History.

Single parenthood has been common historically due to parental mortality rate due to disease, wars and maternal mortality. Historical estimates indicate that in French, English, or Spanish villages in the 17th and 18th centuries at least one-third of children lost one of their parents during childhood; in 19th-century Milan, about half of all children lost at least one parent by age 20; in 19th-century China, almost one-third of boys had lost one parent or both by the age of 15. Such single parenthood was often short in duration, since remarriage rates were high.  Divorce was generally rare historically (although this depends by culture and era), and divorce especially became very difficult to obtain after the fall of the Roman Empire, in Medieval Europe, due to strong involvement of ecclesiastical courts in family life (though annulment and other forms of separation were more common).

Demographics.

Households.

Among all households in OECD countries in 2011, the proportion of single-parent households was in 3-11% the range, with an average of 7.5%. It was highest in Australia (10%), Canada (10%), Mexico (10%), United States (10%), Lithuania (10%), Costa Rica (11%), Latvia (11%) and New Zealand (11%), while it was lowest in Japan (3%), Greece (4%), Switzerland (4%), Bulgaria (5), Croatia (5%), Germany (5%), Italy (5%) and Cyprus (5%). The proportion was 9% in both Ireland and the United Kingdom.  Among households with children in 2005/09, the proportion of single-parent households was 10% in Japan, 16% in the Netherlands, 19% in Sweden, 20% in France, 22% in Denmark, 22% in Germany, 23% in Ireland, 25% in Canada, 25% in the United Kingdom, and 30% in the United States. The U.S. proportion increased from 20% in 1980 to 30% in 2008.  In all OECD countries, most single-parent households were headed by a mother. The proportion headed by a father varied between 9% and 25%. It was lowest in Estonia (9%), Costa Rica (10%), Cyprus (10%), Japan (10%), Ireland (10%) and the United Kingdom (12%), while it was highest in Norway (22%), Spain (23%), Sweden (24%), Romania (25%) and the United States (25%). These numbers were not provided for Canada, Australia or New Zealand.

Children.

In 2016/17, the proportion of children living in a single-parent household varied between 6% and 28% in the different OECD countries, with an OECD country average of 17%. It was lowest in Turkey (2015, 6%), Greece (8%), Croatia (8%) and Poland (10%), while it was highest in France (23%), United Kingdom (23%), Belgium (25%), Lithuania (25%), United States (27%) and Latvia (28%). It was 19% in Ireland and Canada.  Among children living in a single-parent household, most live primarily with their mother, others primarily with their father, while other children have a shared parenting arrangement where they spend an approximately equal amount of time with their two parents. Among those living primarily with one single parent, most live with their mother. In 2016 (or latest year available), the proportion of 6-12 year olds living primarily with their single father ranged between 5% and 36% among the different OECD countries. It was highest in Belgium (17%), Iceland (19%), Slovenia (20%), France (22%), Norway (23%) and Sweden (36%), while it was lowest in Lithuania (4%), Ireland (5%), Poland (5%), Estonia (7%), Austria (7%) and the United Kingdom (8%). It was 15% in the United States.  In 2005/06, the proportion of 11-15 year old children living in a shared parenting arrangement versus with only one of their parents varied between 1% and 17%, being the highest in Sweden. It was 5% in Ireland and the United States, and 7% in Canada and the United Kingdom. By 2016/17, the percentage in Sweden had increased to 28%.

Impact on parents.

Single mothers.

Over 9.5 million American families are run by one woman. Single mothers are likely to have mental health issues, financial hardships, live in a low income area, and receive low levels of social support. All of these factors are taken into consideration when evaluating the mental health of single mothers. The occurrence of moderate to severe mental disability was more pronounced among single mothers at 28.7% compared to partnered mothers at 15.7%. These mental disabilities include but are not limited to anxiety and depression. Financial hardships also affect the mental health of single mothers. Women, ages 15–24, were more likely to live in a low socio-economic area, have one child, and not to have completed their senior year of high school. These women reported to be in the two lowest income areas, and their mental health was much poorer than those in higher income areas.  A similar study on the mental health of single mothers attempted to answer the question, "Are there differences in the prevalence of psychiatric disorders, between married, never-married, and separated/divorced mothers?" Statistically, never married, and separated/divorced mothers had the highest regularities of drug abuse, personality disorder and PTSD. The family structure can become a trigger for mental health issues in single mothers. They are especially at risk for having higher levels of depressive symptoms.  Studies from the 1970s showed that single mothers who are not financially stable are more likely to experience depression. In a more current study it was proven that financial strain was directly correlated with sky rocket levels of depression. Among low-income, single mothers, depressive symptoms may be as high as 60%.  Inadequate access to mental health care services is prevalent amongst impoverished women. Low-income women are less likely to receive mental health care for numerous reasons. Mental health services remain inequitable for low-income, more so, low-income single women are more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, and other poor mental health outcomes. Researchers Copeland and Snyder (2011) addressed the barriers low-income single mothers have on receiving mental health care, "Visible barriers often include the lack of community resources, transportation, child care, convenient hours, and financial resources." Meanwhile, low-income single mothers are more likely to bring their children in for mental health treatment than themselves. Researchers Copeland and Snyder analyzed sixty-four African American mothers who brought their children in for mental health treatment. These mothers were than screened for mild, moderate, and severe depression and/or anxiety. After three months the researchers used an ethnographic interview to address whether or not the participants used mental health services that were referred to them. Results indicated that the majority of the participants did not use the referred mental health care services for reasons that included: fear of losing their children, being hospitalized and/or stigmatized by their community counterparts.

Impact on children.

According to David Blankenhorn, Patrick Fagan, Mitch Pearlstein David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, living in a single parent family is strongly correlated with school failure and problems of delinquency, drug use, teenage pregnancies, poverty, and welfare dependency in the United States. Using multilevel modeling, Suet-Ling Pong has shown that a high proportion of American children from single parent families perform poorly on mathematics and reading achievement tests.  In Sweden, Emma Fransson et al. have shown that children living with one single parent have worse well-being in terms of physical health behavior, mental health, peer friendships, bullying, cultural activities, sports, and family relationships, compared to children from intact families. As a contrast, children in a shared parenting arrangement that live approximately equal amount of time with their divorced mother and father have about the same well-being as children from intact families and better outcomes than children with only one custodial parent.  The United Kingdom Office for National Statistics has reported that children of single parents, after controlling for other variables like family income, are more likely to have problems, including being twice as likely to suffer from mental illness. Both British and American researchers show that children with no fathers are three times more likely to be unhappy, and are also more likely to engage in anti-social behavior, abuse substance and engage in juvenile deliquency.

Impact on American society.

In 2017 the U.S Census Bureau published a report breaking down the number of children living in single parent households by the race of the family. The report found dramatic disparities in the rates of single parent families among the races examined.

Cultural norms and attitudes.

There is some debate among experts as to what the important component of the family structure is, particularly in the US, centering on whether or not a complete family or the love and affection of the children's parents is more important. There are even some that argue that a single parent family is not even really a family. In American society, where living standard is very high, single moms and single dads are more likely to be poor, not only because they don't have help in the household, but also because they didn't have much money to begin with. With respect to this, recent public policy debates have centered on whether or not government should give aid to single parent households, which some believe will reduce poverty and improve their situation, or instead focus on wider issues like protecting employment. In addition, there is a debate on the behavioral effects of children with incarcerated parents, and how losing one or both parents to incarceration affects their academic performance and social well-being with others.  It is encouraged that each parent respect the other, at least in the child's presence, and provide child support for the primary caregiver, when parents are not married or separated. The civil behavior among separated parents has a direct effect on how child copes with their situation; this is especially seen in younger children who do not yet understand their familial separation, requiring both parents to establish a limited friendship to support the upbringing of their child.

Causes of single-parenthood.

Widowed parents.

Historically, death of a partner was a common cause of single parenting. Diseases and maternal death not infrequently resulted in a widower or widow responsible for children. At certain times wars might also deprive significant numbers of families of a parent. Improvements in sanitation and maternal care have decreased mortality for those of reproductive age, making death a less common cause of single parenting.

Divorced parents.

Divorce statistics.

In 2009, the overall divorce rate was around 9/1000 in the United States. It was also found that more influence came from the south, with the rates there being about 10.5/1000, as opposed to the north where it was around 7/1000. This resulted in about 1.5% (around 1 million) children living in the house of a recently divorced parent in the same year. Along with this, it has been shown that for the past 10 years or so, first marriages have a 40% chance of ending in divorce. And, for other marriages after a first divorce, the chance of another divorce increases. In 2003, a study showed that about 69% of children in American living in a household that was a different structure than the typical nuclear family. This was broken down into about 30% living with a stepparent, 23% living with a biological mother, 6% with grandparents as caregivers, 4% with a biological father, 4% with someone who was not a direct relative, and a small 1% living with a foster family.  Around the mid-1990s, there was a significant amount of single parents raising children, with 1.3 million single fathers and 7.6 million single mothers in the United States alone. However, many parents desire, or attempt, to get sole custody, which would make them a single parent, but are unsuccessful in the court process. There are many parents who may single parent, but do so without official custody, further biasing statistics.

Children and divorce.

Child custody in reference to divorce refers to which parent is allowed to make important decisions about the children involved. Physical custody refers to which parent the child lives with. Among divorced parents, "parallel parenting" refers to parenting after divorce in which each parent does so independently; this is most common. In comparison, cooperative parenting occurs when the parents involved in the child's life work together around all involved parties' schedules and activities, and this is far less common. After a certain "crisis period," most children resume normal development; however, their future relationships are often affected, as they lack a model upon which to base a healthy long term relationship. Nonetheless, as adults children of divorcees cope better with change.  Children are affected by divorce in many different ways, varying by the circumstances and age of the child. Young children ages two to six are generally the most fearful of parental separation, and often feel abandoned or confused. Both boys and girls have the same amount of trouble coping, but often show this in different ways. Nonetheless this age group adapts best to their situations, as they are often too young to remember their non-custodial parent vividly. Children ages seven to twelve are much better at expressing emotions and accepting parentage breakage, but often distrust their parents, rely on outside help and support for encouragement, and may manifest social and academic problems. Adolescents cope the worst with divorce; they often struggle most with the change, and may even turn away from their family entirely, dealing with their situation on their own. They often have problems expressing feelings, similar to far younger children, and may have adjustment issues with long-term relationships due to these feelings. Keeping in touch with both parents and having a healthy relationship with both mother and father appears to have the most effect on a child's behavior; which leads to an easier time coping with the divorce as well as development through the child's life. Children will do better with their parents divorce if they have a smooth adjustment period. One way to make this adjustment easier on children is to let them "remain in the same neighborhoods and schools following divorce."

Single woman births.

Unintended pregnancy.

Some out-of-wedlock births are intended, but many are unintentional. Out-of-wedlock births are frequently not acceptable to society, and they often result in single parenting. A partner may also leave as he or she may want to shirk responsibility of bringing up the child. This also may harm the child. Where they are not acceptable, they sometimes result in forced marriage, however such marriages fail more often than others.  In the United States, the rate of unintended pregnancy is higher among unmarried couples than among married ones. In 1990, 73% of births to unmarried women were unintended at the time of conception, compared to about 44% of births overall.  Mothers with unintended pregnancies, and their children, are subject to numerous adverse health effects, including increased risk of violence and death, and the children are less likely to succeed in school and are more likely to live in poverty and be involved in crime.  "Fragile Families" are usually caused by an unintended pregnancy out of wedlock. Usually in this situation the father is not completely in the picture and the relationship between the mother, father, and child is consistently unstable. As well as instability "fragile families" are often limited in resources such as human capital and financial resources, the kids that come from these families are more likely to be hindered within school and don't succeed as well as kids who have strictly single parents or two parent homes. Usually within these families the father plans to stick around and help raise the child but once the child is born the fathers do not stay for much longer and only one third stay after five years of the child's birth. Most of these fragile families come from low economic status to begin with and the cycle appears to continue; once the child grows up they are just as likely to still be poor and live in poverty as well. Most fragile families end with the mother becoming a single parent, leaving it even more difficult to come out of the poverty cycle. The gender of the baby seems to have no effect if the father is not living with the mother at the time of the birth, meaning they are still likely to leave after one year of the child's birth. Yet there is some evidence that suggests that if the father is living with the mother at the time of the birth he is more likely to stay after one year if the child is a son rather than a daughter.

Choice.

Some individuals choose to become pregnant and parent on their own. Others choose to adopt. Typically referred to in the West as "Single Mothers by Choice" or "Choice Moms" though, fathers also (less commonly) may choose to become single parents through adoption or surrogacy. Many turn to single parenthood by choice after not finding the right person to raise children with, and for women, it often comes out of a desire to have biological children before it is too late to do so.

Single-parent adoption.

History of single parent adoptions.

Single parent adoptions have existed since the mid 19th century. Men were rarely considered as adoptive parents, and were considered far less desired. Often, children adopted by a single person were raised in pairs rather than alone, and many adoptions by lesbians and gay men were arranged as single parent adoptions. During the mid 19th century many state welfare officials made it difficult if not impossible for single persons to adopt, as agencies searched for "normal" families with married men and women. In 1965, the Los Angeles Bureau of Adoptions sought single African-Americans for African-American orphans for whom married families could not be found. In 1968, the Child Welfare League of America stated that married couples were preferred, but there were "exceptional circumstances" where single parent adoptions were permissible.  Not much has changed with the adoption process since the 1960s. However, today, many countries only allow women to adopt as a single parent, and many others only allow men to adopt boys.

Considerations.

Single parent adoptions are controversial. They are, however, still preferred over divorcees, as divorced parents are considered an unnecessary stress on the child. In one study, the interviewers asked children questions about their new lifestyle in a single-parent home. The interviewer found that when asked about fears, a high proportion of children feared illness or injury to the parent. When asked about happiness, half of the children talked about outings with their single adoptive parent. A single person wanting to adopt a child has to be mindful of the challenges they may face, and there are certain agencies that will not work with single adoptive parents at all. Single parents will typically only have their own income to live off of, and thus might not have a backup plan for potential children in case something happens to them. Traveling is also made more complex, as the child must either be left in someone else's care, or taken along.

By country.

Australia.

In 2003, 14% of all Australian households were single-parent families. In Australia 2011, out of all families 15.9% were single parent families. Out of these families 17.6% of the single parents were males, whilst 82.4% were females.  Single people are eligible to apply for adoption in all states of Australia, except for Queensland and South Australia. They are able to apply for adoption both to Australian born and international born children, although not many other countries allow single parent adoptions.  Single parents in Australia are eligible for support payments from the government, but only if they are caring for at least one child under the age of eight.

New Zealand.

At the 2013 census, 17.8% of New Zealand families were single-parent, of which five-sixths were headed by a female. Single-parent families in New Zealand have fewer children than two-parent families; 56% of single-parent families have only one child and 29% have two children, compared to 38% and 40% respectively for two-parent families.

United Kingdom.

In the United Kingdom, about 1 out of 4 families with dependent children are single-parent families, 8 to 11 percent of which have a male single-parent. UK poverty figures show that 52% of single parent families are below the Government-defined poverty line (after housing costs). Single parents in the UK are almost twice as likely to be in low-paid jobs as other workers (39% of working single parents compared with 21% of working people nationally). This is highlighted in a report published by Gingerbread, funded by Trust for London and Barrow Cadbury Trust.

United States.

In the United States, since the 1960s, there has been a marked increase in the number of children living with a single parent. The jump was caused by an increase in births to unmarried women and by the increasing prevalence of divorces among couples. In 2010, 40.7% of births in the US were to unmarried women. In 2000, 11% of children were living with parents who had never been married, 15.6% of children lived with a divorced parent, and 1.2% lived with a parent who was widowed. The results of the 2010 United States Census showed that 27% of children live with one parent, consistent with the emerging trend noted in 2000. The most recent data of December 2011 shows approximately 13.7 million single parents in the U.S. Mississippi leads the nation with the highest percent of births to unmarried mothers with 54% in 2014, followed by Louisiana, New Mexico, Florida and South Carolina.  In 2006, 12.9 million families in the US were headed by a single parent, 80% of which were headed by a female.  The newest census bureau reports that between 1960 and 2016, the percentage of children living in families with two parents decreased from 88 to 69. Of those 50.7 million children living in families with two parents, 47.7 million live with two married parents and 3.0 million live with two unmarried parents.  The percentage of children living with single parents increased substantially in the United States during the second half of the 20th century. According to a 2013 Child Trends study, only 9% of children lived with single parents in the 1960s—a figure that increased to 28% in 2012. The main cause of single parent families are high rates of divorce and non-marital childbearing.  https://www.academia.edu/6799750/Wrapped_in_the_Flag_of_Israel_Mizrahi_Single_Mothers_and_Bureaucratic_Torture

A single parent is a person who lives with a child or children and who does not have a spouse or live-in partner. Reasons for becoming a single parent include divorce, break-up, abandonment, death of the other parent, childbirth by a single woman or single-person adoption. A "single parent family" is a family with children that is headed by a single parent.


Early life.

Vera Duss was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the daughter of John Duss Jr. and Elizabeth Vignier Duss. Her paternal grandparents, John Duss and Susanna Creese Duss, were members of the Harmony Society, an experimental religious community in western Pennsylvania. She was raised by her mother and maternal grandmother in France. She trained as a surgeon, earning her medical degree from the Sorbonne in 1936.

Religious life.

Duss entered became "Sister Benedict" ("Soeur Benoit") when she entered a French Benedictine abbey, Notre Dame de Jouarre, in 1936, the day after finishing her medical training. She worked as a doctor and teacher in Jouarre, and (facing the danger of capture, as an American) went into hiding for part of the town's Nazi occupation during World War II. She was present when the town and abbey were liberated by American troops in 1944.  Duss and Mother Mary Aline Trilles de Warren moved to the United States in 1946, and founded the Regina Laudis monastic community in 1947, near the farm of artists Lauren Ford and Frances W. Delehanty in Bethlehem, Connecticut. The community's founding inspired a film, "Come to the Stable" (1949), starring Loretta Young and Celeste Holm. Mother Benedict became an abbess in 1975, when the community became an abbey. "The secret to keeping this place going was to do the next thing that had to be done – without wasting time on worrying," she told her biographer. "If you do something concrete, that opens the possibilities."

Vatican investigation and aftermath.

Mother Benedict's leadership methods came under question, and a Vatican investigation was ordered. She stepped down as abbess in 1998. Duss spent the last years of her life as abbess emerita at Regina Laudis, where she died in 2005, aged 94 years. Her grave is in the abbey's cemetery. A biography of Mother Benedict Duss was published in 2007.

Vera Duss (November 21, 1910 — October 2, 2005), better known in her adult work as Mother Benedict Duss, O.S.B., was an American-born French medical doctor and Roman Catholic nun, founder and head of the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut from 1947 until 1995.


Background.

Media critics and public figures such as Robert W. McChesney, Ben Bagdikian, Ralph Nader, Jim Hightower, Noam Chomsky, Thom Hartmann, Edward S. Herman, Amy Goodman, Tulsi Gabbard and Bernie Sanders suggest that such a media system, especially when allowed to dominate the mainstream media, inevitably will be manipulated by these same corporations to suit their own interests. These critics point out that the main national networks, NBC, CBS, and ABC, as well as most if not all of the smaller cable channels, are owned, funded, and controlled by an interconnected network of large corporate conglomerates and international banking interests, which may manipulate and filter out news that does not fit their corporate agenda. Media companies are slowly understanding how to accelerate the fluidity of media content across delivery channels to "expand revenue opportunities, broaden markets and reinforce consumer loyalties and commitments". Users are then understanding how to master these various media technologies to bring the flow of media more fully under their control and to interact/co-create with other users. Sometimes, these two forces reinforce each other, creating closer, more rewarding, relations between media producers and consumers. Sometimes the two forces conflict, resulting in constant renegotiations of power between these competing pressures on the new media ecology.

Propaganda model.

Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman developed a propaganda model which purports to explain this bias. The common misinterpretation of this model is that all bias is conscious and centralized. The hypothesis is that the process is decentralized and operates as a confluence of factors, that includes the overt pressure from owners and advertisers, but also by the gradual internalization of the biases and values of the corporate owners, leading to self-censorship.  American journalist Glenn Greenwald accused mainstream U.S. media of "spreading patriotic state propaganda".  Other factors include the tendency of journalists to avoid doing original research, instead obtaining news from the same few wire services, such as Reuters and Associated Press, which themselves tend to cover the same news under the same perspective. Due to the desire to reduce operation costs, the mainstream media favor news pieces that are pre-made by these news agencies instead of conducting their own reporting.

Impact.

On social justice.

Critiques have pointed to the ownership of major news outlets in USA by corporations. Bernie Sanders, an American anti-establishment politician, contends that media are an arm of the ruling class. In his view, "corporate media by definition has conflict of interests." He points to alleged low pay of workers in media companies such as Disney which biases them against publishing specials on minimum wage and wealth and income equality. There have been allegations of corporate media's manipulation of presidential campaign facts against Sanders.

Public relations on news and public affairs programming.

This same economic pressure makes media susceptible to manipulation by government and other corporate sources through the widespread use of press releases, often created by industry-funded public relations firms.

Impact on world events and society.

The point of view and statements made by governments, officials, military, police, national security organizations (such as the FBI and CIA), as well as various other political offices are regularly reported as facts and are published without any (or very little) fact checking by the corporate media. Perhaps the most infamous current example of the impact of the propaganda model on world events and societies was during the two-year period following the 2001 US attacks. During this time, according to a five year in-depth research project conducted by the Centre for Public Integrity; the President of the United States George W. Bush and seven high-ranking officials in his administration made at least 935 false statements about the threat posed to the world and to US national security by Saddam Hussein. These false statements were virtually uncontested by the corporate media and presented as a sound rationale for both the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the "War on Terror".  In "Buying the War" on PBS, Bill Moyers noted 27 "Washington Post" editorials supporting George W. Bush's ambitions to invade Iraq. National security correspondent Walter Pincus reported that he had been ordered to cease his reports that were critical of Bush administration. According to author and journalist Greg Mitchell, "By the "Post" own admission, in the months before the war, it ran more than 140 stories on its front page promoting the war, while contrary information 'got lost', as one "Post" staffer told Kurtz."  The result was the "manufacturing of consent" for the invasion of Iraq and "The Global War on Terror/ism" in which hundreds of thousands of people have lost their lives to date. As an example, Jessica Yellin on Anderson Cooper 360 admitted being pressured by corporate executives to present positive stories during the run up to the Iraq war.  Anderson Cooper 360 Transcript of Jessica Yellin reporting:COOPER: Jessica, McClellan took press to task for not upholding their reputation. He writes: "The National Press Corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq. The 'liberal media' -- in quotes -- didn't live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served." Dan Bartlett, former Bush adviser, called the allegation "total crap." What is your take? Did the press corps drop the ball?JESSICA YELLIN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I wouldn't go that far. I think the press corps dropped the ball at the beginning. When the lead-up to the war began, the press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war that was presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings.And my own experience at the White House was that, the higher the president's approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives—and I was not at this network at the time—but the more pressure I had from news executives to put on positive stories about the president. I think, over time...COOPER: You had pressure from news executives to put on positive stories about the president?YELLIN: Not in that exact—they wouldn't say it in that way, but they would edit my pieces. They would push me in different directions. They would turn down stories that were more critical and try to put on pieces that were more positive, yes. That was my experience.Factcheck.org (Factcheck.org), created by the Annenberg school of Public Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, found hundreds of misrepresentations in political ads that were never corrected by the mainstream media. Studies also show that those who rely on the media for their information have a poor understanding of the issues and are unable to discern misrepresentations in political advertising.  As documented by authors Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, it is becoming increasingly common for video news releases (VNR) to be created by government and corporations, mimicking TV news story-format, to be used straight into broadcasting in a newscast. Other factors include the cost of litigation. Large corporations tend to sue over any news that are against their interests, causing great expense for the news editors. Even if the litigation is lost, the cost of time and pressure will certainly bias a reporter towards avoiding such possibility.  In March 2018, American documentary filmmaker Michael Moore criticized the "corporate media", saying "You turn on the TV, and it's 'Russia, Russia, Russia!' These are all shiny keys to distract us. We should know about the West Virginia strike. What an inspiration that would be. But they don't show this".

Interlocking corporations, corporate power, and its social influences.

To illustrate the growing problem of monocracy, Bagdikian notes that in the 1980s, "less than 1 percent of all corporations, have 87 percent of all sales. [The corporates] are the aristocrats of the American Industrial economy; the remaining 359,500, in terms of their national power, are the peasantry." This conflict continues to arise as "dominant media companies are further [integrating] into the ruling forces of the economy." The directorates of major companies interlock with others and control the content of multiple dominating media and information distribution (i.e., newspapers, magazines, radio and television companies, book publishers, film industries, and even multinational banking investors). They become directly influenced by still other powerful industry, creating the "Endless Chain" of mass media and economic aristocracy (Wardrip-Fruin, 479).  In 1993, 90% of media was owned by 50 companies. Today, starting in 2011,the same 90% is controlled by 6 companies. These 6 companies include Comcast, News-Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, and CBS. These 6 media companies are broken down into sub companies, for example, News-Corp is broken down into Fox, Wall Street Journal, and New York Post. Disney is broken down into ABC, ESPN, Pixar, Miramar, and Marvel Studios. Viacom is broken down into MTV, Nick Jr, BET, CMT, and Paramount Pictures. Time Warner cable is broken down into CNN, HBO, Time, and Warner Bros. Lastly, CBS is broken down into Showtime, Smithsonian channel, NFL.com, Jeopardy, and 60 minutes. 232 media executives control what media 277 million Americans consume. To put that into perspective, that's 1 media executive to 850,000 media consumers. These six big companies control 70% of cable and can make up to 275.9 billion revenue (2010 revenue for the big six). The media we receive by these 6 companies include movies which in 2010, their box office sales hit 7 billion, which is double what 140 smaller movie studios made.  Several issues arise from the fusion; under law and business ethics, the director of a firm is obligated to act in best interest of the company he or she is involved in, and failure to oblige under some circumstances can be a federal crime. This creates a dilemma in the governance of mass media: the same person may be trapped in a situation where working for the best interest for one may damage the other corporation. Another problem which arises is that the same person can abuse his or her power to get away with injustice as exemplified by Bagdikian: "When Sears was accused by the Federal Trade Commission of dishonest advertising and promotion, the Tribune was one of the major papers that failed to carry a word of it... (Wardrip-Fruin, 481)." Here, a market industry was able to conceal their crime of fraud since it was also interlocked with the news media, one of the main distributors of such significant information.  In summary, the concentration of massive media firms that control American public information is troublesome for the potential for deception misleads the public away from reality. The Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs state that these facts raise fundamental issues as they can bear on social issues and possibly control the shape and direction of the nation's economy. It is further derived that "the summits of American business now control or powerfully influence the major media that create American public opinion" (Wardrip-Fruin, 483).

Corporate media is mass media production, distribution, ownership, and funding dominated by corporations and their CEOs. Characterizations of mainstream media as "corporate" may be pejorative insinuations that such media systems do not serve the public interest.


Early life and background.

Waheeda Rehman was born on 03 February 1938 to a Dakhini Muslim family in Chengalpattu, Tamil Nadu, India. It is a common misconception that Rehman was born in Andhra Pradesh instead of Tamil Nadu. Her father was Mohammed Abdur Rehman and her mother was Mumtaz Begum, and she was the youngest out of four daughters. As a child, she and her sisters were trained Bharatanatyam in Chennai. She studied in St. Joseph's Convent in Visakhapatnam when her father was posted there in the then Madras Presidency. Her father, who worked as a district commissioner, died in 1951 while she was in her early teens.  Rehman's dream was to become a doctor, but due to her family's circumstances emotionally and financially, alongside her mother's illness, she abandoned her goal. In order to help her family, she accepted movie offers that stemmed from her dancing abilities.  Waheeda Rehman's first performance on stage as a Dancer in earlier days was at Brahampur's Ganjam Kala Parishad organized by her Uncle Dr.Ferose Ali who was a famous doctor and social activist in Brahmapur city.  This performance of Bharat Natyam was watched by a Telugu Film Director who gave her first opportunity to work for a Telugu film. Guru Dutta watched that movie and introduced in Mumbai. Later she become the heartthrob of Indian Cinema with Dev Anand and Guru Dutt's film CID.  Dr. Ferose Ali was a down to earth man who used to cure patients free of cost those days. He originally hailed from Cuttack but established in Brahmapur City. His house was known as 'White House' in that era which situated between Khallikote Collage Stadium and Palur Bunglow Street and used to be the epicenter of intellectual hangouts in those days. Waheeda visited her Uncle's house several times in those days.  Waheeda again came back to Brahmapur city for a grand performance after achieving stardom in Bollywood. She raised funds for charity. The funds were used for Red Cross Maternity Ward in Then Red Cross Hospital and Now known as City Hospital in Brahmapur.  Nargis Natarajan (Writer and Daughter of Late Dr. Ferose ali, a student of Saint Vincent Convent School, Brahmapur) also mentioned these incidents in her book'Daddy- A Bouquet of Memories'.

Acting career.

Early work as a starting actress (1955–1959).

Rehman began her career in films in the mid-1950s, usually dancing in item numbers. Her film debut occurred in the Telugu film "Rojulu Maraayi" (1955), in which she was encouraged by the producer of the film to join the cast, despite hesitance from her mother. It was a success, becoming a channel for more offers from filmmakers to Rehman. She was featured in "Jayasimha" (1955) by the side of veteran actor NT Rama Rao. "Kaalam Maari Pochu" (1956) and the first full-length colour Tamil film "Alibabavum 40 Thirudargalum" (1956).  In the success party of "Rojolu Maraayi", Hindi filmmaker Guru Dutt noticed her and decided to have her act in Hindi films. In later interviews, Rehman describes how she considers Dutt as her mentor. Dutt brought her to Bombay (current-day Mumbai) to have her in a supporting role in his production "CID" (1956), directed by Raj Khosla. Because of the famous Hindi actresses of that era, such as Madhubala, Nargis and Meena Kumari, Rehman was pressurized into changing her name into "something sexy", but she was adamant on keeping her birth name, signifying her will to stay true to herself. The success of the film caused Dutt to give Rehman her first leading role as a prostitute in "Pyaasa" (1957), which was also a commercial success and became one of Dutt's most acclaimed movies. By the time the decade was over, she had made a few more films with the filmmaker, including "12 O'Clock" (1958) and "Kaagaz Ke Phool" (1959). After several years in the industry, her mother died.  Rehman also established a working relationship with Dev Anand, and together as a pair, they had a number of successful films to their credit. Including "CID", other box office hits are "Solva Saal" (1958), "Kala Bazar" (1960) and "Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja" (1961). Suresh Kohli of The Hindu writes on her performance in "Solva Saal", "Though barely 22 then and only in her fourth Hindi release, Waheeda Rehman demonstrates her class: both in serious scenes demanding intensity and through sparkling, mischievous eye movements during lighter moments."

Rise to recognition (1960–1964).

Besides "Kala Bazar", Rehman acted in three other films in 1960, which were "Ek Phool Char Kaante", "Girlfriend", and "Chaudhvin Ka Chand." The last film was another partnership between Rehman and Dutt, and was the fourth-highest grossing Hindi film of 1961. It was considered a "saving" point in Dutt's career, after their last collaboration, "Kaagaz Ke Phool", had a horrendous run at the box office. It also represented the strained relationship of the duo. Dutt's existing marriage and her film successes with other directors caused them to drift apart personally and professionally, although they continued to work together into the 1960s. Their last movie together was the drama "Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam" (1962), starring Dutt, Meena Kumari, Rehman and Rehman herself in a supporting role, and the movie was a flop financially but was lauded internationally by critics. The film presented Rehman her first Filmfare nomination in the category of Best Supporting Actress, and the movie itself received nominations for the Golden Bear at the 13th Berlin International Film Festival and was selected as India's official entry to the Oscars. Rehman and Dutt finally broke away in 1963, and a year later, Dutt was found dead on 10 October 1964 in Mumbai, reportedly from an overdose mixture of sleeping pills and alcohol.  The actress began to experiment with her roles when she ventured into Bengali film-making with Satyajit Ray's film "Abhijan" in 1962. As the years went on, she began to taste higher success when she was offered the leading actress roles in films and played parts that were deemed as unconventional for the typical Bollywood actress. Rehman played a murder suspect in "Baat Ek Raat Ki" (1962), a girl embroiled in a sibling feud in "Rakhi" (1962) and an infertile woman in "Ek Dil Sau Afsane" (1963).  As a leading lady, she also started to star opposite of many familiar faces of Hindi Cinema; Sunil Dutt in "Mujhe Jeene Do" (1962), Nirupa Roy in "Kaun Apna Kaun Paraya" (1963), and Biswajit in the horror film "Kohraa" (1964), "Majboor" (1964), and the psychological-thriller "Bees Saal Baad" (1962)—the latter becoming the highest-grossing Hindi film of 1962.  At the end of 1964, Rehman became the third-highest paid actress in Bollywood, from 1959 to 1964.

Extreme success and peak (1965–1971).

Vijay Anand's magnum opus, the 1965 romantic drama "Guide" presented Rehman with a different outlook of success that resulted in major fame and popularity to her name. The film itself was an adaptation of the same book written by R. K. Narayan, published in 1958. The main cast were Rehman and Dev Anand, and they were last seen together in "Baat Ek Raat Ki," an average hit at the Indian box office. The film itself proved difficult for Rehman, as her character Rosie was rebellious, strong-willed and didn't fit the mold of the usual women Bollywood films portrayed. However, the film was an instant success, becoming the fifth-highest grossing Hindi film of 1965 and a fan-favorite in Rehman's repertoire. Rehman's character was especially praised, with Trisha Gupta of Hindustan Times writing, "Rosie was triply unusual: a woman who walks out of an unhappy marriage, begins a romantic relationship with a man who isn’t her husband, and simultaneously embarks on a successful career as a dancer. She would be an unusual Hindi film heroine even today." and her performance was ranked amongst her best. She won her first Filmfare Award—Filmfare Award for Best Actress—and soon after, she became a sought-over actress in the latter half of the 1960s. "Guide" became India's official entry to the Oscars and a staple film in Hindi cinema.  Her peak continued when she was paired with other well-established superstars, namely Dilip Kumar, Rajendra Kumar, Raj Kapoor, and Rajesh Khanna. Among her most acclaimed films of late 1960s include "Teesri Kasam" (1966), "Ram Aur Shyam" (1967), "Neel Kamal" (1968) and Khamoshi (1969). The last three movies all earned Rehman consecutive nominations for Filmfare Award for Best Actress each, with her winning her second Filmfare Award in "Neel Kamal". In her role in "Khamoshi" starring alongside Rajesh Khanna and Dharmendra, it is believed to be Rehman's finest acting performance. She plays a nurse who has gone mentally insane after falling in love with one of her patients, and eventually is sent to her own mental institution.  Other films that were commercially successful were "Patthar Ke Sanam" (1967) and "Aadmi" (1968), and box office failures include "Dharti" (1970) and "Shatranj" (1969). At the end of the 1960s, Rehman ranked a new record amongst herself in becoming the second-paid actress in Bollywood, from 1964-1969. She states herself, "For "Solva Saal", my first film as a freelancer, I received ₹30,000. The highest I ever earned in my career was 7 lakh for a film."

Character roles, career decline and marriage (1971).

Her career continued throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. She won the Filmfare Best Actress Award for her roles in "Guide" (1965), where she hit the peak of her career, and "Neel Kamal" (1968), but despite excellent offbeat roles in subsequent films, including a National Award-winning performance in "Reshma Aur Shera" (1971), some of the films failed at the box office. Seeing her films being successful, Waheeda decided to experiment with roles at this stage of career. She accepted "Reshma Aur Shera", opposite her old co-star Sunil Dutt, with whom she had previously in the sixties had hits such as "Ek Phool Char Kaante", "Mujhe Jeene Do", "Meri Bhabhi" and "Darpan". Her performance was appreciated by critics, but the film failed at the box office. But Waheeda continued to experiment with roles and accepted the offer to play a mother to Jaya Bhaduri in "Phagun" (1973). This, she regards the mistake of her career, as after this film flopped, suddenly people started offering her motherly roles to heroes.Film expert Rajesh Subramanian reported that Manmohan Desai had approached Rehman, on behalf of Shammi Kapoor, during the making of "Naseeb". In the song "John Jani Janardhan", Shammi Kapoor and Waheeda Rehman make a grand entry holding hands. Incidentally this was the first time the two stars appeared together on screen. Later she also did Manmohan Desai's "Coolie" and "Allah Rakha".  From the mid-seventies, Waheeda's career as lead heroine ended and her career as character actor began. At around this time, Kamaljit, who starred opposite her in "Shagoon" (1964), proposed and they got married in 1974. After her appearance in "Lamhe" (1991), she retired from the film industry for 12 years.  In her new innings from the seventies, her successful films where she played pivotal roles include "Kabhi Kabhie" (1976),"Trishul" (1978), "Jwalamukhi" (1980), "Namkeen" and "Namak Halaal" (1982), "Mashaal" (1984), "Chandni"(1989) and "Rang De Basanti"(2006). She played the central character in the Mahesh Bhatt directed film "Swayam" that starred Akash Khurana and Anupam Kher. She also appeared in a tele-series being directed by Gulzar.  In recent years she made a comeback playing elderly mother and grandmother roles in "Om Jai Jagadish" (2002), "Water" (2005), "Rang De Basanti" (2006), 15, Park Avenue and "Delhi 6" (2009) which were all critically acclaimed.

Personal life.

A biography has been written and published in 2014 about Rehman, entitled "Conversations with Waheeda Rehman", which consist of interviews collected by author and director Nasreen Munni Kabir.  At the beginning of her career, Rehman is rumoured to have been involved with her frequent collaborator Guru Dutt. At the time, Dutt was married to singer Geeta Dutt and had children. One of their films, "Kaagaz Ke Phool", which chronicles a film director falling in love with an actress, is thought to be inspired by the ill-fated affair. Eventually, the pair broke off due to personal and professional reasons in 1963. Dutt eventually died in 1964 due to mixing of alcohol and sleeping pills. Rehman is private about her life and often speaks about it, as said in an interview at the launch of "Conversations with Waheeda Rehman":  On April 1974, Rehman married Shashi Rekhi (also known by his screen name Kamaljeet), and both had worked together prior in the film Shagoon (1964). She has two children: Sohail Rekhi and Kashvi Rekhi, both of them are writers. After her marriage, she lived in a farmhouse in Bangalore but after the death of her husband on 21 November 2000, she moved back to her ocean-view bungalow in Bandra, Mumbai, where she currently resides.  In October 2004, a Waheeda Rehman film retrospective was held at the Seattle Art Museum and the University of Washington where Rehman participated in spirited-panel-and-audience discussions on her most memorable films; "Pyaasa", "Teesri Kasam" and "Guide."

Waheeda Rehman (born 3 February 1938) is an Indian actress and dancer who has appeared in mainly Hindi films, as well as Telugu, Tamil, Bengali and Malayalam films. She is noted for her contributions to different genres of films and different roles from the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s. Her accolades consist of a National Film Award, two Filmfare Awards out of eight nominations, the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award and the Centenary Award for Indian Film Personality. Throughout her career, she has been frequently cited as one of Bollywood's "most beautiful" actresses by various media outlets, a title for which she has received substantial publicity.


Function and operation.

The spacecraft are aluminum-covered brass spheres with diameters of and masses of, covered with 426 cube-corner retroreflectors, giving them the appearance of giant golf balls. Of these retroreflectors, 422 are made from fused silica glass while the remaining 4 are made from germanium to obtain measurements in the infrared for experimental studies of reflectivity and satellite orientation. They have no on-board sensors or electronics, and are not attitude-controlled.  They orbit at an altitude of, well above low earth orbit and well below geostationary orbit, at orbital inclinations of 109.8 and 52.6 degrees.  Measurements are made by transmitting pulsed laser beams from Earth ground stations to the satellites. The laser beams then return to Earth after hitting the reflecting surfaces; the travel times are precisely measured, permitting ground stations in different parts of the Earth to measure their separations to better than one inch in thousands of miles.  The LAGEOS satellites make it possible to determine positions of points on the Earth with extremely high accuracy due to the stability of their orbits. The high mass-to-area ratio and the precise, stable (attitude-independent) geometry of the LAGEOS spacecraft, together with their extremely regular orbits, make these satellites the most precise position references available.

Mission goals.

The LAGEOS mission consists of the following key goals:  Ground tracking stations located in many countries (including the US, Mexico, France, Germany, Poland, Australia, Egypt, China, Peru, Italy, and Japan) have ranged to the satellites and data from these stations are available worldwide to investigators studying crustal dynamics.  There are two LAGEOS spacecraft, LAGEOS-1 launched in 1976, and LAGEOS-2 launched in 1992., both LAGEOS spacecraft are routinely tracked by the ILRS network.

Time capsule.

LAGEOS-1 (which is predicted to re-enter the atmosphere in 8.4 million years) also contains a plaque designed by Carl Sagan to indicate to future humanity when LAGEOS-1 was launched. The plaque includes the numbers 1 to 10 in binary. In the upper right is a diagram of the Earth orbiting the Sun, with a binary number 1 indicating one revolution, equaling one year. It then shows 268435456 (in binary; 2) years in the past, indicated by a left arrow and the arrangement of the Earth's continents at that time. The present arrangement of the Earth's continents is indicated with a 0 and both forward and backward arrows. Then the estimated arrangement of the continents in 8.4 million years with a right facing arrow and 8388608 in binary (2). LAGEOS itself is shown at launch on the 0 year, and falling to the Earth in the 8.4 million year diagram.

LAGEOS, Laser Geodynamics Satellite or Laser Geometric Environmental Observation Survey, are a series of two scientific research satellites designed to provide an orbiting laser ranging benchmark for geodynamical studies of the Earth. Each satellite is a high-density passive laser reflector in a very stable medium Earth orbit (MEO).


International comparisons.

Austria's health care system was given 9th place by the World Health Organization (WHO) in their mid-2000s (decade) international ranking. In 2015 the cost of healthcare was 11.2% of GDP -the fifth highest in Europe.  The city of Vienna has been listed as 1st in quality of living (which includes a variety of social services) by the Mercer Consultants.  In a sample of 13 developed countries Austria was 5th in its population weighted usage of medication in 14 classes in 2009 and fourth 2013. The drugs studied were selected on the basis that the conditions treated had high incidence, prevalence and/or mortality, caused significant long-term morbidity and incurred high levels of expenditure and significant developments in prevention or treatment had been made in the last 10 years. The study noted considerable difficulties in cross border comparison of medication use.  It was placed 12th in Europe by the Euro health consumer index in 2015. The fact that abortion is not carried out in the public healthcare system reduced its rank.

Waiting times.

Despite government claims that no noteworthy waits exist (2007), medium or long waits are normal for at least some elective surgery. Hospital organizations in 2005 stated that mean hip and knee replacement wait times range from 1–12 months, but are generally 3–6 months. In Styria and Upper Austria mean hip replacement wait times were 108 days (about 3.5 months) and mean knee replacement 172 days (5.5 months), cor cataract surgery 142 days (4 months 20 days). For Upper Austria they were 10.3 weeks (72 days, 2 months 11 days) 21.3 weeks (149 days, almost 5 months) and 12 weeks (84 days, or 2 months 23 days). A survey by Statistik Austria found an average wait time of 102 days for eye lens surgery, 78 days (2.5 months) for hip joint surgery, 97 days (3 months 5–5 days) for knee joint surgery, 39 days (1 month 8- days) for coronary surgery, and 28 days (4 weeks) for cardiac surgery  Waiting times can be shortened by arranging to visit the same hospital doctor in a private hospital or clinic. Waits are also sometimes illegally shortened in return for legal or illegal additional payments. Hospital doctors also receive additional fees to treat privately insured patients even though they are only supposed to receive better amenities/accommodations. They may therefore treat private patients sooner. Two Austrian health insurance companies advertised low wait times on their web sites. In a survey in Lower Austria, 8% of respondents said that they were offered shorter waiting times for additional private payments. According to Statistics Austria, 2007, in Thomson & Mossialos, 2009, as cited in Health Systems in Transition (HiT) profile of Austria, 2013, social health insurance patients waited twice as long for cardiac catheterization, and 3-4 times as long for cataract and knee surgery. Compared to individuals with private supplementary insurance, those covered by statutory health insurance wait from three to four times as long for cataract operations and knee operations. For cardiac catheterization procedures, statutory insurance patients wait twice as long. Some states have created objective waiting list guidelines to counteract this.

History.

Austria’s health care system was developed alongside other social welfare programs by the Social Democratic Party of Austria in Vienna (during its classical 'Red Vienna' period) initially.  Austria's health care began primarily in 1956 with the "Allgemeines Sozialversicherungsgesetz" better referred to as the General Social Insurance Law or ASVG, which mandated that healthcare is a right. Individuals become eligible, and automatically registered for healthcare, upon employment. The individual get included into the insurance fund known as Krankenkasse, which results in you receiving an insurance card that covers not only the healthcare, but pensions, and unemployment as well. The level of coverage rapidly grew since 1955-1956 ratification of the General Social Insurance Law, and by 1980 it included unrestricted hospital care, and preventive check-up.  In 2010 under the Chancellorship of Werner Faymann, the Social Democratic Health Minister Alois Stöger began the process of reform as a response to rising healthcare costs and difficulties with capacity. The system is financed in part with public debt which had become a significant challenge in the aftermath of the recession which hit Austria in 2009. The reforms for 2013 aimed to increase capacity, improve the quality of care, and address fiscal concerns in concert with the Finance Ministry. A key outcome of the reform with the introduction of a budget cap on healthcare expenditure. The idea of structural reform was not entertained. Because of the federal structure of Austria the legal structure of the social security programme is unusually complex with multiple entities at the state level under the umbrella of the national institution: making adjustments to the federal framework would present a constitutional issue.

Structure.

Austria's health programs are funded by the sickness insurance fund known as the Krankenkasse, which in 2013 took 11.0% of the GDP, which was above the average of the E.U average of 7.8% of GDP. Austria's healthcare system is decentralized, and operates with a system similar to United States federalism. Each of the nine states and the federal government of Austria have legal limitation and roles in their healthcare system. Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs is the federal aspect, its role is to develop the framework for the services that are offered, and handle the sickness insurance fund known as the Krankenkasse, which funds Austria's healthcare system. The role of the Provinces is to manage and provide the care as needed. The provision of healthcare is ultimately carried out jointly by federal, provincial, and local actors. Since Austria's health program covers a vast array of social insurance including but not limited to unemployment insurance, family benefits, accident insurance, the overall bureaucracy is vast. While the Krankenkasse is the primary fund, Austria social protection network actually implemented by 22 smaller funds, 19 of which are purely for sickness and all of which by public law are self-governed in order to insure decentralization. The funds are also differentiated to allow for effective risk pooling, which is why membership is compulsory and citizens are generally unable to select which fund they will belong to.

Electronic health records.

In December 2012 Austria introduced an Electronic Health Records Act (EHR-Act). These provisions are the legal foundation for a national EHR system based upon a substantial public interest according to Art 8(4) of the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC.  The Austrian EHR-Act pursues an opt-out approach in order to harmonize the interests of public health and privacy in the best possible manner.  The 4th Part of the Austrian Health Telematics Act 2012 (HTA 2012) – these are the EHR provisions – are one of the most detailed data protection rules within Austrian legislation. Numerous safeguards according to Art 8(4) DPD guarantee a high level of data protection. For example:

The nation of Austria has a two-tier health care system in which virtually all individuals receive publicly funded care, but they also have the option to purchase supplementary private health insurance. Care involving private insurance plans (sometimes referred to as "comfort class" care) can include more flexible visiting hours and private rooms and doctors. Some individuals choose to completely pay for their care privately.


Purpose of VINITI.

VINITI is the name for the Russian, and formerly Soviet, organization, " All-Union Institute for Scientific and Technical Information". It was established in 1952 as a branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences. At its inception VINITI was tasked with gathering scientific and technical information from sources throughout the world, and also chartered to disseminate this information to the Soviet and socialist scientific community. By 1992 technical and scientific documents had been amassed from more than 100 countries in 60 languages, and available for dissemination. It had become the largest single source of secondary scientific and technical information in the world. 31 million citations indexed literature from 1953 to 1992. Much of the former Soviet database contained materials unique to the Eastern bloc scientific community, which was just then being made available to American, British, Western European, and Japanese scientists and researchers.  In 1952 the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences made a decision to set up the Scientific Information Institute in the framework of the Academy of Sciences. The main task of the Institute was to organize the informational support of basic science by centralizing the analysis, searching, and processing of information. The Government reorganized the Institute into the formerly named All-Union Institute of Scientific and Technical Information (VINITI) in 1955. VINITI began to cover not only basic science, but also applied science.  By 2002, VINITI became a team of highly skilled professionals processing more than one million scientific publications annually. It is the largest on-line data bank in Russia, which contains more than 25 million documents, The database contains the Abstract Journal which is distributed, subscribed to, and read by scientists in sixty countries, with more than 330 titles of publications, which cover all fields of basic and applied sciences. In 2002, VINITI is noted for having more than 240 databases on science and technology, economics, and medicine. In addition it has powerful retrieval systems, and a wide range of services.

VINITI publications.

VINITI publishes the "Abstracts Journal" series (Russian: "Referativny Zhurnal"), which has been published since 1952. The "Abstracts Journal" is made up of reviews and abstracts of various published materials in particular areas: books, scientific research papers, patent documents, regulatory information, technical papers, trade publications, foreign dissertations, and cartographic publications.

VINITI (; All-Russian Institute for Scientific and Technical Information; former All-Union Institute for Scientific and Technical Information) is a subsidiary of the Russian Academy of Sciences devoted to gathering scientific and technical information from sources throughout the world and disseminating this information to Russian scientific community. The institute was established as the Institute for Scientific Information () in 1952. The founder of the institute was Alexander Nesmeyanov. The main office of the institute is situated in Moscow, while its publishing house is located in Lyubertsy.


Equation.

Throughout this article, ["RL"] denotes the concentration of a receptor-ligand complex, ["R"] the concentration of free receptor, and ["L"] the concentration of free ligand (so that the total concentration of the receptor and ligand are ["R"]+["RL"] and ["L"]+["RL"], respectively). Let "n" be the number of binding sites for ligand on each receptor molecule, and let represent the average number of ligands bound to a receptor. Let "K" denote the dissociation constant between the ligand and receptor. The Scatchard equation is given by  By plotting /["L"] versus, the Scatchard plot shows that the slope equals to -1/"K" while the x-intercept equals the number of ligand binding sites "n".

Derivation.

"n"=1 Ligand.

When each receptor has a single ligand binding site, the system is described by with an on-rate ("k") and off-rate ("k") related to the dissociation constant through "K"="k"/"k". When the system equilibrates, so that the average number of ligands bound to each receptor is given by which is the Scatchard equation for "n"=1.

"n"=2 Ligands.

When each receptor has two ligand binding sites, the system is governed by At equilibrium, the average number of ligands bound to each receptor is given by which is equivalent to the Scatchard equation.

General Case of "n" Ligands.

For a receptor with "n" binding sites that independently bind to the ligand, each binding site will have an average occupancy of ["L"]/("K" + ["L"]). Hence, by considering all "n" binding sites, there will ligands bound to each receptor on average, from which the Scatchard equation follows.

Problems with the method.

The Scatchard method is rarely used because it is prone to error. As with the Lineweaver-Burk method, inferring ligand affinity using the Scatchard equation requires using the reciprocal of the free ligand concentration on the y-axis, which compounds small errors in measurement. A modern alternative is to use surface plasmon resonance, which has the added benefit of being able to measure the on-rate and off-rate of ligand-receptor binding.

The Scatchard equation is an equation used in molecular biology to calculate the affinity and number of binding sites of a receptor for a ligand. It is named after the American chemist George Scatchard.


History.

J. L. Schneller's family house (1854-60).

In the mid-19th century, English and German Protestant missions were operating in the Old City of Jerusalem. In 1854 Johann Ludwig Schneller (1820–1896), a German Lutheran missionary, came to Jerusalem from Württemberg together with his wife Magdalene Böhringer and six other members of the Brudergemeinde of Saint Chrischona, Basel, Switzerland, in order to manage the German Protestant mission. On 11 October 1855 Schneller bought from the people of Lifta a parcel of land outside their village, approximately northwest of Jaffa Gate, with the intention of living among and missionising to the local Arab population, and drew up plans for the construction of a home for his family. The house was constructed from 1855–56. After Schneller and his family took occupancy, the house was attacked several times by Arab robbers from the village of Beit Sorek, forcing them to retreat to the safety of the Old City. At the end of the decade, after the Turks had erected outposts and dispatched armed guards on horseback to patrol Jaffa Road (the route between Jerusalem and the port city of Jaffa, which lay near the Schneller compound), Schneller and his family were able to return to their home.

Schneller's Syrian Orphanage (est. 1860).

In 1860 Lebanese Druze massacred thousands of Maronite Christians in Lebanon and Syria. Schneller travelled to Beirut with the intention of rescuing battle-orphaned children. He was rebuffed by the local community, which did not trust foreign Protestant missionaries, but managed to bring back nine orphaned boys to Jerusalem in October 1860. He decided to open an orphanage for them in his home, and by the end of 1861 had enrolled 41 boys in what became known as the Syrian Orphanage (). Over the next four years Schneller expanded his property to 13.6 acres (55 dunam) and erected a -high stone wall around it. Through 1867 Schneller expanded and added new infrastructure, creating a kitchen, dining room, storage cellar, bedrooms and living areas. In 1867 the orphanage began accepting girls.  Funds for construction and expansion, together with clothing and blankets, were solicited from Protestant communities in Germany and Switzerland. Between 1861 and 1885 Schneller collected a total of 550,000 francs in donations.

Enrollment, staff and curriculum.

Schneller was determined to give orphaned and abandoned Arab children a complete education, including teaching them a trade. To that end, he employed both academic and vocational teachers, primarily from Germany. The latter led professional workshops in tailoring, shoemaking, engraving, carpentry, metalworking, pottery, painting, printing, farming, and gardening.  Children stayed at the orphanage for up to 10 years, graduating at the age of 18. They came from all parts of Palestine as well as Syria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Armenia, Turkey, Russia, Iran, and Germany. They were also of differing religious denominations, including Protestant, Greek Orthodox, Catholic, Coptic, and Maronite. Notwithstanding the ethnic diversity of the student body, the language of instruction was German and Arabic. Most of the teachers employed during the orphanage's first 50 years were German, with some Armenians and Arabs.  In 1876 the orphanage had an enrollment of 70 students aged 4 to 17. By 1898 enrollment stood at 200 students. By the time of Schneller's death on 18 October 1896, 1500 students had passed through the orphanage's doors. The actual number of graduates totaled 425 in 1885 and 1169 at the 50th anniversary of the orphanage in 1910.

The school for the blind, est. 1901.

In 1901 a German noble bequeathed his entire fortune of 700,000 marks toward the establishment of a school for the blind at the orphanage. It opened in 1903 with space for 40 to 50 children, plus workshops to teach the blind weaving and spinning.

Expansion.

Besides classes and vocational workshops, the orphanage operated its own printing press and bindery where it produced its own textbooks, Braille books, and German-language newspapers. It also operated a flour mill and bakery that produced 35,000 loaves of bread a year, a laundry and clothing-repair service, a carpentry, a pottery factory that produced all the clay utensils used in the orphanage, and a tree and plant nursery. At the beginning of the 20th century, a large brick and tile factory was erected on the premises, which produced one million bricks and 250,000 tiles annually.  In 1889 Schneller acquired 1,235 acres (5,000 dunam) in Bir Salem (today Kibbutz Netzer Sereni) in order to develop an agricultural school and land for settlement for his students and graduates. In 1906 another 890 acres (3,600 dunam) was added to the original parcel. Although the agricultural school did not materialise, the grain, fruits and vegetables produced by the farm supplemented the orphanage diet during the food shortages of World War I.

Administration after J. W. Schneller (1889-1940).

In 1889 Schneller gave over the operation of the orphanage to a consortium based in Stuttgart, while his eldest son, Theodor (1856–1935), became manager of the institution. In 1927 Theodor's youngest son, Ernst, took over the management of the institution until its confiscation by the British in 1940.

Architecture.

Like other European Christian institutions built in Jerusalem in the 1800s, the Schneller Orphanage was situated on high ground and was surrounded by a high stone wall, with an iron gate that was locked at night. The property exuded the power and influence of European Christians in Jerusalem with its multistory buildings, a clock tower, and decorative façade, including reliefs in stone and epigrams. Engraved on the façade of the main building is the verse "Jesus the Messiah, have compassion upon us!" in German and Arabic, as well as the name of the institution, Syrian Orphanage (). There is also a stone relief of a lamb carrying a flag with a cross on it. Following the visit of Kaiser Wilhelm to Jerusalem in 1898, the orphanage received three bells for its tower.  The architectural style of the main building is a combination of Southern German and local Arabic. The tile roof and onion-dome tower mounted on a square base reflects the former, while wide, rounded arches for doors and windows reflect the latter. A lightning rod extends from the onion dome. The H-shaped main building has two interior courtyards which held a water cistern, garden and play area. The entire building covers an area of 50,590 square feet (4,700 square meters). At three stories, the main building housed the central dining room, a kitchen, a study hall, a library, a reading room, a small museum, and a Lutheran church in which students and staff worshipped.  Johann Ludwig Schneller brought in skilled Arab laborers from Bethlehem and Beit Jala to construct a total of eight buildings, which were constructed in stages and completed in the early 20th century. The year of completion and the name of the German city in which the donors for that building lived were engraved on each building façade. One of the buildings, called “the Red House” or “the model house,” was built entirely from materials produced on the orphanage grounds, including bricks, floor tiles and wrought-iron work.  For most of its existence, the orphanage was in a continual state of expansion and modernization. Ruth Kark et al. notes:... the locksmith-shop was remodeled and changed location within the complex five times between the period of 1861 and 1930 (1861, 1867, 1900, 1908, 1930). The bakery changed place and was modernized six times and – in a similar way – most of the functions and uses of the rooms changed during the seventy years of the institution’s existence. Johann Ludwig Schneller also purchased land in the vicinity of the orphanage and constructed houses for workers. Two of these "Batei Schneller" (Schneller Houses) still stand across the street from the main entrance, as well as three of the original five homes built several yards to the west (near the present corner of Malkhei Yisrael and Sarei Yisrael Streets). A plaque on each home bears the name of the German city of its donors. The cities are: Halle, Stuttgart, Kletz, Munich, Hamburg, Petersberg, and Erpfingen, Schneller's birthplace.

20th century.

By 1903 the educational facility had grown to eight buildings and included the orphanage, the school for the blind, and vocational workshops for youth.  In 1910, the jubilee year of the orphanage's founding, a fire destroyed the third floor and wooden roof of the main building, and damaged the second floor where the church was housed. Ludwig Schneller, a son of the founder who was the administrator at the time, managed to collect over 200,000 marks in donations from Germany and rebuilt the entire structure. The upper story of the building was rebuilt in stone.  Building and expansion continued up to World War I, by which time the orphanage occupied 150 acres (600 dunam) of land. The Schneller grounds reached all the way to present-day Romema, where Schneller planted forests on land that eventually housed the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo. The orphanage's holdings were gradually reduced to 17.5 acres with the sale of land to the new neighborhoods of Mekor Baruch and Kerem Avraham.  During World War I, the compound was used by the Turkish army and its allies as a barracks. From 1921 to 1927, Theodor Schneller resumed management of the orphanage, overseeing the modernization of the property with electrical and sewage installations, as well as new machinery for the various workshops. His son Ernst directed the orphanage from 1927 until its confiscation by the British army in 1940. The orphanage's German funding sources were severely curtailed during the 1930s when the Nazi government of Germany banned citizens from sending funds abroad.

Military base.

British military camp.

When World War II broke out, the British shut down the orphanage and deported its German teachers. The British turned the compound into a closed military camp known as the Schneller Barracks, installing about 50 watchtowers and huts. The camp housed the largest ammunition stockpile in the Middle East, as well as grain storehouses. The Royal Army Pay Corps 90th Battalion occupied the barracks in the late 1940s.  The British camp was targeted for attack by the Irgun on two occasions. On 27 June 1939, the paramilitary group placed a letter bomb in the mailbox attached to the outside wall; the subsequent explosion collapsed part of the wall and injured five Arabs in the vicinity. On 12 March 1947, the Irgun penetrated the camp itself in a pre-dawn operation and detonated explosives in one of the buildings to protest the imposition of martial law on Jerusalem. One British soldier was killed and eight injured in the blasts; martial law was lifted four days later.

Israeli military base.

On 17 March 1948, the British abandoned the camp and the Etzioni Brigade of the Haganah used it as a home base during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence. For the next 60 years, the compound served as a training base for the Israel Defense Forces and an army clinic; at one point, it also served as headquarters for the Home Front Command.  In 1951 the Israeli army summoned representatives of the World Lutheran Church to remove religious artifacts from the orphanage church; church representatives removed bells, windows and a pipe organ, but left the heavy marble altar encased in a wooden chest. The church was then converted into a basketball arena for the soldiers. In October 2009, on a tour of the facility after the army had vacated the grounds, the provost of the Evangelical German Lutheran Church of the Redeemer noticed the chest and asked for it to be opened, exposing the altar. The Lutherans negotiated for it to be moved to the Lutheran church at Augusta Victoria Hospital, where it was inaugurated in November 2010.  During the 60 years of occupancy by the Israeli army, the base was served by an army synagogue in one of the halls of the main building, including a Torah ark, bookcase, and a balcony door set with 12 stained-glass windows depicting the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

Current use.

In 2008 the army base relocated to the Ofrit base near Mount Scopus. The Jerusalem municipality put together a "preservation and construction plan" for the Schneller compound, calling for the eight historic buildings to be developed for public use by the Orthodox Jewish community nearby. In November 2010, part of the Schneller grounds were designated as a public parking lot by the municipality to ease the parking problems in the neighboring Geula commercial district. One hundred parking spaces were made available for up to three hours.  In 2011 the Israel Land Administration approved plans for the development of 218 luxury apartments on the property while preserving the eight historic orphanage buildings.  As of 2012, parts of the complex are being used for a Bais Yaakov girls' school, a Gerrer Talmud Torah, a training area for urban combat police, and municipal waste storage.

Successor schools.

The philosophy and mission of the Schneller Orphanage continued after World War II in two successor schools in the Middle East.

Schneller Orphanage, also called the Syrian Orphanage, was a German Protestant orphanage that operated in Jerusalem from 1860 to 1940.


Liturgical form.

Eastern Orthodox Church.

Common part of the rite.

The priest anoints the recipient with chrism, making the sign of the cross on the forehead, eyes, nostrils, mouth, ears, breast, hands, and feet using the following words each time: "The seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit" (in Greek: ).  The chrism is washed off by a priest seven days later, according to the written rubrics, the newly baptized wearing their white chitons and not washing their anointed parts for that period. However, in the case of infant baptism (and often also with adult chrismation contemporary practice), the ablution is performed immediately after the rite of chrismation.

As part of the baptismal rite.

Typically, one becomes a member of the Church by baptism and chrismation performed by a priest as a single service, or subsequent to baptism performed by a layman. While chrismation is often performed without baptism, baptism is never performed without chrismation; hence the term "baptism" is construed as referring to the administration of both sacraments (or mysteries), one after the other.

At the reconciliation of apostates.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church the sacrament may be conferred more than once as it is customary to receive apostates by repeating chrismation; according to the "Book of Needs", the priest "taking the Holy Chrism, he anoints him (her) according to the order of those who are baptized..." towards the end of the "Prayers of Purification for One Returning to the True Faith from Apostasy".  This practice is thus attested to in the ninth century by Saint Methodius of Constantinople in "The Rule of Methodius, Patriarch of Constantinople, Concerning the Return from Apostasy of Various Persons to the True Orthodox Faith":  If a child... is in apostasy... let him be washed. Upon leaving the bath, girded with a linen cloth, let him be anointed with Chrism, as one who is baptized. And let him put on a new robe in the manner of those who have been baptized.  If... one who is of age has renounced his impending torment... then let him be washed and anointed with Chrism according to the accepted Rite. And when the Liturgy is celebrated, let him be counted worthy of the Holy Things, occupying himself in Church and the Liturgy, as them that are baptized...

At the reception of certain converts.

Although normally administered in conjunction with baptism, in some cases chrismation alone may be used to receive converts to Orthodoxy through the exercise of "economia". Although practice in this regard varies, in general, if a convert comes to Orthodoxy from another Christian confession and has previously undergone a rite of baptism in the Trinitarian Formula ("in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit"), he or she may be received into the Orthodox Church through the sacrament of chrismation, after which receiving the Holy Eucharist. If, however, a convert comes from a Christian confession that baptizes in the name of Jesus (such as Oneness Pentecostals), from one which practices an invalid, non-Trinitarian baptism (such as Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses) or from one that does not practice baptism at all (such as Quakers or The Salvation Army), baptism is a prerequisite for chrismation—an initiate must always be validly baptized into the death of Jesus in the name of the Holy Trinity before any further holy mysteries or sacraments of initiation can be administered. The use of "economia" is at the discretion of, and subject to the guidelines imposed by, the local bishop. Converts from non-Christian religions also need to be baptized before chrismation.  The sacrament of chrismation is an extension of the day of Pentecost, on which the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Apostles. It is by chrismation that a person becomes a layperson — a member of the "laos" (laity), the people of God. Metropolitan Kallistos (Timothy Ware) explains:  Through Chrismation every member of the Church becomes a prophet, and receives a share in the royal priesthood of Christ; all Christians alike, because they are chrismated, are called to act as conscious witnesses to the Truth. "You have an anointing ("chrisma") from the Holy One, and know all things" ().

Oriental Orthodox churches.

Chrismation in Oriental Orthodoxy is similar to that of Eastern Catholicism or Orthodoxy but is done according to their sacramental theology, and may vary according to the particular church.

Sacramental theology.

Eastern Churches.

Whereas in Western Christian theology, confirmation is seen as completing or sealing of the baptismal covenant, the conferral of full membership, the perfecting one's bond with the Church, and/or the strengthening of gifts of the Holy Spirit to enable the recipient to live the Christian life, in the Eastern Orthodox tradition chrismation is understood more fundamentally as the bestowal of the Holy Spirit—that is, as the transmission to that person of the experience of the Day of Pentecost (cf. Acts of the Apostles 2:1-4ff), along with the attendant gifts of the Spirit that are given to all the faithful, and any unique or special gifts that God deems appropriate for that person, to enable him or her to realize his or her intended potentiality as a child of God and as a unique member of Christ's Body, the Church. Hence the significance of the sacrament or mystery of chrismation is understood quite distinctly from that of baptism, much as Pentecost is distinct from the Passion and Resurrection.  Whereas in the western churches (e.g., Roman Catholic and Anglican), confirmation is typically reserved to those of "the age of reason", chrismation in the Eastern churches (including Eastern Rite Catholic Churches), is ordinarily administered immediately after baptism, most commonly infant baptism. After receiving this sacrament, the recipient is eligible to receive the Eucharist; one who has not been chrismated is viewed as not qualified to receive the Eucharist, since they have not yet received the Holy Spirit. Baptism is followed immediately (or at least soon afterwards) by the person's first reception of Holy Communion.  The sacramental rite of chrismation may be performed by a presbyter (priest). In the Eastern tradition, chrismation shows the unity of the church through the bishop in the continuation of the Apostolic faith, because the chrism used is prepared and consecrated by a bishop (normally the leading bishop of an autocephalous Church, or – for some autocephalous churches – by the Patriarch of Constantinople) and is presented to the priest by the bishop and (together with the antimension) and is the symbol of the priest's permission from the bishop to perform the sacraments (see faculty). Although priests in the Eastern churches are universally granted this faculty, it is thus ultimately considered a sacrament granted by a bishop and associated with that Apostolic office. Furthermore, because some of the previously sanctified chrism is mixed with the newly sanctified chrism, there is a belief that the chrism contains a remnant of, or at least a connection to, the same chrism which was sanctified by the Apostles in the first century, and thus is a symbol of apostolic succession.

Oriental Orthodox.

The Coptic Orthodox Church follows a tradition that states while the Apostles used to give Confirmation by the laying on of the hands, they found they were not able to travel to lay hands as the number of converts grew. Thus they ordered the collection of the spices which were used to anoint Christ's body, and they were mixed with oil, forming, according to Coptic tradition, the first chrism, or "myron", which, according to tradition, was brought to Egypt by St Mark. The Coptic communion believes that, since that time, the "myron" has been remade 28 times.

Assyrian Church of the East.

Some similar views to the Orthodox Churches regarding sacramental theology of chrismation are held by the Assyrian Church of the East, which recognizes only two ecumenical councils, the First Council of Nicaea and the First Council of Constantinople.

Chrismation consists of the sacrament or mystery in the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches, as well as in the Assyrian Church of the East initiation rites. The sacrament is more commonly known in the West as confirmation, although Italian normally uses "cresima" ("chrismation") rather than "confermazione" ("confirmation").


Design and development.

The Skipper was conceived with the design goals of creating a low cost primary trainer with an emphasis on ease of maintenance and low operating costs.  Design work on the Skipper began in 1974 as the PD 285, which made its maiden flight on February 6, 1975. The Skipper was Beechcraft's attempt to enter the two-place trainer market with an aircraft capable of competing with the popular Cessna 150 line of trainer aircraft. Though the aircraft first flew with a standard tail configuration, by the time it entered production, a T-tail configuration had been adopted, giving it an appearance very similar to its close competitor, the Piper PA-38 Tomahawk introduced in 1978.  Like the Cessna and Piper trainers which were its primary competition, the Skipper utilizes the Lycoming O-235 engine and features side-by-side configuration seating. Production was handled at the Liberal (Kansas) Division, where the Beechcraft Duchess and Musketeer were produced.  The Skipper wing utilizes a GA(W)-1 airfoil, specifically developed for low-speed aviation applications, based on 1970s NASA research. The aircraft was certified for intentional spins. While it is an all-metal design, the Skipper incorporated a number of innovative construction techniques, including tubular spars and aluminum honeycomb construction with metal-to-metal bonding, a technique inherited from the Musketeer family. The flaps and ailerons are actuated by torque tubes, rather than cables. The landing gear is mounted to the fuselage/wing junction, but has a wide wheelbase, giving it a "spraddle-legged" appearance on the ground.

Operational history.

The Skipper had the misfortune of being introduced at the beginning of a severe downturn in general aviation aircraft production in the United States. During its first year 1979, 47 were built, 140 in 1980, and 125 in 1981. Production stopped in 1983. A total of 312 aircraft were built.  Most of the production run was initially delivered to Beechcraft's flight school network, the Beech Aero Centers, where they were used as primary trainers. A handful of Skippers are still in use as trainers. Others are in the hands of private owners who use them as touring aircraft.

The Beechcraft Model 77 Skipper is a two-seat, fixed tricycle gear general aviation airplane, originally designed for flight training but also used for touring and personal flying.


Career and assessment.

Born in Lanuvio, Italy, he was orphaned at the age of 11. After completing his secondary education at the seminary at Albano and graduating from the University of Rome "La Sapienza", he began vocal studies under the great 19th-century baritone Antonio Cotogni at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome.  His nascent singing career was put on hold, however, by the outbreak of World War I in 1914, during which he served with the Italian armed forces and emerged as one of Italy's most decorated soldiers. The war over, he made a successful operatic debut as Arturo in Bellini's "I Puritani" in Viterbo, Italy, on 2 September 1919—performing under the name Giacomo Rubini, after Bellini's favorite tenor, Giovanni Battista Rubini. Four months later, on 3 January 1920, he scored another success, at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome, this time performing under his own name opposite Rosina Storchio and Ezio Pinza in Massenet's "Manon".  Lauri-Volpi was widely acclaimed for his performances at Italy's most celebrated opera house, La Scala, Milan, between the two world wars. A highlight of his Milan seasons occurred in 1929 when he was chosen to sing Arnoldo in La Scala's centenary production of Rossini's "Guglielmo Tell".  He was also a leading tenor at the New York Metropolitan Opera from 1923 to 1933, appearing there in a total of 307 performances. During this 10-year period he sang opposite Maria Jeritza in the American premiere of Puccini's "Turandot" and opposite Rosa Ponselle in the Met premiere of Verdi's "Luisa Miller". His Met career was terminated prematurely after a dispute with the opera house's management. They wanted him to take a pay cut to help tide the theatre through the economic privations being caused by the Great Depression, but he refused to co-operate and left New York for Italy.  Lauri-Volpi's most notable appearances outside Italy also included two seasons at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden—in 1925 and 1936. By the latter date, he had broadened his repertoire, progressing from lyric roles to more taxing dramatic parts. His voice began to show consequent signs of wear in the 1940s, losing homogeneity. His thrilling top notes remained remarkably intact, however, right through until the 1950s.  During the Second World War, Lauri-Volpi was based in Italy and was particularly admired by the country's dictator, Benito Mussolini. His last public performance in a full opera came in 1959, as Manrico, in a production of Verdi's "Il Trovatore" staged at Rome.  Lauri-Volpi recorded a number of opera arias and duets for European and American gramophone companies during the height of his fame. His voice was a brilliant instrument at its zenith: bright, flexible and ringing in tone. He had astonishingly easy and penetrating high notes and possessed a shimmering vibrato which made his voice instantly recognisable both on disc and in the theatre.  He sang roles as diverse as Arturo (in Bellini's "I Puritani") and Otello (in Verdi's "Otello"). In the process, he cemented his position as one of the supreme opera singers of the 20th century, even though he faced stiff competition from a remarkable crop of rival Mediterranean tenors during his prime in the 1925-1940 period. (They included Beniamino Gigli, Giovanni Martinelli, Aureliano Pertile, Francesco Merli, Galliano Masini, Tito Schipa, Antonio Cortis and Renato Zanelli—as well as the young Alessandro Ziliani and Giovanni Malipiero.)  Lauri-Volpi was a cultured, intelligent man with a fiery temperament and firm opinions. He retired to Spain after World War II and died in Burjassot, near Valencia, at the age of 86.

Recordings and writings.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Lauri-Volpi made a number of 78-rpm recordings of operatic arias and duets for the following companies: Fonotipia, Brunswick, Victor and, finally, HMV. The discs that he cut for Victor and HMV are considered to be his finest. They are readily available on CD reissues. In 1947, he recorded in Italy a series of extended scenes from "Rigoletto". Later, in the 1950s, he participated in the recording of some complete operas that do not capture his voice at anywhere like its peak. They included:  In addition, there is a live recording of "Il trovatore" from Naples in 1951, in which he is partnered by Maria Callas, under the baton of Tullio Serafin. All these recordings have been reissued on CD.  In 1974, aged 81, Lauri-Volpi released a final operatic recital record; but this particular LP has novelty value only. There are bits of newsreel footage of him performing on stage, too, and he appeared in the 1936 Italian film "La Canzone del Sole", playing himself.  Lauri-Volpi wrote several books. The best known of them is "Voci Parallele"—a revealing study of singers and their vocal techniques that is frequently cited by historians. His main published works are:

Giacomo Lauri-Volpi (11 December 1892 – 17 March 1979) was an Italian tenor with a lyric-dramatic voice of exceptional range and technical facility. He performed throughout Europe and the Americas in a top-class career that spanned 40 years.