Early life and education.

Patricia Ann Soul was born September 22, 1940. She studied painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art and worked at the Fat Black Pussycat Cafe on Minetta Lane in New York City.

Career.

Soul later worked as a barmaid at Martick's (later Martick's Restaurant Francais), a bistro run by Morris Martick on Mulberry Street in Baltimore. Here, she also worked as an artist's model. Her role in Baltimore was compared with Paris' Kiki de Montparnasse. Starting November 4, 1966, Martick's hosted "The Maelcum Show" with 25 art works of her nude, created by different artists, including her husband Dudley Grant with various styles and mediums. Some pieces were made of stained glass and cardboard cutouts. During her life, most "young-Turk" artists of Baltimore used Soul as a model. Earl Hofmann painted her as a surrealistic giant towering over Baltimore. In response to the exhibit, Soul reported "It’s very funny to see 25 of yous staring at you. It's a happy things, a fun thing, I feel like it’s my birthday."  John Waters called Maelcum Soul “my first star”, adding "she was ahead of her time". She was known for her wild looks, with burnt red hair, white chalk makeup, and very long eyelashes. Waters said she scared everyone, including him, but he loved her. She starred in his first Dreamland-produced movie, "Roman Candles", as the Governess. For Waters' next movie, "Dorothy, the Kansas City Pothead", she was to play the Wicked Witch, but very little was shot and the project was abandoned. The third movie she was in was "Roman Candles" as the Smoking Nun. Waters said that she was a "big influence" on him, Divine, and his makeup artist, Van Smith.

Artistry.

The name, Maelcum Soul, is of Czechoslovakian origin. She is described as bohemian "in both the old-baltimore and art-world sense of the word." Soul was reportedly considered the "Alice Prin" of Baltimore. She was known for dyeing her hair an "iron-ore red" and wearing heavy eyeliner and "hip haberdashery" drawing from the style of the Berlin cabarets of Weimar Republic.

Personal life.

Soul married Maryland Art Institute student Dudley Gray. She lived in Baltimore and New York City. Soul was described by John Waters as a bohemian. In 1968, she died from a drug overdose. She is buried in Bohemian National Cemetery in Baltimore.

Legacy.

Posthumously, "The Evening Sun" reported that despite a short and "busy" life, Soul achieved "a certain fame." She became "...semilegendary among younger admirers of the beat generation. A dozen artists painted her." Soul has been described as a "fabled starlet."

Patricia Ann Soul (September 22, 1940 – April 5, 1968), known professionally as Maelcum Soul, was an American bartender, artist's model, and actress. In the 1960s, she portrayed leading characters in two of filmmaker John Waters' earliest works, "Roman Candles" and "Eat Your Makeup".


Brain location.

In the adult mammalian brain, the subgranular zone in the hippocampal dentate gyrus, the subventricular zone around the lateral ventricles and the hypothalamus (precisely in the dorsal α1, α2 region and the "hypothalamic proliferative region”, located in the adjacent median eminence) have been reported to contain neural stem cell.

Development.

"In vivo" origin.

There are two basic types of stem cell: adult stem cells, which are limited in their ability to differentiate, and embryonic stem cells (ESCs), which are pluripotent and have the capability of differentiating into any cell type.  Neural stem cells are more specialized than ESCs because they only generate radial glial cells that give rise to the neurons and to glia of the central nervous system (CNS). During the embryonic development of vertebrates, NSCs transition into radial glial cells (RGCs) also known as radial glial progenitor cells, (RGPs) and reside in a transient zone called the ventricular zone (VZ). Neurons are generated in large numbers by (RGPs) during a specific period of embryonic development through the process of neurogenesis, and continue to be generated in adult life in restricted regions of the adult brain. Adult NSCs differentiate into new neurons within the adult subventricular zone (SVZ), a remnant of the embryonic germinal neuroepithelium, as well as the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus.

"In vitro" origin.

Adult NSCs were first isolated from mouse striatum in the early 1990s. They are capable of forming multipotent neurospheres when cultured "in vitro". Neurospheres can produce self-renewing and proliferating specialized cells. These neurospheres can differentiate to form the specified neurons, glial cells, and oligodendrocytes. In previous studies, cultured neurospheres have been transplanted into the brains of immunodeficient neonatal mice and have shown engraftment, proliferation, and neural differentiation.

Communication and migration.

NSCs are stimulated to begin differentiation via exogenous cues from the microenvironment, or stem cell niche. Some neural cells are migrated from the SVZ along the rostral migratory stream which contains a marrow-like structure with ependymal cells and astrocytes when stimulated. The ependymal cells and astrocytes form glial tubes used by migrating neuroblasts. The astrocytes in the tubes provide support for the migrating cells as well as insulation from electrical and chemical signals released from surrounding cells. The astrocytes are the primary precursors for rapid cell amplification. The neuroblasts form tight chains and migrate towards the specified site of cell damage to repair or replace neural cells. One example is a neuroblast migrating towards the olfactory bulb to differentiate into periglomercular or granule neurons which have a radial migration pattern rather than a tangential one.

Aging.

Neural stem cell proliferation declines as a consequence of aging. Various approaches have been taken to counteract this age-related decline. Because FOX proteins regulate neural stem cell homeostasis, FOX proteins have been used to protect neural stem cells by inhibiting Wnt signaling.

Function.

Epidermal growth factor (EGF) and fibroblast growth factor (FGF) are mitogens that promote neural progenitor and stem cell growth "in vitro", though other factors synthesized by the neural progenitor and stem cell populations are also required for optimal growth. It is hypothesized that neurogenesis in the adult brain originates from NSCs. The origin and identity of NSCs in the adult brain remain to be defined.

During differentiation.

The most widely accepted model of an adult NSC is a radial, glial fibrillary acidic protein-positive cell. Quiescent stem cells are Type B that are able to remain in the quiescent state due to the renewable tissue provided by the specific niches composed of blood vessels, astrocytes, microglia, ependymal cells, and extracellular matrix present within the brain. These niches provide nourishment, structural support, and protection for the stem cells until they are activated by external stimuli. Once activated, the Type B cells develop into Type C cells, active proliferating intermediate cells, which then divide into neuroblasts consisting of Type A cells. The undifferentiated neuroblasts form chains that migrate and develop into mature neurons. In the olfactory bulb, they mature into GABAergic granule neurons, while in the hippocampus they mature into dentate granule cells.

Epigenetic modification.

Epigenetic modifications are important regulators of gene expression in differentiating neural stem cells. Key epigenetic modifications include DNA cytosine methylation to form 5-methylcytosine and 5-methylcytosine demethylation. These types of modification are critical for cell fate determination in the developing and adult mammalian brain.  DNA cytosine methylation is catalyzed by DNA methyltransferases (DNMTs). Methylcytosine demethylation is catalyzed in several distinct steps by TET enzymes that carry out oxidative reactions (e.g. 5-methylcytosine to 5-hydroxymethylcytosine) and enzymes of the DNA base excision repair (BER) pathway.

During disease.

NSCs have an important role during development producing the enormous diversity of neurons, astrocytes and oligodendrocytes in the developing CNS. They also have important role in adult animals, for instance in learning and hippocampal plasticity in the adult mice in addition to supplying neurons to the olfactory bulb in mice.  Notably the role of NSCs during diseases is now being elucidated by several research groups around the world. The responses during stroke, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson's disease in animal models and humans is part of the current investigation. The results of this ongoing investigation may have future applications to treat human neurological diseases.  Neural stem cells have been shown to engage in migration and replacement of dying neurons in classical experiments performed by Sanjay Magavi and Jeffrey Macklis. Using a laser-induced damage of cortical layers, Magavi showed that SVZ neural progenitors expressing Doublecortin, a critical molecule for migration of neuroblasts, migrated long distances to the area of damage and differentiated into mature neurons expressing NeuN marker. In addition Masato Nakafuku's group from Japan showed for the first time the role of hippocampal stem cells during stroke in mice. These results demonstrated that NSCs can engage in the adult brain as a result of injury. Furthermore, in 2004 Evan Y. Snyder's group showed that NSCs migrate to brain tumors in a directed fashion. Jaime Imitola, M.D and colleagues from Harvard demonstrated for the first time, a molecular mechanism for the responses of NSCs to injury. They showed that chemokines released during injury such as SDF-1a were responsible for the directed migration of human and mouse NSCs to areas of injury in mice. Since then other molecules have been found to participate in the responses of NSCs to injury. All these results have been widely reproduced and expanded by other investigators joining the classical work of Richard L. Sidman in autoradiography to visualize neurogenesis during development, and neurogenesis in the adult by Joseph Altman in the 1960s, as evidence of the responses of adult NSCs activities and neurogenesis during homeostasis and injury.  The search for additional mechanisms that operate in the injury environment and how they influence the responses of NSCs during acute and chronic disease is matter of intense research.

Research.

Regenerative therapy of the CNS.

Cell death is a characteristic of acute CNS disorders as well as neurodegenerative disease. The loss of cells is amplified by the lack of regenerative abilities for cell replacement and repair in the CNS. One way to circumvent this is to use cell replacement therapy via regenerative NSCs. NSCs can be cultured "in vitro" as neurospheres. These neurospheres are composed of neural stem cells and progenitors (NSPCs) with growth factors such as EGF and FGF. The withdrawal of these growth factors activate differentiation into neurons, astrocytes, or oligodendrocytes which can be transplanted within the brain at the site of injury. The benefits of this therapeutic approach have been examined in Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, and multiple sclerosis. NSPCs induce neural repair via intrinsic properties of neuroprotection and immunomodulation. Some possible routes of transplantation include intracerebral transplantation and xenotransplantation.  An alternative therapeutic approach to the transplantation of NSPCs is the pharmacological activation of endogenous NSPCs (eNSPCs). Activated eNSPCs produce neurotrophic factors, several treatments that activate a pathway that involves the phosphorylation of STAT3 on the serine residue and subsequent elevation of Hes3 expression (STAT3-Ser/Hes3 Signaling Axis) oppose neuronal death and disease progression in models of neurological disorder.

Generation of 3D "in vitro" models of the human CNS.

Human midbrain-derived neural progenitor cells (hmNPCs) have the ability to differentiate down multiple neural cell lineages that lead to neurospheres as well as multiple neural phenotypes. The hmNPC can be used to develop a 3D "in vitro" model of the human CNS. There are two ways to culture the hmNPCs, the adherent monolayer and the neurosphere culture systems. The neurosphere culture system has previously been used to isolate and expand CNS stem cells by its ability to aggregate and proliferate hmNPCs under serum-free media conditions as well as with the presence of epidermal growth factor (EGF) and fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF2). Initially, the hmNPCs were isolated and expanded before performing a 2D differentiation which was used to produce a single-cell suspension. This single-cell suspension helped achieve a homogenous 3D structure of uniform aggregate size. The 3D aggregation formed neurospheres which was used to form an "in vitro" 3D CNS model.

Bioactive scaffolds as traumatic brain injury treatment.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) can deform the brain tissue, leading to necrosis primary damage which can then cascade and activate secondary damage such as excitotoxicity, inflammation, ischemia, and the breakdown of the blood-brain-barrier. Damage can escalate and eventually lead to apoptosis or cell death. Current treatments focus on preventing further damage by stabilizing bleeding, decreasing intracranial pressure and inflammation, and inhibiting pro-apoptotic cascades. In order to repair TBI damage, an upcoming therapeutic option involves the use of NSCs derived from the embryonic peri-ventricular region. Stem cells can be cultured in a favorable 3-dimensional, low cytotoxic environment, a hydrogel, that will increase NSC survival when injected into TBI patients. The intracerebrally injected, primed NSCs were seen to migrate to damaged tissue and differentiate into oligodendrocytes or neuronal cells that secreted neuroprotective factors.

Galectin-1 in neural stem cells.

Galectin-1 is expressed in adult NSCs and has been shown to have a physiological role in the treatment of neurological disorders in animal models. There are two approaches to using NSCs as a therapeutic treatment: (1) stimulate intrinsic NSCs to promote proliferation in order to replace injured tissue, and (2) transplant NSCs into the damaged brain area in order to allow the NSCs to restore the tissue. Lentivirus vectors were used to infect human NSCs (hNSCs) with Galectin-1 which were later transplanted into the damaged tissue. The hGal-1-hNSCs induced better and faster brain recovery of the injured tissue as well as a reduction in motor and sensory deficits as compared to only hNSC transplantation.

Assays.

Neural stem cells are routinely studied "in vitro" using a method referred to as the Neurosphere Assay (or Neurosphere culture system), first developed by Reynolds and Weiss. Neurospheres are intrinsically heterogeneous cellular entities almost entirely formed by a small fraction (1 to 5%) of slowly dividing neural stem cells and by their progeny, a population of fast-dividing nestin-positive progenitor cells. The total number of these progenitors determines the size of a neurosphere and, as a result, disparities in sphere size within different neurosphere populations may reflect alterations in the proliferation, survival and/or differentiation status of their neural progenitors. Indeed, it has been reported that loss of β1-integrin in a neurosphere culture does not significantly affect the capacity of β1-integrin deficient stem cells to form new neurospheres, but it influences the size of the neurosphere: β1-integrin deficient neurospheres were overall smaller due to increased cell death and reduced proliferation.  While the Neurosphere Assay has been the method of choice for isolation, expansion and even the enumeration of neural stem and progenitor cells, several recent publications have highlighted some of the limitations of the neurosphere culture system as a method for determining neural stem cell frequencies. In collaboration with Reynolds, STEMCELL Technologies has developed a collagen-based assay, called the Neural Colony-Forming Cell (NCFC) Assay, for the quantification of neural stem cells. Importantly, this assay allows discrimination between neural stem and progenitor cells.

History.

The first evidence that neurogenesis occurs in certain regions of the adult mammalian brain came from [3H]-thymidine labeling studies conducted by Altman and Das in 1965 which showed postnatal hippocampal neurogenesis in young rats. In 1989, Sally Temple described multipotent, self-renewing progenitor and stem cells in the subventricular zone (SVZ) of the mouse brain. In 1992, Brent A. Reynolds and Samuel Weiss were the first to isolate neural progenitor and stem cells from the adult striatal tissue, including the SVZ — one of the neurogenic areas — of adult mice brain tissue. In the same year the team of Constance Cepko and Evan Y. Snyder were the first to isolate multipotent cells from the mouse cerebellum and stably transfected them with the oncogene v-myc. This molecule is one of the genes widely used now to reprogram adult non-stem cells into pluripotent stem cells. Since then, neural progenitor and stem cells have been isolated from various areas of the adult central nervous system, including non-neurogenic areas, such as the spinal cord, and from various species including humans.  Intensity-modulated radiation to spare neural stem cells in brain tumors: a computational platform for evaluation of physical and biological dose metrics.

References.

Jaganathan A, Tiwari M, Phansekar R, Panta R, Huilgol N.

Neural stem cells (NSCs) are self-renewing, multipotent cells that firstly generate the radial glial progenitor cells that generate the neurons and glia of the nervous system of all animals during embryonic development. Some neural progenitor stem cells persist in highly restricted regions in the adult vertebrate brain and continue to produce neurons throughout life.


Background.

According to an interview Kate Bush gave to the Australian TV series "Countdown" in 1980, the song chronicles a wife's desire to test her husband's loyalty. To do so, she takes on the "nom de plume" of Babooshka and sends notes to her husband in the guise of a younger woman—something which she fears is the opposite of how her husband currently sees her (hence the barbed lines "Just like his wife before she "freezed" on him/Just like his wife when she was beautiful".)  The trap is set when, in her bitterness and paranoia, Babooshka arranges to meet her husband, who is attracted to the character who reminds him of his wife in earlier times. She thereby ruins the relationship due to her paranoia.  Bush cited the English folk song Sovay, in which a woman dresses as a highwayman and accosts her lover in order to test his devotion, as an inspiration for the story of Babooshka. "I'm sure I heard about it on some TV series years ago, when I was a kid," Bush remarked of the song's story. "You know, these period things that the BBC do. I think it's an extraordinary thing for someone to do... That's why I found it fascinating."  The music video depicts Bush beside a double bass (contrabass) which symbolises the husband, wearing a black bodysuit and a veil in her role as the embittered wife. This changes into an extravagant, mythlike and rather sparse "Russian" costume as her alter-ego, Babooshka. An illustration by Chris Achilleos for the cover of the 1978 book "Raven - Swordsmistress of Chaos" was the basis for the costume.  The track features John Giblin on bass and marks the significance of fretless bass sounds as instrumental "male" partners through Kate's music in the early eighties.  The song ends with a sample of glass breaking, one of the earliest examples of a sample created with the newly-available Fairlight CMI digital synthesizer.  Kate Bush said that's "something I didn't realise at the time," when she learnt that "ба́бушка" (babushka) is the Russian word for "grandmother" (although the stress in Russian falls on the first syllable, not the second).  "Babooshka" became Bush's second top five hit in the UK and was certified silver for sales of over 250,000 by the BPI. "Babooshka" reached number five in France and went on to sell 547,000 copies, thus becoming 465th best-selling single of all time there.  The B-side contains her song "Ran Tan Waltz", her second non-album B-side. This song is performed as a tragicomedy, where Bush portrays a man bemoaning his bad luck in life being married to a wayward mother. This song uses the word "dick" in the first verse as cacophemism for a penis. Bush has stated that she doesn't typically use such harsh language or write such sexually explicit material, but that she considered the song "good naughty fun."

"Babooshka" is a song by English singer Kate Bush, taken from her album "Never for Ever". Released as a single in June 1980, it spent 10 weeks in the UK chart, peaking at number five. It was an even bigger hit in Australia, where it peaked at number two and was the 20th best-selling single of the year.


History.

Rugby union within the "BSV 92" club begun in 1936, the year of the Olympic games in Berlin and the tournament there. The rugby department of Tennis Borussia Berlin, having existed for just eight years and won five Berlin championships in this time, collectively left the club to join "BSV". The reasons for the move were the lack of support the rugby players got at "Tennis Borussia" and the fact that most players lived closer to "BSV", which was based in Wilmersdorf, while "Tennis Borussia" had their playing fields in Niederschönhausen.  The club provided a conveniently located playing field at "Lochowdamm" for the rugby players, who were led by Paul König. The new department continued its dominance in the Berlin championship, winning it once more in 1937 and providing the core to Berlin selection teams out of the eight rugby clubs in the city in the years before the war.  With Erwin Thiesies and "Jonny" Richter, the club provided two players to the team that achieved Germanys last rugby victory over France, a 3-0 on 27 March 1938 in Frankfurt am Main.  The Second World War brought an end to Berlin as a centre of German rugby and "BSV 92" lost many of its players during the war. It nevertheless resumed play, temporarily under the name of "SG Wilmersdorf", after the war, winning two more Berlin championships, in 1947 and 1948 before being restored to its old name in 1949.  The club's greatest moment came in 1948, when it reached the first post-Second World War final of the German rugby union championship, which it lost 0-30 to TSV Victoria Linden. It also marked the last appearance of a club from Berlin in the German final for over 40 years, until 1989, when the Berliner RC lost to the same club.  Post-war rugby in Berlin mainly survived through the help of the allied occupation forces and the building of the Berlin wall in 1961 made playing the sport in the city even harder, cutting off many players in the now separate parts of the city. "BSV" continued to be a successful side in Berlin until 1956, winning all but the 1955 championship during this time, but none after that.  In 1965, the club suffered another blow when it lost many of its players associated with the local police to a new rugby department at the police sport club. The club managed to compensate for this loss in the early 1970s by developing a successful youth department.  "BSV 92" was not part of the new Rugby-Bundesliga, formed in 1971 and remained in local competitions instead. It reached national level however in 2007, when it earned promotion to the 2nd Rugby-Bundesliga North/East, the second tier of German rugby. At this level, the club lasted for two seasons before returning to the tier-three Rugby-Regionalliga in 2009, where it played for two seasons. After a second place and the league champions, RK 03 Berlin II, declining promotion, BSV moved back up instead.  A league reform in 2012 allowed the club promotion to the Bundesliga as the league was expanded from ten to 24 teams. BSV 92 finished fourth in their group in the 2012-13 season and qualified for the north/east division of the championship round, where it came eighth. The club opted to not play their first round play-off match, citing player shortage, and was thereby knocked out of the championship with the game awarded 50-0 to the opposition.  The club qualified for the championship round once more in 2013–14 but missed out on the play-offs after finishing seventh in its division. In the 2014–15 season the club finished fourth in the north-east DRV-Pokal group and was knocked out by RC Rottweil in the quarter finals of the play-offs after a first round victory over TGS Hausen. For the 2015–16 season the club dropped back to the tier three Rugby-Regionalliga.

Recent seasons.

Recent seasons of the club:

The Berliner SV 92 Rugby is a German rugby union from Berlin, currently playing in the Rugby-Bundesliga. It is part of a larger club, the Berliner SV 92, which also offers other sports like association football, baseball and basketball.


History.

Nichimen.

Beginning around 1878, the Japanese government promoted the development of cotton spinning as an initial means of developing modern industry in Japan in the wake of the Meiji Restoration. Japan's native raw cotton supply proved inadequate to meet demand, and there was only one Japanese importer of raw cotton at the time, making the industry highly reliant on foreign merchants. To improve this situation, a group of spinning companies established in Osaka in 1892 under the leadership of Tsuneki Sano, a 38-year-old former government official.  After the Russo-Japanese War, Nichimen expanded its business from importing. The company began cotton spinning operations in the Kwantung Leased Territory and established offices in China, Korea, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom to supply local markets. In 1910, Nichimen opened a subsidiary in Fort Worth, Texas to enter the raw cotton trade in the United States. World War I strained cotton supply in Europe, boosting Nichimen's international business further. In the late 1910s the company expanded into South America and Africa, trading in cotton as well as wool, food products, and machinery.  The Great Depression harmed Nichimen's cotton business, spurring the company's diversification beyond cotton to trade in silk, rayon and other materials. During World War II, Nichimen was tapped by the Japanese military to manage production of flour, matches and starch. The company changed its name to Nichimen Enterprise (Nichimen Jitsugyo) in 1943 to reflect its more diverse business.  The largest "zaibatsu" trading companies were dismantled after the war, giving Nichimen an early lead among the "sogo shosha" in the 1950s and a six percent share of Japanese foreign trade by 1958. Nichimen became closely affiliated with Osaka-based Sanwa Bank in 1955, which financed all of Nichimen's domestic business. Nichimen was not the main trading company for the Sanwa "keiretsu" as that position was already held by Iwai & Co. Nichimen Jitsugyo. By 1970, Nichimen was trading in steel, electronics, motor vehicles and fibers in addition to textiles. Nichimen served as the joint venture partner for Nabisco when it began operations in Japan in the 1970s. Nichimen Co., Ltd. changed its name to Nichimen Corporation in 1982. Nichimen, like other "sogo shosha", was hit hard by the collapse of the Japanese asset price bubble in the early 1990s, and subsequently made a strategic shift from the "soft" businesses of lumber, food, and chemicals trading to the "hard" businesses of machinery, steel, and construction.

Nissho Iwai.

Nissho Iwai was formed in 1968 by the merger of Nissho Company and Iwai Sangyo Company.  Nissho Company was founded in Kobe in 1902 as Suzuki & Company under the leadership of Iwajiro Suzuki and Naokichi Kaneko. Suzuki was originally a sugar trading firm but later diversified into flour, steel, tobacco, beer, insurance, shipping and shipbuilding; it became the second Japanese member of the Baltic Exchange in London. Iwai & Company was founded as a steel trading firm in 1901 and established a number of prominent group enterprises including Daicel, Nisshin Steel, Tokuyama Soda, Kansai Paint and Fuji Photo Film. It changed its name to Iwai Sangyo Company in 1943.  Both Nissho and Iwai emerged as metals and machinery trading companies after World War II but were significantly smaller than the four largest "sogo shosha" competitors (Mitsubishi Corporation, Mitsui & Co., Itochu and Marubeni). Iwai was poorly managed after the war and was on the brink of failure in the early 1960s, while Nissho was profitable and successfully expanding overseas. The Japanese government directed the merger of the two companies in 1968, forming the fifth largest trading company in Japan (falling back to sixth place in 1972 behind Sumitomo Corporation). Sanwa Bank played a role in the merger and the combined firm became the trading arm of the Sanwa Group "keiretsu".  Nissho Iwai was involved in a corruption scandal in 1979 after it passed on a 500 million yen bribe from McDonnell Douglas to the director general of the Japan Defense Agency in an attempt to influence the sale of F-4 Phantom aircraft to the Japan Air Self-Defense Force. In the wake of the scandal, one Nissho Iwai executive committed suicide by jumping from the company's headquarters building. The scandal was uncovered only three years after a similar scandal involving Lockheed and Marubeni conspiring to bribe Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka.  In subsequent years, the company had a strong focus on liquefied natural gas and steel trading, as well as industrial project development.

Merger.

Nichimen and Nissho Iwai consolidated on a holding company level in 2003 and consolidated their operating units in 2004, adopting the Sojitz name at that time. The merged holding company, Sojitz Holdings, combined with the merged operating company, Sojitz Corporation, in 2005.

Current operations.

Today, the Sojitz Group consists of approximately 440 subsidiaries and affiliates located in Japan and throughout the world, and it is developing its wide-ranging general trading company operations in roughly 50 countries and regions across the globe.  Sojitz (through its subsidiary "Sojitz Aerospace Company") is the largest seller of commercial aircraft in Japan, as it acts as a sales agent for both Boeing and Bombardier Aerospace. It distributes Mitsubishi Motors and Hyundai Motors automobiles in various countries, and also develops and operates power plants, industrial plants in various countries. In 2013 it received an order to develop a section of the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor between Delhi and Mumbai in India. The Sojitz Aerospace Company also acts as Sojitz's primary arm for defense related business.  Sojitz owns oil and natural gas concessions in the North Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Qatar, Gabon, Egypt and Brazil. It owns most of the Minerva Coal Mine in Australia and distributes nuclear fuel in Japan for Orano.  Its operations in the chemicals sector include methanol production in Indonesia, barite mining in Mexico and industrial salt trading in various markets worldwide. In November 2010, it signed an agreement with the Australian rare earths mining company Lynas to import $350 million worth of rare earth minerals from Lynas' mine in Mount Weld, Australia.  Its consumer business operations include trading in grains, feed, sugar, coffee, fish, wood and paper. It owns the Japanese rights to several consumer brands such as Eastpak and McGregor.

ADV Films acquisition.

In June 2006, Sojitz acquired American anime distributor ADV Films. This was done as a means of acquiring more titles in the Japanese market. From this point on, virtually all titles that ADV acquired were with Sojitz's help. However, in January 2008, ADV mysteriously removed a large number of titles from their website. All the titles removed were titles acquired since the Sojitz collaboration including "Gurren Lagann", which had test disks sent out with dubbed episodes. As of May 2008, "Gurren Lagann" was licensed by Bandai Entertainment. ADV Films made booth appearances at the Anime Central 2008 convention, but they canceled their planned panel. In July 2008, Funimation announced the acquisition of thirty of these titles.  The titles removed from ADV's website are as follows: "009-1", "5 Centimeters per Second", "", both the film and television adaptions of the Key visual novel "Air", "Best Student Council", "Blade of the Phantom Master", "Comic Party Revolution", "Coyote Ragtime Show", "", the 2006 live-action horror film "Ghost Train", "", "Innocent Venus", "", "", the 2006 anime remake of yet another Key visual novel, "Kanon", "", "Le Chevalier D'Eon", "Magikano", "Moeyo Ken", "Moonlight Mile", "Nerima Daikon Brothers", "Pani Poni Dash!", "Project Blue Earth SOS", "Pumpkin Scissors", "Red Garden", "Tokyo Majin", "UFO Princess Valkyrie", the first anime of "Utawarerumono", "Venus vs. Virus", "The Wallflower", "Welcome to the NHK", and "".

Sojitz was formed in 2004 by the merger of and. The name "Sojitz" is derived from the names of Nissho Iwai and Nichimen, both of which include the character "日" (sun). "Sojitz", literally meaning "twin suns", implies a merger of equals between the two companies. The corporate logo is a stylized version of the first character in its Japanese name.


System architectures.

Desktop virtualization implementations are classified based on whether the virtual desktop runs remotely or locally, on whether the access is required to be constant or is designed to be intermittent, and on whether or not the virtual desktop persists between sessions. Typically, software products that deliver desktop virtualization solutions can combine local and remote implementations into a single product to provide the most appropriate support specific to requirements. The degrees of independent functionality of the client device is necessarily interdependent with the server location and access strategy. And virtualization is not strictly required for remote control to exist. Virtualization is employed to present independent instances to multiple users and requires a strategic segmentation of the host server and presentation at some layer of the host's architecture. The enabling layer—usually application software—is called a hypervisor.

Remote desktop virtualization.

Remote desktop virtualization implementations operate in a client/server computing environment. Application execution takes place on a remote operating system which communicates with the local client device over a network using a remote display protocol through which the user interacts with applications. All applications and data used remain on the remote system with only display, keyboard, and mouse information communicated with the local client device, which may be a conventional PC/laptop, a thin client device, a tablet, or even a smartphone. A common implementation of this approach involves hosting multiple desktop operating system instances on a server hardware platform running a hypervisor. This is derivative of the earlier Multiwin Engine developed by Citrix under license from Microsoft. Its latest iteration is generally referred to as "Virtual Desktop Infrastructure", or "VDI". (Note that "VDI" is often used incorrectly to refer to any desktop virtualization implementation.). Forrester Research identified in its report the Forrester Wave on Server-Hosted Virtual Desktops (VDI), Q3 2015 the seven most significant software providers: Citrix (XenDesktop), Dell (Quest – EOL), LISTEQ, Microsoft (Hyper-V), Nimboxx (VERDE – now part of NComputing), Oracle (VirtualBox), and VMware (Horizon View).  Remote desktop virtualization is frequently used in the following scenarios:  It is also used as a means of providing access to Windows applications on non-Windows endpoints (including tablets, smartphones, and non-Windows-based desktop PCs and laptops).  Remote desktop virtualization can also provide a means of resource sharing, to distribute low-cost desktop computing services in environments where providing every user with a dedicated desktop PC is either too expensive or otherwise unnecessary.  For IT administrators, this means a more centralized, efficient client environment that is easier to maintain and able to respond more quickly to the changing needs of the user and business.

Presentation virtualization.

Remote Desktop Services (formerly called "Terminal Services") is a server-based computing/presentation virtualization component of Microsoft Windows that allows a user to access applications and data on a remote computer over a network using a remote-display protocol called RDP. Another example of presentation virtualization is Citrix XenApp. A VDI service provides individual desktop operating system instances (e.g., Windows XP, 7, 8.1, 10, etc.) for each user, whereas Remote Desktop Services sessions run in a single shared-server operating system (e.g., Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, etc.). Both session collections and virtual machines support full desktop based sessions and RemoteApp deployment.  The use of a single shared-server operating system instead of individual desktop operating system instances consumes significantly fewer resources than the same number of VDI sessions. At the same time, VDI licensing is both more expensive and less flexible than equivalent Remote Desktop Services licenses. Together, these factors can combine to make Remote Desktop Services-based remote desktop virtualization more attractive than VDI.  VDI implementations allow for delivering personalized workspace back to a user, which retains all the user's customizations. There are several methods to accomplish this.

Application virtualization.

Application virtualization improves delivery and compatibility of applications by encapsulating them from the underlying operating system on which they are executed. A fully virtualized application is not installed on hardware in the traditional sense. Instead, a hypervisor layer intercepts the application, which at runtime acts as if it is interfacing with the original operating system and all the resources managed by it when in reality it is not.

User virtualization.

User virtualization separates all of the software aspects that define a user’s personality on a device from the operating system and applications to be managed independently and applied to a desktop as needed without the need for scripting, group policies, or use of roaming profiles. The term "user virtualization" sounds misleading; this technology is not limited to virtual desktops. User virtualization can be used regardless of platform – physical, virtual, cloud, etc. The major desktop virtualization platform vendors, Citrix, Microsoft and VMware, all offer a form of basic user virtualization in their platforms.

Layering.

Desktop layering is a method of desktop virtualization that divides a disk image into logical parts to be managed individually. For example, if all members of a user group use the same OS, then the core OS only needs to be backed up once for the entire environment who share this layer. Layering can be applied to local physical disk images, client-based virtual machines, or host-based desktops. Windows operating systems are not designed for layering, therefore each vendor must engineer their own proprietary solution.

Desktop as a service.

Remote desktop virtualization can also be provided via cloud computing similar to that provided using a software as a service model. This approach is usually referred to as cloud-hosted virtual desktops. Cloud-hosted virtual desktops are divided into two technologies:  Cloud-hosted virtual desktops can be implemented using both VDI and Remote Desktop Services-based systems and can be provided through the public cloud, private cloud infrastructure, and hybrid cloud platforms. Private cloud implementations are commonly referred to as "managed VDI". Public cloud offerings tend to be based on desktop-as-a-service technology.

Local desktop virtualization.

Local desktop virtualization implementations run the desktop environment on the client device using hardware virtualization or emulation. For hardware virtualization, depending on the implementation both Type I and Type II hypervisors may be used.  Local desktop virtualization is well suited for environments where continuous network connectivity cannot be assumed and where application resource requirements can be better met by using local system resources. However, local desktop virtualization implementations do not always allow applications developed for one system architecture to run on another. For example, it is possible to use local desktop virtualization to run Windows 7 on top of OS X on an Intel-based Apple Mac, using a hypervisor such as VirtualBox, Parallels Desktop for Mac, or VMware Fusion, as both use the same x86 architecture, and it was possible to run Windows on a PowerPC-based Mac using Virtual PC.

Desktop virtualization is a software technology that separates the desktop environment and associated application software from the physical client device that is used to access it.


MAYO and the birth of La Raza Unida Party.

The Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) was begun by five young men studying at St. Mary's University in 1967: Jose Angel Gutierrez, Mario Compean, William Velasquez, Ignacio Perez, and Juan Patlan. Jose Angel explained "All of us were the products of the traditional Mexican American organizations... All of us were very frustrated at the lack of political efficacy, at the lack of any broad based movement, and at the lack of expertise". Inspired by the Civil Rights Movement and by leaders like Martin Luther King Jr and black nationalists like Malcolm X, they reached the conclusion that the actions being taken by the leaders of the Chicano Movement were not doing enough to get results. They decided that they would halt the current approach being utilized by groups like LULAC and the American G. I. Forum, "which by the 1960s relied on litigation and support from sympathetic Anglos to achieve their goals". The five men decided that their new tactics would be much more confrontational, utilizing civil disobedience tactics used in the Civil Rights Movement. They decided to incorporate Saul Alinsky's model of confrontation politics: "And we said that was going to be the strategy[...] use confrontational politics based on information[...] well researched, but also foregoing the use of nice language". MAYO became dedicated to creating meaningful social change by relying on abrasing, confrontational (but nonviolent) measures. They protested, picketed, and spread their message through newspapers like "El Deguello, El Azteca,"and "La Revolucion""." Their tactics earned them criticisms both white and Mexican American political figures who felt that they were being too abrasive in their tactics. Jose Angel became targeted especially after comments he made where he called to "eliminate the gringo". While he elaborated to say that by gringo he meant "a person or institution that has a certain policy or program, or attitudes that reflect bigotry, racism, discord, prejudice, and violence", the damage was done. Despite attacks on all sides, MAYO continued to organize protests and boycotts, which is what ultimately led them to Crystal City.  The La Raza Unida Party started with simultaneous efforts throughout the U.S. Southwest. The most widely known and accepted story is that the La Raza Unida Party was established on January 17, 1970 at a meeting of some three hundred Mexican-Americans in Crystal City, Texas by José Ángel Gutiérrez and Mario Compean, who had also helped in the foundation of the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) in 1967. In Lubbock, the youth organization was headed by the journalist Bidal Aguero, who later worked in the Raza Unida Party. The party originated from a group called WOW, or Workmen of the World. Its original thirteen members included Alfredo Zamora, Jr., the first Chicano mayor of Cotulla, Texas, who unseated a member of the Cotulla family. A second Hispanic mayor followed, Arcenio A. Garcia, who was twenty-four at the time of his election, the youngest mayor then in Texas. Zamora left LaSalle County within two years and the next election in 1972 was won by Garcia under the Raza Unida party. Previously in December 1969, at the only national MAYO meeting, Chicano activists decided on the formation of that third party Raza Unida. This new party would focus on improving the economic, social and political aspects of the Chicano community throughout Texas. This party resulted in the election of the first 2 Mexican American Mayors in LaSalle County.  Following the victory of the RUP in municipal elections in Crystal City and Cotulla, the party grew and expanded to other states, especially California and Colorado. In Colorado the RUP worked closely with Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales and the Crusade For Justice based out of Denver. In California, the RUP spread throughout the state and held strong ground in the County of Los Angeles at one point with as many as 20 different chapters.  The novice city council was not very effective in implementing its goals and damaged the party's reputation in the short-term. The RUP, however, ran candidates for governor of Texas, Ramsey Muniz in 1972 and 1974 and Mario Compean of San Antonio in 1978. They petitioned the conservative Dr. Hector P. Garcia to run on the RUP ticket, but he declined. In 1972, they ran a candidate, Secundion Salazar, in a competitive U. S. Senate race in Colorado. Salazar received 1.4 percent of the vote, as victory went to the Democrat Floyd Haskell.  During the late 1970s the La Raza Unida Party decided to change tactics from a "get out the vote" organization to a more community based, grassroots, revolutionary nationalist format seeking the unity of all Chicanos, other Latinos, and Native Americans in the American Southwest, commonly called Aztlán. Xenaro Ayala was voted in as the national party chairman in 1978. The party held a second national convention in which Juan Jose Pena was elected chairman in 1980. However, the party was effectively eliminated from electoral politics after Compean's weak showing in 1978.  A reunion conference commemorating the 40th anniversary of the party was held from July 6 to 7, 2012, in the capital city of Austin. According to an organizer, the aging former members of the party wanted to get together for "el ultimo adios," or "one final goodbye". Attendees included José Ángel Gutiérrez and Mario Compean.

1972 Texas elections.

After initial successes where Chicanos were elected in the South Texas counties of Dimmit, La Salle, and Zavala, La Raza Unida Party decided to be more ambitious for the 1972 gubernatorial elections. The campaign run by La Raza Unida for the 1972 was extremely controversial because it was entirely racially based. The leaders of the party believed that change could only occur by ` shared by Mexican Americans. They also asserted that racism against Mexican Americans was so prolific that the entire political system would have to be reevaluated. Mario Compean, past spokesperson for La Raza Unida, said "Ours was a message of liberation from [...] a corrupt political system anchored on the twin pillars of racism and discrimination, on the one hand, and social subordination imposed by capitalism on the other". The candidate endorsed by La Raza Unida was an ex-Baylor football-player-turned-lawyer named Ramsey Muñiz. He was, at the time, a political unknown, who had been involved with MAYO since 1968 but not distinguished himself.  Muñiz ran an aggressive campaign, "everywhere he went he hammered away at both parties, although the Democrats, who controlled the state legislature and the governor's mansion, received the brunt of the criticism". In a speech at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, he said,  Ya basta. Raza Unida offers the people an alternative and the days of being led to the polls to vote straight ticket for these two other parties are over... if it is not done this year, it will come next year or the next... as long as there are Mexican Americans there will be persons to replace people like me"  Muñiz ran on a campaign devoted to improving education in Texas, developing multilingual and multicultural curriculums, equal funding for all school districts, for local school boards to proportionately reflect their communities, free early childhood education, and a number of other services. Despite his immense popularity and recognition in the state as one of the leading Mexican-American political figures, his fellow LRUP candidates fell short in attaining the same level of popularity. Despite obstacles, Muñiz campaigned tirelessly both in the state and outside – targeting areas with high numbers of migrant workers from Texas. Similar to campaigns run previously in Crystal City, La Raza Unida distributed massive amounts of buttons, stickers, and posters along with holding huge vote drives on election day in the barrios.  Ramsay Muñiz lost his bid for governor in the 1972 elections. He obtained 6.28 percent of the vote, Dolph Briscoe – the Democratic candidate – received 47.8 percent of the vote, and Republican Henry Grover received 45.08 percent. An estimated 18 percent of Mexican Americans who voted in the 1972 election voted for Ramsay Muñiz. He received very high voting rates in rural cities and counties with lower incomes[xiv]. He received 51 percent of the vote in Brooks County and 46 percent in Jim Hogg County. In the 15 Mexican American counties, he received 30,020 votes compared to Grover's 31,641, and the winning Democrat, Dolph Briscoe. who polled 60,697 votes. While they lost the gubernatorial election, La Raza Unida Party won fifteen local positions in several borderland counties: La Salle, Dimmit, Zavala, and Hidalgo. Despite this success in the 1972 election, it could not be replicated at the state level again. However, several counties in South Texas continued to see candidates elected by La Raza Unida for years after the 1972 election, until 1978, when the party broke apart.  Women played a growing role in the party in Texas in the 1970s, holding party offices at various levels and running as political candidates, as well as doing campaign work in many localities.  Political scientists have examined the 1972 gubernatorial race when La Raza Unida Party called for ethnic solidarity. There was deep alienation among Mexican Americans from Anglo-dominated politics. However, Mexican American support for LRUP was uneven across Texas and reflected differing levels of economic attainment and incorporation.

Crystal City indictments.

In 1976, eleven officials in Crystal City, Texas, were indicted on various counts. Angel Noe Gonzalez, the former Crystal City Independent School District superintendent who later worked in the United States Department of Education in Washington, D.C., upon his indictment retained the San Antonio lawyer and later mayor, Phil Hardberger. Gonzalez was charged with paying Adan Cantu for doing no work. Hardberger, however, documented to the court specific duties that Cantu had performed and disputed all the witnesses called against Cantu. The jury acquitted Gonzalez. Many newspapers reported on the indictments but not on the acquittal. John Luke Hill, the 1978 Democratic gubernatorial nominee, had sought to weaken RUP so that he would not lose general election votes to a third party candidate. Victory, however, went not to Hill but narrowly to his Republican rival, Bill Clements. Compean received only 15,000 votes, or 0.6 percent, just under Clements's 17,000-vote plurality over Hill.

The Raza Unida Party, officially Partido Nacional de La Raza Unida (translated as The National United People's Party. It was created in the early 1970s and became prominent throughout Texas and Southern California. It was started to combat growing inequality and dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party that was typically supported by Mexican-American voters. After its establishment in Texas, the party launched electoral campaigns in Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and California, though it only secured official party status for statewide races in Texas. It did poorly in the 1978 Texas elections and leaders and members dropped away.


History.

The first commercially successful type of electrical phonograph pickup was introduced in 1925. Although electromagnetic, its resemblance to later magnetic cartridges is remote: it contained a bulky horseshoe magnet and employed the same imprecisely mass-produced single-use steel needles which had been standard since the first crude disc record players appeared in the 1890s. Its tracking weight was specified in ounces, not grams. This early type of magnetic pickup completely dominated the market well into the 1930s, but by the end of that decade it had been superseded by a comparatively lightweight piezoelectric crystal pickup type. The use of short-lived disposable metal needles remained standard. During the years of affluence and long-deferred consumer demand immediately following World War II, as old record players with very heavy pickups were replaced, precision-ground and conveniently long-lasting stylus tips made of sapphire or the exotic hard metal osmium were increasingly popular. However, records made for home use still played at 78 rpm and most of them were still made of the same old abrasive shellac compound formulated to rapidly wear down the points of steel needles to fit the groove.  The introduction of the 33 rpm vinyl LP "album" in 1948 and the 45 rpm vinyl "single" in 1949 prompted consumers to upgrade to a new multi-speed record player with the required smaller-tipped "microgroove" stylus. Sapphire and diamond then became the standard stylus tip materials. At first, the new styli came installed in smaller, lighter piezoelectric crystal or ceramic cartridges of the general type found in inexpensive self-contained portable record players throughout the vinyl era. Ceramic cartridges continue to be used in most of the "retro" and compact record players currently being made, in part because they are comparatively robust and resistant to damage from careless handling, but mostly because they are inexpensive. However, during the 1950s, a new generation of small, lightweight, highly compliant magnetic cartridges appeared and quickly found favor among high-fidelity enthusiasts because of their audibly superior performance. The high compliance also reduced record wear. They soon became standard in all but the cheapest component audio systems and are the most common type of pickup cartridge in use today.

Design and construction.

The cartridge consists of several components: the stylus, cantilever, magnets, coils and body. The stylus is the part that, when in use, is the interface with the record surface and tracks the modulations in the groove. It is typically made of a small polished diamond or other industrial gemstone. The cantilever supports the stylus, and transmits the vibrations from it to the coil/magnet assembly. The former is typically made of boron or aluminium, and previously beryllium although some manufacturers (like Dynavector) market models with exotic gemstone cantilevers. Some models of moving magnet cartridges have detachable stylus–cantilever sub-assemblies that allow for their replacement without the need to remove and replace the entire cartridge when the stylus has become worn.  Coupled to the tonearm, the cartridge body's function is to give the moving parts a stationary platform so that they can track the groove with precision.

Types.

In high-fidelity systems, crystal and ceramic pickups have been replaced by the magnetic cartridge, using either a moving magnet or a moving coil.  Compared to the crystal and ceramic pickups, the magnetic cartridge usually gives improved playback fidelity and reduced record wear by tracking the groove with lighter pressure. Magnetic cartridges use lower tracking forces and thus reduce the potential for groove damage. They also have a lower output voltage than a crystal or ceramic pickup, in the range of only a few millivolts, thus requiring greater amplification.

Moving Magnet (MM) and Moving Iron (MI) cartridges.

In a moving magnet cartridge, the stylus cantilever carries a tiny permanent magnet, which is positioned between two sets of fixed coils (in a stereophonic cartridge), forming a tiny electromagnetic generator. As the magnet vibrates in response to the stylus following the record groove, it induces a tiny current in the coils.  Because the magnet is small and has little mass, and is not coupled mechanically to the generator (as in a ceramic cartridge), a properly adjusted stylus follows the groove more faithfully while requiring less tracking force (the downward pressure on the stylus).  Moving iron and induced magnet types (ADC being a well-known example) have a moving piece of iron or other ferrous alloy coupled to the cantilever (instead of a magnet), while a permanent, bigger magnet is over the coils, providing the necessary magnetic flux.

Moving Coil (MC) cartridges.

The MC design is again a tiny electromagnetic generator, but (unlike an MM design) with the magnet and coils reversed: the coils are attached to the cantilever, and move within the field of a permanent magnet. The coils are tiny and made from very fine wire.  Since the number of windings that can be supported in such an armature is small, the output voltage level is correspondingly small. The resulting signal is only a few hundred microvolts, and thus more easily swamped by noise, induced hum, etc. Thus it is more challenging to design a preamplifier with the extremely low noise inputs needed for moving-coil cartridge, therefore a "step up transformer" is sometimes used instead.  However, there are available many "high output" moving coil cartridges that have output levels similar to MM cartridges.  Moving coil cartridges are extremely small precision instruments and are therefore generally expensive, but are frequently preferred by audiophiles due to a subjectively better performance.

Moving Micro Cross (MMC) cartridges.

The MMC design was invented and patented by Bang & Olufsen. The MMC cartridge is a variation of the Moving Iron (MI) design. Magnets and coils are stationary while a "micro cross" moves with the stylus, thereby varying the distances between the arms of the cross and the magnets. It is claimed that the MMC design allows for superior channel separation, since each channel's movements appear on a separate axis.

Moving Magnet vs. Moving Coil.

Moving magnet cartridges are more commonly found at the 'lower-end' of the market, while the 'higher-end' tends to be dominated by moving coil designs. The debate as to whether MM or MC designs can ultimately produce the better sound is often heated and subjective. The distinction between the two is often blurred by cost and design considerations - e.g. can an MC cartridge requiring another step-up amplification outperform well made MM cartridges that need simpler front-end stages?  MM cartridges generally have output of 3-6mV, compatible with the MM inputs of preamplifiers. MC cartridges come in two varieties, low output (usually < 1.0mV) and high output (more than 1.5mV); there are also some with very low output (0.3mV or less). High output MC cartridges are a concession to compatibility with older preamp MM inputs; low output MC cartridges may generate excessive noise or have insufficient preamp gain to drive amplifiers to their rated output if used on MM inputs. Most solid state preamplifiers have separate high gain, low noise MC inputs to accommodate these. Cartridges with very low output need a separate pre-phono amplification stage before input to an MC or MM preamplifier stage.

"London Decca" Cartridges.

The Decca phono cartridges were a unique design, with fixed magnets and coils. The stylus shaft was composed of the diamond tip, a short piece of soft iron, and an L-shaped cantilever made of non-magnetic steel. Since the iron was placed very close to the tip (within 1 mm), the motions of the tip could be tracked very accurately. Decca engineers called this "positive scanning". Vertical and lateral compliance was controlled by the shape and thickness of the cantilever. Decca cartridges had a reputation for being very musical; however early versions required more tracking force than competitive designs - making record wear a concern.

A magnetic cartridge, more commonly called a phonograph cartridge or phono cartridge or (colloquially) a pickup, is an electromechanical transducer that is used to play records on a turntable.


Technology.

IOS.

The Wii's firmware is in the form of IOSes, thought by the Wii homebrew developers to stand for "Input Output Systems" or "Internal Operating Systems" which run on a separate ARM architecture processor to other Wii software (nicknamed Starlet by the Wii homebrew community, as it is physically located inside the graphics chip, the ATI Hollywood, so it is a small part of Hollywood. The patent for the Wii U indicates a similar device which is simply named "Input/Output Processor"). These control input and output between the code running on the main processor (the IBM PowerPC "Broadway" processor) and the Wii's hardware features that did not exist on the GameCube, which can only be accessed via the ARM.  When Nintendo releases a new IOS version, except for unusual circumstances (for example security updates to block homebrew), the new IOS does not replace any IOS already installed. Instead, it gets installed in addition to any current IOS versions. All native Wii software (including games distributed on Nintendo optical discs, the System Menu itself, Virtual Console games, WiiWare, and Wii Channels), with the exception of certain homebrew applications, have the IOS version hardcoded into the software.  When the software is run, the IOS that is hardcoded gets loaded by the Wii, which then loads the software itself. If that IOS does not exist on the Wii, in the case of disc-based software, it gets installed automatically (after the user is prompted). With downloaded software, this should not theoretically happen, as the user cannot access the shop to download software unless the player has all the IOS versions that they require. However, if homebrew is used to forcefully install or run a piece of software when the required IOS does not exist, the user is brought back to the system menu.  Nintendo created this system so that new updates would not unintentionally break compatibility with older games, but it does have the side effect that it uses up space on the Wii's internal NAND Flash memory. IOSes are referred to by their number, which can theoretically be between 0 and 254, although many numbers are skipped, presumably being development versions that were never completed.  Only one IOS version can run at any given time. The only time an IOS is not running is when the Wii enters GameCube backward compatibility mode, during which the Wii runs a variant of IOS specifically for GameCube games, MIOS which contains a modified version of the GameCube's IPL.

User interface.

The system provides a graphical interface to the Wii's abilities. All games run directly on the Broadway processor, and either directly interface with the hardware (for the hardware common to the Wii and GameCube), or interface with IOS running on the ARM architecture processor (for Wii-specific hardware). The ARM processor does not have access to the screen, and therefore neither does IOS. This means that while a piece of software is running, everything seen on the screen comes from that software, and not from any operating system or firmware. Therefore, the version number reported by the Wii is actually only the version number of the System Menu. This is why some updates do not result in a change of the version number: the System Menu itself is not updated, only (for example) IOSes and channels. As a side effect, this means it is impossible for Nintendo to implement any functions that would affect the games themselves, for example an in-game system menu (similar to the Xbox 360's in-game Dashboard or the PlayStation 3's in-game XMB).  The Wii Menu (known internally as the System Menu) is the name of the user interface for the Wii game console, and it is the first thing to be seen when the system boots up. Similar to many other video game consoles, the Wii is not only about games. For example, it is possible to install applications such as Netflix to stream media (without requiring a disc) on the Wii. The Wii Menu let users access both game and no-game functions through built-in applications called Channels, which are designed to represent television channels. There are six primary channels: the Disc Channel, Mii Channel, Photo Channel, Wii Shop Channel, Forecast Channel and News Channel, although the latter two were not initially included and only became available via system updates. Some of the functions provided by these Channels on the Wii used to be limited to a computer, such as a full-featured web browser and digital photo viewer. Users can also use Channels to create and share cartoon-like digital avatars called Miis and download new games and Channels directly from the Wii Shop Channel. New Channels include for example the Everybody Votes Channel and the Internet Channel. Separate Channels are graphically displayed in a grid and can be navigated using the pointer capability of the Wii Remote. Users can also rearrange these Channels if they are not satisfied with how the Channels are originally organized on the menu.

Network features.

The Wii system supports wireless connectivity with the Nintendo DS handheld console with no additional accessories. This connectivity allows players to use the Nintendo DS microphone and touch screen as inputs for Wii games. "Pokémon Battle Revolution" is the first example Nintendo has given of a game using Nintendo DS-Wii connectivity. Nintendo later released the Nintendo Channel for the Wii allowing its users to download game demos or additional data to their Nintendo DS.  Like many other video game consoles, the Wii console is able to connect to the Internet, although this is not required for the Wii system itself to function. Each Wii has its own unique 16-digit Wii Code for use with Wii's non-game features. With Internet connection enabled users are able to access the established Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service. Wireless encryption by WEP, WPA (TKIP/RC4) and WPA2 (CCMP/AES) is supported. AOSS support was added in System Menu version 3.0. As with the Nintendo DS, Nintendo does not charge for playing via the service; the 12-digit Friend Code system controls how players connect to one another. The service has a few features for the console, including the Virtual Console, WiiConnect24 and several Channels. The Wii console can also communicate and connect with other Wii systems through a self-generated wireless LAN, enabling local wireless multiplayer on different television sets. The system also implements console-based software, including the Wii Message Board. One can connect to the Internet with third-party devices as well.  The Wii console also includes a web browser known as the Internet Channel, which is a version of the Opera 9 browser with menus. It is meant to be a convenient way to access the web on the television screen, although it is far from offering a comfortable user interface compared with modern Internet browsers. A virtual keyboard pops up when needed for input, and the Wii Remote acts like a mouse, making it possible to click anywhere on the screen and navigate through web links. However, the browser cannot always handle all the features of most normal web pages, although it does support Adobe Flash, thus capable of playing Flash games. Some third-party services such as the online BBC iPlayer were also available on the Wii via the Internet Channel browser, although BBC iPlayer was later relaunched as the separate BBC iPlayer Channel on the Wii. In addition, Internet access including the Internet Channel and system updates may be restricted by the parental controls feature of the Wii.

Backward compatibility.

The original designs of the Nintendo Wii console, more specifically the Wii models made pre-2011 were fully backward compatible with GameCube devices including game discs, memory cards and controllers. This was because the Wii hardware had ports for both GameCube memory cards, and peripherals and its slot-loading drive was able to accept and read the previous console's discs. GameCube games work with the Wii without any additional configuration, but a GameCube controller is required to play GameCube titles; neither the Wii Remote or the Classic Controller functions in this capacity. The Wii supports progressive-scan output in 480p-enabled GameCube titles. Peripherals can be connected via a set of four GameCube controller sockets and two Memory Card slots (concealed by removable flip-open panels). The console retains connectivity with the Game Boy Advance and e-Reader through the Game Boy Advance Cable, which is used in the same manner as with the GameCube; however, this feature can only be accessed on select GameCube titles which previously utilized it.  There are also a few limitations in the backward compatibility. For example, online and LAN features of certain GameCube games were not available since the Wii does not have serial ports for the Nintendo GameCube Broadband Adapter and Modem Adapter. The Wii uses a proprietary port for video output, and is incompatible with all Nintendo GameCube audio/video cables (composite video, S-Video, component video and RGB SCART). The console also lacks the GameCube footprint and high-speed port needed for Game Boy Player support. Furthermore, only GameCube functions were available and only compatible memory cards and controllers could be used when playing a GameCube game. This is due to the fact that the Wii's internal memory would not save GameCube data.  Because of the original device's backward compatibility with earlier Nintendo products players can enjoy a massive selection of older games on the console in addition to hundreds of newer Wii game titles. However, South Korean units lack GameCube backward compatibility. Also, the redesigned Wii Family Edition and Wii Mini, launched in 2011 and 2013 respectively, had this compatibility stripped out. Nevertheless, there is another service called Virtual Console which allow users to download older games from prior Nintendo platforms (namely the Nintendo Entertainment System, Super NES and Nintendo 64) onto their Wii console, as well as games from non-Nintendo platforms such as the Genesis and TurboGrafx-16.

List of additional Channels.

This is a list of new Wii Channels released beyond the four initial Channels (i.e. Disc Channel, Mii Channel, Photo Channel and Wii Shop Channel) included in the original consoles. The News Channel and the Forecast Channel were released as part of system updates so separate downloads were not required. As of January 30, 2019, all channels listed below have been discontinued with the exception of the Wii Fit Channel and the Internet Channel.

History of updates.

Wii System Update releases.

This is a list of features included in Wii's System Updates.

Wii Channel releases and updates.

This is a list of the updates and releases of Wii Channels.  § = Released as part of a system update so a separate download is not required.

See also.

Other gaming platforms from Nintendo:  Other gaming platforms from the next generation:  Other gaming platforms from this generation:

The Wii system software is a set of updatable firmware versions and a software frontend on the Wii home video game console. Updates, which were downloaded via the system's Internet connection, allowed Nintendo to add additional features and software. When a new update became available Nintendo sent a message to connected systems notifying them of the available update.


Early life.

Lawler was born in the Melbourne suburb of Footscray on 23 May 1921, second of eight children of a council worker. He left school at 13 to work in a factory and attended evening acting classes. He wrote his first play at 19, and his play "Hal's Belles" had good notices in early 1946. It was described as "...easy to stage and is a slick, finished work", then being offered by J. and N. Tait in London and New York.

Career.

He first attracted attention as a writer in 1952 when his play "Cradle of Thunder" was presented by the National Theatre Competition. In 1955, "Summer of the Seventeenth Doll" gained first prize in the Playwright Advisory Board Competition with Oriel Gray’s "The Torrents" and was subsequently presented by the Union Theatre. Lawler played the role of Barney at the premiere of "Summer of the Seventeenth Doll" in 1955. The play was taken up by the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust and presented in all Australian states as well as London and New York. It won the Evening Standard Award for the best new play on the London stage in 1957. Since then it has been translated into many languages and performed in many countries.  Lawler went to London with the cast and lived in Denmark, England and then in Ireland. "Summer of the Seventeenth Doll" was followed by "The Piccadilly Bushman" (1959), presented in Australia by J. C. Williamson’s and published by Angus & Robertson (1961); "The Unshaven Cheek", presented at the 1963 Edinburgh International Festival; and "A Breach in the Wall", about St Thomas Becket (televised in 1967, produced at Canterbury in 1970).  In 1972, he visited Australia for the Melbourne Theatre Company’s production of "The Man Who Shot the Albatross", a version of the Governor Bligh story.  In 1975, Lawler returned to settle in Australia as associate director of the Melbourne Theatre Company, with an agreement to complete a trilogy based on "Summer of the Seventeenth Doll". The first play, "Kid Stakes", opened in December 1975 and the second, "Other Times", in December 1976. "The Doll Trilogy" had its first full performance at the Russell Street Theatre, Melbourne, on 12 February 1977.

Personal life.

Lawler married actress Jacklyn Kelleher in 1956. They had twins sons, Adam and Martin, born in London in May 1957, and a subsequent daughter, Kylie.

Honours and legacy.

Lawler was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1980. The smaller theatre space, the Lawler, in the Melbourne Theatre Company's Southbank Theatre is named after him.

Raymond Evenor Lawler OBE (born 23 May 1921) is an Australian actor, dramatist, producer and director. His most notable play was his tenth, "Summer of the Seventeenth Doll" (1953), which had its premiere in Melbourne in 1955. The play changed the direction of Australian drama. The story of "The Doll" is preceded by "Kid Stakes", set in 1937, when the characters of "The Doll" are young adults, and then "Other Times", which is set in 1945 and includes most of the same characters.


Personal life.

He was the son of the civil servant Léon de Foy (1852–1942) and his wife Mathilde (née de Vos; 1860–1943). His brother Marcel de Foy (1890–1964) ended his career as President of the Court of Appeal in Brussels, and his brother Joseph de Foy (1897–1967) was an officer in the Belgian army. In 1919 Léon obtained the change of his name from "Defoy" into "de Foy" and in 1934 he acquired hereditary nobility.  In 1941, Robert de Foy married Françoise du Monceau de Bergendal (b. 1910), sister of Count Ivan du Monceau de Bergendal (1909–2005), deputy Prosecutor in Brussels during the war (removed in 1944, reinstated in 1956, founder of the satirical weekly called "Pan"). They divorced in 1943. In 1946 he married the widow Marguerite Tallon (1893–1960). Both marriages remained childless.

Early career.

After serving in the Belgian Army during World War I, Robert studied law, obtaining a PhD He decided to become a magistrate. From 1922 to 1925 he was a judge within the military court in the Belgian army of occupation of the Ruhr, Germany. From 1925 to 1929 he was first substitute of the Public Prosecutor in Antwerp.  He then became deputy administrator in the Department of Belgian Public Security. From 8 August 1933, after the sudden death of his predecessor, Baron René Beltjens (1879–1933), he became acting administrator.

Administrator-general of the Belgian State Security Service: 1933–1940.

Appointed as head of the Belgian civil intelligence service, the State Security, on 30 December 1934, de Foy had to deal with the problems of rising international tensions.  Many countries considered communism as the most important threat. Security services of neutral countries like the Netherlands, Switzerland and Belgium attended conferences with other nations, including Nazi Germany, to consider their position towards communism. Such a conference took place in Berlin from 30 August until 3 September 1937. De Foy attended only at the end. He was rather reserved about such meetings, and reduced his own participation to a minimum. After the war he declared to an investigating magistrate and to a journalist of the Associated Press that there had never been deals made between the Gestapo and the Belgian police services for a joint battle against communism. During De Foy's tenure German espionage in Belgium was on the rise. De Foy became the first head of the Belgian secret service to give the media an interview about the work of the State Security, in which he paid particular attention to its counterespionage mission.  In June 1938, de Foy and J. Schneider, the Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, represented Belgium at the Evian Conference in France. By March 1938, after Germany had annexed Austria in the Anschluss, the number of non-Belgian resident Jews had risen to 30,000. The Evian Conference was seen by all as a failure, failing to reach agreement on the number of Jews that were to move onwards to the United Kingdom and the United States.  With war approaching, the Belgian government, represented by the then minister of Justice Charles du Bus de Warnaffe, ordered De Foy to draw up lists of "suspect Belgians and foreigners." On the list were the leaders of extreme right and fascist movements, such as REX (Leon Degrelle), the Flemish nationalist movement, Verdinaso (Joris van Severen), and others, but also communist leaders. If the Germans attacked they would have to be arrested and confined into safe places. The list also mentioned Germans or other foreigners of whom it was not certain if they sympathised with the Nazis, despite the fact that many of them were Jewish refugees. On 10 May 1940, the Germans having invaded Belgium, telegrams were sent to local police authorities, signed "de Foy" (it is still disputed if he actually sent them) to set in motion the arrests and the deportations to France.

During the war.

After Belgium was attacked and its army surrendered on 28 May 1940, Adolf Hitler chose not to install a civilian government (as he had done in the Netherlands), but a military occupation, headed by Wehrmacht General Alexander von Falkenhausen. The Belgian administration remained in place and, under German supervision, governed Belgium, according to the developed theory of "the lesser evil". The State Security was abolished by the Germans, but it remained in existence in exile in London, under the directorship of Fernand Lepage.  Upon the return in July 1940 of the deported Flemish nationalists, de Foy and other civil servants branded as responsible were arrested. He was transported to Germany, initially held in a hotel in Münster and then transferred to Berlin. Questioned and held for a few weeks, he was released and returned to Belgium. Police Chief Reinhard Heydrich communicated directly to General Eggert Reeder that de Foy was to remain untouched and resume his activities. Allowed to stay in position, de Foy was ordered by the Nazi-run government to share his lists of suspect persons with all state organisations and then to round them up. This included Flemish nationalists, communists and non-Belgian citizens, most of them Jewish refugees from Germany and Poland. These people were exported to France on so-called "phantom trains", the records for which were destroyed, but it is known that at least 3,000 were arrested in Antwerp alone. A phantom train on which Joris van Severen, leader of the pro-Belgian Fascist party, was among 79 people deported is well recorded, as 21 people were killed by French soldiers at Abbeville. Of the people deported on "phantom trains," most including the Belgian Jews were released by the Wehrmacht, the only Jews released by the Nazi German Army. 3,537 Jews holding German and Austrian passports were kept prisoner and transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau for processing.  On 1 October 1943, de Foy succeeded Gaston Schuind as Secretary General of the Department of Justice. At the same time, the Wehrmacht took over the policing of foreigners in Belgium, and arrests and deportation greatly escalated.  Upon the Allied Forces' invasion of Normandy in June, the Nazis relieved de Foy of his position. In part, this was driven by the rumours that he was "London's man", having made contact, according to post-war records, with the Belgian Resistance via both Walter Ganshof van der Meersch and William Ugeux.  After Robert Jan Verbelen was made head of the "De Vlag Veiligheidscorps", a Nazi SS security force in Belgium, an attempt on the life of de Foy failed. During the last weeks of the occupation, he went into hiding.

Post World War II.

On 1 September 1944, like most other Belgian officials in the administration, de Foy was suspended by the Belgian government returning from exile in London, although it was stated that he had acted correctly. A judicial investigation was initiated against him, but unlike many others, he was not jailed. The result was that his conduct was judged as having been blameless. From April 1946 to March 1947, he was appointed a judge in the international court seated in Tangier.  Upon his return to Belgium, de Foy resumed his duties as head of the State Security Service. The major part of his work consisted of tracking Soviet agents and spies as part of Cold War NATO activities. State Security was also tasked with organising "stay behind" groups, who would have resisted any Soviet Army invading force. De Foy retired in 1958, handing over operations to Ludovic Caeymaex.

Honours.

De Foy was vice-president of the Carnegie Hero Fund.  On 1 December 1975 he was posthumously recognised as "Righteous Among the Nations" by Yad Vashem, for the help he had provided to Jews in Belgium.  He was the beneficiary of many honours, mainly after World War II, including:

Robert Herman Alfred de Foy (23 March 1893 in Geraardsbergen – 15 August 1960 in Brussels) was a Belgian magistrate, and head of the Belgian State Security Service, during the occupation of Belgium by the Nazis. This period of his life has led to considerable historical debate around de Foy's legacy, but in the post-war period he returned to his pre-war position, was decorated Grand Officer of the Order of Leopold II, and recognised as "Righteous Among the Nations" by the state of Israel.


FIBA.

She was invited to join the national team, to play in the 2013 FIBA Americas Championship for Women, held in Xalapa, Mexico from 21–28 September 2013. She averaged 3.5 points and 3.3 rebounds per game, and helped the Canadian National team to a second place, silver medal finish. Canada faced Cuba in a preliminary round and won 53–40, but in the championship game, Cuba prevailed 79–71.

Pam Am games 2015.

Thorburn was a member of the Canada women's national basketball team which participated in basketball at the 2015 Pan American Games held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada July 10 to 26, 2015. Canada opened the preliminary rounds with an easy 101–38 win over Venezuela. The following day they beat Argentina 73–58. The final preliminary game was against Cuba; both teams were 2–0, so the winner would win the group. The game went down to the wire with Canada eking out a 71–68 win. Canada would face Brazil in the semifinal.  Everything seemed to go right in the semifinal game. Canada opened the game with an 11–2 run on seven consecutive points by Miranda Ayim. Langlois contributed five assists. In the third quarter Canada strongly out rebounded Brazil and hit 69% of their field goals to score 33 points in the quarter. Lizanne Murphy and Nirra Fields hit three-pointers to help extend the lead to 68–39 at the end of three quarters. Canada continued to dominate in the fourth quarter with three-pointers by Kia Nurse and Kim Gaucher. Canada went on to win the game 91–63 to earn a spot in the gold-medal game against the USA.  The gold-medal game matched up the host team Canada against USA, in a sold out arena dominated by fans in red and white and waving the Canadian flag. The Canadian team, arm in arm, sang "Oh Canada" as the respective national anthems were played.  After trading baskets early the US edged out to a double-digit lead in the second quarter. However the Canadians, spurred on by the home crowd cheering, fought back and tied up the game at halftime. In the third quarter, it was Canada's time to shine as they outscore the US 26–15. The lead would reach as high as 18 points. The USA would fight back, but not all the way and Canada won the game and the gold-medal 81–73. It was Canada's first gold-medal in basketball in the Pan Am games. Nurse was the star for Canada with 33 points, hitting 11 of her 12 free-throw attempts in 10 of her 17 field-goal attempts including two of three three-pointers.

Honours.

In 2012 Thorburn was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.

Shona Thorburn (born August 7, 1982) is a Canadian professional basketball player, formerly a point guard for the Seattle Storm of the WNBA.


Club career.

Nordic leagues.

Karčić joined Naisten Korisliiga club Keravan Energia Team prior to the 2010–2011 season. Although the club finished last in the standings she enjoyed a fine season statistical wise. In her last regular season game in Finland, she just missed out on a quadruple double with 26 points, 23 rebounds, 10 steals and 9 assists. For the season she averaged 18.6 points, 12.1 rebounds, 5.5 steals, 3.3 assists and 1.8 blocks. She led the league in steals and came in third in rebounds, assists and blocks.  Shortly after the Finnish season ended, Karčić joined Icelandic Úrvalsdeild powerhouse Keflavík for the 2011 Icelandic playoffs after an injury to starter, and former Villanova Wildcats teammate, Jacquline Adamshick. Her first game was game 3 in Keflavík's semi-finals matchup against KR where Keflavík came out on top. Keflavík edged out KR with a victory in game 4 of the series and advanced to the finals against Njarðvík. On April 3, Karčić scored a buzzer beater to defeat Njarðvík in game 1 of the finals. For the game she had 15 points, 9 rebounds and 9 steals. Keflavík went on to win game 2 and 3, sweeping Njarðvík from the finals. In five playoffs games, Karčić averaged 11.0 points, 12.6 rebounds, 4.8 steals and 3.2 blocks.

Spain.

Karčić spent two seasons in the Spanish Liga Femenina, playing for Zamarat in 2011–2012 and for Hondarribia-Irun 2012–2013.

Croatian national basketball team.

Although born in the United States, Karčić holds a Croatian passport. Her first games for the Croatian national team where at the EuroBasket Women 2011. Her best contribution was in the match against Latvia (best rebounder, 7 rebounds) and against Montenegro (8 rebounds). At the 2012 Summer Olympics, Karčić competed again for the national team in the women's basketball event.

Lisa Ann Karčić (born November 11, 1986 in New York City) is a Croatian American former professional basketball player. She was a member of the Croatian national team and competed with the team at the 2012 Summer Olympics. In 2011, she won the Icelandic championship with Keflavík.


Career.

In 2000 and 2004, he won gold individuals in the Olympics, and a special certificate for contributing in 2008 in Beijing Olympics.  In 2005, CSIO5* Hickstead, Great Britain: Maher won the Hickstead Derby  In 2008, Ben competed at the Olympic Games with Rolette.  In 2010, CSI5*-W s'-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands: On 26 March, Maher and Wonderboy III took the top spot in the feature class of the opening day. This was the 1.50m Rabobank Prijs.  CSI5*-W London Olympia, Great Britain: Ben and Noctambule Courcelle won the Puissance.  In 2011, CSI5*-W Basel, Switzerland: Oscar took 4th prize in a speed-class.  CSI5*-W Zurich, Switzerland: Maher and Robin Hood W came 2nd in the Rolex FEI World Cup Qualifier.  CSI3* Lummen, Belgium: Tripple X III came 2nd.  CES5* European Championships, Madrid, Spain: The British team of Nick Skelton (Carlo) (1.04/0/0); Guy Williams (Titus) (7.01)/(12)/0; Ben Maher (Tripple X III) (2.76/4/4); and John Whitaker (Peppermill) (5.66/4/8) took Team Bronze. Ben and "Tripple X III" also took 12th position individually.  CSI5*-W Olympia Horse Show, London, UK: Ben and his home-bred Tripple X III came 1st in the Rolex FEI World Cup.  In 2012, CSI5*-W Basel, Switzerland: Tripple X III won the feature 1m55 class on Friday night.  Won gold medal at the 2012 London Olympics for Great Britain in the Team showjumping.  Maher was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to equestrianism.  In 2013, won team gold and individual silver medals at the European Championships, riding Cella.  Won Olympia London International Horse Show Grand Prix riding Tripple X.  Won the Longines Global Champions Tour Grand Prix of London at Olympic Park with his grey mare Cella.  In 2014, won the $125,000 Grand Prix CSI3* at WEF with Cella.  Won WEF World Cup Qualifier on Cella  Won the €130,000 Grand Prix in Guangzhou, China with Vainquer  Won the Olympia London International Horse Show Grand Prix on Diva II.  In 2015, won World Cup CSI5* at WEF on Diva II  Won Rotterdam Nations Cup on Diva II, with team members Joe Clee/Utamaro D'Ecaussines, Jessica Mendoza/Spirit T, Michael Whitaker/Cassionato  Tied for first with Karim Elzoghby/Amelia at Global Champions Tour Paris Grand Prix  In 2016, won the $500,000 Rolex CSI5* at WEF with Sarena  Won the Beijing World Cup Qualifier on Wavanta  Won the Rome Nations Cup with Tic Tac and teammates Jessica Mendoza/Spirit T, Michael Whitaker/Cassionato, and John Whitaker/Ornellaia

Owners and Sponsors.

Ben Maher currently has horses under several owners, most notably being Jane Clark, a longtime owner and supporter of international show jumping. Clark owns Sarena, Tic Tac, Aristo Z, and Cella. He also rides Tatiana Korsakova's Diva II, EM Horses' Boomerang, Amy Carr's Sentimiento LS La Silla, Vivien Thompson's Diablo, and Poden Farm's Cliff 67, F One USA, and Untouched.  Maher is an equestrian brand ambassador for Land Rover. He is also sponsored by Selleria Equipe, Equiline Italia, GPA Safety Legend, Veredus, Falcon Equine Feeds, Bucas, MacWest, Parlanti, Jump 4 Joy, and FMBs Therapy Systems.

Benjamin Richard "Ben" Maher MBE (born 30 January 1983 in Enfield) is a British show jumper. He represented Britain at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, 2009 European Championships, Windsor, and 2012 London Olympics. He won the team jumping gold at the London Olympics with Team GB, their first team jumping gold medal for 60 years. He also won bronze at the 2011 Europeans Championships in Madrid, Spain. He has won many international Grand Prixs including the Olympia Grand Prix, Hickstead King George V Gold Cup at Hickstead, FEI World Cup Qualifier Grand Prix at Wellington with various rides.


Publication history.

Following his introduction as Dr. M. T. Graves in Charlton Comics' "Ghostly Tales" #55 (cover-dated May 1966) in the three-page story "The Ghost Fighter" by writer-artist Ernie Bache, the character went on to host his own anthology title, "The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves". The series ran 72 issues (May 1967 - May 1982), generally published bimonthly.  In issue #5, the fourth-wall-breaking story "Best of All Possible Worlds" by Steve Skeates and Jim Aparo involved a reader who's pulled into the pages of the comic book, and has to decide whether to venture back to the real world.  Following issue #60 (Jan. 1977), the title went on hiatus for seven months until issue #61 (Aug. 1977) before being canceled with #65 (May 1978). Charlton revived the title three years later with #66 (May 1981) before canceling it once more six issues later.  Three additional issues consisting solely of reprints, and titled simply "Dr. Graves", were published as issues #73-75 (Sept. 1985 - Jan. 1986).  Among the artists whose work appeared were Steve Ditko, following his falling-out with Marvel Comics; newcomer Jim Aparo, later to be one of Batman's signature artists; regular Charlton talents including Vince Alascia, Pat Boyette, Pete Morisi, Rocke Mastroserio, and Charles Nicholas; and such others as Rich Larson, Don Newton and Tom Sutton. The cover of issue #54 (Dec. 1975) marks one of the earliest professional works of John Byrne.  Writers on the title included Ditko, Steve Skeates, Mike Pellowski, and the prolific, generally uncredited staff writer Joe Gill.

Awards.

"The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves" won the 1967 Alley Award for Best Fantasy/SF/Supernatural Title.

The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves was an American supernatural-anthology comic book published by Charlton Comics, often featuring stories by writer-artist Steve Ditko. The eponymous Dr. M. T. Graves was a fictional character who hosted the stories in each issue of this title, and very occasionally took part in a tale.


Playing career.

Jackson attended Duke University. In 1991, he played collegiate summer baseball with the Harwich Mariners of the Cape Cod Baseball League. Through 2009, he was Duke's all-time season leader in home runs (22), and was second to Nate Freiman in career homers at Duke (42).  He was drafted by the Florida Marlins in the 7th round of the 1994 Major League Baseball Draft. He made his major league debut on March 3,, for the Marlins against the Chicago Cubs. He set career-highs in games played, at-bats, home runs, and RBI that year. On April 9, 1999, he was claimed off waivers by the Seattle Mariners. Released after the 1999 season, he signed with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and spent the entire year with Triple-A Durham. After the 2000 season, Jackson signed with the Detroit Tigers with whom he played for the next two seasons.  On November 6, 2002, Jackson signed with the Devil Rays and spent the whole year in the minors. In 2004, he played 16 games for the Atlanta Braves' Triple-A affiliate, the Richmond Braves.

Coaching career.

Jackson began his coaching career at the minor league level in the Cincinnati Reds' organization. In 2007, Jackson became the hitting coach for the Single-A Sarasota Reds, and again served as the hitting coach in 2008. He was named the hitting coach for Double-A Carolina for the 2009 and 2010 seasons, then he assumed the same position for the Triple-A Louisville Bats beginning with the 2011 season, under new manager David Bell. He then served as the Reds' roving minor league hitting coordinator from 2012 through 2016.  In January 2019, he was named field coordinator for the Boston Red Sox' player development system.

Ryan Dewitte Jackson (born November 15, 1971) is an American professional baseball coach and a former Major League Baseball first baseman and outfielder. Born in Orlando, Florida, he graduated from Cardinal Mooney High School (Sarasota, Florida). During his playing career, he threw and batted left-handed and was listed as tall and.