History.

Background.

During the 1830s, Isambard Kingdom Brunel developed a plan for a railway running east-west between London and Bristol. The Great Western Main Line, would maintain either level ground or gentle gradients of no greater than 1 in 1000 along most of its route. Between Swindon and Bath, at the highest point of the line a tunnel was proposed through Box Hill, outside Corsham.  The tunnel would have a steep gradient of 1 in 100. At the time, the use of such a gradient inside the tunnel allegedly provoked criticism by some of Brunel's contemporaries. Box Tunnel would be the longest railway tunnel at almost in length.

Geology.

While a tunnel had been included in the 1835 Great Western Railway Act, contemporary engineers considered the construction of Box Tunnel to be an impossibility at worst and a dangerous undertaking at best. The challenge posed was not only its length but the difficult underlying strata it would have to pass through. The rocks through which it passes comprise Great Oolite overlying fuller's earth, and Inferior Oolite and Bridport Sand beneath, a combination with which tunnellers were familiar.  The Great Oolite limestone, known as "Bath Stone", is easily worked and had been used for construction since Roman times. In the 17th and 18th centuries it was extracted by the room and pillar method and used for many buildings in Bath, Somerset. To assess the geology more accurately, between 1836 and 1837, Brunel sank eight shafts at intervals along the tunnel's projected alignment.

Construction.

The GWR selected George Burge of Herne Bay as the major contractor, being responsible for undertaking 75 per cent of overall tunnel length, working from the western end. Burge appointed Samuel Yockney as his engineer and manager. Locally based Lewis and Brewer were responsible for the remainder, starting from the eastern side. One of Brunel's personal assistants, William Glennie, was in overall charge until completion.  During December 1838, construction commenced. Work was divided into six sections; access to each was via a diameter ventilation shaft, which ranged in depth from at the eastern end to towards the western end. The men, equipment, materials and of extract had to go in and come out of the shafts assisted by steam-powered winches. The shafts were the safety exits from the tunnel.  Candles provided the only lighting in the workings and were consumed at a rate of one tonne per week, which was equalled by the weekly consumption of explosives. Due to the considerable time required for men to enter and exit the workings, blasting took place while they were in the tunnel. This practice and water ingress exceeding the calculated volumes, has been attributed as causing most of the deaths that occurred. About 100 navvies were killed during the tunnel's construction. Additional pumping and drainage were required during and after its construction. Large amounts of water entering the tunnel in the winter months impeded progress.  Once the eastern section had been blasted out, it was cut to form a gothic arch and left unlined. The western section was excavated using picks and shovels and the walls were lined with brick. Over 30 million bricks were used which were manufactured in nearby Chippenham and transported in horse-drawn carts. Horses were used to remove much of the spoil.  The restrictions imposed by the site contributed to a delay in the tunnel's completion. By August 1839, only 40 per cent of the works had been finished. By summer 1840, the to section of the Great Western Main Line (GWML) had been completed, as was the track from Bath to. The Box Tunnel was the last section of the GWML to be finished, although not for lack of effort on the part of Brunel.  During January 1841, Brunel came to an agreement with Burge and Yockney, to increase their workforce from to and the tunnel was completed in April 1841. The completed tunnel was wide and capable of accommodating a pair of broad-gauge tracks. When the ends of the tunnel were joined, there was less than of error in their alignment. Brunel was so delighted that he reportedly removed a ring from his finger and gave it to the works foreman.

Opening.

On 30 June 1841, the tunnel was opened to traffic with little in the way of ceremony. A special train departed London Paddington and traversed the whole of the GWR to complete the first rail journey to Temple Meads Station in Bristol in about four hours.  After the opening, for several months, work continued to finish the tunnel's western portal near Box, Wiltshire which Brunel had designed in a grand classical style. The eastern portal at Corsham has a more modest brick face, with rusticated stone dressings.  Commentators and critics voiced concerns and disapproval about the unlined section of the tunnel; they believed that it lacked solidity and was a danger to traffic. The GWR responded to these complaints by building a brick arch underneath part of the unlined section close to the entrance which was prone to frost damage. Some areas of the tunnel remain unlined.

Brunel's birthday.

It was reported in 1842 that twice a year the sun shines through the tunnel. It has been assumed that Brunel aligned the tunnel so that the rising sun is visible through it on his birthday, April 9.  Angus Buchanan (2002, p. 269) writes:  It has been asserted that it is impossible to guarantee the effect on a particular calendar day, because the angle at which the sun rises on a given date varies with the cycle of leap years. However, the sun subtends an angle of about half a degree, which is more than the year-to-year variation and more than the field of view through the tunnel, so it quite possibly seems to fill the tunnel every year. It is also asserted that Brunel failed to account for atmospheric refraction, and the effect is visible a few days too early.  Buchanan (p. 226) concludes:  A mathematical exploration of the possibility of the phenomenon occurring on Brunel's birthday has been undertaken by C.P. Atkins. Atkins concludes that, taking atmospheric refraction into account:  The author suggests that reports of the sun shining through Box Tunnel on April 9, or even on April 15 and 16, as reported by "the local head ganger... suggests some reflection effect and is, in itself, worthy of further investigation".  On Sunday 9 April 2017, when the line was closed for electrification and upgrades at Bath Spa railway station and the weather was favourable, a team from the GWR franchise tested the theory, finding that the sunrise did not shine fully through the tunnel. Images released show that the sun is well aligned to the tunnel.  During December 2016, Genealogists’ Magazine published an analysis confirming two previous analyses, that the sun does indeed shine through the tunnel, but a few days before Brunel's birthday. On 6 April through the 1830s, complete solar penetration occurred on three years out of four in the leap year cycle. The author of the article was able to show that the 6th of April was the birthday of Brunel's sister, Emma Joan Brunel, and that therefore the alignment on this day may have been deliberate.

Defence use.

Starting in 1844, the hill surrounding the tunnel was subject to extensive quarrying to extract Bath stone for buildings.  In the run-up towards the Second World War, the need to provide secure storage for munitions at distributed locations across the UK was recognised. During the 1930s, a proposal to create three Central Ammunition Depots (CADs) was submitted: one in the north (Longtown, Cumbria); one in the Midlands (Nesscliffe, Shropshire); and one in the South of England at Tunnel quarry, Monkton Farleigh and Eastlays Ridge.  During the 1930s, Tunnel Quarry was renovated by the Royal Engineers as one of the three major stockpiles. During November 1937, the GWR was contracted to build a long raised twin-loading platform at Shockerwick for Monkton Farleigh and two sidings branching from the Bristol–London mainline just outside the tunnel's eastern entrance at. below and at right angles to this point, the War Office had built a narrow-gauge wagon-sorting yard which accessed a tunnel, built by the Cementation Company, descending at a rate of 1 in 8.5 to the Central Ammunition Depot in the former quarry workings. The logistics operation was designed to cope with a maximum of tons of ammunition per day.  A Royal Air Force station, RAF Box, was established and used an area of the tunnels. In response to the Bristol Blitz, during 1940, Alfred McAlpine developed a fallback aircraft engine factory for use by the Bristol Aeroplane Company (BAC), although it never went into production. BAC used the facility to accommodate the company's experimental department, which was developing an engine to power bombers and the Bristol Beaufighter.  The CAD was closed at the end of the war but was maintained in operational condition until the 1950s. The sidings were cleared, and saw no further use until the mid-1980s when a museum was opened on the site for a short period. During the post-war years, portions of the ammunition depot were redeveloped for other facilities, including the Central Government War Headquarters, RAF No.1 Signal Unit, Controller Defence Communication Network and the Corsham Computer Centre. As of the present day, the only element of the complex that remains is the former computer centre and the visible north end of the tunnel has been sealed by concrete and rubble. The former CAD has been reused as a secure commercial document storage facility.

Electrification.

During the 2010s, overhead electrification infrastructure was installed so that electric locomotives could be used on the GWML. Box Tunnel was modified for the catenary and associated infrastructure. During the summer of 2015, the tunnel was closed for six weeks for preparatory work including lowering the track by roughly and replacing of cabling in advance of the catenary infrastructure being installed.

Box Tunnel passes through Box Hill on the Great Western Main Line (GWML) between Bath and Chippenham. The railway tunnel is in length, straight, and descends on a 1 in 100 gradient from its eastern end. The west portal is Grade II* listed and the east portal is Grade II listed.


Early life.

Petrakis is the son of the Reverend Mark Petrakis, a Greek Orthodox priest who immigrated to the United States with his wife Stella in 1916. They were villagers from central Crete, near the city of Rethymnon, who came bringing their first four children (Dan, Barbara, Manuel, and Tasula). Harry Mark, the fifth child, was born on June 5, 1923, in St. Louis, Missouri. A sixth child, Irene, was later born in Chicago, where the family settled.  Harry Mark (Greek name, "Haralambos") attended Koraes School, the elementary school of Sts. Constantine & Helen Greek Orthodox Church, his father's parish in Chicago. During Greek school days he read his original poems and played the lead roles in class productions of Greek tragedies. He also learned to read and write the Greek language, which he spoke at home (although he never writes in Greek). He also met his future wife in Greek school, a Greek-American girl named Diana Perparos, whose father John owned several dry cleaning and shoe repair stores in Chicago. Despite being the son of a priest, Petrakis belonged to a gang, which was made up of sons of immigrants of varied ethnic ancestry in their Woodlawn neighborhood. Later, in "Stelmark", one of his numerous autobiographical works, he recalled:  At age 11 Petrakis contracted tuberculosis. He was placed on bed rest and ended up missing two years of school. He later wrote, "Those two years were a strange, intense period for me, weeks and months of boredom, excitement, discovery, despair, and terror. They affected my life, I am certain, more than any other interlude of my childhood and youth" ("Stelmark", p. 86). He passed the time reading in bed. As a grown man he would later refer to books as "a refuge... a sanctuary against a growing depression bred by inactivity" (from his "Song of My Life", p. 18). One of the books that influenced him most was "Martin Eden" by Jack London, in which a self-educated sailor dreams of becoming a writer. He also read "The Book of Knowledge" in its entirety.  After getting well Petrakis returned to Englewood High School, on Chicago's Southwest Side. He excelled at military exercises, but started playing hooky from school. Finally, he ceased attending at all. His father, seeing his son's abhorrence of school, sent him to stay with his brother Manuel at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Petrakis was enrolled in high school in Urbana but shortly became truant again, skipping school and often spending the day reading in one of the university libraries. Learning of this, his father brought him back to Chicago and enrolled him in a parochial school which specialized in disciplining troublesome youths, but where Petrakis lasted only two weeks. He never graduated from high school. Nevertheless, in later years he would be awarded six honorary doctorates and would teach at the university level, as for instance when he held the Nikos Kazantzakis Chair in Modern Greek Studies at San Francisco State University, or when he acted as the McGuffey Visiting Lecturer at Ohio University.

Gambling addiction.

Like many youths without a high school diploma, Petrakis turned to gambling to make a living. Starting when he was 16 years old, he and an older betting buddy would study the "Daily Racing Form" while his parents thought he was attending school. In his 2014 autobiography "Song of My Life", Petrakis recounts how he pawned his brother's suits, sold his sister's books, and stole from cash registers to get money to feed his habit. One morning, he recalls, he went to his father, who never refused him money, and borrowed $200—the parish priest's whole monthly salary—from him in order to pay the gas and electric bills on the studio apartment where he was living with his wife, who was pregnant. By afternoon, he had gambled it all away. Looking back, he views that day as the first step toward his deliverance. Having betrayed his wife and father, he says, marked the beginning of his healing. He gambled less and less over the next few months and finally stopped.

Early writing years.

After quitting gambling, Petrakis embarked upon a series of odd jobs that he often quit. Lacking a high school diploma, he worked as a Railway Express baggage handler, a steel mill worker, a customer service rep at a manufacturer of auto waxes and furniture polishes, a beer truck driver, a clothes presser in a dry-cleaning plant, a real estate salesman, an advertising copywriter, and a junior-level speechwriter for executives at U.S. Steel. He also entered the restaurant business, owning and operating a small lunchroom at 13th Street and Indiana Avenue in Chicago called Art's Lunch.  At night, however, he would work on his writing. For 10 years he continually submitted manuscripts to various literary magazines that published short stories. Finally, in 1956, at the age of 33, he sold his first story. It was titled "Pericles on 31st Street" and was published by the "Atlantic Monthly", which gave it one of its "Atlantic Firsts" awards. After that, Petrakis continued to publish in the "Atlantic". In addition, he wrote "The Wooing of Ariadne" for "The Saturday Evening Post" and "Dark Eye" for "Playboy Magazine". Another of his stories, "The Prison," won an O. Henry Award (1966); and, in addition, an anthology of his short stories with the title "Pericles on 31st Street" was named a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction (1966).

"A Dream of Kings".

In 1966 Petrakis made his first international success with the appearance of his novel "A Dream of Kings", which won him a nomination for the National Book Award for Fiction for the second year in a row. "A Dream of Kings" was on the "New York Times" Best Seller list for 12 weeks, translated into 12 languages, and made into a Hollywood film of the same name. The lead role of Leonidas Matsoukas was played by actor Anthony Quinn, already familiar to Americans from having played Zorba in the earlier film "Zorba the Greek" (1964). Quinn's characterization of Matsoukas as a passionate Greek immigrant full of lust for life was so like Zorba that he was termed by one critic "Zorba the Greek-American." The film of "A Dream of Kings" was released in 1969 by National General Pictures and was directed by Daniel Mann, who had previously worked with actors Burt Lancaster, Anna Magnani and Elizabeth Taylor.

Middle period.

"A Dream of Kings" had been published by the David McKay Company, which also published Petrakis's short story anthology "The Waves of Night" (1969). McKay also brought out his next novel, "In the Land of Morning", It came out in 1973, when the Vietnam War was in the American news every night, and has as the central character a young Greek-American veteran coming back from Vietnam who is of the same generation as Petrakis's three sons (Mark, John and Dean). There then followed a period at the publishing house of Doubleday, which published four of Petrakis's books between 1976 and 1983. All four had Greek themes. "The Hour of the Bell" is set during the Greek War of Independence (1821-1932), in which patriotic Greek forces expelled the ruling Turks who had been there since the fall of Greece to the Ottoman Empire in the year 1453. As he wrote, Petrakis felt inspired:  Doubleday also published "A Petrakis Reader" (1978), an anthology of short stories with primarily Greek or Greek-American characters. At about this time Petrakis started making numerous public speaking appearances in which he would read his stories aloud. Doubleday also published "Nick the Greek", the fictionalized life story of the legendary professional gambler Nick "The Greek" Dandolos; and "Days of Vengeance", a historical novel of Cretan immigrant men working in the Utah coal mines in the early 1900s.

Depression.

In 1982 Petrakis underwent an illness and accompanying depression that almost ended his life. Following knee surgery for a tennis injury, he developed a drop foot. He became anxious and made the rounds of the neurologists. One diagnosed him with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). Not yet knowing that the ALS diagnosis would prove to be incorrect, Petrakis decided he would not wait passively for the crippling decay of the disease. He bought a gun, thinking to kill himself. The night he intended to do it, however, a last-minute phone call to his wife made him long for a few more hours with her before the end. From that point, his depression began to lift. As part of his gradual ascent toward recovery, Petrakis talked and wrote much about his illness, which did not turn out to be ALS. For example, he described his depression to the "Chicago Tribune" in a 1990 interview titled "A Writer's Odyssey." And when he wrote "Ghost of the Sun", the 1990 sequel to "A Dream of Kings", he depicted all three of the neurologists visited by the now-old, now-sick Matsoukas as near-barbarians.

Later writings.

In the 2000s Petrakis began writing for Southern Illinois University Press. They published his "Twilight of the Ice", about the days when Americans still had ice delivered to the iceboxes in their homes; "The Orchards of Ithaca", in which a Greek restaurateur comes to the defense of a Greek Orthodox priest falsely accused of child molestation; "The Shepherds of Shadows", a sequel to "The Hour of the Bell"; and "Legends of Glory and other stories", a collection of short stories centering on Chicago Greeks. His most recent short story anthology is "Cavafy's Stone and other village tales" (Wicker Park Press, 2010), all of whose stories take place in the same fictional village in Greece. As of 2015, Petrakis is still producing work regularly. His latest book is a full-length autobiography, "Song of My Life".

Harry Mark Petrakis ( ; born June 5, 1923) is an American novelist and writer of short stories. He is best known for depicting the life of Greek-American immigrants in the Greektown neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois.


Early life and education.

William Trager was born March 20, 1910 in Newark, New Jersey to Leon and Anna (Emilfork) Trager. He received his bachelor of science degree from Rutgers University in 1930. He then moved to Harvard University where he was the first graduate student of L. R. Cleveland. In Cleveland's lab, Trager established a culture system for flagellate symbionts of the roach "Cryptocercus punctulatus", showing that the roach's ability to digest cellulose was actually due to the cellulases of the symbiotic flagellates. This work formed his PhD thesis, titled "The cultivation of some intestinal flagellates of termites and the nature of the symbiosis between these protozoa and their insect host" which he was granted in 1933.

Career.

Following his Ph.D., Trager joined the lab of Rudolf Glaser in the Department of Animal and Plant Pathology in the Princeton, New Jersey division of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research as a postdoctoral fellow. In Glaser's lab, Trager developed a culture system for growing the virus Borrelina which causes the disease grasseri in silkworms. Also while with Glaser, Trager developed a system to grow "Aedes aegypti" mosquito larvae in a nutrient medium, identifying the nutrients that the larvae require for development. In 1934, Trager was appointed to the staff of the Rockefeller Institute.  During World War II, Trager served as a captain in the US Army Sanitary Corps supervising clinical trials with the antimalarial atabrine. After the war, Trager turned his research focus to malaria, investigating the conditions required to grow "Plasmodium" parasites in culture. He began with work on the bird malaria parasite "Plasmodium lophurae", working both on extending the survival of the parasite in culture, and characterizing the nutrients that made birds susceptible to infection. In 1950, Trager moved along with the rest of the Department of Animal and Plant Pathology to the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research campus in New York City, where he would work until his retirement. Following the move, Trager pursued his interest in how "P. lophurae" survives inside host red blood cells by undertaking an investigation of infected cells using electron microscopy with Maria Rudzinska. Together, they found that parasites seem to take up pieces of the host cytosol by a type of phagocytosis, and that the pigment hemozoin is formed in specialized digestive vacuoles where hemoglobin is digested. Subsequently, along with Phyllis Bradbury, they described the ultrastructure of the human malaria parasite "Plasmodium falciparum", identifying the "knob" structures on the surface of infected cells that allow the parasitized cells to stick to blood vessels. Trager and Rudzinska went on to describe the structure of another parasite of red blood cells: "Babesia", for which they discovered the sexual stage, and described its organelles and invasion process. In 1964, Trager was promoted to Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Parasitology, a position he would hold for the next 16 years.  In the 1970s Trager and a postdoctoral fellow James B. Jensen performed the work for which Trager is best known: the cultivation of "P. falciparum". They found that they could take the blood of "Aotus" monkeys infecte with "P. falciparum", dilute the blood into human red blood cells, and with the addition of human serum and RPMI 1640 media, get "P. falciparum" to grow for weeks. Jensen greatly improved the culture method by introducing a carbon-dioxide rich environment through the use of a simple air-tight candle jar, where a flame is lit and allowed to burn out.  Trager also worked sporadically throughout his career on kinetoplastid parasites. He showed that the intracellular stage of "Leishmania donovani" could be cultured for several days, and established a tsetse fly tissue culture system to grow all the life stages of "Trypanosoma vivax". He also developed a ontinuous culture system for the lizard-infecting parasite "Leishmania tarentolae". In 1980, Trager transitioned to the role of emeritus professor at Rockefeller University.

Personal life.

Trager married Ida Susnow, whom he has known since high school, in 1936. Together they had three children: Leslie, Carolyn, and Lillian. He died, likely of a heart attack, at his home in Manhattan on Saturday, January 22nd, 2005.

Awards.

Trager received many awards over the course of his life. He received honorary degrees from Rutgers University in 1965 and Rockefeller University in 1987. He was awarded the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene's Manson Medal in 1986, and Thailand's Prince Mahidol Award in 1994.  Trager was president of the Society of Protozoologists from 1960 to 1961, the American Society of Parasitologists from 1973 to 1974, and the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene from 1978 to 1979. In 1973, Trager was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences.

William Trager (20 March 1910 – 22 January 2005) was an American parasitologist, professor at Rockefeller University, and member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States. Trager's research focused on developing microbiological culture systems for a variety of eukaryotic pathogens. He is best known for developing a culture system for the malaria parasite "Plasmodium falciparum" with James Jensen in the 1970s.


Pre-War.

Her maiden voyage was between London (cargo)-Southampton-Quebec-Montreal starting on 22 May 1925; she was employed on this route, switching to Halifax and New York during the winter, until World War II. In July 1927 her accommodation was altered to cabin, tourist and 3rd class, and in March 1939 to cabin and 3rd class. In December 1934 "Ascania" rescued the crew of the sinking cargo ship SS "Unsworth" in mid-Atlantic. "Ascania" herself ran into trouble on 2 July 1938 when she ran aground in the St. Lawrence River, near Bic Island, Quebec. Her 400 passengers were taken off by the Canadian Pacific cargo liner Beaverford while the "Ascania"'s crew remained aboard to refloat the liner which was repaired and returned to service a few months later.

Wartime Service.

On 24 August 1939, she was taken into naval service and converted into an Armed Merchant Cruiser. Armed with 8 x 6-inch (152mm) and 2 x 3-inch (76mm) naval guns, she became HMS "Ascania" with the pennant number F68. She sailed with the Halifax Escort Force and later with the North Atlantic Escort Force on convoy protection duty. From November 1941 to September 1942 she deployed to the New Zealand station. In October 1942, she was returned to the UK and was employed as a Troopship by the Ministry of War Transport. The following year, "Ascania" was modified into a Landing Ship Infantry and took part in the Invasion of Sicily in 1943, and the Anzio Landings and landings in the south of France in 1944.

Post-war.

"Ascania" was returned to Cunard and refitted, resuming passenger service on 20 December 1947 on the Liverpool to Halifax route. She underwent a major refit in 1949, to 14,440 gross tons and with accommodation for 200 1st and 500 tourist class passengers, and returned to service on 21 April 1950 on the Liverpool-Quebec-Montreal route. "Ascania" was again taken up as a troopship for the Suez landings and finally retired in December 1956.

Heritage.

"Ascania"'s bell is on display at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It is located in the 'Visible Storage' display cases section of the museum on the second floor. In addition, a large cut-away model is displayed at the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 next to the landing deck where "Ascania" once docked.

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The RMS "Ascania" was an ocean liner operated by the Cunard Line. She was launched on 20 December 1923 at the Armstrong Whitworth Shipbuilders Ltd yard in Newcastle-upon-Tyne; the fifth of Cunard's six "A" class liners. Due to unforeseen cost overruns, the vessel was not completed until May 1925. Following service in a number of military roles during the Second World War, she was refitted and returned to civilian use in 1950, finally retiring in 1956.


Early years.

La Palabra was born and raised in the small coastal town of Caimanera, Cuba. He loved music from an early age and grew up listening to Cuban artists like Orquesta Aragón, Estrellas Cubanas Orquesta, Pello el Afrokán (Pedro Izquierdo), Tata Guines, and Félix Chappottín. He was exposed to all genres of Cuban music -- charanga, son, danzón, cha-cha-cha, bolero, bolero-cha, rumba, sipisón, mozambique, paca, joropo, changüí, mozan-cha, guaguancó, and early Afro-Cuban jazz precursors to salsa.  At the age of 11, La Palabra began taking piano lessons from his grandmother and, inspired by Neno Gonzalez's song "El Café," was soon writing his own arrangements. After winning an amateur musical competition judged by representatives from the Department of Education, he was invited to attend a state-controlled school of music in Havana. La Palabra's grandmother turned down the opportunity down out of fear that La Palabra would be unable to leave Fidel Castro's post-revolutionary Cuba if he became a student at the state music conservatory. The almost constant flow of music, musicians, and tourists to and from the U.S. and Cuba that had taken place since the 1930s and 1940s was quickly halted. A few years later La Palabra's family successfully obtained their official visas to leave Cuba. He moved to New York City with his sister, aunt, and uncle in 1966.  In New York La Palabra entered the music scene by joining the sextet Lalo y La New Yorkina and played piano on their first single, "Rompe Tu Pared," with Hector Casanova on vocals. La Palabra continued playing with Lalo y La New Yorkina for two more years until 1968, when his mother decided to move the family to Detroit. He witnessed the cultural upheaval taking place in American society and in music -- hippie psychedelia, New York salsa, anti-Vietnam War anthems, Berry Gordy's Motown artists, the closely knit Detroit jazz community, Detroit-born Chicago blues singers (John Lee Hooker, Sonny Boy Williamson) even the occasional Latin artist (Joe Cuba) on "American Bandstand".  As a student of Cooley High School in Detroit, La Palabra became involved with as many aspects of the music department as possible and, most importantly, founded the school's first integrated band, The Blazers, which beat The Sons of Soul out of first place at the 1969 Michigan State Fair (where The Jackson Five was the main act) with their compelling performance of "Son of Ice Bag." The Sons of Soul drummer at the time was Ricky Lawson, who later moved to Los Angeles to become a studio musician and played on Michael Jackson's "Thriller". While La Palabra found regular work playing high-powered R&B cover tunes by Hugh Masakela, Chicago, Tower of Power, B.B. King and Hubert Laws, he began writing his first romantic song arrangements, lyrics and orchestrations, including his first-to-be-recorded salsa song "Amor de Juventud," which was later recorded by Ricardo Lemvo in the early 1980s.  By 1974 La Palabra had outgrown the high school music scene and began playing at El Sol Supper Club in Detroit. The 18-year-old performer and arranger dazzled audiences week after week with his quick-finger piano playing and romantic Spanish ballad-style singing of English cover tunes, delivered with Palabra's own mixture of Cuban guaguanco, salsa, soul, and rock and roll. One of his sidemen at El Sol was trumpeter Marcus Belgrave; another regular sideman was the young percussionist Humberto "El Nengue" Hernandez, also born in Cuba and later to become a Mongo Santamaria sideman.  For the next several years, La Palabra continued playing the Detroit club circuit, alternating between Stanley Mitchell and the People's Choice, Brainstorm (featuring violinist Regina Carter), the Five Specials, and Norma Belle and the All Stars, while sharing the circuit with Earl Klugh, Chapter 7 (with lead singer Anita Baker,) Dennis Coffey, Lyman Woodard, and the Organization. In 1977, La Palabra went on tour with Brainstorm (who later appeared on "Soul Train") and the Five Specials. The tour included Kool and the Gang, the Average White Band, and Fat Back Band. Following the tour La Palabra joined Norma Belle's band, with whom he played until 1979.

Godfather of Romantic Salsa.

Stevie Wonder's band members saw La Palabra performing in Norma Belle's band in Detroit, Michigan and immediately recommended him to Wonder. In September 1979 Wonder invited La Palabra to move to Los Angeles to join Phoenix Rising, the band Wonder was planning to assemble and produce. La Palabra viewed the chance to work for Stevie Wonder as a launching pad for his career and immediately headed to the West Coast, only to discover that the project was still only in the early planning stages. Without a job or record deal of his own, La Palabra began playing piano at local gigs with various Los Angeles groups. Several months later, in 1980, American pop singer Lionel Richie achieved massive widespread success with his hit single "Lady," while Spanish balladeers Roberto Carlos and Emanuel reached the top of the Latin charts with their respective hits "Cama y Mesa" and "Todo Se Derrumbo." La Palabra, caught up in this romantic movement in music, began experimenting combining his native Cuban rhythms and American pop music. He created a new genre of Latin music that combined sexually charged romanticism with high energy salsa, which he named Ballada en Salsa (later renamed and marketed as romantic salsa or salsa romántica by major record labels).  In December 1979 La Palabra partnered with Jesús "El Niño" Alejandro Perez to form Orquesta Versalles. La Palabra and "El Niño" showcased their new arrangements weekly, packing such popular nightclubs as Club Candilejas in Los Angeles, Club Riviera in Eagle Rock, and the Marina Hotel in Las Vegas. In early 1981 La Palabra (working as Fito Foster) and El Niño released a single as Orquesta Versalles (a.k.a. Orquesta Candilejas), with El Niño's arrangement of "Me Voy Pa’ Puerto Rico" on side A and La Palabra's arrangement of "Todo Se Derrumbo" on Side B. "Todo Se Derrumbo" became such a hit that Orquesta Versalles club audiences requested Versalles to play it three to four times a night.  "Todo se Derrumbo" attracted the attention of Joni Figueras, a music industry insider, frequent visitor at Club Candilejas, and fan of Versalles and La Palabra's arrangements. Figueras approached La Palabra and suggested that the two of them produce an album of La Palabra's arrangements to introduce the public to Ballada en Salsa / Salsa Romantica. La Palabra was intrigued by the idea but unable to start such a large-scale project while still contracted to work for Stevie Wonder and Phoenix Rising. Figueras forged ahead with the Salsa Romantica album without him, using musicians Louis Ramirez and Ray de la Paz to record "Noche Caliente" for K-Tel Records. As a result of one hastily released album, Ramirez and de la Paz were inaccurately called "the pioneers of salsa romantica."  In 1982 Stevie Wonder's team decided to abandon the Phoenix Rising project altogether. Although it was a disappointment to La Palabra, the official announcement was unsurprising. He had already been working with other bands since arriving in Los Angeles, and the following year Orquesta Versalles was deemed one of Los Angeles’ pioneering salsa bands. They released their debut self-titled album on Profono Records (then a division of CBS Records), which contained La Palabra's classic interpretation of Lionel Richie's "Lady," which became an overnight international success in dance clubs.  La Palabra relocated his band to Miami, Florida in 1984, believing the city to be the heartbeat of the Latin music industry. He enjoyed success with Orquesta Versalles there for several months, never fully aware of the impact "Lady" was making on Latin music in the rest of the world. Believing Profono Records failed to meet his expectations, with this album my wife Luz Damaris Foster (now DeJesus) collaborated with the song"Lady the laugh was it!! even Madonna used her laugh style. She wrote three songs, her first song was "Ya se Fue", second song "Mi negrita" and "te imaginas" was both lyrics until La Palabra left the label in 1984.  In 1985 La Palabra, who had been working as "Fito Foster" began to officially use his artistic name, "La Palabra," and formed a new group called Sensation 85 with former members of Versalles. That year the band released a self-titled debut album featuring Cuban jazz flautist Nestor Torres and Nicaraguan bongo player Luis Enrique on vocals, Enrique's first outing as a salsa singer.  Sensation 85 enjoyed popularity at Miami dance clubs, filling venues such as the Riviera Lounge (later renamed Club Capri), Papa Grande (Big Daddy's), Maxim's Supper Club, the Copacabana, and Salsa 2000.  Even as more and more newcomer Salsa Romantica artists were offered lucrative recording deals with major labels in the late 1980s, including two of his own band members from Sensation 85 (Luis Enrique and Lefty Perez), the genre's creator unjustly remained unsigned. Understandably disillusioned and devastated, La Palabra left the music industry from 1988 until 1999, when he returned to Los Angeles.

Orquesta La Palabra and Latin Jazz.

In late 1999 La Palabra began recording a new album, "Rap-A-Salsa", with the help of Chuck Neustein. Halfway through the recording, George Balmaseda, whom La Palabra knew from the Orquesta Versalles days, introduced Mel Morrow of Morrowland Records to Palabra. Morrow, who adored La Palabra's arrangements and his musical style, offered to finance the formation of a band with La Palabra. La Palabra abandoned the Rap-A-Salsa project and joined Morrow in the formation of the band, Orquesta La Palabra, with George "Babaloo" Balmaseda and Angelo Pagan on vocals.  With Morrow as executive producer, La Palabra and Morrow began the recording of the album "On Fire" in Los Angeles. The recording reached completion a year later and featured La Palabra's versions of "Todo Se Derrumbo" and "Lady." "Lady" became a major hit once again, being played throughout the United States and abroad including Europe, Asia, Israel, and Latin America, inspiring a new wave of interest among younger fans and sparking new interest in La Palabra.  In 2003, La Palabra recorded the album "Breakthrough" with Tornillo Records, which included the hit song, "El Tun Tun de Tu Corazon." It maintained the # 1 spot on Colombia radio for 12 consecutive weeks in 2006 and continued to be played on heavy rotation for most of 2007. Thanks to the song's success, La Palabra toured throughout Latin America and Europe. His hard-working, old-school showmanship reminded one of Latin jazz bandleaders like Tito Puente. Orquesta La Palabra was invited to perform at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China, including "I'm Going to Shenzhen" (specifically requested by the mayor of Shenzhen) at the opening ceremonies. La Palabra also played at the Grand Millenium Hotel, China Doll Nightclub, Susie Wong Nightclub, Block 8 Nightclub, the International Salsa Festival, and the 2008 Salsa Congress.  La Palabra fully returned to his Cuban roots in 2009 with the release of "Musicholic". The music he had been writing since meeting Mel Morrow was increasingly heavily influenced by the eclectic rhythms and musical styles he heard as a child and adolescent, as well as the more modern Latin jazz he heard as a teen-ager in New York and Detroit. His sophisticated style of Afro-Cuban jazz, while unmistakably his own, is in the tradition of Maraca, Mario Bauza and his Afro-Cuban Orchestra, Bebo Valdés, Poncho Sanchez, Oscar D'León, Chucho Valdés (the founder and musical director of Irakere, Cuba's top jazz orchestra), Jerry Gonzalez's Fort Apache jazz group from the late 1970s, early innovator Machito, the spirit of experimentation of Pucho and His Latin Brothers' acid-jazz from the late 1960s, Ray Barretto, and even hints of classic Eddie Palmieri.

La Palabra (born Rodolfo M. Foster in Caimanera, Cuba) is a well-respected bandleader, singer-songwriter, pianist, record producer, and arranger, known for his versatile approach to music, particularly his invention of the Salsa romantica Latin music genre and his signature style of Afro-Cuban-influenced, sensual Latin jazz.


Defects.

Defect concerns, e.g., water left behind (watermarks) and loss of resist-water adhesion (air gap or bubbles), have led to considerations of using a topcoat layer directly on top of the photoresist. This topcoat would serve as a barrier for chemical diffusion between the liquid medium and the photoresist. In addition, the interface between the liquid and the topcoat would be optimized for watermark reduction. At the same time, defects from topcoat use should be avoided.  Topcoats have now been tuned for use as antireflection coatings, especially for hyper-NA (NA>1) cases.  By 2008, defect counts on wafers printed by immersion lithography had reached zero level capability.

Polarization impacts.

Polarization effects due to high angles of interference in the photoresist also have to be considered as features approach 40 nm. Hence, illumination sources generally will need to be azimuthally polarized to match the pole illumination for ideal line-space imaging.

Throughput.

Immersion lithography tools currently boast the highest throughputs (275 WPH) as targeted for high volume manufacturing. This is achieved through higher stage speeds, which in turn, are allowed by higher power ArF laser pulse sources. Specifically, the throughput is directly proportional to stage speed V, which is related to dose D and rectangular slit width S and slit intensity I (which is directly related to pulse power) by V=I*S/D. The slit height is the same as the field height. The slit width S, in turn, is limited by the number of pulses to make the dose (n), divided by the frequency of the laser pulses (f), at the maximum scan speed V by S=V*n/f. At a fixed frequency f and pulse number n, the slit width will be proportional to the maximum stage speed. Hence, throughput at a given dose is improved by increasing maximum stage speed as well as increasing pulse power.

Multiple patterning.

The resolution limit for a 1.35 NA immersion tool operating at 193 nm wavelength is 36 nm. Going beyond this limit in half-pitch requires multiple patterning. At the 20nm foundry and memory nodes and beyond, double patterning and triple patterning are already being used with immersion lithography for the densest layers.

Immersion lithography is a photolithography resolution enhancement technique for manufacturing integrated circuits (ICs) that replaces the usual air gap between the final lens and the wafer surface with a liquid medium that has a refractive index greater than one. The resolution is increased by a factor equal to the refractive index of the liquid. Current immersion lithography tools use highly purified water for this liquid, achieving feature sizes below 45 nanometers. ASML and Nikon are currently the only manufacturers of immersion lithography systems.


History.

1889 is regarded the founding year of the "Museum der Stadt Bielefeld" (Museum of the city of Bielefeld). In 1906, this museum became the "Städtisches Museum" (municipal museum), containing both a history and natural history department. In 1930, an independent Natural History Museum was opened in the Kaselowsky villa. After World War II, from 1946 to 1964, the museum had no permanent home, but in 1964, temporary exhibition spaces were established at the Stapenhorststraße 1. Martin Büchner, mineralogist and long-term director of the museum, and other members of the "Naturwissenschaftlicher Verein für Bielefeld und Umgegend" (Natural history association of Bielefeld and surrounding areas) essentially contributed to the establishment of the new natural history museum and implemented numerous special exhibitions. In 1977, the museum received additional temporary premises at the Kreuzstrasse 38 (now Adenauerplatz 2; and home of the administration and collections of the museum). Finally, in 1986, the museum moved to the Spiegelshof, which since serves as the exhibition building. In 1994, the „Förderverein Naturkunde-Museum der Stadt Bielefeld“ (Friends‘ association of the Natural History Museum of the City of Bielefeld) was founded. Isolde Wrazidlo became director of the museum in 1999, after the retirement of Martin Büchner.  In 2003, the museum received a new logo and the additional name "namu", an acronym standing for the German words "Natur" (nature), "Mensch" (man), and "Umwelt" (environment). Subsequent events include the renovation and conversion of the Spiegelsche Hof (2003 and 2004), the museums 100-year-celebration combined with the implementation of the "Naturhistorischen Zeitreise mit der StadtBahn" ("Natural history journal with the light rail" – an installation of replicas of centerpiece specimens from the geological collection displayed in underground light rail stations throughout the inner city of Bielefeld), the opening of the new permanent exhibition "ausSterben – überLeben" (extinction – survival), the acquisition and renovation of the museum's external venue "Grünes Haus" (green house) at the Sparrenburg castle (2007) and the expansion of the educational service (2010). In 2014, the basement of the museum was converted into the "Geostollen", a permanent geological exhibition resembling a mining tunnel.

Collections.

The collections of the Bielefeld Natural History Museum are divided into three parts: the biological, geological and archaeological collection.  The biological collection includes about 260.000 objects.  The geological collection comprises 50.000 objects of different disciplines.  The archaeological collection includes about 100.000 objects.

Exhibition.

Permanent exhibition The present permanent exhibition "ausSterben – überLeben" ("extinction – survival") was opened in 2007. The visitor first enters a room that is designed as an imaginary museum of the year 2525, informing about the extinction of species and nature conservation in the early 21st century. Other rooms explain present day problems from the future perspective. The third part of the permanent exhibition provides an introduction into earth history and explains the importance of fossils in understanding today's imminent mass extinction of species. Another room is dedicated to museum education, allowing kids to playfully approach the topics of the exhibitions. The Geostollen in the basement supplements the exhibition by showing earth science objects and topics in a recreated mining tunnel. Showcases in the city Under the heading "Verdammt lang her..." ("long long ago"), the museum shows casts of centerpiece objects in underground stations of the Bielefeld Stadtbahn. The installation was realised in 2006 when the museum celebrated its 100-year anniversary. Showcases in the floor of the stations show casts of fossils such as the temnospondyl "Cyclotosaurus buechneri", the ichthyosaur "Temnodontosaurus" or the Woolly rhinoceros. Large size banners supplement the installation. A drilling core from the time when the subway tunnel was built is shown next to an elevator in one underground station and illustrates the strata of 220 million years of earth history in Bielefeld.  Special exhibitions Various special exhibitions (3 to 5 per year) about different topics regularly supplement the permanent exhibition.

Education.

The educational work focuses on sustainability in thinking and acting. Its guideline is "We can only protect what we know".

Friend's association.

The "Förderverein Naturkundemuseum der Stadt Bielefeld" ("Friends' association of the Natural History Museum of the City of Bielefeld") was founded in 1994. The association financially supports the educational service, the collections, exhibitions and implements an annual lecture series in cooperation with the adult education center. In 2008, the friends association received the environment award of the city of Bielefeld.

The Natural History Museum in Bielefeld () is a natural history museum in the city of Bielefeld in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Since 2003, it was given the additional name namu, which stands for the German words Natur (nature), Mensch (man), and Umwelt (environment). The exhibitions take place in the Spiegelshof, a historical building from the 14th century.


Biography.

Patch was born in Exeter in 1725. He was the son of a distinguished doctor and was expected to become an apothecary. He had not completed his medical studies when he journeyed to Rome in 1747 with Richard Dalton, who was to become the librarian to George III. In Rome he met Joshua Reynolds who was, at the time, producing a number of Caricature groups. Initially he worked for Joseph Vernet, creating landscapes of Tivoli and pastiches of Vernet's work. In 1755 he was banished from Rome by the Tribunale della Santa Inquisizione, apparently for homosexual indiscretion. He fled to Florence where he remained for the rest of his life. He was assisted by his friendship with Sir Horace Mann, who was the British envoy and a point of contact with British tourists arriving in Florence. In Florence he completed a detailed study of human physiognomy which, to his great sadness, was stolen and burnt. Despite this there remains some evidence of his work in this field. In 1768 and 1769 he speedily produced a number of prints, some of which have been used to identify some of the figures in the twenty or so painted caricature groups he produced during the 1760s and early 1770s. These canvases are his best known works, though the sitters have been frequently misidentified.  In addition, Patch was amongst the first artists to study early Italian art seriously and he published series of prints that reproduce of work by Giotto, Masaccio, Ghiberti and Fra Bartolommeo. He may well have intended to produce many more. The volume about Fra Bartolommeo, published in 1772, was inscribed, "The life of Frá Bartolommeo della Porta, a Tuscan painter, with his works, engraved from the original pictures, dedicated, to the Honourable Horace Walpole, an Intelligent Promoter of the fine Arts, by his most Obedient and most humble Servant Thomas Patch". Walpole, a relation of Horace Mann, the Prime Minister and a major art collector was an obvious and useful contact. In addition Patch, like many other expatriates, supplemented his income by supplying works of art for Grand Tourists. The most famous work with which he has been associated is a sculpture by Giambologna.  In about 1763, Patch completed three views of Florence that are now part of the Royal Collection that were purchased by George III. 'Bridge-painting', as he called his views of Florence, must have been his most lucrative activity. Two canvases of Mount Vesuvius in the Uffizi in Florence have been attributed to him, but these have not been universally accepted as genuine.  Towards the end of his life his output of paintings slowed and he became disillusioned by his inability to complete projects. He suffered an attack of apoplexy at Mann's house 29 April 1782 and died in his own house across the street the next day.

Likeness.

Patch appears in Johann Zoffany's "The Tribuna of the Uffizi" where we see him engaged with Sir Horace Mann & company appraising the charms of the Venus of Urbino. Zoffany places Patch's right hand on the painting whilst wryly having him gesture towards a classical sculpture of nude wrestlers with his left.  Patch engraved himself twice, on one occasion his head is attached to the body of a bull, and he includes himself in several of his caricature groups. In his paintings in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter and in the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven he is shown as a sculpted bust displayed on a wall sconce and in the twelve-foot long painting at the Lewis Walpole Library at Yale (another version is at Chatsworth, Derbyshire) of a party of Englishmen at Sir Horace's palazzo in Florence, ""The Golden Asses"," the artist sits astride the eponymous equine.

Thomas Patch (March 13, 1725 – April 30, 1782) was an English painter, engraver, physiognomist and art historian. He made a living from painting views of Florence and Tivoli and appears to have sold a number of painted caricature groups to members of the Anglo-Florentine community and to young British men on the Grand Tour. The largest collection of his paintings and prints is in the Lewis Walpole Library in Farmington, Connecticut.


Historical description.

According to Hindu belief, Badrinath became prominent when Nar-Narayan, an avatar of Vishnu, did Tapasya there. At that time that place was filled with berry trees. In Sanskrit language, berries are called "badri", so the place was named Badrika-Van, i.e. the forest of berries. The particular spot where the Nar-Narayan did Tapasya, a large berry tree formed covering Him to save Him from the rain and the sun. Local people believe that Mata Lakshmi became the berry tree to save Lord Narayan. Post-Tapasya, Narayan said, people will always take Her Name before His Name, hence Hindus always refer "Lakshmi-Narayan". It was therefore called Badri-Nath, i.e. the Lord of Berry forest. This all happened in the Sathya/Sath-Yuga. So Badrinath came to be known as the first Dham.  The second place, Rameswaram, got its importance in the Treta Yuga when Lord Rama built a Shiva-Lingam here and worshiped it to get the blessings of Lord Shiva. The name Rameswaram means "Rama is Lord".  The third, Dhaam Dwarka, got its importance in the Dwapara Yuga when Lord Krishna made Dwarka His residence instead of Mathura, His birthplace.  At the fourth, Puri Dhaam, Lord Vishnu is worshiped as Jagannath, his Avtar for Kali yuga.  The four Shankaracharya Peeth (Seats) at the Chaar Dham school of Hinduism, created at least four Hindu monastic institutions. He organised the Hindu practitioners under four (Sanskrit: ) (institutions/monasteries), with the headquarters at Dvārakā in the West, Jagannatha Puri in the East, Sringeri Sharada Peetham in the South and Badrikashrama in the North. The table below gives an overview of the four "Amnaya Mathas" founded by Adi Shankara, and their details.

The four associated places of the Char dhaams.

In the Puranas of, Hari (Vishnu) and Hara (Shiv) are referred as eternal friends. It is said wherever Lord Vishnu resides, Lord Shiva resides nearby. The Chaar Dhaams follow this rule. So Kedarnath is considered as the pair of Badrinath, Rama Setu is considered the pair of Rameshwaram, Somnath is considered as the pair of Dwarka. However, according to some traditions, the Char Dham are Badrinath, Rangnath-Swami, Dwarka and Jagannath-Puri, all of which are Vaishnav sites, and their associated places are Kedarnath, Rameswaram, Somnath and Lingaraja Temple, Bhubaneswar (or maybe Gupteshwar) respectively.  The Char Dham Highway project is still under completion and is proposed to get functional by end of 2018, but currently, many service providers offer a Char Dham Yatra by helicopter for the ease of pilgrims.

Pilgrimage details.

Puri.

Puri located at the east, is located in the state of Odisha, India. Puri is one of the oldest cities in the eastern part of the country. It is situated on the coast of the Bay of Bengal. The main deity is Shri Krishna, celebrated as Lord Jagannatha. It is the only shrine in India, where goddess, Subhadra, sister of Lord Krishna is worshipped along with her brothers, Lord Jagannatha and Lord Balabhadra. The main temple here is about 1000 years old and constructed by Raja Choda Ganga Deva and Raja Tritiya Ananga Bhima Deva. Puri is the site of the Govardhana Matha, one of the four cardinal institutions or Mathas converted by Adi Shankaracharya. Pandit Nilakantha Das suggested that Jagannath was a deity of Jain origin because of the appending of "Nath" to many Jain Tirthankars. Jagannath meant the 'World personified' in the Jain context and was derived from "Jinanath". Evidence of the Jain terminology such as of Kaivalya, which means moksha or salvation, is found in the Jagannath tradition. Similarly, the twenty two steps leading to the temple, called the "Baisi Pahacha", have been proposed as symbolic reverence for the first 22 of the 24 Tirthankaras of Jainism.  According to Annirudh Das, the original Jagannath deity was influenced by Jainism and is none other than the "Jina" of Kalinga taken to Magadh by Mahapadma Nanda. The theory of Jain origins is supported by the Jain Hathigumpha inscription. It mentions the worship of a relic memorial in Khandagiri-Udayagiri, on the Kumara hill. This location is stated to be same as the Jagannath temple site. However, states Starza, a Jain text mentions the Jagannath shrine was restored by Jains, but the authenticity and date of this text is unclear. This is the plume for Oriya people to celebrate a special day in this Dham which is known as Ratha Yatra ("Chariot Festival").

Rameswaram.

Rameswaram located in the South is in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is situated in the Gulf of Mannar at the very tip of the Indian peninsula. According to legends, this is the place where Lord Ram along with his brother Laxman and devotee Hanuman built a bridge (Rama Setu) to reach Sri Lanka to rescue his wife Sita who had been abducted earlier by Ravan, the ruler of Sri Lanka. The Ramanatha Swamy Temple dedicated to Lord Shiva occupies a major area of Rameswaram. The temple is believed to have been consecrated by Shri Rama Chandra. Rameswaram is significant for the Hindus as a pilgrimage to Benaras is incomplete without a pilgrimage to Rameswaram. The presiding deity here is in the form of a Linga with the name Sri Ramanatha Swamy, it also is one of the twelve Jyotirlingas.

Dwarka.

Dwarka located in the west is in the state of Gujarat, country India. The city derives its name from the word ""dvar"" meaning door or gate in the Sanskrit language. It is located confluence to where the Gomti River merges into the Arabian Sea. However, this river Gomti is not the same Gomti River which is a tributary of Ganga River The city lies in the westernmost part of India. The legendary city of Dwaraka was the dwelling place of Lord Krishna. It is generally believed that due to damage and destruction by the sea, Dvaraka had submerged six times and modern day Dwarka is the 7th such city to be built in the area.

Badrinath.

Badrinath is located in the state of Uttarakhand. It is in the Garhwal hills, on the banks of the Alaknanda River. The town lies between the Nar and Narayana mountain ranges and in the shadow of Nilkantha peak (6,560 m). There are other interesting sightseeing spots like Mana, Vyas Gufa, Maatamoorti, Charanpaduka, Bhimkund and the Mukh of the Saraswati River, within 3 km of Badrinathjee. Joshimath is situated on the slopes above the confluence of the rivers Alaknanda and Dhauliganga. Of the four Maths established by Adi Shankaracharya, Joshimath is the winter seat of Chardham.  While the three other Dhams remain open throughout the year, Badrinath Dham only remains open for pilgrims' darshan from April to October each year.

Chota Char Dham.

Another circuit of four ancient pilgrimage sites in the Indian state of Uttarakhand viz. Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath, and Badrinath is referred to as Chota Char Dham to differentiate it from this bigger circuit of Char Dham sites. These Chota Char Dham shrines are closed in winter due to snowfall and reopen for pilgrims with the advent of summer.  On 23 December 2016 the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Chardham Mahamarg Vikas Pariyojana ("Chardham Highway Development Project") to improve connectivity between Gangotri, Yamunotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath and make the pilgrimage an easy task for Hindus.

The Char Dham ("four abodes") is a set of four pilgrimage sites in India. Vaishnavite Hindus believe that visiting these sites helps achieve "Moksha" (salvation). It comprises Badrinath, Dwaraka, Puri and Rameswaram. It is considered by Hindus that every Hindu should visit the char dhams during one's lifetime. The Char Dham as defined by Adi Shankaracharya consists of four Hindu pilgrimage sites. Another small circuit in Uttarakhand of four pilgrimage sites-Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath, and Badrinath is referred to as Chota Char Dham.


The Periplus of Amaro.

Like Saint Brendan, Amaro is said to have travelled on a journey that echoes that of the Irish "immram" – the voyages to the paradisiacal islands of the West. An edition of the "Life of Saint Amaro" was published at Burgos in 1552.  His legend holds that Amaro was a noble Catholic from Asia who was obsessed with the idea of visiting the earthly paradise. With this goal in mind, he would inquire for more information from his guests. Amaro was not successful in receiving information from them and was quite desperate and anguished about this until one night, God appeared to him and revealed how to reach his objective. Amaro would have to build a boat and follow the path of the sun across the Atlantic Ocean.  Amaro took to the sea with some companions and sailed for six days and seven nights until he reached an island. This was an extremely fertile land that was blessed with five cities inhabited by uncouth men – though the women were quite beautiful.  Amaro spent six months there until he heard a voice in his dreams telling him to depart the island. Amaro sailed through the "Red Sea" until he reached the land of a beautiful fountain, where the people were beautiful and lived peaceful lives that lasted three hundred years. Amaro remained there for three weeks until an old woman advised that he leave the island before he became accustomed to the good life.  They sailed for a long time into the vast unknown until they saw several vessels that they thought could assist them. Unfortunately, they found that these vessels had been invaded by monsters, which had killed the sailors and taken their bodies down to the depths of the ocean. Amaro was rescued by an apparition of a group of women, who advised him to empty his bottles of wine and oil into the sea, and then fill the bottles with air. Amaro did this and was rescued from this "Mar Cuajado" (lit. "Still Sea"; the Doldrums).  Three days later they arrived at another desert island, which was inhabited by savage beasts hostile to man. There they found a hermit who informed them that the beasts there annihilated themselves by fighting one another on the day of Saint John; the stench of the corpses persisted throughout the year. The hermit provided them with supplies and recommended that they sail East, where there was a beautiful land that would satisfy all of their needs.  They sailed the next day and arrived in the afternoon, finding a monastery named Valdeflores. A monk from this monastery, Leonites, greeted them and told Amaro that he was waiting for him: he was already informed of their arrival by means of a vision. Leonites provided Amaro with instructions on how to reach the Earthly Paradise.  With Leonites, Amaro and his companions arrived at a natural harbor where they remained for a month, after which they traveled to an extensive and rugged valley, where Amaro will find what he was looking for: the Earthly Paradise. First, however, Amaro stumbled upon a nunnery situated high upon a mountaintop called "Flor de Dueñas" (Flower of Ladies).  He remained there, receiving further instructions on how to reach Paradise from a holy woman named Baralides. He is presented with a white habit. This is given to him by Brígida (Bridget), the niece of Baralides who lives in Paradise. Unfortunately, Leonites began to cry: he is losing a dear friend. But Baralides appears, and comforts Leonites with a gift. She presents him with a branch of one of the two magical trees of the Earthly Paradise.

Amaro in Paradise.

In Paradise, Amaro found an enormous castle built from gems and precious metals, with battlements of gold and towers of rubies, walls made with multicolored bricks.  The castle’s gatekeeper informed Amaro that the castle was the Earthly Paradise, and thus no living being can enter it. The saint begged the gatekeeper to allow him to look at Paradise through the keyhole. Amaro was allowed to do this, and saw many things, including the tree of life from which Adam ate; a primeval and eternal garden; enormous trees; birds whose song was so beautiful one could remain entranced by it for a thousand years; young musicians playing strange and unknown musical instruments; beautiful ladies adorned with a crown of flowers and dressed in white; the Virgin Mary, who accompanied these young ladies.  Saint Amaro begged to be allowed in; the gatekeeper refused and informed him that during the saint's viewing of Paradise, three hundred years have passed. Amaro returned to the coast to find his companions gone and a city named after him built there.  Amaro told the city’s inhabitants his story and they built him a house alongside the monastery of Valdeflores, where he lived for a number of years until he died. He was buried alongside Baralides and Brígida.

Veneration.

There are a number of hermitages dedicated to Amaro in Spain. There is a hermitage dedicated to Amaro in Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife ("Ermita de San Amaro"). The town of San Amaro in Ourense province is named after him.  His cult was also diffused in Portugal, where he is called "Santo Amaro". In the districts of Coimbra and Viseu, Saint Amaro is brought pinecones, nuts, and dry figs as an ex-voto offering — but he only accepts these items if they have been stolen. Saint Matthew, Saint Simon, and Saint Bartholomew are also brought things that have been stolen. He is also venerated with an annual religious festival in the parish of Ponta Delgada.  At Beja, the whitewashed church of Santo Amaro is one of just four pre-Romanesque churches left in Portugal. Some parts date from the sixth century and the interior columns and capitals are carved with foliages and geometric designs from the seventh century.

According to Catholic tradition, Saint Amaro or Amarus the Pilgrim (, ) was an abbot and sailor who it was claimed sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to an earthly paradise. There are two historical figures who may have provided the basis for this legend. The first was a French penitent of the same name who went on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in the thirteenth century. On his return journey, he established himself at Burgos, where he founded a hospital for lepers.


Background.

In the late 1850s, there were serious concerns that France might attempt to invade the United Kingdom. The recent period had seen great improvements in gunnery (with RML and RBL designs); the widespread introduction of steam propulsion in ships (the French La Gloire and British response HMS Warrior are examples); and the growth of the French battle fleet (between 1854-1858 it had achieved numerical equality to the British). These factors convinced him that Britain's coastal defences were inadequate to prevent invasion by Napoleon III if the Royal Navy was lured elsewhere.

The Royal Commission.

The Commissioners.

The Commission consisted of six eminent naval and military officers, plus a civilian architect:  The Secretary of the Commission was Major William Jervois of the Royal Engineers, a progressive military engineer who held the post of Assistant Inspector-General of Fortifications. Although not appointed as a Commissioner, Jervois seems to have had considerable influence on the conduct of the Commission. Amongst the Commissioners themselves, Cooper Key was an expert in the latest advances in naval gunnery, while Lefroy was an experienced and knowledgeable artillery officer who had been one of the founders of the Royal Artillery Institution. Fergusson was an expert in the history of eastern architecture, but had also published books entitled; "An Essay on a Proposed New System of Fortification: with Hints for its Application to our National Defences" (1849), "The Peril of Portsmouth; or, French Fleets and English Forts" (1852) and "Portsmouth Protected: a Sequel to the Peril of Portsmouth" (1856).

Terms of Reference.

Formulated by Lord Palmerston and the Secretary of State for War, Sidney Herbert, the Commission's brief was as follows:  An attached memorandum directed the attention of the Commissioners to the works already under construction at Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight, Plymouth, Portland, Pembroke and Chatham; they were further asked to consider how the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich might best be defended.

Investigations.

Starting on 3 November 1859, the first phase of the Commission's work was a series of interviews with technical experts and senior military and naval officers. One specialist was Captain Cowper Phipps Coles, the hero of the Siege of Taganrog and an expert in the bombardment of fortifications from the sea. He was so enraged by the numerous questions posed by the Commissioners that he was twice asked to leave the room so that he could recover his composure. Perhaps because of this, the Commission failed to enquire about Coles's pioneering design for a revolving gun turret, which he had patented in that year. Another interviewee was General John Fox Burgoyne, who had conducted the Siege of Sevastopol and was the current Inspector-General of Fortifications. Burgoyne's opinion was that the defence of the dockyard at Portsmouth was of primary importance and it could be protected from bombardment by the fortification and garrisoning of the Isle of Wight and also Portsdown Hill, the ridge which overlooks Portsmouth from the north. Burgoyne also believed that the coast between Portsmouth and the Thames was vulnerable to invasion and that every small harbour there needed to be fortified. Sir William Armstrong, the artillery designer and manufacturer, was questioned at length about the current capabilities of modern rifled artillery and likely future developments. Armstrong's opinion was that his latest guns would be able to defeat some features of current fortification, such as the Carnot wall, but that the maximum range of artillery would be unlikely to exceed 5 miles (8 kilometres) in the future.  The Commission also conducted a series of visits to the sites in question, before convening to produce a report of their findings. Perhaps because the Commissioners were all respected experts in their own fields, they were apparently able to work together amicably.

The Report.

The Report of the Commissioners was published on 7 February 1860. The Commissioners concluded that the fleet, standing army and volunteer forces, even combined, did not provide sufficient defence against invasion. Further, that the coastline which they considered to be at risk, the 700 miles (1,127 kilometres) from the Humber to Penzance, could not feasibly be completely fortified and therefore recommended that "the fortifications of this country should be confined to those points... whose possession would give him sure bases for operations". A detailed plan and costing was produced for each location which required defences, including forts which were already under construction, resulting in a massive programme. The total expenditure projected for the purchase of land and construction costs (including some funds that had already been agreed but not yet provided) was as follows:  Also included in the costings were the total of £500,000 for the armament of these works (a sum that was to prove hopelessly optimistic) and £1,000,000 for the construction of floating batteries, giving a grand total of £11,850,000. The Commissioners further suggested that a force of volunteer artillerymen be raised to man the guns in the new works.

Implementation.

The government, although broadly in agreement with the report, thought that it was too ambitious to be accepted by Parliament in its original form, and therefore set about reducing the number of planned works while attempting to retain the objectives of the scheme for each locality. Planned forts that were not proceeded with included fifteen at Plymouth, ten at Pembroke, six at Portsmouth and four at Chatham; the floating batteries were also dispensed with, resulting in a total saving of £3,930,000. Palmerston finally laid the Fortification Bill before an astonished House of Commons on 23 July 1860. Opposition came from those who believed that there was no threat from France and those who believed that greater security should be achieved by further spending on the navy. The chief opponents were the Radical Richard Cobden and his ally, William Ewart Gladstone, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, who between them had recently concluded the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty, a Free Trade agreement with France. The bill was accepted as the Fortifications (Provisions for Expenses) Act 1860, providing an initial sum of two million pounds and later payments financed by loans to a total of nine million.  By the time the fortifications were completed in the 1880s it was clear that the French had not seriously planned to invade. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 removed the threat and the forts became known as Palmerston's Follies. As a key purpose of fortification is deterrent, this judgement was harsh, but with the rapid development of warship design during the period, the time taken to plan and implement the works would always have caused problems with ensuring that the defences were capable of defeating a French attack force.

The works.

The types of fortification constructed as a result of the Royal Commission fell into two main categories; coastal batteries and land forts.

Coastal batteries.

The main purpose of the coastal batteries was to provide protected positions for heavy coastal artillery which would be able to engage enemy warships and troopships. In some places, for instance high on a cliff, the guns could be mounted in a barbette or open gun pit. However where the batteries were close to the shoreline and could be engaged directly by enemy gunfire, each heavy gun was mounted in a casemate, a vaulted chamber with embrasure for the gun to fire through which was pierced through an armoured shield. Since being mounted in an enclosed space limited the traverse of the gun, casemates were arranged in a long curved row so that the guns of the battery could follow the progress of a passing enemy ship, each weapon engaging it in turn. The rear of the battery was closed either by a simple wall pierced with loopholes, or by a more elaborate defensible building which doubled as a barracks for the garrison. The intention of these rearward defences was that they would be strong enough to prevent the battery being taken by enemy infantry but weak enough to be demolished should the battery fall into enemy hands. In two forts, Fort Darnet and Fort Hoo, the casemates formed a complete circle; other circular works were built as sea forts with foundations on the sea-bed and entirely surrounded by water. A number of the Royal Commission coastal works were upgrades of existing fortifications, such as the 16th century Pendennis Castle at Falmouth.

Land forts.

The landward fortifications were intended to prevent an enemy force who may have landed at an undefended beach from marching overland and assaulting a dockyard from the rear, or simply bombarding it. These forts were built in the new polygonal style without the traditional bastions and generally sited so as to form a "ring fortress", so that each fort could support its neighbour with artillery fire. Construction of some landward forts at Portsmouth and Plymouth had already begun in the 1850s and work on the ring fortress at Chatham was not started until 1875, resulting in very different designs as military theories changed over the decades.

The Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom was a committee formed in 1859 to enquire into the ability of the United Kingdom to defend itself against an attempted invasion by a foreign power, and to advise the British Government on the remedial action required. The appointment of the Commission had been prompted by public concern about the growing military and naval power of the French Empire and was instigated by the Prime Minister, Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, who came to be closely associated with the project. In the following year, the Commission's report recommended a huge programme of fortification to defend the country's arsenals and naval bases. Many of the recommendations were acted upon; however, the great expense, the length of time taken to complete the various works and their perceived usefulness were all subjects of critical political, press and public debate.


Early life and education.

Josiah Walls was born into slavery in 1842 near Winchester, Virginia. During the American Civil War, he was forced to join the Confederate army and work in support. He was captured by the Union Army in 1862 at Yorktown. He voluntarily joined the United States Colored Troops in 1863 and rose to the rank of corporal. He was discharged in Florida and settled in Alachua County, Florida.

Political career.

State government.

Walls served as a delegate to the state constitutional convention of 1868, representing Alachua County. Later that year, he was elected to the Florida House of Representatives from Alachua, along with his friend, Henry Harmon, serving in Florida's first Reconstruction Legislature. When State Senator Horatio Jenkins was appointed to a county judgeship, Walls decided to run in the special election to succeed him. He was elected to the Alachua and Levy County district on December 29, 1868, and took office in January. Walls served as state senator for the 1869 and 1870 legislative session.

Congress.

In 1870, Walls was nominated as the Republican candidate for Florida's sole at-large congressional seat after a contentious party convention. A moderate faction of mostly white carpetbaggers, led by U.S. Senator Thomas W. Osborn, supported the freedman Robert Meacham, while the majority of black delegates were split between several more radical black candidates, including Walls. Walls won the nomination on the 11th ballot, after the other black candidates withdrew to prevent Meacham from winning.  Walls went on to win the 1870 general election and serve in the 42nd Congress, but the vote was contested by Democrat Silas L. Niblack. The House Committee on Elections eventually unseated Walls after finding election irregularities.  Walls ran for the at-large congressional seat again in the 1872 election and won. In office, Walls introduced bills to establish a national education fund and aid pensioners and Seminole War Veterans.  In 1874, Walls ran for re-election to Congress in the newly redistricted 2nd district. Walls won the election but Democrat Jesse J. Finley, a former Confederate colonel, contested the results of the election. Finley was eventually declared the winner by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives.

Return to state politics.

Walls again sought the Republican nomination for the 2nd congressional district in 1876. After the black delegates split between Walls and another black candidate, the nomination went to a white carpetbagger, Horatio Bisbee. Walls instead ran for his old state senate seat, and served a four-year term. He lost re-election in 1880.

Legal career.

Walls was admitted to the bar in Alachua County in April 1873. In June 1874, Walls formed a law partnership in Gainesville with Henry S. Harmon, who had been the first African-American admitted to the bar in Florida, and William U. Saunders. The next year Harmon and Saunders moved their legal practice to Tallahassee.

Later life.

Leaving politics, Walls operated a successful farm in Alachua County until the disastrous freeze of 1894–95, which destroyed his crops. He took a teaching position as Farm Director of the State Normal and Industrial College for Colored Students, which much later would become Florida A&M University, in Tallahassee. After nearly a decade there, he died on May 5, 1905.  59-78.

Josiah Thomas Walls (December 30, 1842 – May 15, 1905) was a United States congressman who served three terms in the U.S. Congress between 1871 and 1876. He was one of the first African Americans in the United States Congress elected during the Reconstruction Era, and the first black person to be elected to Congress from Florida. He also served four terms in the Florida Senate.


Biography.

Hovsep Vartanian (), was born in 1813 to Catholic Armenian parents. At the age of 13, he set out for Vienna, where he was enrolled in the school of Mechitarists. Upon returning to the Ottoman Empire, he worked as a teacher for a couple of years, after which he took up a post in 1837 in the Dragoman's office of the Ottoman Empire. Rising through the ranks of the state bureaucracy, he was promoted to the rank of "Pasha" at the same time as his assignment as a founding member to the Ottoman Academy ("Encümen-i Daniş"), established along lines similar to those of the Académie française and which also acted as a consultative council for the Sultan. He wrote the novel "Akabi's Story" in 1851, while he was a member of the Academy, and a long story, also in Turkish, treating the deep divide and the strife between Gregorian and Catholic Armenians, a secondary theme in Akabi's novel, followed the next year. After his retirement, he started and managed the magazine "Mecmua-i Havadis", bilingual in Turkish and Armenian. He also wrote a biography of Napoleon I of France. Vartan Pasha died in 1879.

"Akabi's Story".

The novel relates an impossible love story between two young people issued from different communities which cultivate hostility between each other, either latent or evident, in the true fashion of "Romeo and Juliet" and many other stories produced by different cultures throughout the ages. Akabi is a daughter of Gregorian Armenians, and Hagop, her reciprocated lover, is a Catholic. Despite being an early novel and having been written by a male writer, Akabi character is the more prominent of the two principal heroes. Furthermore, although a Catholic himself, Vartan Pasha is totally impartial in his observations on the behavior of the characters from the two communities, advantaging neither one nor the other, and not shying away from criticizing both. The novel is rich in its number of secondary characters and in short but astute depictions of these. Nevertheless, although social issues are briefly or indirectly touched upon, the definite central theme of the novel is love. And love has a number of rules independent of the social environment from which it rose. The loved one dominates the relationship and the lover has to suffer a lot and make many efforts to reach his beloved, and this well after the brief initial period of happiness till the tragic end.

Vartan Pasha (), (Hovsep Vartanian or Osep Vartanian) (1813 - 1879) was an Ottoman Armenian statesman, author, and journalist of the 19th century, promoted to the rank of "Pasha" after three decades in the service of the state. He is also notable for his novel "Akabi's Story" ("Akabi Hikayesi"), published in 1851 in Turkish written in the Armenian script (a not unusual practice in the 19th century), and for having published the bilingual magazine "Mecmua-i Havadis", an important reference in the history of the Turkish written press.


History.

Guild.

Since medieval times, the practice of surgery was licensed by the Barber-Surgeons' Guild, also known at the time as the Guild of St Mary Magdalene. The guild chapel was in Christ Church Cathedral. Guild membership at that time was obtained by a 3-year apprenticeship followed by 2 years as a master. In fact the College of Surgeons maintained a mandatory period of apprenticeship to a qualified surgeon until 1828.  In 1446, the Guild of St Mary Magdelene (of Barbers) was incorporated by royal decree of Henry VI, becoming the first medical corporation in Britain or Ireland.

Towards a College of Surgeons.

In 1765 Sylvester O'Halloran, a surgeon from Limerick, proposed a College of Surgeons along the lines of the College de St. Cosme in Paris, which had been regulating French surgeons since it had been created by Royal Charter by Louis IX in 1255, to train and regulate surgeons. The Dublin Society of Surgeons was founded in 1780 at the Elephant public house on Essex street (now Parliament street). Trinity College did not teach surgery as a subject until 1851, so Ireland was entirely without a school focused on surgery.  To have a separate organisation focused on providing standardised surgical education became one of the goals of the society and they lobbied for a Royal Charter, in 1781 presenting the Lord Lieutenant a petition to be incorporated separately from the barbers. The awaited charter was granted by King George III on 11 February 1784. The governing body, including the first president Samuel Croker-King and William Dease, first professor of surgery, met in the boardroom of the Rotunda Hospital for the first time on 2 March. Importantly, admission or employment was not discriminated against on sectarian grounds. Two of its chief founders, Sylvester O'Halloran and William Dease, as well as eleven out of its first 57 presidents, were Catholics. The college also recognised the medical qualifications given by the Catholic university from 1856, which gave legitimacy to their diplomas. The first candidate for examination was John Birch, in August 1784.

York Street.

The current location, at the corner of York Street, was acquired in September 1805, with additional land at Glover's Alley bought in 1809. It was previously an abandoned Quaker burial ground. The Duke of Bedford laid the first stone of the new building on St. Patrick's Day, 1806 and building reached completion in March 1810.  A supplemental charter was granted by Queen Victoria in 1844, dividing medical graduates into Licentiates and Fellows. Initially, physicians were trained alongside surgeons. In 1886 these two disciplines were merged, and the medical school began operation. As a result of this historical legacy, graduates of medicine still receive Licentiate diplomas from the two Royal Colleges as well as now being awarded MB (Bachelor of Medicine) BCh (Bachelor of Surgery) and BAO (Bachelor of the Art of Obstetrics) degrees by the National University of Ireland.

20th century.

During the 1916 Rising, the main college building on St Stephen's Green was occupied by Irish Citizen Army forces, led by Commandant Michael Mallin and Countess Markievicz. After surrendering, both were tried and sentenced to death. Mallin was executed while Markievicz's sentence was commuted due to her gender.  RCSI was the first medical institution of learning to offer a 4-year graduate entry programme for medicine in Ireland. Now defunct subjects taught include: Logic (1852–1862), Military Surgery (1851–1860), Botany (1792–1889) and Hygiene or Political Medicine (1841–1921, then united with chair of Medical Jurisprudence). Since the 1980s Beaumont Hospital, Dublin has been the principal centre for medical training. Other affiliated hospitals include teaching hospitals such as Connolly Hospital, Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital, and St. Joseph's Hospital, Dublin, and there is now a group within the HSE hospital management structure, the RCSI Hospitals group.

21st century.

In 2010, Prof. Eilis McGovern became President of RCSI and thereby the first female President of any surgical Royal College in the world.  In 2017, RCSI opened a new high-tech facility at the RCSI city centre campus. 26 York Street is the most advanced clinical healthcare simulation centre in Europe. It was voted Ireland’s favourite building at the RIAI Irish Architecture Awards in 2018.

Motto.

The RCSI motto, "Consilio Manuque" ("Scholarship and Dexterity"), was adopted from the College de St. Cosme in Paris, which had been afforded the motto by Louis XIV. It was originally "Consiloque Manuque", his personal motto.

Values and admissions.

RCSI is a culturally diverse, international organisation with alumni present in almost every country in the world. It describes its values as innovation, excellence, independence, academic freedom, diversity, tolerance and community. It champions a patient-centric approach to all its activities and endeavours.  RCSI now offers undergraduate degrees in Medicine, Pharmacy and Physiotherapy and is the largest Irish medical school. Its primary purpose is the education and training of healthcare professionals and health sciences research. More than 3,800 students representing 60 nations are currently enrolled in its Medicine (1,800), Pharmacy (200) and Physiotherapy (100) programmes. There are 17,000 RCSI alumni working as medical doctors or in allied disciplines around the world.

Student life.

Students at RCSI are encouraged to participate in extracurricular activities that promote service in the community and cultural awareness. A complete list of current student societies and clubs can be found on the RCSI website.  The Students' Union (SU) is an annually elected body, consisting of 8 officers. The SU is the college's bridge between faculty and the student body and is invited to most meetings, ensuring that student voices are heard on a variety of topics. The SU works closely with the Student Council, which consists of representatives from all classes at RCSI.  The Biological Society (BioSoc) is the official student society of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) and claims to be the oldest student medical society in the world.

International aspects and operations.

As a leading international medical institution, RCSI is active in all medically related sectors of education around the globe. During the South African Apartheid, for example, RCSI provided medical education to those that were discriminated against. In 2005, RCSI Dubai was founded and currently offers a master's programme in Healthcare Management.  In 2007 RCSI (Royal College of Surgeons Ireland) in conjunction with Valentia Technologies, the Dublin Fire Brigade (DFB), and the Pre Hospital Emergency Care Council (PHECC) launched unique training initiative with the Emergency Medical Services Dubai Training Institute. The aim is to better patient care and improve response times within Dubai's emergency ambulance services.  In Malaysia, RCSI, together with University College Dublin (UCD), owns a branch campus within George Town, the capital city of the State of Penang. Established in 1996, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and University College Dublin Malaysia Campus (RUMC), formerly known as the Penang Medical College, offers twinning programmes in which students typically spend the first half of their courses in either RCSI or UCD, before completing the courses back at RUMC. Meanwhile, the Perdana University Royal College of Surgeon in Ireland (PU-RCSI) in the State of Selangor was established in 2011. The programme hosts up to 100 students per year on its 5-year undergraduate medical programme, the first cohort graduated in 2016.  RCSI-Bahrain is a fully owned constituent university of RCSI and already has nearly 450 registered students. The first cohort commenced medical studies in October 2004 and graduates are entitled to a Degree of Bachelor of Medicine, NUI, Bachelor of Surgery, Bachelor of Obstetrics MB, BCh, BAO (NUI, RCSI) degree. In 2006 the Medical University of Bahrain established a new School of Nursing which took its first cohort of students in September 2006. Since 2009 students can also obtain the degrees conferred upon RCSI graduates from the National University of Ireland.  For students at the home institution of RCSI, options may be taken abroad as a result of collaborative agreements with other medical schools around the world. In 2007, these medical schools included Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, and Tufts University. There are also informal agreements with other institutions such as the Johns Hopkins University and Mayo Clinic.  More than 60 countries from each continent are represented in the RCSI student body.

The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI; ) is a professional association and educational institution that is responsible for the medical speciality of surgery throughout the island of Ireland. Uniquely among the four mutually recognised royal surgical colleges in the United Kingdom and Ireland, it also incorporates a medical school, which is now Ireland's largest with over 3,000 students from 60 countries. Since 2019 the body has had full university status, making it the first private university in Ireland.


History.

IFF was founded in 1979 as the ‘Interuniversity Research Institute for Distance Education’ (in German: ‘Interuniversitäres Forschungsinstitut für Fernstudien’ or ‘IFF’). Since that time, the IFF has undergone several transformations. On one hand, the institute’s character has been altered by its growth during that period, and on the other hand, changes have taken account of evolving developments in higher education policy and the need for the Faculty to adapt to these.  IFF was founded as an inter-university institute with the aim of creating connections both between and across disciplines. During the founding years, the guiding vision involved "“allowing research and education to have an impact ‘beyond’ the traditional universities”". The ‘Interuniversity Research Institute for Distance Education (IFF)’ was founded jointly by eight universities. In 1988, the IFF had premises in Klagenfurt, Bregenz, Graz, St.Pölten, Stadtschlaining and Vienna. Ten years later, the IFF was serving more than 1,000 distance learning students via study centres in Klagenfurt, Bregenz and Vienna. In addition, the IFF developed new courses for Austria-wide teacher training programmes and began to establish its own research foci, centred on themes such as the environment, peace studies, social learning, regional development or technology and scientific research.  In 1989 a conflict arose between the institute and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science, concerning the direction taken by the IFF and its future development. The crisis was brought to an end with the re-establishment of the IFF in 1992 as the "Interuniversity Institute for Interdisciplinary Research and Continuing Education".  In the context of Austria’s university reform programme in 2002, the closure of all existing inter-university institutes in Austria was planned. This confronted the IFF with a choice between dissolution, with its existing regional facilities and their departments joining the nearest of the founding universities, or to remain a unitary institution and attach itself as a whole – with all regional centres – to one university. After internal discussions and negotiations with the rectors of the universities concerned, it was decided that the institute should remain intact. In 2004, the IFF was incorporated within the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt as the ‘Faculty for Interdisciplinary Research and Continuing Education (Klagenfurt-Graz-Vienna)’ - in German the ‘Fakultät für Interdisziplinäre Forschung und Fortbildung’ and therefore the "‘IFF’". Interuniversity cooperation continues via contracts undertaken between the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt and other universities.

IFF staff.

Faculty staff are not only drawn from different academic disciplines but also work at the IFF in very different contexts such as palliative care, organisational ethics, social ecology and environmental history, organisational development, science and technology studies, group dynamics, school development, higher education research, agricultural and regional development, continuing education, and intervention research.  The Faculty’s inter- and transdisciplinary working approach ensures that academic personnel represent a broad spectrum of specialist expertise in scientific research, from the arts, humanities and cultural studies to natural sciences, engineering, social sciences and economics. Experts from a very wide range of professional fields who undertake research with the Faculty further strengthen the inter- and transdisciplinary profile of the IFF.  There are currently c. 80 university positions held at the IFF in some cases these posts are shared between two persons. In addition, there are c. 60 independently funded individuals working at the IFF. A large number of external teaching staff are also involved in teaching and continuing education programmes of the Faculty.

Management und Staff Involvement.

At the IFF, the Dean or Vice-Dean is responsible for the management of the Faculty sites in Klagenfurt-Graz and in Vienna, respectively. They are supported in their managerial function by conferences involving the heads of the individual organisational units. Faculty and staff are actively involved in developing Institute policies. To that end, twice-yearly Faculty meetings, involving all scientific and administrative staff members are held. These meetings focus on strategic discussion and the evaluation of units or projects as well as on internal networking.

Departments and Institutes.

The following institutes and departments are established at the Klagenfurt, Graz and Vienna sites:

The Faculty for Interdisciplinary Research and Continuing Education (IFF) is one of four Faculties at the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt. It has locations in Klagenfurt, Graz and Vienna.