Early life.

At the age of 14, Wendy Oxenhorn moved on her own to New York City, where she attended the School of American Ballet and danced with New York City Ballet.  When Oxenhorn was 17, a ballet career-ending knee injury drew her into depression when she was told by doctors that if she continued to dance, she would become crippled. This news prompted Oxenhorn to call a suicide hotline where she ended up consoling the counselor on the line, who was herself depressed. Oxenhorn started working at the suicide hotline three days later, thus beginning her career in the humanitarian arena.

Career.

In 1990, Oxenhorn co-founded the newspaper, Street News, with Hutchinson Persons, which provided employment and income for a homeless workforce. Oxenhorn recruited Fortune 500 CEOs and celebrities, built the infrastructure, marketing and fundraising for the organization, gaining coverage on the front pages of New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Herald Tribune as well as appearing on talk shows including Regis and Kathy Lee, CBS Nightline, TODAY Show, and others. Recruited donors included Malcolm Forbes, Cyndi Lauper, Clive Davis, Ben & Jerry, Thomas Mosser, New York Times President Lance Primis, and then White House Chief of Staff, John H. Sununu. At its peak, Street News employed over 2000 homeless men and women in New York City and had a circulation of 250,000. It is credited with being the first homeless sold newspaper, inspiring as many as 150 similar newspapers in major cities throughout the world.  In 1994 Oxenhorn started a Board of Education approved public school program called Children of Substance. Children of Substance was a support group that helped middle school aged girls cope with drug addicted and alcoholic parents. The program gathered these 12-year-old girls who suffered from Bulimia and depression, incest or suicide attempts, and brought them together in small meetings with guest speakers who were adult children of alcoholic parents. These supportive meetings gave the girls the courage to say out loud what was happening to them, to bond with one another and to realize they were no longer alone.  Oxenhorn later began teaching herself blues harmonica on empty subway platforms late at night so she wouldn't wake her neighbors. She eventually started playing with an elderly blues man from Mississippi who regularly performed in the New York train stations. Oxenhorn quit her day job to play the blues full-time for over a year. She credits this experience, along with her non-profit background, with landing her position as Executive Director of the Jazz Foundation of America.

Jazz Foundation of America work.

In 2000 Oxenhorn took over the executive directorship of the Jazz Foundation of America (JFA), which provides assistance to elderly professional jazz, blues & R & B musicians in need. At the time, the organization had $7,000 in its accounts and handled 35 clients per year. In 2001 Oxenhorn conceived and produced what became the major annual JFA fundraising event: "A Great Night in Harlem." Named after the famed Art Kane photograph, A Great Day in Harlem, Oxenhorn's Great Night in Harlem Concert at the Apollo Theater has been a hugely successful annual fundraising event, which would not have been possible without Lauren Roberts, a co-worker and Jarrett Lilien, the former E*TRADE president, who offered to bankroll the cost of the Apollo Theater and has since become the organization's President. The inaugural event was emceed by Gil Noble, and featured performances by dozens of prominent jazz musicians. The concert also helped attract prominent board members, including Quincy Jones, their current Chairman; Richard Parsons, Agnes Varis, Elvis Costello, Danny Glover, Michael Novogratz and Lou Reed. The benefit concert raised $350,000 in its first year, 13 days after 9/11. Oxenhorn’s fundraising efforts vastly expanded the program to over 500 cases per year and by 2005 the JFA became a national organization with a staff of four.  Oxenhorn's work at the JFA has included post-Katrina relief efforts for displaced musicians, re-housing and creating instant employment to hundreds of New Orleans musicians and their children, thanks to the support and generosity of Jarrett Lilien and E*TRADE and the famous Met Opera philanthropist Agnes Varis, who has since been known and loved the world over as "Saint" Agnes. Agnes Varis' support allowed Oxenhorn to create the Agnes Varis Jazz in the Schools Program. This program makes it possible for hundreds of elderly musicians to introduce jazz, blues and live music for the first time, to over 80,000 public school children a year. The Agnes Varis Program has kept hundreds of musicians afloat for the past ten years since Katrina, allowing them to pay their own rent. The Foundation's efforts are credited with bringing over 1000 displaced musicians back to New Orleans after Katrina by re-housing families and creating immediate employment. Oxenhorn also acquired over a quarter million dollars worth of donated new top shelf instruments to replace what was lost in the flood for hundreds of NOLA's most beloved musicians. As human rights journalist, historian and jazz critic Nat Hentoff explained, “Wendy Oxenhorn launched Jazz in the Schools to also preserve the legacy of jazz by enlisting elder masters of jazz and blues who are in need of work to play educational performances introducing these public school children to jazz. Since then, the performances have included venues like children’s hospitals and nursing homes." Hentoff also writes: "Wendy Oxenhorn, the foundation's executive director—is the most determined, resilient, and selfless person I have ever known— she has emphasized to me "It's a privilege to be of service to people who spent a lifetime making our world so beautiful with their music and giving us all they had." Time Warner Inc. Chairman Richard D. Parsons said in an interview that Oxenhorn's ability to help artists quickly was a big factor in his decision to donate both his own money and corporate funds. ``On the basis of an article I read in the NY Times, I just sent the foundation a check," Parsons said, adding that he subsequently met Oxenhorn. ``She is `sui generis,' as we say in the law. She is one of a kind. When she sets her heart on something, she is fearless in pursuing it."  Actor Michael Imperioli, who got involved with the Jazz Foundation after being moved by the spirit of the foundation's work, believes that her role in the industry is thoroughly unique. “I’m surprised that she hasn’t been interviewed by Oprah Winfrey and lauded in some public way -- not to single out any one person, but she deserves to be on that sort of platform,” Imperioli told ABC News. “People should really know this person," Imperioli said. "She should get a Congressional Medal of Honor as far as I’m concerned. She gets an immense amount of joy from helping people. I’m a Buddhist, [and] in my religion, we call that a bodhisattva -- someone who actually dedicates their lives to serving and helping others and that’s who she is."  Since 2001 Oxenhorn has generated over 50 million dollars and the organization now assists 7000 emergency assists a year and continues to save the homes and lives of thousands of musicians in crisis.  AWARDS & HONORS include:  Wendy Oxenhorn was honored for her humanitarian efforts on behalf of jazz and blues musicians at the 2004 Grammy Lunch by the Artist Empowerment Coalition (AEC), a non-profit coalition of artists, musicians, performers. Presented by Richard Parsons, CEO Time Warner, along with Prince, Roberta Flack, Mary J. Blige, Danny Glover, Russell Simmons and many other notables.  Wendy Oxenhorn was also honored for her efforts on behalf of jazz and blues musicians by SESAC, WBGO FM radio, Jazz Journalists Association and HBO during the premiere of "The Jazz Baroness" a documentary on the life of Nica Rothschild, who was noted for helping prominent jazz musicians, as a friend and patron in the 1950s and 1960s.  Ms. Oxenhorn is the first American as well as the first woman to be invited to join the board of the Montreux Jazz Festival's Artist Foundation in Switzerland.  Jazz at Lincoln Center recently bestowed the 2nd Annual Ashley Schiff Ramos Community Development Award to Wendy Oxenhorn. Ms. Oxenhorn's work at the Jazz Foundation serves as an inspiration to keep jazz and blues alive and to support the unique individuals in the jazz and blues community.  Greenhope Services for Women awarded Ms. Oxenhorn their Community Service Award on May 19, 2015. Ms. Oxenhorn was also their keynote speaker. Greenhope is a comprehensive residential, day treatment and outpatient program that works to rehabilitate and empower formerly incarcerated women and women referred as an alternative to prison.  The Franciscan Handmaids of the Most Pure Heart of Mary, Inc. (FHM), a Harlem-based order, one of only three orders of Black nuns in the United States, presented Ms. Oxenhorn with their Passion For Social Justice Award on March 29, 2016. Honorees this evening included: National Urban League President & CEO Marc H. Morial, the Honorable Charles B. Rangel, U.S. congressman & the Rev. Al Sharpton.  The National Endowment for the Arts presented Wendy at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. with the 2016 NEA Lifetime Honors Jazz Masters award for her significant accomplishments in the field and for dedicating her life to assisting jazz & blues musicians in need.  The Scribes Institute for Literacy awarded Ms. Oxenhorn the Oprah Winfrey Award at the Martin Luther King Gala on January 15, 2017

References.

Wendy Oxenhorn a.k.a. "The Barefoot Baroness," is the Founding Director & Vice Chairman of the Jazz Foundation of America, co-founder of Street News, a Reverend and a blues harmonica player.


Athletics career.

Between 1965 and 1973 he won two gold, five silver and one bronze medal in the AAA indoor 60 metres/60 yards, missing out on the medals only in 1970. In the 100 yards at the AAA championships he won a gold, silver, and two bronzes between 1965 and 1968. His biggest success was in winning the 60 metres at the 1966 European Indoor Games, setting the inaugural world record in the semi-final with 6.6, and equaling this time in the final.  He also competed and two European championships, 1966 in Budapest and 1969 in Athens as well as the Mexico Olympics.  He represented England in the 100 yards and 110 yards relay, at the 1966 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Kingston, Jamaica.

Personal life.

He suffered from asthma and didn't take up athletics till he was 22. He never told the British Amateur Athletic Board of his Asthma, afraid he would miss being selected for the Mexico Olympic Games, and other overseas trips. He went on to represent Great Britain on 33 occasions, which was a record for a sprinter at that time. He also captained the British Men's Team on several occasions.  He had a very successful career in the brewing industry, retiring at the age of 65.  Kelly has always had an interest in photography, and after his retirement, his passion is wildlife. He has a keenness for British wildlife, he has however travelled to many countries, such as Kenya, Botswana, Tanzania, Namibia, India, Canada, the USA, and across Europe.

Barrie Harrison Kelly (born August 2, 1940) is a former sprinter from Bury, United Kingdom. He was a member of Bury and Radcliffe Athletic Club.


The games.

Opening ceremony.

The opening ceremony officially began on July 13, 1978. It was organized by Mohamed Zerguini, president of the Algerian Olympic Committee and member of the International Olympic Committee. It was attended by Lord Killanin (president of the International Olympic Committee), Mohamed Mzali (vice-president of the IOC), Masaji Kiyokawa (Vice Chairman of the IOC), the French Count Jean de Beaumont, the IOC executive members Juan Antonio Samaranch, Mohamed Benjelloun, Lamine Keita, Mohamed Abel Halim and other members and 45 presidents or representatives of the African National Olympic Committees. And finally Ignaty Novikov president of the Organizing Committees of the Olympic Games accompanied with representatives of Organizing Committees of the 1979 Mediterranean Games in Split.

Closing ceremony.

At the conclusion of the games it was known where the next games would be held as Nairobi had come forth to offer to hold the games in 1987.

Stars of the games.

Henry Rono, the Kenyan star who had already set four world records on the track in 1978 won the 10,000 meters and 3000 meters steeplechase. Filbert Bayi again took the 1500 meters gold medal. The Algeria national football team wins the gold medal of the games against Nigeria, Ghana wins the bronze medal.

Participating Nations.

The following is a list of nations that participated in the 1978 All-Africa Games: Somalia participated in the games, but not mentioned.

Results.

Athletics.

Malian discus thrower Namakoro Niaré won his third title, being the only athlete to do so. Four athletes, two male and two female, won more than one event:  Some new events were added: Decathlon and pentathlon, for men and women respectively, as well as men's 20 km road walk.

Football.

The football tournament was won by the host country Algeria.

Concerns and controversies.

Egyptian incident.

The Egyptian team, which had topped the medals table in the previous two games was called home by its government midway through the games after a brawl marred the football tournament. A fight between Libyans and Egyptians began at the end of the match after a Libyan player struck his opponent. The field became a ring between the players and leaders on both sides. It was reported that Algerian police did stop the violence. Live television broadcast the melee to Egypt. Egypt decided, as a result of these incidents, to withdraw from the competition and the Egyptian Prime minister called the team home immediately.

The meeting of Algiers.

The meeting gave those African nations associated with the Commonwealth a chance to address another brewing controversy; their proposed boycott of the 1978 Commonwealth Games which were to be held the following month in Edmonton, Canada. The discussions were fruitful and the boycott was not carried out.

The 3rd All-Africa Games – Algiers 1978 was a multi-sport event played from July 13, 1978, to July 28, 1978, in Algiers, Algeria. 45 countries from 49 independent African countries participated in twelve sports.


Station origin.

The genesis of what would become WRR began through the efforts of local amateur radio enthusiasts belonging to the Dallas Radio Club, in conjunction with Henry "Dad" Garrett, who was Dallas' superintendent of police and fire signals. Inspired by activities at the New York City police department, Frank M. Corlett, a local district manager for the American Radio Relay League, approached the Dallas police about setting up something similar. A short notice in the December 28, 1920, edition of "The Dallas Morning News" stated that Corlett was developing a system in cooperation with Police Commissioner L. E. McGee which would be used to "notify the near-by police of the escape of prisoners and to give a description of suspects fleeing from Dallas." In early February, it was announced that the plan was now operational, consisting of nightly transmissions between 7 and 10 o'clock. The primary outlet was Corlett's Special Amateur station, 5ZC, located at his home at 1101 East Eighth Street. Two alternate sites were included: Bennett Emerson's Special Amateur station, 5ZG, located at 3720 Wendelkin Street, and John Dorea's station, 5JG, at 117 West Twelfth Street. In early June 1921, it was again announced that the daily police bulletin transmissions had been inaugurated by Corlett and Emerson.  "Dad" Garrett was also involved in the developmental work. Garrett had had an early interest in radio communication. In 1912, a fire broke out that was being dealt with by a majority of the fire department. Meanwhile, a second major blaze occurred, but because the telephone lines were down, there was a delay in alerting crews at the site of the need to deal with the second emergency. Radio was still an unperfected technology, but Garrett recognized its future potential for speeding up communication during emergencies. In May 1921, it was reported that he had installed on a fire truck a radio receiver constructed by Corlett and had successfully received transmissions sent by Emerson and Garrett's son, Charles Garrett.

WRR.

In July 1921, Bennett Emerson sold his transmitting equipment to the city for $250, and it was installed on the second floor of the Central Fire Station at 2012 Main Street, where it came under the oversight of "Dad" Garrett. On August 5, 1921, a Limited Commercial license with the randomly assigned call letters WRR was issued to "City of Dallas (Police and Fire Signal Dept.)", which authorized transmissions on the wavelengths of 400, 450 and 500 meters (750, 667 and 600 kHz), for communication with "Police and Fire Signal portable stations, general communication and broadcasting with amateur stations".  An early review of the new station noted that in addition to broadcasting police reports, it had been used for a two-way conversation between the Chief of Detectives in Dallas and Houston. WRR soon expanded its offerings beyond police and fire reports. In mid-December, it ran a telephone line to the local First Baptist Church's auditorium in order to broadcast Dr. George Truett's Sunday services. By early February 1922 the station's daily schedule included entertainment programs, featuring sports reports and weather forecasts, plus piano, vocal and saxophone solos. "Dad" Garrett's assistant, Lynn B. Henson, took on the majority of the responsibility for running the station.  From 1912 to 1927, the Department of Commerce regulated U.S. radio, and initially, there were no specific restrictions on stations broadcasting entertainment to the general public. The first formal standards were adopted effective December 1, 1921, which specified that broadcasting stations had to hold a Limited Commercial license that also authorized operation on the "entertainment" wavelength of 360 meters (833 kHz) or the "market and weather reports" wavelength of 485 meters (619 kHz). At the time this regulation was adopted a small number of stations already met the new requirements, although this did not include WRR, whose current Limited Commercial license did not have an assignment for either of the broadcasting wavelengths, and as of late January 1922 the station was reported to be broadcasting on 450 meters. In early February 1922, WRR was reported to now be on 360 meters, but it wasn't until March 13, 1922 that the station was issued a new Limited Commercial license that included an authorization to use both broadcasting wavelengths. For this reason the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) records generally list March 13, 1922, as WRR's "Date First Licensed".  In early April 1922, as WRR's focus turned toward general broadcasting, a second transmitter was installed, operating on 200 meters (1500 kHz) under the call sign of 5ZAQ, which took over the broadcasting of fire signals. The common use of 360 meters led to some unique cooperative experiments, including a June 1922 wedding where the three main participants were located at different radio station studios, with the groom broadcasting his responses over WRR, the bride's from WDAO (a short-lived station operated by the Automotive Electric Company), and the minister officiating through the "Dallas Morning News"' WFAA (now KLIF (AM)). As additional broadcasting stations were established, the joint use of 360 meters led to the need to develop timesharing agreements between the stations to avoid interference. By early July there were five local stations — three in Dallas and two in Fort Worth — and an agreement was concluded which allocated timeslots for the period from 8:45 A.M. to 10:00 P.M. on weekdays, and from 11:00 A.M. to 10:00 P.M. on Sundays. Under this plan, WRR's weekday assignments included "Weather forecast on 485 meters. Lecture and music on 360" from 12:00 noon-12:30, "Baseball, markets, music" from 3:00-3:30, "Police bulletins" from 7:00-7:15, and music from 8:30-9:00. Its Sunday schedule consisted of police bulletins at 7:00 P.M., followed by a church service at 8:00. By the end of 1922, the number of broadcasting stations licensed in the United States had ballooned to over 500. WRR stood out as one of fewer than ten stations operated by a municipality.  In 1925, it was decided that the city could not afford the expense of operating a radio station, and WRR's license was allowed to lapse, leading to its deletion in late July. However, a committee of civic leaders, headed by Edwin J. Kiest, the owner of the "Dallas Times Herald", and George B. Dealy, President of the "Dallas Morning News", raised the funds needed to revive the station, which was relicensed in October. Beginning in the mid-1920s, WRR started accepting advertising. The station became financially self-supporting and began providing surplus funds to the city government.  Over the years, the number of available transmitting frequencies was expanded. The Department of Commerce and, beginning in 1927, the Federal Radio Commission (FRC) worked to accommodate a growing number of stations, and WRR experienced a series of frequency reassignments. In late 1928, under the provisions of a major reallocation resulting from the FRC's General Order 40, WRR was assigned to full-time operation using 500 watts on a "regional" frequency, 1280 kHz. On March 29, 1941, implementation of the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement resulted in all the stations on 1280 being shifted to 1310 kHz, which has been the dial position of WRR and its successors ever since.  In 1948, WRR launched an FM station, which was assigned the call letters WRR-FM. Initially WRR provided more popular programming, while the FM station featured classical music. In 1975, WRR became the first station in the Dallas/Fort Worth area to adopt an all-news format when it became affiliated with NBC's new "News and Information Service" network. It continued with this format even after NBC ended the service in 1977. The Dallas government eventually decided to sell WRR while retaining WRR-FM, so after nearly 57 years ownership of the station was transferred to the Bonneville International Corporation in early 1978.

KAAM.

Concurrent with the station sale, the call letters were changed as the station became the first of several incarnations of KAAM when it was owned by the same company that owned KAFM (92.5 MHz). KAAM dropped the all-news format and featured a variety of musical formats.

KTCK "The Ticket".

In 1994, the station was sold to Cardinal Communications, which changed the call letters to KTCK and adopted a sports talk format as "The Ticket". The Ticket's original lineup consisted of Skip Bayless, Curt Menefee, Mike Rhyner and Greg Williams, Chuck Cooperstein, and George Dunham and Craig Miller. Bayless was the first host to inaugurate the station's sports format. "The Hardline" (now with Mike Rhyner and Corby Davidson) and the "Dunham and Miller Show" have been part of the station's offerings since the introduction of "The Ticket" format. The sometimes controversial station has posted strong ratings in the Dallas radio market, especially its top-rated shows. Formerly owned by Susquehanna Pfaltzgraff, The Ticket was purchased by Cumulus Media on May 5, 2006.  On March 6, 2006, the station announced that it would be the flagship affiliate of the National Football League's Dallas Cowboys radio network. This resulted in a 60% ratings increase as reported by the Arbitron rating service. However, on January 23, 2009, KTCK and the Cowboys ended their three-year partnership. On January 16, 2009, The Ticket along with the Dallas Stars issued a press release naming KTCK as the new flagship station for Dallas Stars hockey for five years starting with the 2009-10 season. In 2014, this was renewed for an additional five years.  On August 7, 2013, it was announced that Cumulus Media would take over operation of rival station KESN ("ESPN 103.3"), owned by the Walt Disney Company, through a long-term LMA (local marketing agreement), with programming on both stations remaining the same. As part of this transaction, it was necessary for Cumulus to divest one of its FM stations, due to limits on the number of stations an individual entity can control in a given market. The deal was to take effect once Cumulus completed the transfer of KTDK 104.1 in Sanger, which had been simulcasting KTCK, to Whitley Media. However, the FCC disallowed the Whitley Media transfer, labeling it a straw purchase in which Cumulus would remain the de facto owner of the station, so Cumulus instead surrendered KTDK's license for cancelation. On October 7, 2013, it was announced that The Ticket would begin simulcasting on 96.7 FM, a station which, as WBAP-FM, had been simulcasting WBAP News/Talk 820 AM. The change took effect on October 21, followed by the FM station changing its call sign to KTCK-FM. (WBAP is now rebroadcast on The Ticket's former simulcast spot, KPLX 99.5 HD2).

Awards.

SportsRadio 1310 The Ticket has won many awards over the years, including the 2007 Marconi Award for "Best Sports Station in America" at the National Association of Broadcasters' annual conference on September 27, 2007. The station and various shows have been Marconi nominees in the past, but this was The Ticket's first win. The Ticket was again recognized as "Sports Station of the Year", winning a second Marconi Award in 2013. The Ticket won its third Marconi Award for "Sports Station of the Year" in 2017. The Ticket was nominated as a finalist for NAB Marconi ‘Station of the Year’ regardless of format in 2018. The winner has not yet been announced.

In popular culture.

The FX drama "Justified" made frequent use of the names of The Ticket personalities for supporting characters as writer/producer VJ Boyd is a former Dallas resident and an active fan of KTCK. Boyd continued this practice in his scripts for NBC's "The Player".

KTCK (1310 AM; "SportsRadio 1310 The Ticket") is a commercial sports talk radio station licensed to Dallas, Texas, which serves the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex (DFW). Its daytime power is 25,000 watts, which is reduced to 5,000 watts at night. The station's studios are located in the Victory Park district in Dallas, just north of downtown, and the transmitter site is in Coppell. The station is currently owned by Cumulus Media. KTCK's programs are simulcast at 96.7 MHz over KTCK-FM, licensed to Flower Mound, Texas.


College career.

Odum played college basketball at Indiana State University, with the Sycamores, from 2010 to 2014. He led the Sycamores to a 4-yr record of 79–55 (.590), a MVC title and 4 post-season tournament berths (1x NCAA, 2x NIT, 1x CiT).  He currently stands 6th in career scoring (1,568 pts), 13th in career rebounds (617), 2nd in assists (603), 3rd in steals (204), 1st in games played (134), made free throws (590), games started (131) and minutes played (4,199).

Professional career.

After going undrafted in the 2014 NBA draft, Odum played on the Indiana Pacers' Orlando Summer League team. He then played on the Sacramento Kings' Las Vegas Summer League team.  Odum began his pro career with the Greek League club PAOK for the 2014–15 season, choosing to sign with the Greek club, rather than take his chances at that particular time in an NBA training camp, despite a couple of offers from NBA teams.  After leading PAOK to a 3rd-place finish in the Greek League, Odum signed with Medi Bayreuth of Germany for the 2015–16 Bundesliga season. Odum was one of the best players of the team and was then committed by the Franconian rival s.Oliver Würzburg for the 2016–17 Bundesliga season.  On July 13, 2017, Odum signed with Turkish club Banvit. On November 17, 2017, he left Banvit and signed with Russian club Nizhny Novgorod for the rest of the 2017–18 season.  On November 13, 2017, Odum signed with Promitheas Patras B.C. in Greece. On March 4, 2019, Odum left Promitheas Patras and signed with Pistoia Basket 2000 in Italy.

Awards and accomplishments.

College.

Portsmouth Invitational Tournament (2014) Under Armour All-Select Tournament Team

Jacob Andrew "Jake" Odum (born February 11, 1991) is an American professional basketball player who last played for Pistoia Basket 2000 of the Italian Lega Basket Serie A (LBA). He is a 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) tall point guard-shooting guard.


History.

Some records state that there was a building of some construction on the site of the castle in 1130 and used by Roger De Mowbray. The earliest extant building on the site is the ruin of a quadrangular castle, probably begun in 1327 by Geoffrey Scrope, which was reputedly demolished in the Civil War. His son, Henry continued the building work. The last mention in records of the castle are in 1660.  Surveys revealed that the part of the southeast tower (Kitchen Tower) remained, as did the foundations for the south and west walls. The north and eastern structures of the old castle now lie beneath ground level. Mason markings are still visible, including the faded arms of the Scrope family. The castle, the old Gatehouse located west of the present day Garden Cottage and the remains of the old castle walls are all listed monuments. This castle was replaced by a manor house, which was rebuilt in the 19th century and then rebuilt again following destruction by fire in 1918.  The castle was part of the manor of the Scrope family until 1520, when it passed to Elizabeth, the daughter of Thomas Scrope, wife of Sir Ralph Fitz Randolph. It then passed again via his daughter, Agnes, to her son Christopher Wyvill, son of Ripon MP, Sir Marmaduke Wyvill. After this it passed to the Crown in 1577, before coming into the hands of the Constable family. They held it until 1768 when it was purchased briefly by William Chapman who sold it the Turton family. Upsall castle is part of the Upsall and Roxby estates owned by the Turton family. The present owner of the castle is Gerald Turton.

Legends.

John Constable, who resided at the castle in 1610, was a supporter of the Royal cause during the Civil War. The 19th-century writers William Grainge and John Gilbert Baker noted that he reportedly left a curse on any owner of Upsall who should prove disloyal to his king and country. The writers also recounted a folklore story of a man who dug under a bush at Upsall Castle, finding a pot of gold; later on, a stranger revealed to him that there was another pot of gold buried under the first, which he then dug up as well.

Upsall Castle is a fourteenth-century ruin, park and manor house in Upsall, in the Hambleton district of North Yorkshire, England.


History.

Early.

The earliest parts of the building to survive were built by a member of the Denys family. The hall, which is 30 ft x 20 ft and has 5-foot-thick walls, has been dated by the form of decoration around the doorways to the early to mid-14th century. In 1416, a licence for a chapel at the house was granted by Bishop Stafford, and it has been speculated that the room over the porch was used for this.  During the late 15th century the hall was remodelled and it is clear that some of the work was based on that already done at nearby Weare Giffard Hall; identical carving on the porches of both buildings shows that the same mason was employed for at least part of the work. The main improvement, though, was the construction of a fine four-bay hammerbeam roof to the main hall, again clearly influenced by, though somewhat less ornate than the one at Weare Giffard. The hammer-beams are supported on carved stone corbels representing figures, one of which holds a shield displaying the arms of the Denys family (three battleaxes). Sitting on the ends of the hammer-beams were a series of ten carved sitting heraldic beasts, each around two feet tall.  A few alterations were made during the late 16th century, such as the addition of a staircase to the left of the porch, and the insertion of a large window into the hall to the right of the porch. The last male member of the Denys family of Orleigh was Anthony Dennis (died 1641), to whom a mural monument survives in the Orleigh Chapel in St Mary and St Benedict's Church, Buckland Brewer. When he died in 1641 he left three daughters as co-heiresses and they conveyed the property to trustees in 1661. In 1684 the trustees sold it to John I Davie (died 1710), a prominent tobacco merchant from Bideford.

Davie family.

John I Davie died in 1710 and is commemorated by a large mural monument in the Orleigh Chapel of St Mary's Church, Buckland Brewer. his son and heir, Joseph Davie (died 1723), embarked on a series of improvements to the interior. These included, in the hall, the installation of an ornamental fireplace, and the addition of fire buckets decorated with the Davie arms and the date 1721 — they remained in place until the early 20th century. Other additions made at this time included a new inner hall accessed from newly created doors by the side of the fireplace, and rainwater heads on the east front of the building, which bear the Davie arms as well as those of Pryce, which refer to Joseph Davie's wife, Juliana Pryce, who died aged 28 in 1720. Joseph himself died in 1723, but the building stayed in the Davie family until 1807, when it was in the ownership of Joseph Davie Bassett, who built Watermouth Castle and moved there. In that year Orleigh Court was either sold, or according to local tradition, lost in a game of cards, to Major Edward Lee.

Lee, Speke and Rogers.

After Edward Lee's death in 1819, the house passed to his nephew, the politician John Lee Lee (1802-1874), who did not live there but let it to his sister and her husband, William Speke. Born at Orleigh in 1827 was their son John Hanning Speke, the celebrated explorer who discovered the source of the River Nile. From 1845 the house was occupied by other tenants: In 1869 Orleigh was sold to Thomas Rogers, who employed the architect J. H. Hakewill to make extensive changes to the house, including the replacement of most of the windows, including a new oriel window in the porch, complete reworking of the north range and the addition of a wood-panelled dining room. Hakewill also built two Mock Tudor lodges in the grounds. Orleigh was inherited by his son William Henry Rogers (born 1868), who made a few alterations to it, such as replacing some of the dry-rot infested panelling in the hall with 16th-century decorated panels which he had discovered in a loft over the stables, and which he surmised had been removed from the original dining room.  William Henry Rogers was an antiquarian and he included a history of Orleigh Court in a booklet about Buckland Brewer, published in 1938. However, by 1939 he had sold the house, which was then converted into multiple occupation until after World War II when it was left empty and decaying. In 1952 it was made a listed building, but remained empty until 1982, when work began to convert it into apartments. In 1986 the owner attempted to sell by auction at Sotheby's the ten 15th-century wooden animal carvings that had decorated the hammer-beams, but their provenance was investigated and they were deemed to be fixtures of a listed building, so they were returned and the owner was prosecuted. As a result of this incident the listing status of the building was increased to Grade I. As of 2011, the building is divided into a number of apartments and is surrounded by eight acres of communal grounds.

Orleigh Court is a late medieval manor house in the parish of Buckland Brewer about 4 miles (6.4 km) south-west of Bideford, North Devon, England. It is a two-storeyed building constructed from local slate stone and has a great hall with a hammer-beam roof, installed in the late 15th century.


Constitution of May 3, 1791.

The Constitution of May 3, 1791 was adopted as a "Government Act" (Polish: "Ustawa rządowa") on that date by the "Sejm" (parliament) of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It has been called "the first constitution of its type in Europe" and the world's second oldest constitution.  It was designed to redress long-standing political defects of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth's system of "Golden Liberty", which conferred disproportionate rights on the nobility, had increasingly corrupted the Commonwealth's politics. The Constitution sought to supplant the existing anarchy fostered by some of the country's magnates with a more democratic constitutional monarchy. It introduced political equality between townspeople and nobility ("szlachta") and placed the peasants under the protection of the government, thus mitigating the worst abuses of serfdom. The Constitution abolished pernicious parliamentary institutions such as the "liberum veto", which at one time had put the Sejm at the mercy of any deputy who might choose, or be bribed by an interest or foreign power, to undo the legislation adopted by that Sejm.  The adoption of the May 3 Constitution met with hostile political and military responses from the Commonwealth's neighbors. In the Polish–Russian War of 1792 (sometimes called the "War in Defense of the Constitution"), the Commonwealth was attacked by Catherine the Great's Imperial Russia allied with the Targowica Confederation, a coalition of Polish magnates and landless nobility who opposed reforms that might weaken their influence. The Commonwealth's ally Prussia, under Frederick William II, broke its alliance, and the Commonwealth was defeated. In the end, the Constitution of May 3 remained in force for little more than one year. Despite the Commonwealth's defeat in the Polish–Russian War and the ensuing partitions which eliminated the Commonwealth, the May 3 Constitution remained for more than 123 years a beacon in the struggle to restore Polish sovereignty. In the words of two of its co-authors, Ignacy Potocki and Hugo Kołłątaj, it was "the last will and testament of the expiring Country."

History.

The sketch of the work was presented in the cycle "History of Civilization in Poland".  Matejko began work on the painting in the middle of January 1891, to coincide with the centenary of the Constitution. Although the painting was not finished until October, by May 3 it was sufficiently advanced to be shown at the anniversary exhibition in Sukiennice, Kraków. On April 7, 1892, Matejko transferred the painting to Prince Eustachy Stanisław Sanguszko, marshal of Galician Sejm in Lwów, and it was displayed in the Sejm building (now the main building of the Lviv University). This painting was one of the last works by Matejko, who died in November 1893.  In 1920, two years after Poland regained independence, the painting was moved to Kraków, where from 1923 it was displayed in the building of the Polish Sejm. The painting was hidden by the Polish resistance during World War II, when Poland was occupied by the Germans. After the war the painting was transferred to the National Museum in Warsaw, and occasionally displayed in the Sejm building. Since 1984 the painting has been in the collection of the Royal Castle in Warsaw, where Matejko himself declared he would like the painting to be shown. The painting is displayed in the anteroom of the Chamber of Senators, where the Constitution was adopted. The painting was restored in 2007.

Significance and historiography.

The painting is one of Matejko's best known works and today it is commonly seen as one of his masterpieces, an "education in national history." However, it was less well received by his contemporaries, with turn-of-the-century reviews criticizing it for being "too crowded" and with unclear composition; supporters of Matejko's previous works were much more guarded in their praise of this painting.  Matejko's technique in this painting was subtly but noticeably different compared to his other paintings; authors Wrede "et al". attribute this to Matejko's exploration of new techniques, but note that contemporary critiques saw this departure from his old style as the weakening form of the dying master, and did not applaud the changes. They also note that Matejko usually dedicated two years to paintings of that size; this one was completed in less than a year, during a period in which Matejko was working on other projects and suffering from stress and depression. Matejko himself was not fond of the 18th century and the Polish Enlightenment, remarking that he "would rather prefer to paint any other century". He felt compelled, however, by the anniversary of the Constitution to create an artwork commemorating the event, which he recognized as historically significant.  Matejko commonly identified the characters in his paintings with a written legend, but he did not create one for the "Constitution". Consequently, some characters in the painting have not been identified. A partial legend was written by Matejko's secretary, Marian Gorzkowski, and even though it provides a list of 39 characters, Wrede "et al". write that his "chaotic description" is not very helpful. Modern analysis has been done by Polish historians Jarosław Krawczyk and Emanuel M. Rostworowski.

Content.

The painting, set in the late afternoon of May 3, 1791, shows the procession of deputies from the Royal Castle ("background"), where the Constitution has just been adopted by the Great Sejm, to St. John's Collegiate Church ("left", now an archcathedral), where a "Te Deum" will be sung. The procession moves down St. John's Street ("ulica Świętojańska"), surrounded by enthusiastic Warsaw residents and visitors. The deputies are protected by soldiers.  While the procession was an actual historic event, Matejko took many artistic liberties, such as including persons who were not in fact present or had died earlier. He did so because he intended the painting to be a synthesis of the final years of the Commonwealth. He also felt that there was no real historic moment or location that fully captured the spirit of the Constitution, and so he, the artist, needed to create such a moment.

Center.

The painting is centered on the Sejm marshal Stanisław Małachowski (1), who is wearing a white, French-inspired costume. Małachowski holds the marshal staff in his left hand and in his right hand, he triumphantly raises the text of the Constitution. Although the historical document was titled "Ustawa rządowa" (Government Ordinance), Matejko chose to make the title page of the document as portrayed in his painting more explicit—and at the same time put the name of the painting right in its center. He is carried by deputies Aleksander Linowski of Kraków (2) (on his right) and Ignacy Zakrzewski of Poznań (3) (on his left). Their significance is that Kraków and Poznań are principal cities of two major regions of Poland: Lesser Poland and Greater Poland, respectively. Under Małachowski's right hand there is a figure with a bandaged head holding a flag; this is Tadeusz Kościuszko (4), and his head wound is a reference to the battle of Maciejowice, which took place during the Kościuszko Uprising in 1794, three years after the event depicted in the painting. To the left of Kościuszko, is a figure identified by Wrona "et al". as Prince Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski, although this is disputed by other sources.  Another figure, to the right of Małachowski, is being carried; he is Kazimierz Nestor Sapieha (5), marshal of the Lithuanian confederation and the second Sejm marshal. He is dressed in more traditional Polish clothing. Between Małachowski and Sapieha, the head of Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz (6), a well-known writer, is visible. He appears to be carrying Sapieha. The other figure carrying Sapieha, to his right, is Michał Zabiełło (7).  In the lower center of the painting, Matejko shows a scene that took place in the Royal Castle. Jan Suchorzewski (8), deputy from Kalisz and an opponent of the Constitution, has fallen to the ground, holding his young son with one arm; his other hand, holding a knife, is held by Stanisław Kublicki (9), standing to his right. Kublicki was a deputy from Inflanty, a supporter of the townsfolk and peasant causes, and of the Constitution. The artist here alludes to Suchorzewski's unsuccessful attempt to prevent the king from signing the Constitution, during which he threatening to kill his own son to save him from the "slavery of the Constitution". A deck of cards has fallen out of Suchorzewski's pocket, a reference to the manner in which he was bribed by the anti-Constitution Russian ambassador Otto Magnus von Stackelberg and hetman Branicki; Suchorzewski suddenly started winning large sums of money in games, despite his poor skills as a gambler. Branicki (10) can be seen standing between the king and Suchorzewski, dressed in a Russian uniform, foreshadowing the rank of general he received several years later in the Russian Army. In reality Suchorzewski, like most of those opposed to the Constitution, refused to participate in the procession.  Notable figures in the center of the painting, to the left of Małachowski, include other supporters of the Constitution. Priest Hugo Kołłątaj (11) is the most prominent, gesturing in disdain at Suchorzewski. Several other figures in the vicinity are described in sources, but their precise location is unclear, or the sources contradict one another. The priest holding the Bible (12) is probably Feliks Turski, although some identify him as Tymoteusz Gorzeński. The figures to the right of Kołłątaj represents the Grand Lithuanian Marshal, Ignacy Potocki (13), and perhaps Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski (14) (although some sources identify Czartoryski elsewhere in the painting, in the vicinity of Kościuszko). Surrounding Kołłątaj are likely the priest Scipione Piattoli (15) and Tadeusz Matuszewicz or Matusiewicz (16).

Left.

On the stairs of the church, King Stanisław August Poniatowski (17) is ascending. Matejko was not very fond of Poniatowski, and he portrayed him in a rather pompous posture, with his hand extended to be kissed, and in the company of numerous pretty ladies, supporting his reputation as a "lady's man". Poniatowski's inclusion in the procession is one of Matejko's artistic liberties, as he had arrived at the church before the procession. A woman hands him a laurel wreath (18); sources have identified her as the Courland princess Dorothea von Medem (Dorothea Biron) or Róża z Martynkowskich, wife of former Warsaw mayor Jan Dekert. Behind her (leftmost in the group of two women, with only her face showing) stands Elżbieta Grabowska (19), the king's mistress and mother of his children. Bowing at the church doors is the former mayor of Warsaw, Jan Dekert (20). He is accompanied by his daughter Marianna (in a yellow dress, facing away from the viewer) taking a prominent position near the king (38). Dekert's inclusion in the painting is another example of Matejko taking liberties with history, as he died in October 1790; he was an important burghers figure associated with the Free Royal Cities Act, which was incorporated into the Constitution.  Behind the king, holding his hands to his head, is Prince Antoni Stanisław Czetwertyński-Światopełk (21), another opponent of the Constitution, known for being on a Russian payroll. Below him is another opponent of the Constitution, Antoni Złotnicki (22). An anonymous black-clad French royalist (23) is shown looking terrified at the scene, seeing another revolution in the making. He raises his hand over the king's head.  In the group of people gathered below the king, in another acknowledgement of the burghers' importance, is burgher Jan Kiliński (24), one of the leaders of the Kościuszko Uprising. To his right, at the edge of the crowd, is the priest Clemens Maria Hofbauer (25), who ran an orphanage and a school in Warsaw and is canonized as a saint in the Catholic church.

Right.

To the right of Sapieha are reformer Stanisław Staszic (26) and, with his hand around Staszic, Andrzej Zamoyski (27), author of the Zamoyski Codex, an earlier attempt to reform the state. To the left of Staszic, the head of bishop of Smoleńsk, Tymoteusz Gorzeński (28), is visible in the crowd. Beneath Staszic and Zamoyski, with an outstretched hand, is Kazimierz Konopka (29), Kołłątaj's secretary and one of the Polish Jacobins; Konopka has a French blue-white-red flower in his hat and a czekan, an ax- and hammer-like weapon, in his hand. Above them is an unnamed Eastern Orthodox priest (30); the figure on his right (31) is either Paweł Ksawery Brzostowski, pioneer of agricultural reforms, or Józef Stępkowski, a less progressive figure. This line of figures ends with Antoni Tyzenhauz (32), Lithuanian official and reformer. To the right of Zamoyski is an unnamed peasant (33). His passive attitude is seen as a representation of the unconcerned attitude of Polish peasantry towards the reforms.  To their right is the king's nephew, prince Józef Poniatowski (34), in the uniform of the light cavalry of the Duchy of Warsaw and riding a grey horse. The uniform is another instance of foreshadowing; Poniatowski became the commander-in-chief of the Duchy's army and died during the Battle of Leipzig. At the time of the passing of the Constitution, he was the commander of the Warsaw garrison, and is shown keeping an eye on the procession, with his soldiers lined up and guarding the street. To his right, partially obscured by Poniatowski's horse's head, is Stanisław Mokronowski (35), deputy, general, and future leader of the Kościuszko Uprising in Lithuania.  At the very bottom right corner, two Polish Jews are on the edge of the scene; the younger (36) one is usually described as enthralled by the events, watching them with hope, but most analysis focuses on the older man (37), whose hand is making a "Sy, git" ("that's good") gesture. Interpretation of this figure varies; while some suggest that he express his interest and support for the Constitution, which he sees as a promise of further reforms that will improve the situation of the Jews—the Constitution had not addressed them in any significant way—others put him, or both of the Jews, among the opponents of the Constitution, describing them as frowning and disturbed, gleefully anticipating the end of the Commonwealth, or at least concerned with the liberal reforms. The latter interpretation can be also supported by the fact that Matejko tended to portray Jews in his paintings in negative roles.

List of characters.

Historians have positively identified a number of characters. This is the list of characters portrayed on the painting and indicated with numbers on the associated guide picture:  Several more figures have been identified by historians as likely present in the painting, but their exact location is unknown, and they are also not present on the guide picture:

Notes.

a The painting does not have one dominant title, either in Polish or English. It is referred to variously, with different renderings of the name of the Constitution of May 3 (such as "The Constitution of the 3rd May", "The Third of May Constitution" or "Constitution of 3 May 1791",) or in an even more elaborate fashion. For example, Reddaway calls it "King Stanislaw Augustus entering Warsaw Cathedral after the passing of the reformed Constitution of 1791".

The Constitution of May 3, 1791 () is an 1891 Romantic oil painting on canvas by the Polish artist Jan Matejko. It is a large piece, and one of Matejko's best known. It memorializes the Polish Constitution of May 3, 1791, a milestone in the history of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the high point of the Polish Enlightenment.


Zimbabwean cricket team in the West Indies in 2006

One-Day Matches.

First ODI (29 April).

Brian Lara's first match in his third spell as captain ended in victory, as Zimbabwe mustered 151 in their 50 overs, and four West Indian bowlers got two wickets each. Despite Runako Morton recording a duck, West Indies made it to the target with five wickets and 11.4 overs to spare, as Lara top scored with 40, the second highest total of the match. However, according to Cricinfo reporter Will Luke, West Indies "rarely looked in complete control". For Zimbabwe, Blessing Mahwire bowled seven overs and conceded 14 runs with six wides, while Prosper Utseya picked up a career best three for 35. In the first innings, Justice Chibhabha hit a half-century in his second ODI.

Second ODI (30 April).

Despite another half-century from Justice Chibhabha, this time worth 12 runs more than in the first ODI, Zimbabwe's total of 144 was seven lower than in the first ODI. West Indies had batted first, making 242 for 9 after Chris Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Shivnarine Chanderpaul all passed 40, while five Zimbabwean bowlers got at least one wicket each. Jerome Taylor then took four wickets as Zimbabwe fell for 144, with Elton Chigumbura (13) and Tawanda Mupariwa (16) joining Chibhabha with double figure scores.

Tour Match: Zimbabwe v University of West Indies Vice Chancellor's XI (3 May).

University of West Indies Vice Chancellor's XI won by 5 wickets  Piet Rinke hit 113 for the Zimbabweans in the 13-a-side match, and Brendan Taylor and Charles Coventry also took half-centuries. For the University of West Indies' XI, Ryan Hinds and Xavier Marshall, who had both played internationals for West Indies before, made scores of 117 not out and 54 respectively, and C. Walton anchored the chase with 67 as the hosts won with 23 balls to spare.

Third ODI (6 May).

Match abandoned without a ball being bowled.

Fourth ODI (7 May).

West Indies sealed at least a draw in the series after a convincing 82-run victory over Zimbabwe in Georgetown. The West Indies handed a debut to 25-year-old opener Sewnarine Chattergoon but he disappointed in front of his home crowd scoring only 9. But a few players did play a part in the massive total of 333/6 set by the West Indies. Shivnarine Chanderpaul top scored with 93 off 82 balls (7 fours & 4 sixes), and there were also half-centuries from Runako Morton (79 off 90) and captain Brian Lara (56 off 45). This set Zimbabwe an unlikely 334 target, and sure enough struggled. Fidel Edwards bowled Piet Rinke with the first ball of the innings, and also took the scalp of Zimbabwean captain Terry Duffin with the 4th ball of that over, leaving Zimbabwe at one run for two wickets, but steady knocks from Justice Chibhabha, Vusi Sibanda and Elton Chigumbura got the Zimbabweans past 100. But they weren't scoring quickly enough, and after their allotted 50 overs, came up 82 runs short, with Edwards the pick of the bowlers. This was also the last international match at the Bourda ground:

Fifth ODI (10 May).

It was first ever day-night game in west-indies.

The 2006 international cricket season started with controversial ICC members Zimbabwe touring the West Indies for a series of seven One Day International matches. Because Zimbabwe recently pulled out of playing Test matches, the tour had to be rescheduled which meant the two Test matches were turned into limited overs games, bumping them up from the original five. After Zimbabwe's decision to leave Test cricket at the start of 2006, the West Indian Cricket Board had reconsidered the tour, but without any other team to play they had to appease both sponsors and fans. Although the teams lie next to each other in the ICC ODI Championship, West Indies holds 89 points in eighth place, 47 more than the tourists' 42 in ninth.


Early life.

Robert Lucky was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and went to high school in Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania. He studied electrical engineering at Purdue University, graduating with a BSEE in 1957. He stayed on at Purdue and was granted an MSEE in 1959. Continuing at Purdue he did his PhD research under John C Hancock, writing a thesis on simultaneous amplitude modulated and phase modulated digital communication. In his thesis he derived two-dimensional signal constellations that are similar to those used in the quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) systems commonly used in high speed digital communications today. He received his PhD from Purdue in 1961.

Career.

Lucky joined Bell Labs in 1961, where his initial assignment was in the Data Theory Department under William R Bennett. In 1964 he made his best known invention, the adaptive equalizer, and in the years to follow he was promoted a number of times, becoming in 1982 the executive director of the communications sciences research division. This division comprised essentially all of the Bell Labs research on wireless, optical systems, and other communications systems topics, as well as some of the Bell Labs research on physics and computer science. Two Nobel Prizes were won by researchers in the division.  Lucky left Bell Labs in 1992 and joined Bellcore, the research laboratory for the divested Bell Telephone companies, where he was corporate vice president, responsible for management of research. A few years later Bellcore was sold to SAIC (Science Applications International) and renamed Telcordia Technologies. Robert Lucky retired from Telcordia in 2002.

Adaptive equalizer.

In the early 1960s the highest speed for modems on telephone lines was 2400 bits per second. Higher speeds were not possible because of intersymbol interference. Each dialed connection would have a different distorting effect on the series of pulses sent to convey digital information, smearing successive pulses and entangling them, resulting in errors in detection.  Lucky invented a way to adaptively undo the smearing effects by automatic adjustment of a variable filter, using a tapped delay line with adjustable gains at each tap. The equalizer used a steepest descent algorithm to minimize distortion. It was initially trained by a series of known pulses, but during actual data transmission it relied upon decision-directed adjustment, which assumed that decisions about pulses were largely correct and could be used for reconstruction of the ongoing error.  The first adaptive equalizer, in 1964, used 13 adjustable gains, each set by 8 relays. The rack of equipment was about 5 feet high. Its use immediately made possible data transmission at 9600 bits per second – four times the highest previously attainable speed.  Shortly thereafter, the relays were replaced with transistor switches, then in succeeding years the equalizer was implemented with a special purpose integrated circuit. Today adaptive equalization is built into almost every modem and is simply a subroutine in the instruction program for an embedded microprocessor.

Advisory positions.

Throughout his career, Lucky has been heavily involved in advisory and participatory roles in engineering societies, universities, and government. In the IEEE he has been editor of the "Proceedings of the IEEE", president of the Communications Society, and executive vice president of the parent IEEE. His government service included being chairman of the United States Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Technological Advisory Council, chairman of the statutory visiting committee of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and membership on the Defense Science Board. He also has been active with the National Academy of Engineering and on the advisory boards of a number of universities.

Honors and awards.

Among his honors, Lucky has been awarded four honorary doctorate degrees, the 1987 Marconi Prize, the 1995 IEEE Edison Medal, and the 1998 Golden Jubilee Award for Technological Innovation from the IEEE Information Theory Society. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering and to both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Writings.

He is the author (with J Salz and EJ Weldon) of a textbook, Principles of Data Communications (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1965). He wrote a popularized account of information theory in Silicon Dreams (St Martins Press, New York, 1989). A compilation of his essays was published under the title Lucky Strikes Again (Wiley/IEEE Press, 1992).  Since 1982 he has written a bi-monthly column, Reflections, in IEEE Spectrum Magazine, which features his essays on technology and engineering culture.

Later career.

Since retirement in 2002, Lucky has been a member of the Defense Science Board, chairman of the board of ANSER, Inc., a member of the Laboratory Operations Board of the United States Department of Energy, chairman of Marconi Society, and a member of advisory board of TTI/Vanguard. The governor of New Jersey appointed him to the Authority for the Redevelopment of Fort Monmouth, and he was elected chairman of that Authority.

References.

Prepared from biographical information supplied by Robert Lucky in March, 2011.

Robert Wendell Lucky (born January 9, 1936) is an electrical engineer, inventor, and research manager who worked at Bell Labs and Telcordia Technologies. He is best known for his writings and speeches about technology, society, and engineering culture. Bob is a Fellow of the IEEE and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He is also a member of TTI/Vanguard's advisory board.


Traditional accounts.

Traditional accounts ascribe different reasons for this battle. The most famous is the story about the copying of a book belonging to Saint Finnian by Columcille.  According to tradition, sometime around 560, the Irish abbot and missionary Saint Columba became involved in a quarrel with Saint Finnian of Movilla Abbey over a psalter. Columba copied the manuscript at the scriptorium under Saint Finnian, intending to keep the copy. Saint Finnian disputed his right to keep the copy. Thus, this dispute was about the ownership of the copy (whether it belonged to Saint Columba because he copied it or whether it belonged to Saint Finnian because he owned the original). King Diarmait mac Cerbaill gave the judgement, "To every cow belongs her calf, therefore to every book belongs its copy."  Columba disagreed with King Diarmait's ruling against him and reportedly instigated a successful rebellion of the Uí Néill clan against the King. The battle was claimed to have caused around 3,000 casualties.  Another traditional reason given for the battle concerns the violation of sanctuary. The Annals Of Tighernach for the year 559, record the death of Curnan son of Aed, son of Eochaid Tirmcharna by Diarmait mac Cerbaill, while Curnan was 'ar comairce Coluim chilli - under Colum Cille's protection'. This Curnan was the son of Aed, the king of Connacht. That Diarmait had violated the sanctuary of the termonn at the Columban monastery of Kells is given as the reason for the battle.  Either way, as a monk who had taken up arms, Colmcille faced judgement for his deeds. It said that the judgement resulted in Columba leaving his homeland for Scotland, where he founded Iona Abbey in 563. The sentence stipulated he was to win as many souls to Christianity as had been lost in the battle. The Chronicles of Iona state that "In the second year after the battle of Cul-drebene, the forty-second year of his age, Columba sailed away from Ireland to Britain wishing to be a pilgrim for Christ."

Modern investigations.

However, these later versions have been disputed by modern scholarship on several grounds, particularly as early mentions of the battle do not refer to the book incident. It may have been a dynastic battle between the Cinel Cairbre and Diarmait Mac cerbaill who had wrested the kingship at Tara from them after the death of Tuathal Maelgarb.

Further reading.

Betha Colmcille, Manus O'Donnell

The battle of Cúl Dreimhne (also known as the "Battle of the Book") took place in the 6th century in the túath of Cairbre Drom Cliabh (now Co. Sligo) in northwest Ireland. The exact date for the battle varies from 555 AD to 561 AD. 560 AD is regarded as the most likely by modern scholars. The battle is notable for being possibly one of the earliest conflicts over copyright in the world.


Taxonomy.

The Shansei vole was first described in 1908 as "Myodes shanseius" by the British zoologist Oldfield Thomas, the type locality being Chao Cheng Shan in Shanxi Province. It is often regarded as a subspecies of the grey red-backed vole ("Myodes rufocanus"). However the molar teeth in adults do not have roots which sets it apart from that species and tends to associate it with "Eothenomys" species, though the fur length, texture and colour pattern are more like "Myodes" than "Eothenomys". The Shansei vole is allopatric to the royal vole ("Myodes regulus") of the Korean peninsula with which it forms a species complex.

Description.

The Shansei vole is similar in appearance to the grey red-backed vole but the reddish-coloured back is rather less rufous and the grey sides are more of an ochre-grey. The underparts are greyish-buff and the tail is brown above and white below. The upper surfaces of the feet are brownish-white. The eyes are small and the ears are small and rounded. The molar teeth do not have roots in adults, a fact that distinguishes this vole from the grey red-backed vole. The Shansei vole has a head-and-body length of and a tail length of.

Distribution and habitat.

The Shansei vole is endemic to China where it occurs in the southern part of Gansu, northern part of Sichuan, northern part of Shanxi, northern part of and in the provinces of Shaanxi, Hebei, Beijing, Inner Mongolia, Henan and Hubei. It is usually found in woodland and forests.

Behaviour.

The Shansei vole is largely nocturnal. Its diet consists mainly of grasses, green leaves and stems, and to a lesser extent it feeds on seeds.

Status.

The Shansei vole has a wide range and is assumed to have a large total population. It is present in several national nature reserves. The population trend is unknown, but no specific threats have been identified and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed its conservation status as being of "least concern".

The Shansei vole ("Myodes shanseius") is a species of rodent in the family Cricetidae. It is found only in north-central China where its habitat is forests.


Teams.

The competition was contested by 12 teams: the title holder, the champion club from each of the ten CONMEBOL member associations, and one additional team from the host association Colombia.

Venues.

The tournament was played in four venues in three cities, all in the Metropolitan Area of Medellín:

Match officials.

A total of 10 referees and 10 assistant referees (one each per association) were appointed for the tournament.

Format.

The same format as last year was used:

Draw.

The draw of the tournament was held on 16 October 2015 during the CONMEBOL Executive Committee meeting at the Hyatt Hotel in Santiago, Chile. The 12 teams were drawn into three groups of four containing one team from each of the four seeding pots.

First stage.

The schedule of the tournament was announced on 20 October 2015.  The teams were ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). If tied on points, tiebreakers would be applied in the following order:  All times local, COT ().

Group A.

"São José v Cerro Porteño was suspended after 50 minutes due to heavy rain. It was resumed on 1 November 2015, 14:15, at the Estadio Atanasio Girardot, Medellín.

Second stage.

If tied after regulation time, the penalty shoot-out would be used to determine the winner (no extra time would be played).

Final.

Colo-Colo played in their third final. They lost in 2011 and won the trophy in 2012. For Ferroviária it was their first final. As in every previous edition, a Brazilian team was playing in the final.

Top goalscorers.

Catalina Usme won the top-scorer award with eight goals in three matches.

The 2015 Copa Libertadores Femenina was the 7th edition of the Copa Libertadores Femenina, South America's premier women's club football tournament organized by CONMEBOL. The tournament was held in the city of Medellín, Colombia, from 28 October to 8 November 2015. It was the first time the tournament is hosted outside Brazil.


Route.

So far the track has a length of. It has five stations.

History.

The decision to build a children's railway in Novosibirsk, was announced in August 2003 by the West Siberian Railway together with the city council of Novosibirsk, when the foundation stone was laid in Zayeltsovsky Park, although the planning had not yet been fully completed. The design of the track was contracted to the institutions Sibgiprotrans and Zheldorproekt.  On 4 June 2005 the first phase of the children's railway with a length of was inaugurated. It was formally taken in use on 30 June 2005 by the Director of the West Siberian Railway as the 23rd children's railway of Russia. The first phase contained a more than long steel pier, the stations Zoopark and Sportivnaya, a training centre at the Sportivnaya station as well as the halt Razyezd Eltsovskiy.  In summer 2005 only one train operated. The train had one locomotive at each end, and could change direction without de-coupling the locomotives. On 14 November 2005 the President of the Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin visited the railway.  Starting from 6 August 2006 the second phase with a length of was constructed by the Russian Railways and the city council. The second phase contains a more than long steel pier, two bridges, the station Zayeltsovskiy Park and the halt Razyezd Lokomotiv.  In 2015 the railway announced at its 10th anniversary that it had transported already more than 480,000 passengers.

Rolling stock.

Locomotives.

The children's railway operates three TU7A diesel locomotives with a power of 294 kW (400 hp) each and a weight of 24 t as well as a newer TU10 diesel locomotive with a power of 170 kW (230 hp). Their serial numbers are as follows:

Carriages.

There are also six passenger carriages of Type 20,0011 and 048-051 „Metrovagonmash“ () and three of Type 43-0011 Kambarka () an eight-wheeler flat waggon for track maintenance -.in use. Each train has three passenger carriages. Each car has 36 seats at a weight of 11.0 or 12.5 t and a length from buffer to buffer of and a width of.  The trains have the names „Skazka“ (Сказка, "Fairy tale"), „Yunost“ (Юность, "Youth"), „Sibiryak“ (Сибиряк, "Sibirian") and „Mechta“ (Мечта, "Dream").

Operation.

The trains run daily with the exception of Mondays during the season from 1 June to 30 September.

The Small West Siberian Railway or Novosibirsk Children's Railway (Russian: Малая Западно-Сибирская железная дорога, "Malaya Zapadno-Sibirskaya zheleznaya doroga") is a narrow gauge miniature railway in the Russian city Novosibirsk. The first section of the railway line was opened on 4 June 2005 as one of the many children's railways in Russia. It is still in use every day in summer except Mondays.


Career.

He completed his medical studies at the "Kaiser-Wilhelms-Akademie für das militärärztliche Bildungswesen" and joined the medical service of the Royal Prussian Army as an officer in 1900. He worked as a military doctor in the colonial administration in German East Africa from 1902, and became director of the laboratory of the governmental hospital in Dar es Salaam from 1911. Kudicke was one of Nobel laureate Robert Koch's long-time collaborators and last surviving students, and participated in Koch's sleeping sickness expedition in German East Africa from 1906. He worked with sleeping sickness in the Lake Victoria area during the years 1907–1908 and 1910–1912, and later as director of the Institute for Sleeping Sickness in East Africa from 1913.  He served as a medical officer during the First World War. In 1921 he joined the Georg Speyer House, a medical foundation in Frankfurt, and he worked at the Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg 1925–1927. He was then Professor of Bacteriology and dean of the medical faculty of the Sun Yat-sen University in Canton in the Republic of China from 1927 to 1933. He later worked in Frankfurt and after the occupation of Poland by the German Army as director of the State Institute of Hygiene in Warsaw. The former director Ludwik Hirszfeld was dismissed as a "non-Aryan" from the Institute and forced to move into the Warsaw ghetto. Within his role in November and December 1941 Kudicke tested a new Typhus vaccine on 228 Jews of the Warsaw ghetto. 24 developed severe adverse effects and died later on.  After the war he was Professor of Epidemiology at the Goethe University Frankfurt from 1945, and then Professor Emeritus there until his death. He was also acting director of the Institute for Medical Microbiology and Infection Control from October 1945 to October 1946, when he was succeeded by Hans Schlossberger.  From the late 1940s he also worked with several developing countries in connection with medical development aid programmes of the West German government.

Heinrich Robert Hellmuth Kudicke (born 12 December 1876 in Preußisch Eylau, East Prussia, died 8 May 1961) was a German physician, epidemiologist and one of the leading experts on tropical diseases in his lifetime. He worked in Africa and China for several years. A long-time collaborator of Nobel laureate Robert Koch, he is especially known for his work with African trypanosomiasis or sleeping sickness in the early 20th century. During the early Cold War era he worked in several developing countries in connection with medical development aid programmes.


Rush Township, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania

Geography.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the township has a total area of 27.4 square miles (70.9 km2), of which, 26.8 square miles (69.3 km2) of it is land and 0.6 square miles (1.6 km2) of it (2.23%) is water.

Demographics.

As of the census of 2000, there were 1,189 people, 443 households, and 330 families residing in the township. The population density was 44.4 people per square mile (17.1/km2). There were 469 housing units at an average density of 17.5/sq mi (6.8/km2). The racial makeup of the township was 98.23% White, 0.25% African American, 0.67% Asian, 0.08% Pacific Islander, 0.17% from other races, and 0.59% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.25% of the population.  There were 443 households out of which 30.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 66.8% were married couples living together, 5.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 25.5% were non-families. 22.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 10.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.68 and the average family size was 3.16.  In the township the population was spread out with 26.4% under the age of 18, 6.3% from 18 to 24, 25.1% from 25 to 44, 27.7% from 45 to 64, and 14.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females, there were 98.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 101.6 males.  The median income for a household in the township was $43,098, and the median income for a family was $48,542. Males had a median income of $30,074 versus $23,077 for females. The per capita income for the township was $21,055. About 2.2% of families and 5.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 7.9% of those under age 18 and 3.1% of those age 65 or over.

Rush Township is a township in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population at the 2010 Census was 1,122, down from 1,189 at the 2000 census.


Strategic context.

The fort was constructed in response to a naval arms race between Britain and France. Britain's coastal defences had not been substantially upgraded since the Napoleonic Wars, but a new generation of accurate and powerful guns, mounted on fast-moving, manoueuvrable iron-clad warships, had obsoleted the existing 18th and early 19th century forts along the British coastline. The Thames was seen as particularly vulnerable; as well as being one of the country's most important trade routes, it possessed several naval installations of great importance, including the victualling yards at Deptford, the armaments works of Woolwich Arsenal, the shipbuilding yards at North Woolwich, and the magazines at Purfleet.  The government's response to the increased threat was to appoint a Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom, which published a far-reaching report in 1860. It recommended that many existing forts should be upgraded or rebuilt entirely, and that new forts should be constructed to guard particularly strategic or vulnerable points along the coast. In all, around 70 forts and batteries were constructed around the English coast as a result of the Royal Commission's report.  Garrison Point had long been fortified. A square blockhouse was constructed there by 1547, during the reign of Henry VIII. It was in the process of being replaced with a new fort when it was destroyed in the June 1667 Raid on the Medway during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. It was rebuilt by 1669 to a design by Bernard de Gomme, who also designed Tilbury Fort further upriver. Two additional fortifications, the Half Moon Battery and Cavalier Battery, were subsequently added to further strengthen the defences. The Royal Commission recommended that de Gomme's red brick fortification and the two later batteries, which were incapable of withstanding modern guns, should be replaced by an armoured artillery fort on the same site. Its arc of fire would overlap that of Grain Fort and Grain Tower (and later Grain Wing Battery and Dummy Battery) on the other side of the Medway on the Isle of Grain.

Construction and layout.

Construction began in February 1861 and continued until the last of its shielding was installed in June 1872, by which time about half of the guns were already in place. The new fort took the form of a semi-circular structure, one of only two built in the 1860s fortification programme (the other being Picklecombe Fort in Cornwall). It had two gun floors, each with 17 granite-faced casemates, in which 36 heavy guns were mounted behind 2,000 tons of iron shields. Another two gun turrets were planned for the roof but were not built. The magazines were located below ground in the basement of the fort. The bulk of the structure was built of brick, with concrete additions. The walls and piers are thick. The semi-circular row of casemates is closed off to the rear by a row of defensible buildings constructed from ashlar blocks of Kentish ragstone, with loopholes and gun ports in the flanks to facilitate close defence of the fort. A parade ground occupied the middle of the fort.

Operational history.

Garrison Point Fort was initially armed with 9-inch and 10-inch rifled muzzle loader (RML) guns. By 1880 its armament had been expanded to include 9-inch, 10-inch, 11-inch and 12.5-inch RMLs. A Brennan torpedo station, used to launch wire-guided torpedoes, was added to the fort's structure in 1884 and remained in use until around 1906. The RMLs were obsolete by the end of the 19th century and had been removed by 1896, when the casemates were all converted to barracks and stores. In 1909 two 6-inch Mk. VII breech-loading guns were mounted on the fort's roof and four 12-pdr. quick-firing guns were installed in a lower tier of the casemates.  A coastal artillery searchlight and concrete magazine were constructed to the east of the fort during the First World War, along with a machine-gun pillbox that no longer survives. Garrison Point Fort remained in service through the Second World War and was re-armed with two twin 6-pounder Quick Firing (QF) guns to defend against fast-moving attackers such as E-boats and destroyers. One of them was mounted on the fort's roof and the other was situated outside the front of the casemates. New gun emplacements, gun towers, a magazine and a searchlight emplacement were all constructed at this time. By 1944 the threat of invasion or seaborne attack had diminished to the point that the fort was reduced to care and maintenance status.  After the war, the fort was used by the Royal Navy Auxiliary Service as an emergency port control centre in the event of a nuclear war. Part of the fort's disused magazine was converted into a bunker housing nuclear defence officials. The fort was decommissioned in 1956 when the UK discontinued its coastal defence programme, and the structure was sold off to the owners of the adjacent Sheerness Docks.

Current status.

The fort has been a Grade II listed building since 1977 and is part of the wider system of the Sheerness defences, listed as a scheduled monument. It is owned by Medway Ports Ltd, the operators of the Sheerness Docks, and is not publicly accessible as it lies within the port area. Some alterations have been made to the fort to enable its use in connection with the port. It was used for a time in the 1980s as a terminal for a now-defunct ferry service to the Continent, which involved fitting a walkway to the ferries through one of the casemates. A navigational radar control tower was installed on the fort's roof in 1962.  Garrison Point Fort is reportedly in a state of "slow decay" which has led it to be listed on the Heritage At Risk Register. Although the interior has been largely stripped out, traces remain of the original fittings. A considerable amount remains of the Brennan Torpedo station and its launching rails, though it is corroding badly. While the fort's structure is still basically intact its roof and much of its interior are derelict and decaying.

Garrison Point Fort is a former artillery fort situated at the end of the Garrison Point peninsula at Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent. Built in the 1860s in response to concerns about a possible French invasion, it was the last in a series of artillery batteries that had existed on the site since the mid-16th century. The fort's position enabled it to guard the strategic point where the River Medway meets the Thames. It is a rare example of a two-tiered casemated fort – one of only two of that era in the country – with a design that is otherwise similar to that of several of the other forts along the lower Thames. It remained operational until 1956 and is now used by the Sheerness Docks as a port installation.


Formal definition.

The dimension of a poset "P" is the least integer "t" for which there exists a family  of linear extensions of "P" so that, for every "x" and "y" in "P", "x" precedes "y" in "P" if and only if it precedes "y" in all of the linear extensions. That is,  An alternative definition of order dimension is as the minimal number of total orders such that "P" embeds to the product of these total orders for the componentwise ordering, in which formula_3 if and only if formula_4 for all "i" (, ).

Realizers.

A family formula_1 of linear orders on "X" is called a realizer of a poset "P" = ("X", <) if  which is to say that for any "x" and "y" in "X", "x" < "y" precisely when "x" < "y", "x" < "y",..., and "x" < "y". Thus, an equivalent definition of the dimension of a poset "P" is "the least cardinality of a realizer of "P"."  It can be shown that any nonempty family "R" of linear extensions is a realizer of a finite partially ordered set "P" if and only if, for every critical pair ("x","y") of "P", "y" < "x" for some order < in "R".

Example.

Let "n" be a positive integer, and let "P" be the partial order on the elements "a" and "b" (for 1 ≤ "i" ≤ "n") in which "a" ≤ "b" whenever "i" ≠ "j", but no other pairs are comparable. In particular, "a" and "b" are incomparable in "P"; "P" can be viewed as an oriented form of a crown graph. The illustration shows an ordering of this type for "n" = 4.  Then, for each "i", any realizer must contain a linear order that begins with all the "a" except "a" (in some order), then includes "b", then "a", and ends with all the remaining "b". This is so because if there were a realizer that didn't include such an order, then the intersection of that realizer's orders would have "a" preceding "b", which would contradict the incomparability of "a" and "b" in "P". And conversely, any family of linear orders that includes one order of this type for each "i" has "P" as its intersection. Thus, "P" has dimension exactly "n". In fact, "P" is known as the "standard example" of a poset of dimension "n", and is usually denoted by "S".

Order dimension two.

The partial orders with order dimension two may be characterized as the partial orders whose comparability graph is the complement of the comparability graph of a different partial order. That is, "P" is a partial order with order dimension two if and only if there exists a partial order "Q" on the same set of elements, such that every pair "x", "y" of distinct elements is comparable in exactly one of these two partial orders. If "P" is realized by two linear extensions, then partial order "Q" complementary to "P" may be realized by reversing one of the two linear extensions. Therefore, the comparability graphs of the partial orders of dimension two are exactly the permutation graphs, graphs that are both themselves comparability graphs and complementary to comparability graphs.  The partial orders of order dimension two include the series-parallel partial orders. They are exactly the partial orders whose Hasse diagrams have dominance drawings, which can be obtained by using the positions in the two permutations of a realizer as Cartesian coordinates.

Computational complexity.

It is possible to determine in polynomial time whether a given finite partially ordered set has order dimension at most two, for instance, by testing whether the comparability graph of the partial order is a permutation graph. However, for any "k" ≥ 3, it is NP-complete to test whether the order dimension is at most "k".

Incidence posets of graphs.

The incidence poset of any undirected graph "G" has the vertices and edges of "G" as its elements; in this poset, "x" ≤ "y" if either "x" = "y" or "x" is a vertex, "y" is an edge, and "x" is an endpoint of "y". Certain kinds of graphs may be characterized by the order dimensions of their incidence posets: a graph is a path graph if and only if the order dimension of its incidence poset is at most two, and according to Schnyder's theorem it is a planar graph if and only if the order dimension of its incidence poset is at most three.  For a complete graph on "n" vertices, the order dimension of the incidence poset is formula_7. It follows that all simple "n"-vertex graphs have incidence posets with order dimension formula_8.

"k"-dimension and 2-dimension.

A generalization of dimension is the notion of "k"-dimension (written formula_9) which is the minimal number of chains of length at most "k" in whose product the partial order can be embedded. In particular, the 2-dimension of an order can be seen as the size of the smallest set such that the order embeds in the inclusion order on this set.

In mathematics, the dimension of a partially ordered set (poset) is the smallest number of total orders the intersection of which gives rise to the partial order. This concept is also sometimes called the order dimension or the Dushnik–Miller dimension of the partial order.


Career.

Li, nicknamed "Li Da Yan" ("big-eyed Li"), began his career as a journalist and first rose to prominence for covering on corruption within China's professional soccer establishment. Li later coauthored a book on the subject, "Chinese Soccer: The Inside Story", which documented allegations of pervasive match-fixing involving coaches, players, referees and officials. The book asserted that nearly every professional Chinese soccer player had faced varying degrees of pressure or coercion by gambling syndicates to participate in fixing games. He says his coverage of the issue prompted persistent and anonymous threats against him and his family.  His profile grew in the aftermath of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Having experienced the tremors in his apartment in Chengdu, Li committed himself to assisting in rescue efforts in the areas most severely impacted. He traveled to the Sichaun earthquake region as a volunteer and wrote an essay: "The True Story of the Miracle Survival of the Students and Teachers of Longhan Elementary School in Beichuan". He also published a novel titled, "Li Kele Protests Demolitions" in 2011, which took a critical look at forced demolitions in China.  In 2011, Li announced he would be running as an independent candidate to serve in the People's Congress of Wuhou district, Chengdu. Although China's constitution protects the rights of any citizens over the age of 18 to vote and run for local election, in practice these positions are generally filled by Communist Party-appointed candidates. Individuals who attempt to run as independents or self-nominated candidates sometimes face repercussions. A number of prominent cultural figures, writers, and academics endorsed Li's candidacy including blogger Han Han, film director Feng Xiaogang, and legal scholar Yu Jianrong and He Weifang.

Li Chengpeng () (born September 22, 1968) is a prominent writer and social critic in the People's Republic of China. Well known in China for his reportage and social commentary—Li's Sina Weibo blog had nearly six million followers — (it is offline now) Li made international headlines in 2011 when he announced that he would seek political office as an independent candidate in his hometown of Chengdu, Sichuan province. While not technically illegal, the decision represented a rare and bold move in a country where candidates for political office are typically appointed by the Communist Party of China.


Strategic context.

The fort was constructed in response to a naval arms race between Britain and France. Britain's coastal defences had not been substantially upgraded since the Napoleonic Wars, but a new generation of accurate and powerful guns, mounted on fast-moving, manoeuvrable iron-clad warships, had obsoleted the existing 18th and early 19th century forts along the British coastline. The Thames was seen as particularly vulnerable; as well as being one of the country's most important trade routes, it possessed several naval installations of great importance, including the victualling yards at Deptford, the armaments works of Woolwich Arsenal, the shipbuilding yards at North Woolwich, and the magazines at Purfleet.  The government's response to the increased threat was to appoint a Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom, which published a far-reaching report in 1860. It recommended that many existing forts should be upgraded or rebuilt entirely, and that new forts should be constructed to guard particularly strategic or vulnerable points along the coast. In all, around 70 forts and batteries were constructed around the English coast as a result of the Royal Commission's report.  An existing gun battery, Grain Tower, already existed just off the shoreline at Grain, about away from the site of the later Grain Fort. It had been built in the style of a Martello tower between 1848–55 but the introduction of powerful and accurate rifled muzzle loader (RML) guns during the 1850s made it obsolete as soon as it was completed. The 1860 Commission report recommended that Grain Tower should be turned into a fully casemated fort, which would be built around the existing structure. However, the cost of doing this was seen as excessive and the proposal was dropped as part of a cost-cutting exercise to reduce the overall cost of the fort-building programme. Instead, a new land fort was built at Grain, while the existing battery at Garrison Point on the Isle of Sheppey was upgraded and fortified to create Garrison Point Fort.

Construction and layout.

Grain Fort was constructed between 1861–68 to a heptagonal design. It initially had thirteen open emplacements carried on an earthwork, under which lay the magazines and linking passages. A semi-circular brick keep on a north-south alignment stood at the centre of the fort. It provided barrack accommodation for the garrison and was designed to be defensible, with loopholes in its front face to facilitate musket fire. Similarly, its gorge at the rear, where the main entrance stood, had crenelations to provide protection for defenders faced with a rearward attack. In front of the keep was a ditch, accessed via a gate at the rear of the fort. It had four caponiers that guarded the angles and were accessed via passages through the underlying structure. An inner ditch around the keep was covered by a further three caponiers and two demi-caponiers which led into the earthwork ramparts in one direction and into the keep in the other. The keep could also be accessed via a bridge which connected it with the terreplein.

Operational history.

Grain Fort's initial armament consisted of 13 heavy RMLs (six 11-inch, four 9-inch and three 64-pdr. guns). By the end of the 19th century these had been replaced by four much more powerful guns: two 9.2-inch Mark X breech-loading guns and two 4.7-inch guns. The original thirteen emplacements were reduced to five by 1895. The fort continued in use during the Second World War and underwent further alterations when its two existing 6-inch close defence guns were enclosed within bomb-proof shelters. Fire control positions were also added, along with spigot mortars at each end of the terreplein. In 1956 the fort was decommissioned and sold to the local authority five years later, following which the surface buildings were demolished.  To supplement the fort's firepower, two additional gun batteries were subsequently constructed nearby. These were Grain Wing Battery (constructed 1890–95) south of Grain Fort, and Dummy Battery (constructed 1861–68), about south of the fort. Neither was used for long before they were disarmed and used for other purposes, and both were decommissioned and sold off along with Grain Fort.

Current status.

Little is now visible of Grain Fort above the ground. In addition to the keep's demolition, the spaces within which the surface buildings once stood have been filled with rubble and rubbish. The fort's earthworks and a brick revetment still survive and a path links the concrete aprons of the infilled gun emplacements. The front caponiers are buried but have also survived mostly intact. Magazines and tunnels still exist within the subsurface structure and have been visited by urban explorers. Many of the fittings are reported to still survive. The site of the fort is now within the Isle of Grain Coastal Park, which is managed by the Friends of the Coastal Park in partnership with its owners, St James Parish Council. The fort is part of a scheduled monument designated in 1976 to cover "coastal artillery defences on the Isle of Grain, immediately east and south east of Grain village".

Grain Fort is a former artillery fort located just east of the village of Grain, Kent. It was constructed in the 1860s to defend the confluence of the Rivers Medway and Thames during a period of tension with France. The fort's location enabled its guns to support the nearby Grain Tower and Garrison Point Fort at Sheerness on the other side of the Medway. It was repeatedly altered and its guns upgraded at various points in its history, before being decommissioned in 1956 when the UK abolished its coastal defence programme. It was subsequently demolished. The remnants of the fort are still visible and have been incorporated into a coastal park.