee-ow", made while flying or roosting, and can be heard from afar. Birds may also make a harsh screeching alarm call. They also make a soft, chuckling call when searching for cossid moth larvae. Adults are normally quiet when feeding, while juveniles make frequent noisy begging calls. The superb lyrebird can mimic the adult yellow-tailed black cockatoo's contact call with some success.

Breeding.

The breeding season varies according to latitude, taking place from April to July in Queensland, January to May in northern New South Wales, December to February in southern New South Wales, and October to February in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. The male yellow-tailed black cockatoo courts by puffing up his crest and spreading his tail feathers to display his yellow plumage. Softly growling, he approaches the female and bows to her three or four times. His eye ring may also flush a deeper pink. Nesting takes place in large vertical tree hollows of tall trees, generally eucalypts, which may be living or dead. Isolated trees are generally chosen, so birds can fly to and from them relatively unhindered. The same tree may be used for many years. A 1994 study of nesting sites in "Eucalyptus regnans" forest in the Strzelecki Ranges in eastern Victoria found the average age of trees used for hollows by the yellow-tailed black cockatoo to be 228 years. The authors noted that the proposed 80–150 year rotation time for managed forests would impact on the numbers of suitable trees.  Hollows can be deep and wide, with a base of woodchips. A chance felling of a eucalypt known to have been used as a nesting tree near Scottsdale in northeastern Tasmania allowed accurate measurements to be made, yielding a hollow measuring high by wide at the mouth, and at least deep, in a tree which measured in diameter below the hollow. Both the male and female prepare the hollow for breeding, which involves peeling or scraping off wood shavings from the inside the hollow to prepare bedding for the eggs. Gum leaves are occasionally added as well. The clutch consists of one or two white lustreless rounded oval eggs which may have the occasional lime nodule. The first egg averages around 47 or 48 mm long and 37 mm in diameter (2 × 1.4 in). The second egg is around 2 mm smaller all over and is laid two to seven days later. The female incubates the eggs alone and begins after the completion of laying. She enters the hollow feet first, and is visited by the male who brings food two to four times a day. Later both parents help to raise the chicks. The second chick is neglected and usually perishes in infancy. Information on the breeding of birds in the wild is lacking; however, the incubation period in captivity is 28–31 days. Newly hatched chicks are covered with yellow down and have pink beaks that fade to a greyish white by the time of fledging. Chicks fledge from the nest three months after hatching, and remain in the company of their parents until the next breeding season. Like other cockatoos, this species is long-lived. A pair of yellow-tailed black cockatoos at Rotterdam Zoo stopped breeding when they were 41 and 37 years of age, but still showed signs of close bonding. Birds appear to reach sexual maturity between four and six years of age; this is the age range of breeding recorded in captivity.

Feeding.

The diet of the yellow-tailed black cockatoo is varied and available from a range of habitats within its distribution, which reduces their vulnerability to degradation or change in habitat. Much of the diet comprises seeds of native trees, particularly she-oaks ("Allocasuarina" and "Casuarina", including "A. torulosa" and "A. verticillata"), but also "Eucalyptus" (including "E. maculata" flowers and "E. nitida" seeds), "Acacia" (including gum exudate and galls), "Banksia" (including the green seed pods and seeds of "B. serrata", "B. integrifolia", and "B. marginata"), and "Hakea" species (including "H. gibbosa", "H. rugosa", "H. nodosa", "H. sericea", "H. cycloptera", and "H. dactyloides"). They are also partial to pine cones in plantations of the introduced "Pinus radiata" and to other introduced trees, including "Cupressus torulosa", "Betula pendula" and the buds of elm "Ulmus" species. In the Eyre Peninsula, the yellow-tailed black cockatoo has become dependent on the introduced Aleppo pine ("Pinus halepensis"), alongside native species. The yellow-tailed black cockatoo is very fond of the larvae of tree-boring beetles, such as the longhorn beetle "Tryphocaria acanthocera", and cossid moth "Xyleutes boisduvali". Birds seek them all year but especially in June and July, when the moth caterpillars are largest, and they are accompanied by their just fledged young. They search out holes and make exploratory bites looking for larvae. If successful, they peel and tear down a strip of bark to make a perch for themselves before continuing to gouge and excavate the larvae, which have deeply tunneled into the heartwood.  A yellow-tailed black cockatoo was observed stripping pieces of bark off the trunk of a dead "Leptospermum" tree in "Acacia melanoxylon" swamp near Togari in northwestern Tasmania. It then scraped a layer of white material about 0.5 mm thick from the inner surface with its beak. This white layer turned out to be hyphomycete fungi and slime mould that grew in the cambium of the bark.  Yellow-tailed black cockatoos have been reported flocking to "Banksia" cones ten days after bushfire as the follicles open. With pine trees, they prefer green cones, nipping them off at the stem and holding in one foot, then systematically lifting each segment and extracting the seed. A cockatoo spends about twenty minutes on each pine cone.  They drink at various places, from stock troughs to puddles, and do so in the early morning or late in the afternoon. Insect larvae and Fabaceae seeds are among food reported to have been fed to young.

Parasites.

In 2004, a captive yellow-tailed black cockatoo and two free-living tawny frogmouths ("Podargus strigoides") suffering neurological symptoms were shown to be hosting the rat nematode "Angiostrongylus cantonensis". They were the first non-mammalian hosts discovered for the organism. A species of feather mite, "Psittophagus calyptorhynchi", has also been isolated from the yellow-tailed black cockatoo, its only host to date.

Relationship with humans.

Yellow-tailed black cockatoos can cause damage in pine and "Eucalyptus" plantations by weakening stems through gouging out pieces of wood to extract moth larvae. In places with these gum plantations, the population of the larva of the cossid moth "Xyleutes boisduvali" grows, which then leads to increased predation (and hence tree damage) by cockatoos. Furthermore, plantations generally lack undergrowth which might have prevented cockatoos from damaging younger trees. Yellow-tailed black cockatoos were shot as pests in some districts of New South Wales until the 1940s for this reason. The yellow-tailed black cockatoo is promoted by the Shoalhaven City Council local government on the NSW south coast as the region's bird. Within the Jervis Bay area the birds can be seen feasting on the many "Casuarina" trees native to the area.  Although it is classified as "least concern" on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and not listed nationally as threatened, the yellow-tailed black cockatoo is declining in numbers in Victoria and South Australia. This is due to habitat fragmentation and loss of large trees used for breeding hollows, although birds have become more plentiful in the vicinity of pine plantations. It is listed as "vulnerable" in South Australia, due to its decline in the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges, and particularly the perilous status of the small isolated population on the Eyre Peninsula, which has declined sharply since European settlement, probably from loss of suitable habitat. A recovery program was commenced in 1998. Efforts to increase the population include fencing off remnants of native bushland, planting food plants such as "Hakea rugosa", monitoring breeding, and raising chicks in captivity. As a result, the population has increased from a low of 19–21 individuals in 1998.  This species was seldom seen in captivity before the late 1950s, after which time a large number of wild-caught birds entered the Australian market. Since then, it has become more common, but is still rarely seen outside Australia. Captive yellow-tailed black cockatoos require a large aviary to avoid apathy and poor health. There is some evidence that protein may be more important to them than to other cockatoos, and low protein has been linked with the production of yolkless eggs in captivity. Females in particular enjoy mealworms. They can be placid and tolerate sharing an enclosure with smaller parrots, but do not handle disturbance while breeding. As with other black cockatoos, yellow-tailed black cockatoos are rarely seen in European zoos, since Australia restricted exportation of wildlife in 1959, but birds seized by government agencies in Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have been loaned to zoos that are members of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA). In 2000, there were pairs of yellow-tailed black cockatoos in Puerto de la Cruz's Loro Parque zoo in Spain and in Rotterdam. Like most species of parrot, the yellow-tailed black cockatoo is protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) with its placement on the Appendix II list of vulnerable species, which makes the import, export, and trade of listed wild-caught animals illegal.

The yellow-tailed black cockatoo ("Calyptorhynchus funereus") is a large cockatoo native to the south-east of Australia measuring in length. It has a short crest on the top of its head. Its plumage is mostly brownish black and it has prominent yellow cheek patches and a yellow tail band. The body feathers are edged with yellow giving a scalloped appearance. The adult male has a black beak and pinkish-red eye-rings, and the female has a bone-coloured beak and grey eye-rings. In flight, yellow-tailed black cockatoos flap deeply and slowly, with a peculiar heavy fluid motion. Their loud, wailing calls carry for long distances.

刘慧卿(英语:Emily Lau Wai-hing;1952年-1月21日),香港政治人物,广东南海人,父亲原本是广州大地主,刘曾任记者及传媒人,1991年成为首位经地区直选的女性立法会议员,民主党首位女性主席,前线政党前召集人,1989-1991年香港记者协会主席。南加州大学电视新闻学士,1976-1991年在香港与伦敦的英语传媒任记者,包括英国广播公司电视部助理编导等。 2016年,刘慧卿宣布不再竞逐连任立法会议员,告别25年的议会生涯。


Description.

The Western barred bandicoot is much smaller than its relative the eastern barred bandicoot ("Perameles gunnii"), and is darker in its colouring, which is a grizzled brown. It measures about in length. It has two "bars" across its rump and has a short, tapered tail. It is a solitary and crepuscular hunter, eating insects, spiders, and worms and occasionally tubers and roots. When the bandicoot feels threatened, it typically leaps into the air and then burrows to safety.

Taxonomy.

The first description of the Western barred bandicoot was from a specimen taken at Peron Peninsula in 1817 by naturalists on the "Uranie". Populations of the "Perameles" species have been referred to by various names, in different regions of Australia;  Since all mainland species are naturally extinct it is believed early taxonomists described the same species based in local populations on pelage colour, however this remains unresolved due to the lack of mainland specimens. In the year 2000 the "Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999" identified two different taxa, P."bougainville" "fasciata as extinct," and "P.bougainville bougainville" as endangered. Today they are all identified under the one species "Perameles bougainville."

Ecology.

The distribution history shows that the species used a variety of vegetation types as habitats, dependent of its locality on mainland Australia; from "Allocasuarina" seedlings, open salt bush, blue bush plains, stony ridges bordering scrub and along the Murray-Darling river system. The last natural species habitats are in vegetated beach dune scrub, low heath and hummock grasslands.  Breeding season has been recorded to be triggered from the first considerable rainfall after the summer drought in Autumn. Females reach sexual maturity at 3–5 months and weigh an average of 244 grams. The female carries between 1-3 young in her pouch, averaging 2 young, with the litter size increasing with a larger mother. Four young have been recorded in pouches in South Australia. The Female carries her young between the months of March to November. The male Western barred bandicoot matures at 4–6 months and weighs an average of 195 grams. The female Western barred bandicoot is larger than the male, being the only recorded species of bandicoot with a larger female.  The Western barred bandicoot are known as solitary omnivorous animal, foraging on their own, eating plant matter, invertebrates and skinks. They have an isolated well concealed nest made from the litter of their habitat, most often using the same nest each night. Females are known to be the only individuals who share their nests, and only with their young.

Distribution.

At the time of European settlement the Western barred bandicoot was widespread across southern mainland Australia from Western Australia to central New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia in arid and semi-arid areas of the Mainland. The last known record of the species occurring on mainland Australia, is in Ooldea, South Australia in 1922 and Rawlinna, Western Australia in 1929. Assessed as being extinct on the Australian mainland, Dirk Hartog and Faure islands. The only natural populations left are on Bernier and Dorre islands in Shark Bay, Western Australia.  The reintroduction program of threatened marsupials saw the Western barred bandicoot reintroduced back to mainland Australia in 1995 to Heirisson Prong, Shark Bay; 66 years after the last known mainland recording. It has recently been identified as locally extinct on Heirisson Prong.  It has also been successfully reintroduced into the Arid Recovery Reserve at Roxby Downs, South Australia in 2000, then reintroduced to Faure island, Shark Bay in 2005. There are currently four known wild populations, including reintroduced populations; Bernier, Dorre and Faure islands in Shark Bay, Western Australia, and Roxby Downs in South Australia. Captive, contained breeding facility populations on the mainland at Dryandra Woodland, in Western Australia were not successful. Although they have captive populations within the Barna Mia Nocturnal Animal Sanctuary, allowing people to see the animals in a controlled environment within the Dryandra Woodland.

Disease.

In 1999 the Western barred bandicoot was found to have lesions, identified as papillomataosis and carcinomatosis syndrome. It is described as a wart-like syndrome and was first found in captive populations in 1999, wild populations were first observed as being affected in 2001. The disease has been described as an emerging disease and is unlike any skin diseases previously documented on any Australian marsupials. The disease is known to occur only in adult Western barred bandicoots, with the average onset recorded from 3 years and 2 months with lesions increasing in size until they become debilitating. Infected individuals average survival age is 4 years and 6 months, with individuals surviving an average of 1 year and 4.5 months after becoming affected, either through natural death or euthanasia. Today the disease is confined to Bernier Island, and captive populations sourced from Bernier Island. The disease has restricted the translocation of species to only those from Dorre island.

Predators.

Predation from introduced species and human behaviour is believed to be the highest attributing factor of species loss since European settlement. Predominately affecting rodents and marsupials weighing between 35-5500 grams, up to 49% of the original species of New South Wales have been affected, including the extinction of the Western barred bandicoot from mainland Australia. Feral cats are believed to be primarily responsible for regional extinctions of native mammals before 1857. Foxes have become well established and are also identified as a contributor for the decline and extinction of many Australian mammal species.  Rabbits are not a direct predator however they out-compete and modify the vegetation required for food and habitat of the Western barred bandicoot. Rabbit populations also interfere with the litter size of bandicoots; a decrease in rabbit abundance, will increase the litter sizes recorded for Western barred bandicoots.  A fence designed to exclude foxes and feral cats was constructed across a narrow neck of Heirisson Prong in 1990, intended to protect a 1200 ha area at the tip of the peninsula from exotic predators. The original population from Dorre Island consisted of 14 individuals. This area was a heavily monitored and managed area and provided a safe refuge area of 17 hectares. Numbers fluctuated, with the highest number of 470 individuals recorded in 2006; fluctuations were directly linked to the invasion of foxes and cats within the controlled fenced area.Feral cats were believed primarily responsible for the local extinction of western barred bandicoots on Heirisson Prong in 2008.  The only recently recording of predation by a native species was by Gould's monitor ("Varanus gouldii").

Conservation.

Conservation efforts for the Western barred bandicoot have been ongoing since 1995, when 14 bandicoots derived from Dorre Island were reintroduced to Heirisson Prong. A fence designed to exclude foxes and feral cats was constructed across a narrow neck of Heirisson Prong in 1990, allowing a 1200 ha area of the tip of the peninsula to be rid of exotic predators.  Low levels of genetic diversity can indicate vulnerability for conservation of endangered species. Captive breeding recovery programs will have higher success rates with an understanding of genetic data. Diversity losses of genetic drifting due to island bottle necking are likely to counteract the fitness of the species, leaving them vulnerable to diseases, which is already evident.  The few Western barred bandicoot population locations have restricted areas of occupancy, the species is highly susceptible to human activities, climate change, disease and predators, placing pressure on the species survival. These circumstances formulate the vulnerability of becoming critically endangered or extinct in a very short period of time.

The Western barred bandicoot ("Perameles bougainville"), also known as the Marl, is a small species of bandicoot found in Australia.

条纹袋狸("Perameles bougainville"),又名带袋狸或纹袋狸,是澳洲一种细小的袋狸。牠们曾一度由西澳州横跨澳洲南部分布至新南威尔士中部,但现已只限于西澳州鲨鱼弯的伯尼尔岛、Dorre岛及Faure岛。


Normal families of holomorphic functions.

The concept arose in complex analysis, that is the study holomorphic functions. In this case, "X" is an open subset of the complex plane, "Y" is the complex plane, and the metric on "Y" is given by formula_6. As a consequence of Cauchy's integral theorem, a sequence of holomorphic functions that converges uniformly on compact sets must converge to a holomorphic function. That is, each limit point of a normal family is holomorphic.  More generally, if the spaces "X" and "Y" are Riemann surfaces, and "Y" is equipped with the metric coming from the uniformization theorem, then each limit point of a normal family of holomorphic functions formula_7 is also holomorphic.  For example, if "Y" is the Riemann sphere, then the metric of uniformization is the spherical distance. In this case, a holomorphic function from "X" to "Y" is called a meromorphic function, and so each limit point of a normal family of meromorphic functions is a meromorphic function.

Criteria.

In the classical context of holomorphic functions, there are several criteria that can be used to establish that a set is a normal family: Montel's theorem states that a set of locally bounded holomorphic functions is normal. The Montel-Caratheodory theorem states that the collection of meromorphic functions that omit the values zero and one, is normal.  Marty's Theorem provides a criterion that is equivalent to the definition in the context of meromorphic functions: A set "F" of meromorphic functions from a domain formula_8 to the complex plane is a normal family if and only if for each compact subset "K" of "U" there exists a constant "C" so that for each formula_9 and each "z" in "K" we have  formula_10  Indeed, the expression on the left is the formula for the pull-back of the arclength element on the Riemann sphere to the complex plane via the inverse of stereographic projection.

History.

Paul Montel coined the term "normal family" in 1912. Because the concept of a normal family has continually been very important to complex analysis, Montel's terminology is still used to this day, even though from a modern perspective, the phrase "pre-compact subset" might be preferred by some mathematicians. Note that though the notion of compact open topology generalizes and clarifies the concept, in many applications the original definition is more practical.

In mathematics, with special application to complex analysis, a "normal family" is a pre-compact subset of the space of continuous functions. Informally, this means that the functions in the family are not widely spread out, but rather stick together in a somewhat "clustered" manner. Sometimes, if each function in a normal family "F" satisfies a particular property (e.g. is holomorphic), then the property also holds for each limit point of the set "F".

在数学中,特别是应用于复分析,一个正规族(英语:normal family)是连续函数的一个预紧族。非正式地讲,这意味着这一族中的函数不能扩展得太广;它们以一种相对“紧致”地方式集中在一起。理解函数空间中的紧子集是有广泛意义的,因为它们通常自然是无穷维的。


Background.

For the Homecoming Tour, the show was re-vamped and re-structured into a new production. The tour initially started as an Australian-only tour, to compensate those shows cancelled from the previous tour; however, fourteen shows were scheduled in the United Kingdom due to popular demand, with the Asian shows from Showgirl being indefinitely cancelled.

Concert synopsis.

The show was split into seven acts: "Homecoming", "Everything Taboo", "Samsara", "Athletica", "Dreams", "Pop Paradiso", "Dance of the Cybermen", with the addition of an encore and an interval. The show opens with an instrumental introduction, featuring writing on the video screen introducing Minogue. She then rises out of the stage on a platform dressed in a pink showgirl outfit. She opens the show with "Better the Devil You Know", which is quickly followed by a performance of "In Your Eyes". After addressing the audience, Minogue introduced and sang new song "White Diamond", and then "On a Night Like This", which begins in the style of a ballad, before resuming with the original after the first chorus. The ending is in the same style as the beginning of the song, where Minogue is taken below the stage, closing the section. The second section begins with a dance interlude, that uses excerpts of "Shocked" and "Do You Dare?", before Minogue rises out of the centre of the stage as "Shocked" is heard. She sings up to the middle eight, before a short segue is played using excerpts of "It's No Secret", "Keep on Pumpin' It", "Give Me Just a Little More Time" and "What Kind of Fool (Heard All That Before)", which leads into a one-verse-one-chorus performance of "What Do I Have to Do", which is followed by another segue using an excerpt of "Over Dreaming (Over You)" and then a performance of "Spinning Around", which is followed by a dance interlude after the middle eight using excerpts of "Step Back in Time" and "Such a Good Feeling". The third section begins with a dance interlude, followed by a performance of "Confide in Me", where the dancers treat Minogue as if she were a puppet. This is quickly followed by a performance of "Cowboy Style", which is followed by a small interlude of "Finer Feelings", where the backing vocalists sing whilst Minogue performs a dance; this is then followed by a performance of "Too Far". The fourth act begins with a dance interlude of the Sandstorm Dub of "Butterfly", where acrobat Terry Kvasnik dances round the stage; after this, "Red Blooded Woman" is performed, using an excerpt of "Where the Wild Roses Grow"; Minogue this time is rising atop a pommel horse in a leopard onesie. Minogue then performed "Slow", which was followed by a performance of "Kids" before a short interval.  The fifth section begins with a cover of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" where Minogue rises from behind the stage on a sequined moon. This is then followed by a torch version of "Come into My World". Minogue then performed a shortened version "Chocolate" on the stage, which morphs at the end of the catwalk to form a "cake", from which she sings "I Believe in You". The act closes with a performance of "Dreams". The next act opens with an interlude of Minogue's song "Burning Up", mashed with Madonna's "Vogue". She then goes on to perform a jazz version of "The Locomotion" which is followed by a performance of "I Should Be So Lucky", which samples "The Only Way Is Up". Minogue closed the section with a remix of "Hand on Your Heart". The penultimate section opens with a remix of "Can't Get You Out of My Head", leading into the countdown of "Light Years"; this version of the song is mashed up with song "Turn It into Love". Minogue then performed a two-song encore, performing a sing-a-long version of "Especially for You", inviting the audience to sing Jason Donovan's part. Minogue then closed the show with a performance of "Love at First Sight". with a video montage of her career shown on the video screens behind her.

Critical reception.

Showgirl: The Homecoming Tour received positive reviews from critics. Christine Sams in a review for "The Sydney Morning Herald" described the show as an "extravaganza" and wrote that it was "nothing less than a triumph". "The Age"'s Patrick Donovan wrote that Minogue "looked fit and healthy and was in good voice". He also wrote that she was "at her best prowling the stage in a catsuit, playing up to the crowd". CBBC Newsround described the tour as the "perfect comeback" due to its "range of songs, excellent dancers, stage lighting and Kylie's love of performing".

Broadcasts and recordings.

Minogue's performance in Melbourne, Australia on 11 December 2006 was filmed for television and DVD release. The concert premiered on 13 January 2007 in the United Kingdom on Channel 4. On 4 March 2007, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation broadcast the performance without commercial interruptions. The concert was released to DVD on 10 December 2007 as a double disc set with Minogue's documentary film "".  Minogue's second Australian concert in Sydney on 12 November 2006 was recorded and released as a live album in January 2007. "Showgirl Homecoming Live" featured a guest appearance by U2 lead singer Bono on the song "Kids". The album reached number seven on the UK Albums Chart and was certified silver.

Set list.

Act 1: Homecoming  Act 2: Everything Taboo  Act 3: Samsara  Act 4: Athletica  Act 5: Dreams  Act 6: Pop Paradiso  Act 7: Dance of the Cybermen  Encore

Show cancellations.

On 13 January 2007 at the Manchester Evening News Arena in Manchester, England, Minogue was forced to end her concert after performing for an hour due to illness. Minogue's spokesman later confirmed that she had been diagnosed with a respiratory tract infection. Two additional scheduled performances at the Manchester Evening News Arena were postponed and all were rescheduled to the end of January 2007.

Showgirl: The Homecoming Tour was the ninth concert tour by Australian singer Kylie Minogue, in support of her second major greatest hits compilation, "Ultimate Kylie" (2004). The tour began on 11 November 2006 in Sydney, Australia at the Sydney Entertainment Centre and concluded on 23 January 2007 in London, England at Wembley Arena, consisting of 20 shows in Australia and 14 shows in England.

Showgirl: The Homecoming Tour是由澳大利亚歌手OBE凯莉·米洛举办的巡回演唱会。 凯利原先计划在2005年举办巡演之时将演唱会带至澳洲和亚洲,但是当她被诊断罹患乳腺癌之后,凯利被迫取消原定计划。


Summary.

Harari's work situates its account of human history within a framework provided by the natural sciences, particularly evolutionary biology, evolutionary anthropology, and evolutionary psychology: he sees biology as setting the limits of possibility for human activity and sees culture as shaping what happens within those bounds. The academic discipline of history is the account of cultural change.  Harari surveys the history of humankind from the evolution of archaic human species in the Stone Age up to the twenty-first century, focusing on "Homo sapiens". He divides the history of Sapiens into four major parts:  Harari's main argument is that Sapiens came to dominate the world because it is the only animal that can cooperate flexibly in large numbers. He argues that prehistoric Sapiens were a key cause of the extinction of other human species such as the Neanderthals, along with numerous other megafauna. He further argues that the ability of Sapiens to cooperate in large numbers arises from its unique capacity to believe in things existing purely in the imagination, such as gods, nations, money, and human rights. He argues that these beliefs give rise to discrimination – whether that be racial, sexual or political and it is potentially impossible to have a completely unbiased society. Harari claims that all large-scale human cooperation systems – including religions, political structures, trade networks, and legal institutions – owe their emergence to Sapiens' distinctive cognitive capacity for fiction. Accordingly, Harari regards money as a system of mutual trust and sees political and economic systems as more or less identical with religions.  Harari's key claim regarding the Agricultural Revolution is that while it promoted population growth for Sapiens and co-evolving species like wheat and cows, it made the lives of most individuals (and animals) worse than they had been when Sapiens were mostly hunter-gatherers, since their diet and daily lives became significantly less varied. Humans' violent treatment of other animals is a theme that runs throughout the book.  In discussing the unification of humankind, Harari argues that over its history, the trend for Sapiens has increasingly been towards political and economic interdependence. For centuries, the majority of humans have lived in empires, and capitalist globalization is effectively producing one, global empire. Harari argues that money, empires, and universal religions are the principal drivers of this process.  Harari sees the Scientific Revolution as founded on innovation in European thought, whereby elites became willing to admit to, and hence to try to remedy, their ignorance. He sees this as one driver of early modern European imperialism and of the current convergence of human cultures. Harari also emphasises the lack of research into the history of happiness, positing that people today are not significantly happier than in past eras. He concludes by considering how modern technology may soon end the species as we know it, as it ushers in genetic engineering, immortality, and non-organic life. Humans have, in Harari's chosen metaphor, become gods: they can create species.  Harari cites Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel" (1997) as one of the greatest inspirations for the book by showing that it was possible to "ask very big questions and answer them scientifically".

Reception.

Public reception.

First published in Hebrew in 2011 and then in English in 2014, the book was translated into 45 languages (as of June 2017). It also made to "The New York Times" best-seller list and won the National Library of China's Wenjin Book Award for the best book published in 2014. Writing four years after its English-language publication, Alex Preston wrote in "The Guardian" that "Sapiens" had become a "publishing phenomenon" with "wild success" symptomatic of a broader trend toward "intelligent, challenging nonfiction, often books that are several years old". Concurrently, "The Guardian" listed the book as among the ten "best brainy books of the decade". The Royal Society of Biologists in the UK shortlisted the book in its 2015 Book Awards.  Bill Gates ranked "Sapiens" among his ten favorite books.

Scholarly reception.

Anthropologist Christopher Robert Hallpike reviewed the book and did not find any "serious contribution to knowledge". Hallpike suggested that "...whenever his facts are broadly correct they are not new, and whenever he tries to strike out on his own he often gets things wrong, sometimes seriously". He considered it an infotainment publishing event offering a "wild intellectual ride across the landscape of history, dotted with sensational displays of speculation, and ending with blood-curdling predictions about human destiny."  Science journalist Charles C. Mann concluded in "The Wall Street Journal", "There’s a whiff of dorm-room bull sessions about the author’s stimulating but often unsourced assertions."  Reviewing the book in "The Washington Post", evolutionary anthropologist Avi Tuschman points out problems stemming from the contradiction between Harari's "freethinking scientific mind" and his "fuzzier worldview hobbled by political correctness", but nonetheless wrote that "Harari’s book is important reading for serious-minded, self-reflective sapiens."  Reviewing the book in "The Guardian", philosopher Galen Strawson concluded that among several other problems, "Much of "Sapiens" is extremely interesting, and it is often well expressed. As one reads on, however, the attractive features of the book are overwhelmed by carelessness, exaggeration and sensationalism."  Reviewing the book in non-peer reviewed social conservative journal "The New Atlantis", John Sexton, graduate student at the University of Chicago, concluded that "The book is fundamentally unserious and undeserving of the wide acclaim and attention it has been receiving".

Bibliographic details.

The original Hebrew publication was first issued in 2011 as "קיצור תולדות האנושות" ["Ḳitsur toldot ha-enoshut"] (Or Yehuda: Kinneret, Zmora-Bitan, Dvir).  The English translation was first published in 2014 as Yuval Noah Harari, "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind", "translated by the author with the help of John Purcell and Haim Watzman", simultaneously in London by Harvill Secker (hardback), (trade paperback) and in Canada by Signal ( (bound), (html)). It was then republished under the same title but without the information about the translators in London by Vintage Books, apparently in 2015 ( (paperback)).

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (, [Ḳitsur toldot ha-enoshut]) is a book by Yuval Noah Harari, first published in Hebrew in Israel in 2011 based on a series of lectures Harari taught at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and in English in 2014. The book surveys the history of humankind from the evolution of archaic human species in the Stone Age up to the twenty-first century, focusing on "Homo sapiens". The account is situated within a framework provided by the natural sciences, particularly evolutionary biology.

《人类简史:从野兽到扮演上帝》(英语:"Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind",)由以色列历史学家尤瓦尔·赫拉利所著,于2011年出版。


History.

Archaeological studies in the Bathurst Island area indicate occasional human use over the past 4500 years by prehistoric as well as historic Dorset and Thule Inuit. Human presence fluctuated with changes in climate, ice cover and the corresponding availability of wildlife for subsistence. Human use was primarily in the southern and eastern part of Bathurst Island, rather than within the proposed park area itself.  The area was explored by British naval expeditions during the mid-nineteenth century, primarily those associated with the search for the lost Franklin expedition. Several cairns remain on the north coast. Exploration of the area continued sporadically, including scientific and commercial studies beginning during the 1960s.  The community of Resolute, located on Cornwallis Island to the southeast of the park, was established in 1953. Inuit from the community use the land and waters of the Bathurst Island area to hunt and fish.  A park feasibility study was initiated in 1994. The work included a Mineral and Energy Resources Assessment. This report was released in 1999 and the overall park feasibility study was concluded in 2000. The lands on northern Bathurst Island were first withdrawn for the purpose of establishing a national park in 1996. In 2009 Parks Canada entered into negotiations with the communities most closely connected to the proposed park with respect to establishing an Inuit Impact and Benefit Agreement (IIBA) for the establishment of the park.  In 2015, the federal government introduced a bill to create the park, which received approval on June 24. The law specified that it would come into force on either the day of approval or on September 1, 2015—whichever came latest. With approval given in June, the park was legally created on September 1.  The proposed name of the park was "Tuktusiuqvialuk National Park". The Qausuittuq name was selected through a contest in the local area.  Qausuittuq National Park was open to the public and received its first visitors in 2016.

Geology and climate.

The park geology is composed primarily of sedimentary rocks such as limestone, sandstone and dolomite. The area was glaciated in the past as evidenced by landforms such as eskers, moraines and beach terraces. The area is generally rolling hills.  Bathurst Island has a cold dry climate. The cool central Arctic climate pushes almost unimpeded into the low-lying islands of the northwest and north-central sector of the Queen Elizabeth islands; reaching to Bathurst Island. Mean temperatures range from -35 °C in January to 5 °C in July. Annual precipitation is less than 130 mm.

Flora and fauna.

The severe climate limits soil and nutrient development, which in turn limits vegetation. This region has low vascular plant diversity and is dominated by herbaceous species. Plants include purple saxifrage, dwarf willow, sedges, grasses, lichens and mosses.  Terrestrial wildlife species adapted to this environment include Peary caribou, muskoxen, wolves, Arctic foxes and bird species such as snowy owls, snow geese, king eiders, jaegers as well as various gulls and shorebirds. Marine species in the area include ringed seals, bearded seals, polar bears, walruses, bowhead whales, beluga whales and narwhals.

Qausuittuq National Park (pronounced Qow-soo-ee-tooq, from Inuktitut meaning "place where the sun does not rise") is a national park located on northwest Bathurst Island in Nunavut. It was established on September 1, 2015, becoming Canada's 45th national park.

考苏伊图克国家公园(伊努克提图特语发音为:Qow-soo-ee-tooq,意思是太阳不升起的地方)是一处位于努纳武特地区西北部巴瑟斯特岛的加拿大国家公园。它成立于2015年9月1日,是加拿大的第45个国家公园。


Electoral system.

The President of Montenegro is elected using the two-round system; if no candidate receives a majority of the vote in the first round, a run-off is held two weeks later. In order to submit their candidacy to the State Electoral Commission, potential candidates needed to collect 7,993 signatures. A new president is elected every five years, and only is eligible for two terms.

Campaign.

Incumbent president Filip Vujanović is ineligible for re-election, having already served two terms as President.  President of the ruling DPS, Milo Đukanović, who was touted by the media as the election favourite, initially rejected the possibility of running for President,  In March 2018, Đukanović confirmed that he would run for president, supported by DPS' coalition partner, the Liberal Party (LP), as well as other subjects in the government; Social Democrats (SD), Croatian Civic Initiative (HGI), the New Democratic Power (FORCA), Democratic Union of Albanians (DUA) and the Bosniak Party (BS).  After a series of unsuccessful attempts by the entire opposition to nominate a common candidate, it was clear that the opposition would have more candidates. On 9 March 2018, the presidency of Democratic Front (DF) alliance decides to support the candidacy of independent candidate Mladen Bojanić, which was previously proposed by Democratic Montenegro (DCG) and United Reform Action (URA). Presidency of United Montenegro (UCG) has decided to support the previously-announced candidacy of the party leader Goran Danilović, later Presidency of Social Democratic Party (SDP) has consistently supported candidacy of MP Draginja Vuksanović, as first ever female presidential candidate. From the rest of the opposition have unsuccessfully called upon the UCG and the SDP to withdraw their candidacies and support independent Bojanić as an opposition common candidate, which they have refused. From SDP replied that Bojanić was not a completely independent candidate, alluding to his support for the Democratic Front for the 2016 parliamentary election. On 21 March Danilović ultimately withdrew his candidacy and supported Bojanić's candidature.

Candidates.

Montenegrin State Electoral Commission (DIK) confirmed seven candidates. Candidate numbers were decided using a random draw on 28 March.

Opinion polls.

Poll results are listed in the table below in reverse chronological order, showing the most recent first, and using the date the survey's fieldwork was done, as opposed to the date of publication. If such date is unknown, the date of publication is given instead. The highest percentage figure in each polling survey is displayed in bold, and the background shaded in the leading party's colour. In the instance that there is a tie, then no figure is shaded. The lead column on the right shows the percentage-point difference between the two candidates with the highest figures.

Results.

Milo Đukanović, candidate of the DPS-led coalition, won the election in the first round, winning 53.9% of the vote. Independent opposition candidate Mladen Bojanić came in second with 33.4% of the popular vote, while Draginja Vuksanović (SDP) was third with 8.2%.

Presidential elections were held in Montenegro on 15 April 2018. Former Prime Minister Milo Đukanović of the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) was elected as President of Montenegro in the first round.

2018年黑山总统选举举办于2018年4月15日。前黑山总理米洛·久卡诺维奇在这次选举中当选,这也是他首次当选总统。黑山总统选举采用两轮投票制。如果没有一位候选人在第一轮投票中获得过半得票率,将在两周后举办第二轮投票。有意参选的候选人需要提交7,993份签名。总统任期五年,可共计担任两次任期。


History.

The plan of Kowloon-Canton Railway was realised in 1904 with its terminus in Tsim Sha Tsui. The terminus design was assigned to A. B. Hubback due, in part, to his experiences in designing Railway Terminus in the Straits Settlements, Malaya. The Kowloon-Canton Railway was inaugurated on 1 October 1910; however, construction of the station did not begin until 1913. A temporary station was used while the best site for the location of the station was determined, and work on sea walls and site formation on reclaimed land was completed. The onset of the First World War also resulted in delivery of materials required for the building being delayed, and construction was halted for some time. Part of the station, including the Clock Tower, was completed in 1915, and the whole station was opened on 28 March 1916.  The Clock Tower reused the clock from the demolished Pedder Street Clock Tower. However, only one side had a clock, and it was not until 1920 that the remaining three sides of the Clock Tower were installed. They began operation on the afternoon of 22 March 1921, and have run ever since except during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during World War II. During the fighting before the occupation, the clock tower building sustained damage, leaving the marks of combat present to this day.  In 1975, Kowloon Station was moved to the present-day Hung Hom Station on the newly reclaimed Hung Hom Bay. The building of the station was demolished in 1977 despite the protest and petitioning from the Heritage Society and other pressure groups. However, as a compromise, it was decided that the Clock Tower was to be preserved, and it is now accompanied by the Hong Kong Space Museum, Hong Kong Museum of Art and Hong Kong Cultural Centre, all built on former station grounds.  The bell inside the Clock Tower was on display in Shatin Station from the mid-1980s to 1995 and was moved to the KCRC Office in Fo Tan from 1995 to the early 2000s. Finally, the government moved the bell inside the Clock Tower in 2010.

The Clock Tower is a landmark in Hong Kong. It is located on the southern shore of Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon. It is the only remnant of the original site of the former Kowloon Station on the Kowloon-Canton Railway. Officially named Former Kowloon-Canton Railway Clock Tower (), it is usually referred to as the Tsim Sha Tsui Clock Tower () for its location.

尖沙咀钟楼(英语:Hong Kong Clock Tower),正式名为前九广铁路钟楼,位于香港尖沙咀海旁,属九广铁路旧尖沙咀火车站的一部分,于1915年建成,并于1990年列为法定古迹。


Gameplay.

Similar to its predecessor, "Watch Dogs 2" is an action-adventure game with stealth elements and played from a third-person perspective as Marcus Holloway, a young hacker. The game features an open world set in a fictionalized version of the San Francisco Bay Area, an area more than twice as large as the Chicago setting from "Watch Dogs". It consists of four different areas: San Francisco, Oakland, Marin, and Silicon Valley. Players can navigate the game's world on-foot or by the various vehicles featured in the game, such as cars, trucks, buses, cable cars, motorcycles, quad bikes, and boats. The driving mechanic was overhauled and designed to be more accessible. The player can shoot their weapons while driving. Marcus also has improved acrobatic skills, and the ability to parkour around the city. The player can use different methods to approach the game's missions, choosing between the aggressive approach, in which they defeat enemies with guns which are made with a 3D printer; explosives, like mines; or Marcus' own melee weapon, a billiard ball attached to a bungee cord. Alternatively, the player can use the stealth approach, in which they can evade enemies or paralyze them temporarily with Marcus' taser. "Watch Dogs 2" like its predecessor, places a particular emphasis on using environmental apparatus and the terrain to Marcus' advantage. For example, a player may hack an A/C unit to produce an electric shock when an enemy nears it. Marcus may also employ his own modular taser devices and explosives to use tactically against enemies. When law enforcement witnesses the player committing a crime, or is alerted by a non-player character (NPC), police officers will attempt to arrest the player. The game upgrades system is a returning feature, with items being divided into three categories: Ghost, Aggressor, and Trickster. Upgrades can be customized according to playstyles.  Marcus can hack into various electronic devices connected to the ctOS system with his in-game smartphone. For example, Marcus can modify the personal information of NPCs to have them arrested or attacked by one of various gangs, hack and manipulate every mobile phone featured in the game, disrupt traffic by hacking cars and traffic lights, hack into monitoring cameras, and carry out "mass hacking", which hacks the electrical equipment of a large group of people. The player can also gain multiple options while hacking the same object. For instance, if the player attempts to hack a car, they can gain direct control over them, or have the car lose control and crash in a random direction. Unlike Aiden, the protagonist of the first game, Marcus has an arsenal of advanced equipment, including a quadcopter and remote-controlled car, both of which can be used for remote hacking and scouting. Marcus' apparel can be customized with over 700 articles of clothing, available for purchase in stores that maintain fashion styles unique to what is worn by the denizens in each area. The game features several main story missions, and side-missions known as "operations". Once completed, Marcus' follower count will increase.

Multiplayer.

Multiplayer returns in "Watch Dogs 2". The game introduces a seamless cooperative multiplayer mode, in which players can meet and interact with other random players. They can explore the open world and complete missions together, which will also help players to gain followers. The game features an emote system, which allows players' characters to communicate with each other through basic gestures. The game can be played completely online or offline. It also features four competitive multiplayer modes:

Plot.

In 2016, three years after the events of Chicago, San Francisco becomes the first city to install the next generation of ctOS (central Operating System) – a computing network connecting every device together into a single system, developed by technology company Blume. Hacker Marcus Holloway, punished for a crime he did not commit through ctOS 2.0, decides to join hacking group DedSec (composed of hackers Sitara, Wrench, Horatio, and Josh), and conducts an initiation test by hacking a Blume server farm to wipe his profile from the system. DedSec determines that the new ctOS can covertly harm innocent citizens across the city, and thus decide to bring about awareness of their goals through conducting a social media campaign to recruit, by exposing corruption and crimes being conducted through the system, before bringing down Blume.  After a number of successful exposures, Josh discovers a number of irregularities in their follower numbers. When Marcus investigates this, he learns that DedSec has been used by Blume's CTO Dušan Nemec, in order to sell ctOS 2.0 to those frightened at being hacked. Forced to leave the city for a while, DedSec partake in a hacking event in the desert, and encounter legendary hacker Raymond "T-Bone" Kenney. Interested in assisting them, Raymond joins with DedSec as they work to continue their fight against Blume. After hacking the server farm of a major internet company, the group use the data they acquire to pursue and expose corruption amongst law enforcement officers, politicians, and numerous Silicon Valley corporations, while Marcus also focuses on bringing down several crime gangs, after one group murders Horatio for refusing to co-operate in their crimes. At the same time, Dušan attempts to disrupt DedSec's operations by combating them with a rival hacking group and the FBI, only for Marcus to counter his efforts.  Eventually, DedSec comes across information about the data manipulation program called "Bellwether", designed by Raymond, and learn that with both this and a new satellite network, designed to bypass undersea data cables, Dušan plans to manipulate world finances and politics, thus creating a monopoly on the entire world's electronic data. To expose this and his corruption, DedSec co-ordinate a massive operation to allow Marcus to infiltrate Blume's San Francisco headquarters, hack their servers, and feed the information of Dušan's crimes to the police. Dušan is arrested for fraud and Blume is put under investigation, though DedSec resolve to continue their fight against Blume. In an extended ending scene added in a post-release patch, two unidentified individuals note that more DedSec cells and hacktivist groups have been emerging worldwide in response to the San Francisco Blume scandal, and that it is time to put their own plans into motion. The filename of the recording seen in the ending is a set of coordinates located in Brixton, London.

Development.

At E3 2014, Ubisoft executive Tony Key claimed they were satisfied with the sales of the first game, and that the brand would be turned into a long-running franchise. According to creative director Jonathan Morin, the first game's main goal was to establish the "Watch Dogs" brand. It was intended that they take risks with the sequel, instead of creating a more polished version of the previous game. To improve the game, Morin and his team read the reviews of the first game, and visited NeoGAF and various forums to study player feedback. Their priorities included creating a "believable" environment, giving players more freedom, and introducing a new leading character, whose personality would be completely different from that of the protagonist of the first game, Aiden Pearce. The primary developer Ubisoft Montreal worked with other subsidiaries Ubisoft Toronto, Ubisoft Paris, Ubisoft Bucharest, Ubisoft Kiev, and Ubisoft Reflections to aid in the production. The driving mechanic was completely overhauled to make it more accessible to players, and was developed by Ubisoft Reflections, the developer of Ubisoft's own "Driver" series. In light of complaints about a graphical downgrade in "Watch Dogs" from what was seen at E3 2012, Ubisoft assured that "Watch Dogs 2" would not suffer the same outcome because, unlike the first installment, it was developed for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One from the start. Another improvement from the first game was a more prominent thematic connection to the narrative. Main operations are structured like story arcs that last up to ninety minutes each, advancing the plot with each completion.  The developer worked with consultant hackers who would validate their scripts, including the use of jargon, and gameplay mechanics in order to ensure the authenticity of the subject matter. The propaganda used by the game's hacker group DedSec was influenced by animated GIF culture, glitch art and comic books from the late 1940s. David Maynor served as a hacking advisor. Content director Thomas Geffroyd, who had twenty years of experience with the hacking community, was tasked to accumulate information from hacktivists – such as author Violet Blue – and then relay it to the team. The game also features references to real life; Project Chanology was fictionalized in the mission "The False Prophets".  Ubisoft Montreal made frequent scouting trips to California to research the setting, and attempted to put most of the local landmarks in that region in the game. For regions that they could not put in the game, the team redesigned these locations and put them back into the game. According to producer Dominic Guay, having realistic and accurate locations featured in the game was essential for the game as they encourage players to explore the open world. Unlike many of Ubisoft's previous open world games, players do not need to climb towers in order to discover locations and missions. Instead, the game is opened up from the start, allowing players to explore the city freely. The game's new progression system, which tasks players to gain followers instead of completing main missions, was another way Ubisoft Montreal hoped to encourage exploration and make the city feel more "free". "Watch Dogs 2" had around sixty programmers devoted to its development.  The soundtrack was composed by Hudson Mohawke. Ingrained with a combination of electronic music and hip hop, it was approached from the palette of cult science fiction music. Ubisoft teamed up with Dutch music producer Oliver Heldens to influence the video for his track "Good Life" in the vein of DedSec. For acquiring licensed songs, an agreement was made with Amoeba Music. Mohawke's soundtrack was released separately as "DedSec – Watch Dogs 2 (Original Game Soundtrack)" via Warp Records.  A sequel to "Watch Dogs" was rumored since its release but first officialized by publisher Ubisoft through financial reports in February and May 2016, before it was confirmed as a part of the 2016 E3 lineup. A 20-minute online reveal was hosted a couple of days later. On October 27, 2016, "Watch Dogs 2" was announced to have been released to manufacturing.

Release.

On June 8, 2016, Ubisoft revealed the game would be released on November 15 of that year for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in six separate editions. In September 2016, it was announced that "Watch Dogs 2" would have enhancements on PlayStation 4 Pro. In October 2016, Ubisoft announced that the Windows version was delayed to November 29, 2016 to ensure that the game was well-optimized. It was featured on the front cover of "Edge" in August. Two weeks from release, Ubisoft and Samsung partnered to bundle a free digital download of "Watch Dogs 2" with the purchase of their solid-state disks or curved gaming monitors. Amazon Prime copies were subject to an early release, which revealed issues with the seamless multiplayer. Ubisoft vowed to repair the feature on schedule but on the day of release, the company said it was broken – citing persistent lagging and crashing. Cooperative multiplayer was enabled a week after the game's release. A free trial lasting three hours was released for PlayStation 4 on January 17, 2017; the Xbox One version was downloadable on January 24.  Pre-ordering "The Gold Edition Collector's Edition" included additional content such as weapon skins, vehicles and drones; the "Deluxe Collector's Edition" contains the same, but excluded the season pass. Each of these, as well as the generic "Collector's Edition", contained a physical robot called "Wrench Junior", controlled by a mobile app on a smartphone or tablet computer. The "Gold Edition" came with the same items and season pass, and while the "Deluxe Edition" omitted the inclusion of the season pass, it contained all other additions. The mission "Zodiac Killer" was also exclusive to pre-order purchases. It involves the protagonist Marcus Holloway in chasing a copycat killer emulating the same modus operandi as the Zodiac Killer. Amazon and Twitch Prime members were privy to free content like XP boosts and skin packs. "ScoutXpedition", a PlayStation 4 pre-order bonus mission, became free to download in January 2017.

Downloadable content.

Five downloadable content (DLC) packs have been released: the "T-Bone Content Bundle", "Human Conditions", "No Compromise", "Root Access Bundle", and "Psychedelic Pack". As per an exclusivity agreement with Sony Interactive Entertainment, all DLCs for "Watch Dogs 2" were timed exclusives for PlayStation 4.

Reception.

"Watch Dogs 2" received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic. Technical issues on consoles were fixed with the Update 1.04 patch. In his review, "Destructoid"s Zack Furniss praised the sequel's tonal shift to a lack of seriousness and stated that its protagonist Marcus Holloway boasted a similar charm and wit. He thought well of the hacking component as it was suggestible to multiple fields of use, and enjoyed its nature of compatibility with a non-lethal approach; in fact, Furniss felt that for this reason firearms could have been excluded entirely. The driving was lauded as an improvement from the first game, yet technical issues like glitches and low frame rates were cited as shortcomings. To Matt Buchholtz, writing for "EGM", the game signified "less a hacktivist tale and more a beautiful immersion into the San Francisco Bay". The setting, characters and story were cited as considerable refinements from its predecessor. Buchholtz discerned that the tasks demanded to gain followers were successful in encouraging world exploration. He noted however that – in context of the main character – murder made little sense, which led to increased usage of stealth. Elise Favis at "Game Informer" both disparaged and praised elements in comparison to those of "Watch Dogs". She enjoyed that hacking was prioritized in the gameplay and the new "smoother" driving mechanic, but saw inconsistencies in the protagonist's actions versus his personality and thought supporting characters "too obnoxious and petty to be meaningful companions". Favis also experienced low frame rate capabilities on PlayStation 4.  Aron Garst of "Game Revolution" stated that "Watch Dogs 2" had redressed "nearly every negative aspect of the original", and as such, marked a favorable change in the franchise. "IGN"s Dan Stapleton liked Marcus Holloway more than Aiden Pearce of the first game, and similarly appreciated the supporting characters of DedSec. Marcus' penchant for moral integrity was a noticeable contradiction for Stapleton, though, in light of the prospect to have him kill innocent people if one so chooses. Therefore, the character's personality was observed as the only preclusion to violence and an axiomatic push toward the stealth approach, which Stapleton insisted was the most accommodating of available tools. Writing for "Polygon", Philip Kollar saw that "Watch Dogs 2" could appeal to those able to connect with "being young, angry at the system and certain that you know what's best for the world". Its tongue-in-cheek demeanor was said to naturally coincide with the hacker culture and open world genre. San Francisco – the spaces of which were described as "cleverly designed" – never felt overwhelming in size to Kollar but inspired joy as he took advantage of the immediate ability to explore it entirely. His complaints concerned firearms; their use was considered "a complete failure of imagination" and unbelievable from the members of DedSec — "an Anonymous-esque group of peaceful hacktivists". Alice Bell of "VideoGamer.com" wrote in her verdict, ""Watch Dogs 2" is missing a bit of refinement, and has had issues with multiplayer, but joining DedSec is still a riot and a half. It's high energy fun with engaging characters, and you can make an entire city your playground".

Sales.

In November 2016, Ubisoft revealed that the game's pre-orders were disappointing for the company. Due to this, Ubisoft took a more conservative approach and reduced the sales projection for the second half of its fiscal year 2017. However, CEO Yves Guillemot was confident that the game would not be a commercial failure, and compared the game to "Far Cry 3", a commercially successful game with low pre-order sales. He believed that reviews would have a great impact to the game sales due to consumers' "wait-and-see" approach. "Watch Dogs 2" was the second-best-selling retail video game in the United Kingdom in its week of release, according to Chart-Track, an eighty percent decrease from the sales of the original. In the United States, the game ranked number eight in sales in January 2017. The PlayStation 4 version sold 68,796 copies in Japan. In May 2020, Ubisoft announced in their earnings report that "Watch Dogs 2" has sold more than 10 million copies by the end of the 2019–20 fiscal year, which ends in March 2020.

Sequel.

A sequel, "", was teased by Ubisoft via Twitter a week before the official announcement at E3 2019, where the release date was revealed to originally be March 6, 2020.

Watch Dogs 2 (stylized as WATCH_DOGS 2) is a 2016 action-adventure game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the sequel to 2014's "Watch Dogs" and was released for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows. Set within a fictionalized version of the San Francisco Bay Area, the game is played from a third-person perspective and its open world is navigated on-foot or by vehicle. Players control Marcus Holloway, a hacker who works with the hacking group DedSec to take down the city's advanced surveillance system known as ctOS. There are multiple ways to complete missions, and each successful assignment increases the follower count of DedSec. Cooperative multiplayer allows for competitive one-on-one combat and connecting with other players to neutralize a player who is causing havoc.

是一款由育碧蒙特利尔开发, 育碧发行的开放世界动作冒险第三人称射击游戏,为2014年《看门狗》的续作。游戏已于2016年11月15日在PlayStation 4和Xbox One平台发行。Microsoft Windows平台也于11月29日发行。


圣弥额尔圣福里安圣殿主教座堂 (华沙-布拉格)

History.

There has been a Catholic church presence in or around the site of the future church since 1583, but the impetus for creating a lasting and substantial church did not arrive until the late 19th century. The map of Europe was redrawn during the Congress of Vienna and the resulting territorial maneuvers placed the Duchy of Warsaw under the control of the Russian Empire, transforming it into the Congress Poland. Among other intrusions, over twenty Russian Orthodox churches were built in Poland. To protest against the perceived imposition of a foreign church, and in direct reaction to the monumental Orthodox Church of Mary Magdalene built down the street, St Florian’s was built with two commanding 75-meter (250-foot) towers between 1897-1904. The church is named after St. Florian, the patron saint of professions associated with fire, such as firefighters, steelworkers, chimney sweeps, potters and bakers.

World War II destruction.

During and after the Siege of Warsaw, churches were used as a hiding place for Jews, the Warsaw Army ("Armia Warszawa") and as a general refuge for civilians. St. Florian's was destroyed by the Germans as they withdrew from Poland in 1944 after the Warsaw Uprising. The church remained in ruins for several years, but by the 1950s a reconstruction effort slowly began with support from Praga residents. The rebuilt church was reopened in 1972.

Role in church hierarchy.

St Florian's is the cathedral church of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Warszawa-Praga and by order of the Holy See was raised to the rank of minor basilica in 1992. Over four hundred priests form the ministry in this diocese covering 1,274 square miles, divided into 160 parishes and serving approximately one million Polish Catholics.

Notable features.

St Florian's is built in a Gothic Revival style distinguished by two twenty-story towers facing (English: "Solidarity Avenue"), capped with bronze spires. Most of its exterior is made of red brick. Over the entrances are mosaic depictions of Jesus Christ and the emblem of the first bishop of Warsaw-Praga, Kazimierz Romaniuk, while the interior is decorated in red or white plaster and brick.

St. Florian's Cathedral, more formally known as the Cathedral of St. Michael the Archangel and St. Florian the Martyr (), is a Catholic church and historic landmark at ul. Floriańska 3 () in eastern Warsaw. The 75-meter towers of St. Florian’s Cathedral dominate eastern Warsaw's Praga district and highlight the cathedral’s role as a form of protest against the erstwhile Russian domination of Poland.

圣弥额尔圣福里安圣殿主教座堂()是天主教华沙-布拉格教区的主教座堂,位于波兰首都华沙东部的布拉格 (华沙)。教堂的尖塔高达75米。圣弗洛里安主教座堂也是波兰反抗俄罗斯统治的象征之一。华沙起义时教堂被德国人摧毁,但在战后教堂得到重建。1972年教堂重新开放。


复仇者联盟3:无限之战 (原声带)

Background.

In June 2016, Alan Silvestri, who composed the score for "The Avengers", was revealed to be returning to score both "Infinity War" and its sequel. Although Silvestri reprised the main theme he introduced in the first "Avengers" film, he stated there were discussions to try and incorporate each character's individual established motif in his score, "but everyone was pretty much in agreement that it would be more of a distraction to even attempt it." Silvestri started to record his score in January 2018 and concluded in late March.  Silvestri felt working on the film "was a really different experience than anything I'd done before, especially in regard to the approach and balancing quick shifts in tone." He noted that "Thanos didn't just get his own musical theme; he got his own sensibility", while the Children of Thanos were linked musically to Thanos. Silvestri avoided giving each of the Infinity Stones a theme, as he had done in "" with the Tesseract, saying, "The music for the Infinity Stones is actually built around Thanos' reaction. Every time he got one, that moment was always significant and often times emotional." Silvestri's score is entirely orchestral. Silvestri also used Ludwig Göransson's theme from "Black Panther" in the film, which is something Göransson had been hoping would happen given he was not involved in the "Infinity War" score.  The film also includes "The Rubberband Man" by The Spinners when the Guardians of the Galaxy first appear, which was chosen by "Infinity War" executive producer and director of the "Guardians of the Galaxy" films James Gunn. Gunn revealed that "Draw the Line" by Aerosmith, "Train in Vain" by The Clash, and "Caught in a Dream" by Alice Cooper were also considered for that moment. "New York Groove" by Ace Frehley was also used in another scene with the Guardians that was ultimately cut from the theatrical release. Hollywood Records and Marvel Music released the soundtrack album digitally on April 27, 2018, with a release on physical formats following on May 18. Two versions were released, a regular and deluxe edition, with the deluxe edition featuring some extended and additional tracks to the regular edition.

Track listing.

All music composed by Alan Silvestri.  All music composed by Alan Silvestri.

Avengers: Infinity War (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the film score for the Marvel Studios film "" by Alan Silvestri. Hollywood Records released the soundtrack album digitally on April 27, 2018, and in physical formats on May 18, 2018.

《复仇者联盟3:无限之战 (电影原声带)》(英语:Avengers: Infinity War (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack))是亚伦·席维斯崔为漫威工作室电影《复仇者联盟3:无限之战》创作的电影原声带。好莱坞唱片于2018年4月27日发行了专辑的数码版本,唱片版于2018年5月18日发行。


Composition.

The song features a gospel-style choir and background contributions from various American rappers. Young Thug, Slim Jxmmi, BlocBoy JB, 21 Savage and Quavo each deliver an ad-lib. Young Thug returns to supply the song's outro. The lyrics primarily address being black in the United States and gun violence in the country. It also touches on police brutality. "Pitchfork"'s Stephen Kearse described the song as a representation of the "tightrope of being black", with the song "built on the sharp contrast between jolly, syncretic melodies and menacing trap cadences".  Media outlets reported that a number of listeners accused Gambino of plagiarism over "This Is America", pointing out the similarities between the song and "American Pharaoh" by Jase Harley. CBS News stated, "The tracks have a similar sound, and share similar themes in the lyrics." Harley stated that he felt "This Is America" was influenced by his song, but that he does not have an issue with it. Glover's manager, Fam Rothstein, denied any plagiarism.

Music video.

The music video was directed by Hiro Murai and released on YouTube simultaneously with Gambino's performance of the song on "Saturday Night Live". The video received about 12.9 million views in 24 hours, and has over 680 million views as of June 2020. In an interview with the "New York Times", Murai discussed his upcoming season for "Atlanta", a show involving Gambino. He stated, "There's sort of a world-weariness in both this season and the music video. They're both reactions to what's happening in the world."  The video contains many scenes involving violence. It starts off with a shirtless Gambino dancing through a warehouse, interacting with a series of chaotic scenes. According to Murai, the video was inspired by the films "Mother!" and "City of God". Prettyman states "The video tests us, taunting us to keep pace as we try to decode every gesture and calculation". Choreographed by Sherrie Silver, Gambino and his entourage of young dancers perform several viral dance moves including the South African Gwara Gwara and "Shoot" popularized by BlocBoy JB, who is one of the ad-lib contributors on the song. Gambino's dancing is contrasted against moments of violence. Only 53 seconds into the video, Gambino shoots a man in the back of the head with a handgun, while assuming a comical stance similar to a Jim Crow caricature. The first person depicted as being shot in the video, a guitarist who had been accompanying Gambino's singing up to that point, was musician Calvin the Second, but was initially mistaken by many viewers to be the father of 17-year-old gun violence victim Trayvon Martin. This first shooting also marks a transition in the music, from an African "folk-inspired melody" to "dark, pulsing trap".  At a later point, Childish Gambino uses a Kalashnikov patterned automatic weapon to gun down a church choir, which viewers have interpreted as a reference to the 2015 Charleston church shooting. In both instances, a child appears from off-screen holding a red cloth, on which Gambino gently lays the weapon used, while the bodies are simply dragged away, which viewers have interpreted "as a reference to Americans' willingness to protect gun rights over people". In one of the moves during dancing, Gambino positions his arms in a way that a person threatening people with a gun would, music stops and people run away in fear, after which Gambino smokes a cigarette. Scenes also involved children using their cell phones to record the chaos happening in the video, while Gambino sings the lyrics "This a celly / That's a tool". Martha Tesema, writer for website Mashable, stated that "cell phones have been used as tools to broadcast police shooting, rioting against, or choking black people in this country". Throughout the video, numerous vehicles from several decades ago are featured, many of them with their hazard lights flashing and the driver's side door ajar, which critics interpreted as representing fatal police shootings during traffic stops, particularly the shooting of Philando Castile, who was shot while in a 1997 Oldsmobile; others have interpreted that the older model cars represent the relative lack of upward mobility of African Americans. American singer SZA makes a cameo appearance towards the end of the video, seated atop one of these vehicles. The video ends with Gambino in a darkened portion of the warehouse, fearfully running towards the camera while being chased by several white people. Viewers have said this resembles scenes from the 2017 film "Get Out".  The dance moves were based on various African dances such as Angolan gyrations, the Ghanaian alkaidya and the Azonto, as well as the Nigerian Ashoko and the South African gwara gwara.

Critical reception.

Spencer Kornhaber of "The Atlantic" described the initial reaction on Twitter as "a gushing river of well-deserved praise" and the video as "the most talked-about music video of recent memory." Daniel Kreps of "Rolling Stone" commented that the video "is a surreal, visceral statement about gun violence in America". "Pitchfork" awarded the song the distinction of "Best New Track". "Billboard" critics ranked it 10th among the "greatest music videos of the 21st century." Mahita Gajanan of "Time" quoted music history professor Guthrie Ramsey at the University of Pennsylvania:  Will Gompertz, arts editor of the BBC, asserted that "This Is America" was a "powerful and poignant allegorical portrait of 21st Century America, which warrants a place among the canonical depictions of the USA from Grant Wood's "American Gothic" to Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks", from Emanuel Leutze's "Washington Crossing the Delaware" to "America the Beautiful" by Norman Lewis".  In December 2018, "Billboard" ranked "This Is America" as the 6th best song of the year.  The music video won the International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography Camerimage Award for Best Cinematography in a Music Video, as well as the Grammy Award for Best Music Video at the 61st Grammy Awards. It won more awards as shown below.

Cover versions and media appearances.

Glover hosted the May 5 episode of the 43rd season of "Saturday Night Live", and performed two new songs as Childish Gambino on the same episode, the second of which was "This Is America". Daniel Kaluuya, best known as the star of the film "Get Out" which the music video reportedly references, introduced the song's performance.  Several artists attracted attention and millions of views for creating covers of the song and music video with altered lyrics and themes, retaining the song's instrumental and the general structure of its music video. Nigerian rapper Falz released "This Is Nigeria" on May 25, highlighting the nation's issues with corruption and organized crime among others.  The music video also spawned popular Internet memes, particularly those in which the audio was replaced so that Childish Gambino appeared to be dancing in time to another song. Versions using Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" and Earth, Wind & Fire's "September" were some of the most viewed. The song is interpolated into a scene in the film "Guava Island".

Chart performance.

"This Is America" debuted at number one on the US "Billboard" Hot 100, becoming the 31st song to do so in the chart's history. It debuted with 78,000 downloads sold and 65.3 million US streams in the first week. Its music video accounted for 68% of the song's streaming total. "This Is America" is also Gambino's first top 10; he previously reached number 12 in August 2017 with "Redbone". "This Is America" overtook Drake's "Nice for What" from the top position for two weeks. Gambino is also the second Emmy Award-winning actor to reach number one on the Hot 100, the first being Justin Timberlake, who topped the chart with "Can't Stop the Feeling!" in 2016. It topped the Hot 100 for two weeks, and left the top ten after five weeks.

Credits and personnel.

Credits are adapted from Tidal.

"This Is America" is a song by American rapper Donald Glover, under his musical stage name Childish Gambino. Written by Glover, Ludwig Göransson, and Jeffery Lamar Williams, and produced by Glover and Göransson, it was released on May 5, 2018, at the same time that Gambino was hosting an episode of "Saturday Night Live". The song features background vocals by American rappers Young Thug (who also has writing credit as Williams), Slim Jxmmi of Rae Sremmurd, BlocBoy JB, Quavo of Migos, and 21 Savage. The song addresses the wider issue of gun violence in the United States, the high rate of mass shootings in the United States, along with longstanding racism and discrimination.

《这就是美国》(英语:This Is America)是美国说唱歌手幼稚冈比诺(即唐纳德·格洛沃)的一首歌曲。这首歌由唐纳德·格洛沃、路德维希·约兰松、杰弗里·拉马尔·威廉斯所写,其中前两者负责制作。2018年5月5日,冈比诺主持当日的周六夜现场,并在同日发行了这首歌曲。美国说唱歌手扬·萨格(也署名威廉斯参与了歌曲的创作)、雷·什里默德组合中的斯利姆·吉米(英语:Slim Jxmmi)、BlocBoy JB、Quavo和21·萨维奇均以背景人声的角色客串了这首歌曲。这首歌广泛地探讨了美国社会问题,例如枪支暴力问题、居高不下的大规模枪击事件发生率以及非裔美国人长期以来遭受的种族歧视。随这首歌发行的音乐录影带由常常与冈比诺合作的电影制片人村井广执导。RCA唱片公司称,这首歌并非冈比诺将发行的下张录音室专辑的首支单曲。