Background.

Tillage is the agricultural preparation of soil by mechanical agitation, typically removing weeds established in the previous season. Tilling can create a flat seed bed or one that has formed areas, such as rows or raised beds, to enhance the growth of desired plants. It is an ancient technique with clear evidence of its use since at least 3000 B.C.  No-till farming is not equivalent to conservation tillage or strip tillage. Conservation tillage is a group of practices that reduce the amount of tillage needed. No-till and strip tillage are both forms of conservation tillage. No-till is the practice of never tilling a field. Tilling every other year is called rotational tillage.  The effects of tillage can include soil compaction; loss of organic matter; degradation of soil aggregates; death or disruption of soil microbes and other organisms including mycorrhizae, arthropods, and earthworms; and soil erosion where topsoil is washed or blown away.

Origin.

The idea of modern no-till farming started in the 1940s with Edward H. Faulkner, author of "Plowman's Folly", but it wasn't until the development after WWII of powerful herbicides such as paraquat that various researchers and farmers started to try out the idea. The first adopters of no-till include Klingman (North Carolina), Edward Faulkner, L.A. Porter (New Zealand), Harry and Lawrence Young (Herndon, Kentucky), the Instituto de Pesquisas Agropecuarias Meridional (1971 in Brazil) with Herbert Bartz.

Adoption in the United States.

No-till farming is widely used in the United States and the number of acres managed in this way continues to grow. This growth is supported by a decrease in costs. No-till management results in fewer passes with equipment, and the crop residue prevents evaporation of rainfall and increases water infiltration into the soil.

Issues.

Profit, economics, yield.

Some studies have found that no-till farming can be more profitable in some cases.  In some cases it may reduce labour, fuel, irrigation and machinery costs. No-till can increase yield because of higher water infiltration and storage capacity, and less erosion. Another possible benefit is that because of the higher water content, instead of leaving a field fallow it can make economic sense to plant another crop instead.  A problem of no-till farming is that in spring, the soil both warms and dries more slowly, which may delay planting. Harvest can thus occur later than in a conventionally tilled field. The slower warming is due to crop residue being a lighter color than the soil which would be exposed in conventional tillage, which then absorbs less solar energy. This can be managed by using row cleaners on a planter.

Costs and management.

No-till farming requires some different skills than conventional farming. A combination of technique, equipment, pesticides, crop rotation, fertilization, and irrigation have to be used for local conditions.

Equipment.

On some crops, like continuous no-till corn, the thickness of the residue on the surface of the field can become a problem without proper preparation and/or equipment. No-till farming requires specialized seeding equipment, such as heavier seed drills to penetrate through the residue. Ploughing requires more powerful tractors, so tractors can be smaller with no-tillage. Costs can be offset by selling ploughs and tractors, but farmers often keep their old equipment while trying out no-till farming. This results in a higher investment into equipment.

Drainage.

If a soil has poor drainage, it may need expensive drainage tiles or other devices to remove excess water under no-till. Water infiltration improves after 5–8 years of no-till farming.

Increased herbicide use.

One of the purposes of tilling is to remove weeds. No-till farming changes weed composition: faster growing weeds may be reduced as increased competition with eventual growth of perennials, shrubs and trees. This problem is usually solved with a herbicide such as glyphosate in lieu of tillage for seedbed preparation, so no-tillage often uses more pesticides in comparison to conventional tillage. Some alternatives can be winter cover crops, soil solarization or burning. However the use of herbicides is not strictly necessary, as demonstrated by Masanobu Fukuoka.  No-till occasionally uses cover crops to help control weeds and increase organic residue in the soil (or nutrients by using legumes). Cover crops then need to be killed so that the newly planted crops can get enough light, water, nutrients, etc. This can be done by rollers, crimpers, choppers and other ways. The residue is then planted through, and left as a mulch. Cover crops typically must be crimped when they enter the flowering stage.  With no-till farming, residue from the previous years crops lie on the surface of the field, which can cause different, greater, or more frequent disease or weed problems compared to tillage farming.

Fertilizer.

One of the most common yield reducers is nitrogen being immobilized in the crop residue, which can take a few months to several years to decompose, depending on the crop's C to N ratio and the local environment. Fertilizer needs to be applied at a higher rate. An innovative solution to this problem is to integrate animal husbandry in various ways to aid in decomposition. After a transition period (4–5 years for Kansas, USA) the soil may build up in organic matter. Nutrients in the organic matter are eventually released into the soil..

Environmental.

Greenhouse gases.

According to one 2003 study agriculture has released an estimated 78 billion metric tons of carbon in the last few centuries. No-till farming has been claimed to increase soil organic matter, and thus increase carbon sequestration. While many studies report soil organic carbon increases in no-till systems, others conclude that these effects may not be observed in all systems, depending on factors, such as climate and topsoil carbon content. However, there is debate over whether the increased sequestration sometimes detected is actually occurring, or is due to flawed testing methods or other factors. There is evidence that no-till systems sequester less carbon than conventional tillage. A 2014 study concluded that this occurs because the “no-till subsurface layer is often losing more soil organic carbon stock over time than is gained in the surface layer.” Also, there has not been a uniform definition of soil organic carbon sequestration among researchers. The study concludes, "Additional investments in soil organic carbon (SOC) research is needed to better understand the agricultural management practices that are most likely to sequester SOC or at least retain more net SOC stocks."  No-till farming reduces nitrous oxide (NO) emissions by 40-70%, depending on rotation. Nitrous oxide is a potent greenhouse gas, 300 times stronger than CO2, and stays in the atmosphere for 120 years.

Soil.

No-till farming improves aggregates and reduces erosion. Soil erosion might be reduced almost to soil production rates.  Research from over 19 years of tillage studies at the United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service found that no-till farming makes soil less erodible than ploughed soil in areas of the Great Plains. The first inch of no-till soil contains more aggregates and is two to seven times less vulnerable than that of ploughed soil. More organic matter in this layer is thought to help hold soil particles together.  No ploughing also means less airborne dust.

Water.

No-till farming improves water retention: crop residues helps water from natural precipitation and irrigation to infiltrate the soil. Residue limits evaporation, conserving water. Evaporation from tilling reduces the amount of water by around 1/3 to 3/4 inches (0.85 to 1.9 cm) per pass.  Gully formation can cause soil erosion in some crops such as soybeans with no-tillage, although models of other crops under no-tillage show less erosion than conventional tillage. Grass waterways can be a solution. Any gullies that form in fields not being tilled get deeper each year instead of being smoothed out by regular plowing.  A problem in some fields is water saturation in soils. Switching to no-till farming may increase drainage because soil under continuous no-till include a higher water infiltration rate.

Biota and wildlife.

No-tilled fields often have more annelids, invertebrates and wildlife such as deer mice.

Albedo.

Tillage lowers the albedo of croplands. The potential for global cooling as a result of increased albedo in no-till croplands is similar in magnitude to other biogeochemical carbon sequestration processes.

No-till farming (also known as zero tillage or direct drilling) is an agricultural technique for growing crops or pasture without disturbing the soil through tillage. No-till farming decreases the amount of soil erosion tillage causes in certain soils, especially in sandy and dry soils on sloping terrain. Other possible benefits include an increase in the amount of water that infiltrates into the soil, soil retention of organic matter, and nutrient cycling. These methods may increase the amount and variety of life in and on the soil. Typically, no-tillage systems require the use of very large amounts of herbicides to control weeds.

Bezorebné obdělávání půdy je způsob obdělávání půdy, který podle francouzského agronoma Claude Bourguignona snižuje erozi, chrání edafon, šetří pohonné hmoty a spotřebuje méně dusíkatých hnojiv a je tedy ekologičtější než klasický způsob obdělávání (orba).


Early life.

John Stewart was born c.1337/40 to Robert, Steward of Scotland and heir presumptive to the throne, and Elizabeth Mure. Robert's mother Marjorie and her half-brother, David II, were the children of the first Bruce king, Robert I. John, his three brothers and six sisters were legitimised following his parents' marriage sometime after 22 November 1347 when Pope Clement VI's issued his dispensation. Styled Lord of Kyle, John is first recorded in the 1350s as the commander of a campaign in the Lordship of Annandale to re-establish Scottish control over English occupied territory. In 1363, he joined his father along with the earls of Douglas and March in a failed insurrection against Robert's uncle, David II. The reasons for the rebellion were varied. In 1362, David II supported several of his royal favourites in their titles to lands in the Stewart earldom of Monteith and thwarted Stewart claims to the earldom of Fife. The King's involvement and eventual marriage with Margaret Drummond may also have represented a threat in the Steward's own earldom of Strathearn where the Drummonds also had interests, while Douglas and March mistrusted David's intentions towards them. These nobles were also unhappy at the king's squandering of funds provided to him for his ransom, and with the prospect that they could be sent to England as guarantors for the ransom payments. The dissension between the King and the Stewarts looked to have been settled before the end of spring 1367. On 31 May the Steward resigned the earldom of Atholl to John, who by this time was already married to Annabella Drummond, the daughter of the queen's deceased brother, Sir John Drummond. David II reinforced the position of John and Annabella by providing them with the Earldom of Carrick on 22 June 1368 and the tacit approval of John as the king's probable heir. A Stewart succession was suddenly endangered when David II had his marriage to Margaret annulled in March 1369 leaving the king free to remarry and with the prospect of a Bruce heir.  On 22 February 1371 David II (who was preparing to marry the Earl of March's sister, Agnes Dunbar) unexpectedly died, presumably to the relief of both John and his father. Robert was crowned at Scone Abbey on 27 March 1371 and before this date had given John—now styled Steward of Scotland—the ancestral lands surrounding the Firth of Clyde. The manner in which the succession was to take place was first entailed by Robert I when female heirs were excluded and David II attempted unsuccessfully on several occasions to have the council change the succession procedure. Robert II quickly moved to ensure the succession of John when the general council attending his coronation officially named Carrick as heir—in 1373 the Stewart succession was further strengthened when parliament passed entails defining the manner in which each of the king's sons could inherit the crown. After the coronation John Dunbar who had received the Lordship of Fife from David II now resigned the title so that the king's second son, Robert, Earl of Monteith could receive the Earldom of Fife—Dunbar was compensated with the provision of the earldom of Moray.  A son, David, the future Duke of Rothesay, was born to Carrick and Annabella on 24 October 1378. In 1381, Carrick was calling himself " 'lieutenant for the marches' " sustained by his connections to border magnates such as his brother-in-law, James Douglas, son of William, Earl of Douglas, whom he succeeded in 1384.

Guardianship—and its collapse.

Robert II's policy of building up Stewart domination in Scotland through the advancement of his sons saw the emergence of Carrick as the pre-eminent Stewart magnate south of the Forth-Clyde line, just as his younger brother Alexander, Earl of Buchan, Lord of Badenoch and Ross had become in the north.  Prior to 1384 persistent objections regarding Robert II's application of the law were brought to the attention of the council. Some of these grievances maintained that the King had acted unlawfully by deliberately disregarding charges regarding his personal conduct. Buchan's use of cateran supporters drew criticism from Northern nobles and prelates and demonstrated Robert II's inability or reluctance to control his son.The king's failure to take a leading role in prosecuting the war with England and Buchan's abuse of royal power in the north was the backdrop to the general council meeting at Holyrood Abbey in November 1384, where the decision was taken to sideline the king and provide the ruling powers to Carrick as Guardian of Scotland.  Within weeks Carrick's actions signalled changes in the direction of crown strategy where the Carrick–Douglas affinity was, by far, the largest group to benefit from crown patronage. On 13 March 1385 it emerged that an unauthorised payment of £700 in bullion, a huge amount, had been taken by the guardian from the customs of Edinburgh. It transpired that Fife, also Chamberlain of Scotland, had been struggling to check Carrick's misuse of the Crown finances during 1384-5.  In April 1385, the general council sharply condemned Buchan's behaviour and sat with the intention of manoeuvring Carrick into firmly intervening in the north. In July, under Carrick's guardianship, a Scottish army that included a French force commanded by Admiral Jean de Vienne penetrated into the north of England without any serious gains but provoked a damaging retaliatory attack by Richard II. Yet in the north, Carrick did not bring Buchan under control and many of the Guardian's supporters although pleased at the resumption of hostilities with England were unhappy at the continued northern lawlessness. Carrick had been made Guardian partly on the need to curb Buchan's excesses yet despite this by February 1387 Buchan had become even more powerful and influential when he was appointed Justiciar north of the Forth. The war with England was halted by a series of truces but on 19 April 1388, English envoys sent to Scotland to again extend the ceasefire returned to Richard's court empty-handed—by 29 April Robert II was conducting a council in Edinburgh to authorise renewed conflict with England. Although the Scots army defeated the English at the Battle of Otterburn in Northumberland in August 1388, its leader, the Earl of Douglas, was killed. Douglas died childless, triggering a series of claims on his estate—Carrick backed his brother-in-law Malcolm Drummond, the husband of Douglas's sister, while Carrick's brother, Fife, took the side of Sir Archibald Douglas, Lord of Galloway, who held an entail on his kinsman's estates, and who ultimately succeeded to the earldom. Fife, with his new powerful Douglas ally, together with those loyal to the king, ensured at the December 1388 council meeting that the guardianship of Scotland would pass from Carrick (who had recently been badly injured from a horse-kick) to Fife. There was general approval of Fife's intention to properly resolve the situation of lawlessness in the north and in particular the activities of Buchan his younger brother. Buchan was stripped of his position of justiciar, which would soon be given to Fife's son, Murdoch Stewart. In January 1390 Robert II was in the north-east perhaps to strengthen the now changed political outlook in the north of the kingdom. He returned to Dundonald Castle in Ayrshire in March where he died on 19 April and was buried at Scone on 25 April.

Reign.

In May 1390 parliament granted John permission to change his regnal name to Robert, probably in part to maintain the link back to Robert I but also to disassociate himself from King John Balliol. The four-month delay in the crowning of Robert III can be seen as a period when Fife and his affinity sought to ensure their future positions, and which also saw Buchan's opportunistic attack on Elgin Cathedral, settling an old score with the Bishop of Moray, and possibly also a protest at Fife's reappointment as the king's lieutenant.

Rothesay's lieutenancy.

In 1392, Robert III strengthened the position of his son David, now Earl of Carrick, when he endowed him with a large annuity that allowed the young prince to build up his household and affinity, and then in 1393 regained his right to direct rule when the general council decided that Fife's lieutenancy should end and that Carrick, now of age, should assist his father. This independence of action was demonstrated in 1395–6, when he responded to Carrick's unauthorised marriage to Elizabeth Dunbar, daughter of George, Earl of March, by ensuring its annulment. The king appears to have also taken over the conduct of foreign affairs, preserving the peace with Richard II and managing to increase the power of the Red Douglas Earl of Angus in the southeast of the country as a counterbalance to Fife's Black Douglas ally. He further showed his authority when in an attempt to reduce inter-clan feuding and lawlessness, he arranged and oversaw a gladiatorial limited combat between the clans of Kay and Quhele (Clan Chattan) in Perth on 28 April 1396. Carrick progressively acted independently of his father taking control of the Stewart lands in the south-west, while maintaining his links with the Drummonds of his mother, and all at a time when Fife's influence in central Scotland remained strong.  The king was increasingly blamed for the failure to pacify the Gaelic areas in west and north. The general council held in Perth in April 1398 criticised the king's governance, and empowered his brother Robert and his son David—now respectively the Dukes of Albany and Rothesay—to lead an army against Donald, Lord of the Isles, and his brothers. In November 1398, an influential group of magnates and prelates met at Falkland Castle that included Albany, Rothesay, Archibald, Earl of Douglas, Albany's son Murdoch, justiciar North of the Forth along with the bishops Walter of St Andrews and Gilbert of Aberdeen—the outcome of this meeting manifested itself at the council meeting held in January 1399 when the king was forced to surrender power to Rothesay for a period of three years.  The kin of the border earls took advantage of the confusion in England after the deposition of Richard II by Henry IV, and harried and forayed into England causing much damage, and taking Wark Castle around 13 October 1399. A far-reaching dispute between Rothesay and George Dunbar, Earl of March, occurred when Rothesay, rather than remarrying Elizabeth Dunbar as previously agreed, decided to marry Mary Douglas, daughter of the Earl of Douglas. March, enraged by this, wrote to Henry IV on 18 February 1400, and by July had entered Henry's service. In 1401, Rothesay took on a more assertive and autonomous attitude, circumventing proper procedures, unjustifiably appropriating sums from the customs of the burghs on the east coast, before provoking further animosity when he confiscated the revenues of the temporalities of the vacant bishopric of St Andrews. Rothesay had also in conjunction with his uncle, Alexander Stewart, Earl of Buchan, confronted Albany's influence in central Scotland. As soon his lieutenancy expired in 1402, Rothesay was arrested and imprisoned in Albany's Falkland Castle where he died in March 1402. Rothesay's death probably lay with Albany and Douglas, who would have looked upon the possibility of the young prince acceding to the throne with great apprehension. They certainly fell under suspicion, but were cleared of all blame by a general council, " 'where, by divine providence and not otherwise, it is discerned that he departed from this life.' "

Albany's lieutenancy.

Following Rothesay's death, and with the restoration of the lieutenancy to Albany and the Scottish defeat at the battle of Humbleton, Robert III experienced almost total exclusion from political authority and was limited to his lands in the west. By late 1404 Robert, with the aid of his close councillors Henry Sinclair, Earl of Orkney, Sir David Fleming and Henry Wardlaw, had succeeded in re-establishing himself and intervened in favour of Alexander Stewart, the Earl of Buchan's illegitimate son, who was in dispute with Albany over the earldom of Mar. Robert III again exhibited his new resolve when in December 1404 he created a new regality in the Stewartry for his sole remaining son and heir, James, now Earl of Carrick—an act designed to prevent these lands falling into Albany's hands.  By 28 October 1405 Robert III had returned to Dundonald Castle in Ayrshire. With the king's health failing, it was decided in the winter of 1405–6 to send the young prince to France out of the reach of Albany. Despite this, the manner of James's flight from Scotland was unplanned. In February 1406, James together with Orkney and Fleming, at the head of a large group of followers left the safety of Bishop Wardlaw's protection in St Andrews and journeyed through the hostile Douglas territories of east Lothian—an act probably designed to demonstrate James's royal endorsement of his custodians, but also a move by his custodians to further their own interests in the traditional Douglas heartlands. Events went seriously wrong for James and he had to escape to the Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth along with the Earl of Orkney after his escorts were attacked by James Douglas of Balvenie, and which resulted in Sir David Fleming's death. Their confinement on the rock was to last for over a month before a ship from Danzig, en route for France, picked them up. On 22 March 1406, the ship was taken by English pirates off Flamborough Head, who delivered James to King Henry IV of England. Robert III had moved to Rothesay Castle where, after hearing of his son's captivity, he died 4 April 1406, and was buried in Paisley Abbey, which had been founded by the Stewarts.

Family and issue.

King Robert III married Anabella Drummond, the daughter of Sir John Drummond of Stobhall and Mary Montifex, daughter of Sir William Montifex, in c.1366/7. They had seven children:  He also had at least two older illegitimate children:

Historiography.

Abbot Walter Bower reported that Robert III described himself as "the worst of kings and the most miserable of men". Gordon Donaldson in his general history "Scottish Kings" (1967) agrees and writes of the first two Stewart kings "that a famous dynasty, which was to produce so many men of remarkable ability... made a somewhat pedestrian beginning". He immediately qualifies this statement with "it is true that the sources, both record and narrative, are scanty". He goes further and explains "admittedly, no attempt has yet been made to bring the resources of modern historical research to bear on Robert II and Robert III... but it is beyond the bounds of probability that even if this is done either of them will emerge as a man who did much positively to shape Scottish history." When Robert III re-established his personal rule in 1393, Donaldson characterises it as a period of anarchy, and of a king who couldn't control his brothers Albany and Buchan, nor his son Rothesay.  Ranald Nicholson agrees with Donaldson in his "Scotland: The Later Middle Ages" (1974), and describes Robert III as a failure, like his father, because he wasn't dominant. Nicholson's opinion was that in his period as Lieutenant in the 1380s, Robert (John, Earl of Carrick) was incapable of dealing with the breakdown of law and order, citing the number of legal cases. The lameness of Carrick after being kicked by a horse was explained by Nicholson as the excuse needed to have him replaced by his brother Robert, Earl of Fife as the king's lieutenant. Nicholson writes, "nothing much was to be hoped for in the heir apparent", and goes on to blame Robert III for the destruction of Forres and Elgin, despite the lieutenancy of Fife at the time.  Andrew Barrell in his book "Medieval Scotland" (2000) puts forward that the first two Stewart kings, "had difficulty in asserting themselves, partly because their dynasty was new to kingship and needed to establish itself". Robert III's period of personal rule from 1393 was "disastrous" according to Barrell, and was exemplified by the king's failure to re-take the royal fortress of Dumbarton. Barrell's final assessment of Robert III was of a man crippled in body and incapable or averse to personally confronting Albany but sought to do so through promoting the status of his sons, and even then he failed.  Alexander Grant in "Independence and Nationhood" (1984) found Robert III to be "probably Scotland's least impressive king". Grant puts this into perspective and writes that it is notable that Robert III's reign could have been worse compared to the turmoil and violence experienced in England and France when ruled by weak kings. Even on Robert's death, Scotland didn't descend into open civil war but was restricted to positioning among the royal family and its magnate groupings. Grant, in "The New Cambridge Medieval History", explains that the 13th-century Scottish kings ruled with the endorsement of practically all the political classes but that none of the 14th-century kings, from Robert I to Robert III, did so and retained loyalty by the use of patronage. The benefits of this were outweighed by the disadvantages—alienated lands reduced crown income, endowments had the same effect, the estates granted to nobles and church often in regality led to a loss of royal attendance within these territories and contributed to a diminishment of authority.  Michael Lynch suggests that the earlier 20th-century historians made hasty evaluations of both Robert II and Robert III when they characterised them as "pathetically weak personalities" and their reigns as "nineteen years of senility and sixteen of infirmity". Lynch also makes the point that the complaints made in the later chronicles of lawlessness and disturbance in the country were mainly confined to the north with the king's brother Alexander, Lord of Badenoch and Earl of Buchan at its root. The death of John, Lord of the Isles heralded a state of dissension between the lordship and the crown that was to last for two generations and which even Robert III's successor James I was unable to deal with properly. Lynch states that much of the troubles during Robert III's reign derived from the sharp deterioration of the royal revenues. The unruliness of northern Scotland was the result of competing factions within the royal family—Lynch suggests that the weakness in kingship before 1406 "can be exaggerated", citing Buchan's enforced appearance at Robert III's council to answer for his incendiary attack on Elgin and its cathedral, and Albany's obtainment of a submission from the lord of the Isles.  In Stephen Boardman's "The Early Stewart Kings", the younger Robert, then John, Earl of Carrick, is shown to be an energetic ambitious man and fully engaged in the running of the country, at the centre of Anglo-Scottish diplomacy, and who became the pre-eminent magnate in Scotland and whose political importance south of the Forth would eclipse that of his father's. Boardman describes how in 1384 he callously engineered the council to remove his father from power and to place it in his hands. Many of the problems of Robert III's rule, Boardman argues, stemmed from the death of his brother-in-law and close ally James, Earl of Douglas at Otterburn in 1388, when his deliberately constructed and powerful affinity south of the Forth crumbled. That same year Carrick lost the lieutenancy to his brother Robert Earl of Fife, that was, Boardman suggests, a blow to the future king's standing and one from which he would not fully recover. According to Boardman, when Robert became king in 1390 he was the victim of his father's style of government characterised by Robert II's creation of his sons, sons-in-law, and other major territorial nobles as powerful magnates to whom he delegated extensive authority. As a result, Robert III's brothers refused to act simply as liegemen to the king. Robert III, already weakened by the council when he ascended the throne, was in the end completely subordinated to the magnatial power of Albany and Douglas.

Fictional portrayals.

Robert III has been depicted in historical novels. They include:

Family tree.

Some of the most powerful Scots of Robert III's time were his close relatives.

Robert III (c. 1337/404 April 1406), born John Stewart, was King of Scotland from 1390 to his death. He was known primarily as the Earl of Carrick before ascending the throne aged between 50 and 53 years. He was the eldest son of Robert II and Elizabeth Mure and was legitimised with the marriage of his parents in 1347.

Robert III. (cca 1337 – 4. dubna 1406), vlastním jménem Jan, byl králem Skotska, nejstarším synem Roberta II. a jeho manželky Alžběty Mureové a jako syn byl legitimizován po jejich sňatku roku 1347.


Names.

It is known as wbl km in the Kalam language of Papua New Guinea.

Taxonomy.

"V. prasinus" was first described as "Monitor viridis" by John Edward Gray in 1831; however, Gray's original holotype (RMNH 4812 in the National Natural History Museum in Leiden) was lost and the species was redescribed by Schlegel eight years later as "V. prasinus" using the found specimen. The generic name "Varanus" is derived from the Arabic word "waral" (ورل), which translates to English as "monitor". Its specific name, "prasinus", is Latin for the color green.  "V. prasinus" is a member of the subgenus "Euprepiosaurus". It is closely related to several other arboreal species; when combined, these are often referred to as the "V. prasinus" species group or species complex. In addition to "V. prasinus", this species group, whose members are all allopatric, includes "V. beccarii" (Aru Islands), "V. boehmei" (Waigeo Island), "V. bogerti" (D'Entrecasteaux Archipelago), "V. keithhornei" (Cape York Peninsula), "V. kordensis" (Biak Island), "V. macraei" (Batanta Island), "V. reisingeri" (Misool Island) and "V. telenesetes" (Rossel Island).

Evolutionary history.

The family Varanidae probably originated in Asia about 65 million years ago, although some estimates are as early as the late Mesozoic (112 million years ago). Monitor lizards probably migrated to Australia and the Indonesian archipelago between 39 and 26 million years ago. All members of the "V. prasinus" species group (sometimes referred to as subgenus "Euprepiosaurus") are found east of Lydekker’s line in the Indo-Australian Archipelago. This group probably originated in the Moluccas, although dating their origins is complicated by the paucity of the fossil record. The absence of large placental predatory mammals east of Wallace's line may be partially responsible for the radiation of the "V. prasinus" group in the Australo-Papuan region.

Distribution.

Emerald tree monitors and their close relatives can be found in New Guinea (Indonesia and Papua New Guinea) as well as several adjacent islands, and the northern Torres Strait Islands. The green tree monitor is reported to thrive in lowland environments, including tropical evergreen forests, palm swamps and cocoa plantations.

Description.

The emerald tree monitor is about long with a slender body that helps it support itself on narrow branches. It uses its prehensile tail and long claws to grip branches. Unlike other varanids, this monitor defends its tail rather than lashing with it for defense when threatened. The soles of the feet of the emerald tree monitor have enlarged scales which aid the lizard when climbing.

Ecology.

When threatened, the emerald tree monitor will flee through vegetation or bite if cornered.  It is one of the few social monitors, living in small groups made up of a dominant male, several females, and a few other males and juveniles.

Diet.

The emerald tree monitor's diet consists of large tree-dwelling arthropods, such as katydids, stick insects, cockroaches, beetles, centipedes, spiders and crabs, as well as birds and small mammals. Before swallowing stick insects, the lizards tear off the legs. Captive specimens tear off the limbs of rodents prior to eating them; as a result, they are capable of swallowing mammals of a considerable size: A 135-g lizard was documented as eating a 40-g rodent, almost one-third its size. Paleontologist and Temple University professor Michael Balsai has observed "V. prasinus" eating fruit (bananas) in captivity as has herpetologist and author Robert G. Sprackland.

Reproduction.

Clutches consist of up to five eggs, each weighing and measuring about. As many as three clutches are laid throughout the year; clutches have been laid by captives in January, March, April, November, and December. The female emerald tree monitor lays her eggs in arboreal termite nests. The eggs hatch between 160 and 190 days later, typically from June to November, after which the young eat the termites and the termite's eggs within minutes of hatching. Sexual maturity is reached in about one year.

The emerald tree monitor ("Varanus prasinus") or green tree monitor, is a small to medium-sized arboreal monitor lizard. It is known for its unusual coloration, which consists of shades from green to turquoise, topped with dark, transverse dorsal banding. This coloration helps camouflage it in its arboreal habitat. Its colour also makes the emerald tree monitor highly prized in both the pet trade and zoos alike.

Varan smaragdový ( "Varanus prasinus") je středně velký stromový ještěr, který žije na Nové Guineji a v severní části australského státu Queensland, zejména na poloostrově Cape York.


History.

The Southern Indian languages are from the Dravidian family. The Dravidian languages are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. Proto-Dravidian languages were spoken in India in the 4th millennium BCE and started disintegrating into various branches around 3rd millennium BCE. The Dravidian languages are classified in four groups: North, Central (Kolami–Parji), South-Central (Telugu–Kui), and South Dravidian (Tamil-Kannada).  The Northern Indian languages from the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European family evolved from Old Indic by way of the Middle Indic Prakrit languages and Apabhraṃśa of the Middle Ages. The Indo-Aryan languages developed and emerged in three stages — Old Indo-Aryan (1500 BCE to 600 BCE), Middle Indo-Aryan stage (600 BCE and 1000 CE) and New Indo-Aryan (between 1000 CE and 1300 CE).

Inventories.

The first official survey of language diversity in the Indian subcontinent was carried out by Sir George Abraham Grierson from 1898 to 1928. Titled the Linguistic Survey of India, it reported a total of 179 languages and 544 dialects. However, the results were skewed due to ambiguities in distinguishing between "dialect" and "language", use of untrained personnel and under-reporting of data from South India, as the former provinces of Burma and Madras, as well as the princely states of Cochin, Hyderabad, Mysore and Travancore were not included in the survey.  Different sources give widely differing figures, primarily based on how the terms "language" and "dialect" are defined and grouped. "Ethnologue", produced by the Christian evangelist organisation SIL International, lists 461 tongues for India (out of 6,912 worldwide), 447 of which are living, while 14 are extinct. The 447 living languages are further subclassified in "Ethnologue" as follows:-  The People's Linguistic Survey of India, a privately owned research institution in India, has recorded over 66 different scripts and more than 780 languages in India during its nationwide survey, which the organisation claims to be the biggest linguistic survey in India.  The People of India (POI) project of Anthropological Survey of India reported 325 languages which are used for in-group communication by 5,633 Indian communities.

Census of India figures.

The Census of India records and publishes data with respect to the number of speakers for languages and dialects, but uses its own unique terminology, distinguishing between "language" and "mother tongue". The mother tongues are grouped within each language. Many of the mother tongues so defined could be considered a language rather than a dialect by linguistic standards. This is especially so for many mother tongues with tens of millions of speakers that are officially grouped under the language Hindi.  Separate figures for Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi were not issued, due to the fact the returns were intentionally recorded incorrectly in states such as East Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, PEPSU, and Bilaspur.  The 1961 census recognised 1,652 mother tongues spoken by 438,936,918 people, counting all declarations made by any individual at the time when the census was conducted. However, the declaring individuals often mixed names of languages with those of dialects, subdialects and dialect clusters or even castes, professions, religions, localities, regions, countries and nationalities. The list therefore includes languages with barely a

Multilingualism.

"Ethnologue" (2019, 22nd edition) worldwide.

The following list consist of Indian subcontinent languages' total speakers worldwide in

Language families.

Ethnolinguistically, the languages of South Asia, echoing the complex history and geography of the region, form a complex patchwork of language families, language phyla and isolates. Languages spoken in India belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-Aryan languages spoken by 78.05% of Indians and the Dravidian languages spoken by 19.64% of Indians. The languages of India belong to several language families, the most important of which are:

Indo-Aryan language family.

The largest of the language families represented in India, in terms of speakers, is the Indo-Aryan language family, a branch of the Indo-Iranian family, itself the easternmost, extant subfamily of the Indo-European language family. This language family predominates, accounting for

Dravidian language family.

The second largest language family is the Dravidian language family, accounting for some 277 million speakers, or approximately 20.5% as per 2018 estimate The Dravidian languages are spoken mainly in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as

Austroasiatic language family.

Families with smaller numbers of speakers are Austroasiatic and numerous small Sino-Tibetan languages, with some 10 and 6 million speakers, respectively, together 3% of the population.  The Austroasiatic language family ("austro" meaning South)

Sino-Tibetan language family.

The Sino-Tibetan language family are well represented in India. However, their interrelationships are not discernible, and the family has been described as "a patch of leaves on the forest floor" rather than with the conventional metaphor of a "family tree".  Sino-Tibetan languages are spoken across the

Tai-Kadai language family.

Ahom language, a Southwestern Tai language, had been once the dominant language of the Ahom Kingdom in modern-day Assam, but was later replaced by the Assamese language (known as Kamrupi in ancient era which is the pre-form of the Kamrupi

Great Andamanese language family.

The languages of the Andaman Islands form another group:

Language isolates.

The only language found in the Indian mainland that is considered a language isolate is Nihali. The status of Nihali is ambiguous, having been considered as a distinct Austroasiatic language, as a dialect of Korku and also as being a "thieves' argot" rather than a legitimate language.  The

Official languages.

Federal level.

Prior to Independence, in British India, English was the sole language used for administrative purposes as well as for higher education purposes.  In 1946, the issue of national language was a bitterly contested subject in the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly of India, specifically what should be the language in which the Constitution of India is written and the language spoken during the proceedings of Parliament and thus deserving of the epithet "national". Members belonging to the northern parts of India insisted that the Constitution be drafted in Hindi with the unofficial translation in English. This was not agreed to by the drafting Committee on the grounds that English was much better to craft the nuanced prose on constitutional subjects. The efforts to make Hindi the pre-eminent language were bitterly resisted by the members from those parts of India where Hindi was not spoken natively.  Eventually, a compromise was reached not to include any mention to a national language. Instead, Hindi in Devanagari script was declared to be the official language of the union, but for "fifteen years from the commencement of the Constitution, the English Language shall continue to be used for all the

Scheduled languages.

Until the Twenty-first Amendment of the Constitution of India in 1967, the country recognised 14 official regional languages. The Eighth Schedule and the Seventy-First Amendment provided for the inclusion of Sindhi, Konkani, Meitei and Nepali, thereby increasing the number of official regional languages of India to 18. The Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India, as of 1 December 2007, lists 22 languages, which are given in the table below together with the regions where they are used. The individual states, the borders of most of which are or were drawn on socio-linguistic lines, can legislate their own official languages, depending on their linguistic demographics. The official languages chosen reflect the predominant as well as politically

Prominent languages of India.

Regional languages.

In British India, English was the sole language used for administrative purposes as well as for higher education purposes. When India became independent in 1947, the Indian legislators had the challenge of choosing a language for official communication as well as for communication between different linguistic regions across India. The choices available were:  The Indian constitution, in 1950, declared Hindi in

Bengali.

Native to the Bengal region, comprising the nation of Bangladesh and the states of West Bengal, Tripura and Barak Valley region of Assam. Bengali (also spelt as "Bangla": বাংলা) is the sixth most spoken language in the world. After the partition of India (1947), refugees from East Pakistan were settled in Tripura, and Jharkhand and the union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. There is also a large number of Bengali-speaking people in Maharashtra and Gujarat where they work as artisans in jewellery industries. Bengali developed from Abahatta, a derivative of Apabhramsha,

Marathi.

Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language. It is the official language and co-official language in Maharashtra and Goa states of Western India respectively, and is one of the official languages of India. There were 83 million speakers in 2011 and 72 million speakers in 2001. Marathi has the third largest number of native speakers in India and ranks 10th in the list of most spoken languages in the world. Marathi has some of the oldest literature of all modern Indo-Aryan languages, dating from about 1200 AD (Mukundraj's "Vivek Sindhu" from the close of the 12th century). The major dialects of Marathi are Standard Marathi and the Varhadi dialect. There are other related languages such as Khandeshi, Dangi, Vadvali and Samavedi. Malvani Konkani has been heavily influenced by Marathi varieties. Marathi is one of several languages

Telugu.

Telugu is the most widely spoken Dravidian language in India and around the world. Telugu is an official language in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Yanam, making it one of the few languages (along with Hindi, Bengali, and Urdu) with official status in more than one state. It is

Tamil.

Tamil (also spelt as "Thamizh": தமிழ்) is a Dravidian language predominantly spoken in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and many parts of Sri Lanka. It is also spoken by large minorities in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius and throughout the world. Tamil ranks fifth by the number of native speakers in India (61 million in the 2001 Census) and ranks 20th in the list of most spoken languages. It is

Urdu.

After independence, Modern Standard Urdu, the Persianised register of Hindustani became the national language of Pakistan. During British colonial times, a knowledge of Hindustani or Urdu was a must for officials. Hindustani was made the second language of British Indian Empire after English and considered as the

Gujarati.

Gujarati is an Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the west Indian region of Gujarat. Gujarati is part of the greater Indo-European language family. Gujarati is descended from Old Gujarati (c. 1100 – 1500 CE), the same source as that

Kannada.

Kannada language is a Dravidian language which branched off from Kannada-Tamil sub group around 500 B.C.E according to the Dravidian scholar Zvelebil. According to the Dravidian scholars Steever and Krishnamurthy, the study of Kannada language is usually divided into three linguistic phases: Old (450–1200 CE), Middle (1200–1700 CE) and Modern (1700–present). The earliest written records are from the 5th

Malayalam.

Malayalam (; ) has official language status in the state of Kerala and in the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry. It belongs to the Dravidian family of languages and is spoken by some 38 million people. Malayalam is also spoken in the neighboring states of Tamil Nadu

Odia.

Odia (formerly spelled "Oriya") is the only modern language officially recognized as a classical language from the Indo-Aryan group. Odia is primarily spoken in the Indian state of Odisha and has over 40 million speakers. It was declared as a classical language of India in 2014. Native speakers comprise 91.85% of the

Punjabi.

Punjabi, written in the Gurmukhi script in India, is one of the prominent languages of India with about 32 million speakers. In Pakistan

Assamese.

Asamiya or Assamese language is most popular in the state of Assam and

Maithili.

Maithili (; "Maithilī") is an Indo-Aryan language native to India and Nepal. In India, it is widely spoken in the Bihar and Jharkhand states. Native speakers are also found in other states and union territories of India, most notably in Uttar Pradesh and the National Capital Territory of Delhi. In the 2011 census of India, It was reported by 1,35,83,464 people as

Classical languages of India.

In 2004, the Government of India declared that languages that met certain requirements could be accorded the status of a "Classical Language" of India. Over the next few years, several languages were granted the Classical status, and demands have been made for other languages, including Bengali and Marathi.  Languages thus far declared to be Classical: In a 2006 press release, Minister of Tourism and Culture Ambika Soni told the Rajya Sabha the following criteria were laid down to determine the eligibility of languages to be considered for classification as a "Classical Language",

Benefits.

As per Government of India's Resolution No. 2-16/2004-US(Akademies) dated 1

Other local languages and dialects.

The 2001 census identified the following native languages having more than one million speakers. Most of them are dialects/variants grouped under Hindi.

Practical problems.

India has several languages in use; choosing any single language as an official language presents problems to all those whose "mother tongue" is different. However, all the boards of education across India recognise the need for training people to one common language. There are complaints that in North India, non-Hindi speakers have language trouble.

Language conflicts.

There are conflicts over linguistic rights in India. The first major linguistic conflict, known as the Anti-Hindi agitations of Tamil Nadu, took place in Tamil Nadu against the implementation of Hindi as the official language of India. Political analysts consider this as a major factor in bringing DMK to power and leading to the ousting and nearly total elimination of the Congress party in Tamil Nadu.

Writing systems.

Most languages in India are written in Brahmi-derived scripts, such as Devanagari, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Meitei Mayek, Odia, Eastern Nagari – Assamese/Bengali, etc., though Urdu is written in a script derived from Arabic, and a few minor languages such as Santali use independent scripts.  Various Indian languages have their own scripts. Hindi, Marathi, Maithili and Angika are languages written using the Devanagari script. Most major languages are written using a script specific to them, such as Assamese (Asamiya) with Asamiya, Bengali with Bengali, Punjabi with Gurmukhi, Meitei with Meitei Mayek, Odia with Odia script, Gujarati with Gujarati, etc. Urdu and sometimes Kashmiri, Saraiki and Sindhi are written in modified versions of the Perso-Arabic script. With this one exception, the scripts of Indian languages are native to India. Languages like Kodava that didn't have a script whereas Tulu which had a script adopted Kannada due to its readily available printing settings; these languages have taken up the scripts of the local official languages as their own and are written in the Kannada script.

Languages spoken in India belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-Aryan languages spoken by 78.05% of Indians and the Dravidian languages spoken by 19.64% of Indians. Languages spoken by the remaining 2.31% of the population belong to the Austroasiatic, Sino-Tibetan, Tai-Kadai and a few other minor language families and isolates. India (780) has the world's second highest number of languages, after Papua New Guinea (839).

Indické jazyky patří k několika významným jazykovým rodinám. Dvě nejdůležitější jsou indoevropská (70 % Indů) a drávidská (22 %). Další jazyky, kterými se v Indii mluví, patří zejména k austroasijské a tibetobarmské rodině; kromě nich se zde nachází několik izolovaných jazyků. Kromě příbuznosti uvnitř jednotlivých rodin mezi jazyky Indie existuje i řada společných rysů vzniklých vzájemným ovlivňováním po dlouhou dobu, tento tzv. Indický jazykový svaz bývá uváděn jako typický příklad jazykového svazu.


Life.

Heinsch was born in 1647 in Kłodzko (Glatz), the capital of the County of Kladsko (then part of Bohemia proper, now in Silesia, southern Poland), to a Protestant family. He lived there until at least 1678, when he moved to Prague. It is not certain where he gained a painting education in his early years. In Prague, where he joined local painters' guilds while converted to Catholicism, he learned the art of one of the best Czech Baroque painters, Karel Škréta (whom he took as his lifelong pattern); to a lesser extent was also influenced by the Italian Renaissance, particularly by Paolo Veronese. As for themes of paintings, Heinsch was inspired by thoughts of polymaths and divines Bohuslav Balbín or Jan František Beckovský.  In 1708, he entered the Augustinian monastery in Bělá pod Bezdězem in northern Bohemia, but before the end of the trial period he left; yet later painted several works for this institution.  Heinsch died in Prague on September 9, 1712.

Works.

In 1705, he painted one of his most renowned pictures – "Saint Luke painting the Madonna". In 1707, together with Jan Kryštof Liška, he worked on a series of portraits of the Grand Masters of the Red Star Crusaders, where the most successful is the portrait of the former Grand Master George Ignatius Pospíchal (1694–1699). In 1710, produced the design for a statue of St. Francis Borgia on the Charles Bridge, but it was later sculpted by another Czech-German artist, Ferdinand Maxmilián Brokoff.  In addition to painting, Heinsch published several copperplate engraving illustrations. Notable are the ones featured in Societas Jesu Apostolorum imitatrix by Matthias Tanner. These illustrations depicted Jesuits' heroic deeds in the Americas and elsewhere. One example is his illustration of Fr. Andrew White who assisted the Catholics in Maryland during its founding.  In addition to Prague, his legacy is scattered throughout Bohemia and some examples also can be found in southern Moravia (churches in Brno and Uherské Hradiště).

Jan Jiří Heinsch or Heintsch (; c. 1647 – September 9, 1712) was a Czech-German Baroque style artist. Heinsch primarily painted religious-themed works (including altarpieces) as well as portraits of monastic superiors – especially for various Catholic religious orders such as the Jesuits, Knights of the Cross with the Red Star or Augustinians. He is known to have produced around 150 paintings and, in addition, extensive graphic work.

Jan Jiří Heinsch, "zapisován také jako" Heintsch, "něm." Johann Georg, (1647 v Kladsku – 9. září 1712 v Praze) byl českoněmecký malíř, představitel klasicistního proudu barokního malířství. Těžiště jeho díla tvoří náboženské obrazy od řádových objednavatelů. Jsou to oltářní obrazy, které se po josefínských reformách někdy dostaly do galerií, nebo také portréty řádových představených. Je známo okolo 150 obrazů jeho dílny, a vedle toho také obsáhlé grafické dílo.


Projects.

Canonical Ltd. has created and continues to back several projects. Principally these are free and open-source software (FOSS) or tools designed to improve collaboration between free software developers and contributors. Some projects require a Contributor License Agreement to be signed.

Business plans.

In 2007, Canonical launched an International online shop selling support services and Ubuntu-branded goods; later in 2008 it expanded that with a United States-specific shop designed to reduce shipment times. At the same time, the word "Ubuntu" was trademarked in connection with clothing and accessories.  In a "Guardian" interview in May 2008, Shuttleworth said that Canonical's business model was service provision and that Canonical was not yet close to profitability. Canonical stated that it would wait three to five years to become profitable. Shuttleworth regarded Canonical as positioning itself as demand for services related to free software rose. This strategy has been compared to Red Hat's business strategies in the 1990s. In an early-2009 "New York Times" article, Shuttleworth said that Canonical's revenue was "creeping" towards, the company's break-even point.  Canonical achieved a small operating profit of $281,000 in 2009, however until 2017 it struggled to maintain financial solvency and took a major financial hit from the development of Unity and Ubuntu Touch, leading to an operating loss of $21.6 Million for the fiscal year 2013. The company reported an operating profit of $2 Million in 2017 after shutting down the Unity development team and laying off nearly 200 employees. The company now plans to focus on its server and professional support solutions, which have proved to be most profitable. By shifting resources away from Ubuntu Desktop and cutting less profitable products and services, Canonical plans to maintain solvency and achieve long-term profitability.

Employees.

Canonical has more than 500 employees. The head office is in London on the 5th Floor of the Blue Fin Building, Southwark Street, having previously moved from the 27th floor of Millbank Tower. In the summer of 2006, Canonical opened an office in Montreal to house its global support and services operation. Taipei 101 is also home to a Canonical office. There was formerly an OEM team in Lexington, Massachusetts, United States.

Current.

Notable current employees of Canonical include:

Past.

Notable past employees:

Canonical Ltd. is a UK-based privately held computer software company founded and funded by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth to market commercial support and related services for Ubuntu and related projects. Canonical employs staff in more than 30 countries and maintains offices in London, Austin, Boston, Shanghai, Beijing, Taipei, and the Isle of Man.

Canonical Ltd. je soukromá firma, založená Jihoafričanem Markem Shuttleworthem. Podílí se především na vývoji linuxové distribuce Ubuntu, která vychází původně z distribuce Debian. Canonical je zaregistrován v Londýně a zaměstnává stovky lidí po celém světě. Kanceláře firmy Canonical se nacházejí v několika městech po celém světě - Hlavní kancelář v Londýně, o podporu se stará tým v Montrealu, dále OEM tým v Lexingtonu v Massachusetts v USA a v Tchaj-peji na Tchaj-wanu.[8] Firma nabízí placenou podporu při instalaci a konfiguraci pro Ubuntu a jeho oficiální deriváty a také podporu pro správu serverů i desktopů. Pro Ubuntu však existuje i rozsáhlá komunitní podpora, která je na rozdíl od profesionální zdarma. Užitečné stránky jako Ubuntu Manual Project - kde lze nalézt mnoho zajímavých informací o Ubuntu nebo askubuntu.com slouží především začátečníkům, kteří nechtějí platit za podporu, ale nevědí si se systémem rady.


Life.

Papebroch was born in 1628, the son of a wealthy merchant of Antwerp, then in the Duchy of Brabant, part of the Spanish Netherlands. He attended the Jesuit college in his hometown. He came from a pious family that had chosen Jesuit Jean Bolland as its spiritual director. Bolland took a great interest in Daniel's education and encouraged him to learn Greek and other languages and to study literary composition. From 1644 to 1646 Papebroch studied philosophy at Douai, after which he entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1658.  In 1659 Papebroch began his work with Bolland, in the scholarly study of the hagiography of the Catholic saints. About this time, the Jesuit superiors of the order relieved those involved with the work of every other regular occupation, in order that they might thenceforth devote their entire time to the hagiographical work. He was assigned to work on the records of those saints celebrated in the month of March. In July of that year, Bolland sent the 32-year-old Papebroch to Italy, along with Godfrey Henschen, to collect documents, but by the time he returned Bolland had died. Paperbroch, together with Henschen, then continued the work in the tradition of the Bollandists. He continued this work until his death in 1714.

Scholarship.

Herbert Thurston considered Pabenbroch "the ablest of all the early Bollandists." According to Friedrich Heer, Pabenbroch "...by dint of hard work established the laws of historical criticism, the methodology of the study of sources and of the historical auxiliary sciences. Hippolyte Delehaye called Papebroch "the Bollandist "par excellence"".  Papebroch prefixed a "Propylaeum antiquarium", an attempt to formulate rules for the discernment of spurious from genuine documents, to the second volume (1675) of the "Acta Sanctorum". He instanced in it as spurious some charters of the Abbey of St-Denis. Dom Jean Mabillon was appointed to draw up a defense of these documents, and was provoked into another statement of the principles of documentary criticism, his "De re diplomatica" (1681).  Another controversy Papebroch had was with the Dominican friar, Jean-Antoine d'Aubermont, over some major liturgical texts traditionally attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas.

Daniel Papebroch, S.J., (17 March 1628 – 28 June 1714) was a Flemish Jesuit hagiographer, one of the Bollandists. He was a leading revisionist figure, bringing historical criticism to bear on traditions of saints of the Catholic Church.

Daniel Papebroch, též Papenbroeck, Papebroc, (17. března 1628 – 28. června 1714) byl belgický jezuitský historik, tvůrce hagiografií. Jakožto jeden z bollandistů, tedy jezuitů organizovaných okolo Jeana Bollanda, se zaměřoval na kritiku pramenů. V roce 1675 v druhém dílu hagiografické edice "Acta sanctorum" publikoval hyperkritickou stať "Propylaenum antiquarium circa veri ac falsi discrimen in vetustis memmbranis", v které zpochybnil pravost nejstarších listin benediktinského kláštera Saint-Denis. V reakci na toto zpochybnění vydal benediktin Jean Mabillon dílo "De re diplomatica libri sex" (1681), v kterém naopak s největší pravděpodobností prokázal pravost těchto listin. Tento spor vešel do dějin jako "bella diplomatica litteraria" a dal vzniknout moderní diplomatice.


Early life.

He was born Oskar Josef Leschziner in Oppeln, Upper Silesia, Germany to a Jewish family. Around 1893, possibly to evade military service, he moved to London, where he purportedly worked as a bookmaker using various names, including "Anderson", before settling on "Slater" for official purposes. He was prosecuted for alleged malicious wounding in 1896 and assault in 1897 but was acquitted in both cases.  In 1899, Slater moved to Edinburgh and by 1901 was living in Glasgow. He was known to be a well-dressed dandy, who billed himself variously as a dentist and a dealer in precious stones, but was believed to earn his living as a gambler.

Marion Gilchrist.

In December 1908, Marion Gilchrist, a spinster aged 83 years, was beaten to death in a robbery at West Princes Street, Glasgow, after her maid, Helen Lambie, had popped out for ten minutes. Although she had jewellery worth £3,000 ("2015: £") hidden in her wardrobe, the robber, who was disturbed by a neighbour, had rifled through Mrs. Gilchrist's personal papers and taken only a brooch. Slater left for New York five days after the murder and came under suspicion, as apparently before the murder, a caller to Gilchrist's house had been looking for someone called "Anderson", and Slater had coincidentally previously been seen trying to sell a pawn ticket for a brooch.  The police soon realised that the pawn ticket was for an entirely different brooch and a false lead, but notwithstanding the contradictory evidence, still applied for Slater's extradition. While Slater was advised that the application would probably fail anyway, he voluntarily returned to Scotland to clear his name of the alleged crime.

Trial of Oscar Slater.

At his trial presided over by Lord Charles John Guthrie, whose summing up was highly prejudicial, defence witnesses provided Slater with an alibi and confirmed that he had announced his trip to America long before the date of Mrs. Gilchrist's murder. He was convicted by a majority of nine to six (five "not proven" and one "not guilty"). In May 1909, he was sentenced to death, with the execution to take place before the end of that month. However, Slater's lawyers organised a petition that was signed by 20,000 people, and the Secretary of State for Scotland, Lord Pentland, subsequently issued a conditional pardon and commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. Slater was to serve nineteen years at Peterhead Prison.  The following year, the Scottish lawyer and amateur criminologist William Roughead published his "Trial of Oscar Slater", highlighting flaws in the prosecution. The circumstantial evidence against Slater included his alleged "flight from justice". The prosecution's evidence and witnesses identifying Slater as a suspect, including maid Helen Lambie, were also criticized as fleeting and otherwise unreliable, prejudiced, tainted, or coached. In particular, Slater was conspicuously contrasted with nine off-duty policemen in a rigged identification parade.

"The Case of Oscar Slater".

Roughead's book convinced many of Slater's innocence; influential people included Sir Edward Marshall Hall; Ramsay MacDonald; (eventually) Viscount Buckmaster; and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In 1912, Conan Doyle published "The Case of Oscar Slater," a plea for a full pardon for Slater.  In 1914 Thomas MacKinnon Wood ordered a Private Inquiry into the case. A detective in the case, John Thomson Trench, provided information which had allegedly been deliberately concealed from the trial by the police. The Inquiry found that the conviction was sound, and instead, Trench was dismissed from the force and prosecuted on trumped-up charges from which he was eventually acquitted.

Criminal Appeal (Scotland) Act 1927.

1927 saw the publication of "The Truth about Oscar Slater" by William Park. The contents of the book led the Solicitor General for Scotland, Alexander Munro MacRobert, to conclude that it was no longer proven that Slater was guilty. An Act (17 & 18 Geo. V) was passed to extend the Jurisdiction of the then recently established Scottish Court of Criminal Appeal to convictions before the original shut-off date of 1926. Slater's conviction was quashed in July 1928 on the grounds that Lord Guthrie had failed to direct the jury about the irrelevance of allegations relating to Slater's previous character.  After serving an almost two-decades long prison sentence of hard labour, Slater received only £6,000 ("2015: £") in compensation.

Aftermath.

Detective-Lieutenant Trench died in 1919, aged fifty, and never lived to see justice done.  In the 1930s, Slater married a local Scottish woman of German descent thirty years his junior and settled in the seaside town of Ayr where he repaired and sold antiques. As an enemy alien (born German), Slater and his wife were interned for a brief time at the start of World War II, though Slater had long since lost his German citizenship and never returned to Germany. Most of Slater's surviving family, including his two sisters, ultimately died in the Holocaust. He died in Ayr in 1948 of natural causes.  The lessons of the Slater miscarriage were considered, as late as 1976, by the Devlin Committee review on the limitations of identity parades.  More recently, the Slater case has been revisited by several scholars and writers.

Legacy.

In Glasgow rhyming slang "See you "Oscar"" rhymes "Slater" with "later".

Oscar Joseph Slater (8 January 1872 – 31 January 1948) was the victim of Scotland's worst ever miscarriage of justice. Wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to death, he was freed after almost two decades of hard labour at Scotland’s HM Prison Peterhead through the efforts of multiple journalists, lawyers, and writers, including Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Oscar Joseph Slater (8. ledna 1872, Opole, Horní Slezsko, Německé císařství – 31. ledna 1948, Ayr, Skotsko), rodným jménem Oscar Leschziner, byl obětí justičního omylu.


History.

Prior to the 1970s, the understanding of genetics and molecular biology was severely hampered by an inability to isolate and study individual genes from complex organisms. This changed dramatically with the advent of molecular cloning methods. Microbiologists, seeking to understand the molecular mechanisms through which bacteria restricted the growth of bacteriophage, isolated restriction endonucleases, enzymes that could cleave DNA molecules only when specific DNA sequences were encountered. They showed that restriction enzymes cleaved chromosome-length DNA molecules at specific locations, and that specific sections of the larger molecule could be purified by size fractionation. Using a second enzyme, DNA ligase, fragments generated by restriction enzymes could be joined in new combinations, termed recombinant DNA. By recombining DNA segments of interest with vector DNA, such as bacteriophage or plasmids, which naturally replicate inside bacteria, large quantities of purified recombinant DNA molecules could be produced in bacterial cultures. The first recombinant DNA molecules were generated and studied in 1972.

Overview.

Molecular cloning takes advantage of the fact that the chemical structure of DNA is fundamentally the same in all living organisms. Therefore, if any segment of DNA from any organism is inserted into a DNA segment containing the molecular sequences required for DNA replication, and the resulting recombinant DNA is introduced into the organism from which the replication sequences were obtained, then the foreign DNA will be replicated along with the host cell's DNA in the transgenic organism.  Molecular cloning is similar to polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in that it permits the replication of DNA sequence. The fundamental difference between the two methods is that molecular cloning involves replication of the DNA in a living microorganism, while PCR replicates DNA in an "in vitro" solution, free of living cells.

Steps.

In standard molecular cloning experiments, the cloning of any DNA fragment essentially involves seven steps: (1) Choice of host organism and cloning vector, (2) Preparation of vector DNA, (3) Preparation of DNA to be cloned, (4) Creation of recombinant DNA, (5) Introduction of recombinant DNA into host organism, (6) Selection of organisms containing recombinant DNA, (7) Screening for clones with desired DNA inserts and biological properties.  Although the detailed planning of the cloning can be done in any text editor, together with online utilities for e.g. PCR primer design, dedicated software exist for the purpose. Software for the purpose include for example ApE (open source), DNAStrider (open source), Serial Cloner (gratis) and Collagene (open source).  Notably, the growing capacity and fidelity of DNA synthesis platforms allows for increasingly intricate designs in molecular engineering. These projects may include very long strands of novel DNA sequence and/or test entire libraries simultaneously, as opposed to of individual sequences. These shifts introduce complexity that require design to move away from the flat nucleotide-based representation and towards a higher level of abstraction. Examples of such tools are GenoCAD, Teselagen (free for academia) or GeneticConstructor (free for academics).

Choice of host organism and cloning vector.

Although a very large number of host organisms and molecular cloning vectors are in use, the great majority of molecular cloning experiments begin with a laboratory strain of the bacterium "E. coli" ("Escherichia coli") and a plasmid cloning vector. "E. coli" and plasmid vectors are in common use because they are technically sophisticated, versatile, widely available, and offer rapid growth of recombinant organisms with minimal equipment. If the DNA to be cloned is exceptionally large (hundreds of thousands to millions of base pairs), then a bacterial artificial chromosome or yeast artificial chromosome vector is often chosen.  Specialized applications may call for specialized host-vector systems. For example, if the experimentalists wish to harvest a particular protein from the recombinant organism, then an expression vector is chosen that contains appropriate signals for transcription and translation in the desired host organism. Alternatively, if replication of the DNA in different species is desired (for example, transfer of DNA from bacteria to plants), then a multiple host range vector (also termed shuttle vector) may be selected. In practice, however, specialized molecular cloning experiments usually begin with cloning into a bacterial plasmid, followed by subcloning into a specialized vector.  Whatever combination of host and vector are used, the vector almost always contains four DNA segments that are critically important to its function and experimental utility:

Preparation of vector DNA.

The cloning vector is treated with a restriction endonuclease to cleave the DNA at the site where foreign DNA will be inserted. The restriction enzyme is chosen to generate a configuration at the cleavage site that is compatible with the ends of the foreign DNA (see DNA end). Typically, this is done by cleaving the vector DNA and foreign DNA with the same restriction enzyme, for example EcoRI. Most modern vectors contain a variety of convenient cleavage sites that are unique within the vector molecule (so that the vector can only be cleaved at a single site) and are located within a gene (frequently beta-galactosidase) whose inactivation can be used to distinguish recombinant from non-recombinant organisms at a later step in the process. To improve the ratio of recombinant to non-recombinant organisms, the cleaved vector may be treated with an enzyme (alkaline phosphatase) that dephosphorylates the vector ends. Vector molecules with dephosphorylated ends are unable to replicate, and replication can only be restored if foreign DNA is integrated into the cleavage site.

Preparation of DNA to be cloned.

For cloning of genomic DNA, the DNA to be cloned is extracted from the organism of interest. Virtually any tissue source can be used (even tissues from extinct animals), as long as the DNA is not extensively degraded. The DNA is then purified using simple methods to remove contaminating proteins (extraction with phenol), RNA (ribonuclease) and smaller molecules (precipitation and/or chromatography). Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) methods are often used for amplification of specific DNA or RNA (RT-PCR) sequences prior to molecular cloning.  DNA for cloning experiments may also be obtained from RNA using reverse transcriptase (complementary DNA or cDNA cloning), or in the form of synthetic DNA (artificial gene synthesis). cDNA cloning is usually used to obtain clones representative of the mRNA population of the cells of interest, while synthetic DNA is used to obtain any precise sequence defined by the designer. Such a designed sequence may be required when moving genes across genetic codes (for example, from the mitochrondria to the nucleus) or simply for increasing expression via codon optimization.  The purified DNA is then treated with a restriction enzyme to generate fragments with ends capable of being linked to those of the vector. If necessary, short double-stranded segments of DNA ("linkers") containing desired restriction sites may be added to create end structures that are compatible with the vector.

Creation of recombinant DNA with DNA ligase.

The creation of recombinant DNA is in many ways the simplest step of the molecular cloning process. DNA prepared from the vector and foreign source are simply mixed together at appropriate concentrations and exposed to an enzyme (DNA ligase) that covalently links the ends together. This joining reaction is often termed ligation. The resulting DNA mixture containing randomly joined ends is then ready for introduction into the host organism.  DNA ligase only recognizes and acts on the ends of linear DNA molecules, usually resulting in a complex mixture of DNA molecules with randomly joined ends. The desired products (vector DNA covalently linked to foreign DNA) will be present, but other sequences (e.g. foreign DNA linked to itself, vector DNA linked to itself and higher-order combinations of vector and foreign DNA) are also usually present. This complex mixture is sorted out in subsequent steps of the cloning process, after the DNA mixture is introduced into cells.

Introduction of recombinant DNA into host organism.

The DNA mixture, previously manipulated in vitro, is moved back into a living cell, referred to as the host organism. The methods used to get DNA into cells are varied, and the name applied to this step in the molecular cloning process will often depend upon the experimental method that is chosen (e.g. transformation, transduction, transfection, electroporation).  When microorganisms are able to take up and replicate DNA from their local environment, the process is termed transformation, and cells that are in a physiological state such that they can take up DNA are said to be competent. In mammalian cell culture, the analogous process of introducing DNA into cells is commonly termed transfection. Both transformation and transfection usually require preparation of the cells through a special growth regime and chemical treatment process that will vary with the specific species and cell types that are used.  Electroporation uses high voltage electrical pulses to translocate DNA across the cell membrane (and cell wall, if present). In contrast, transduction involves the packaging of DNA into virus-derived particles, and using these virus-like particles to introduce the encapsulated DNA into the cell through a process resembling viral infection. Although electroporation and transduction are highly specialized methods, they may be the most efficient methods to move DNA into cells.

Selection of organisms containing vector sequences.

Whichever method is used, the introduction of recombinant DNA into the chosen host organism is usually a low efficiency process; that is, only a small fraction of the cells will actually take up DNA. Experimental scientists deal with this issue through a step of artificial genetic selection, in which cells that have not taken up DNA are selectively killed, and only those cells that can actively replicate DNA containing the selectable marker gene encoded by the vector are able to survive.  When bacterial cells are used as host organisms, the selectable marker is usually a gene that confers resistance to an antibiotic that would otherwise kill the cells, typically ampicillin. Cells harboring the plasmid will survive when exposed to the antibiotic, while those that have failed to take up plasmid sequences will die. When mammalian cells (e.g. human or mouse cells) are used, a similar strategy is used, except that the marker gene (in this case typically encoded as part of the kanMX cassette) confers resistance to the antibiotic Geneticin.

Modern bacterial cloning vectors (e.g. pUC19 and later derivatives including the pGEM vectors) use the blue-white screening system to distinguish colonies (clones) of transgenic cells from those that contain the parental vector (i.e. vector DNA with no recombinant sequence inserted). In these vectors, foreign DNA is inserted into a sequence that encodes an essential part of beta-galactosidase, an enzyme whose activity results in formation of a blue-colored colony on the culture medium that is used for this work. Insertion of the foreign DNA into the beta-galactosidase coding sequence disables the function of the enzyme so that colonies containing transformed DNA remain colorless (white). Therefore, experimentalists are easily able to identify and conduct further studies on transgenic bacterial clones, while ignoring those that do not contain recombinant DNA.  The total population of individual clones obtained in a molecular cloning experiment is often termed a DNA library. Libraries may be highly complex (as when cloning complete genomic DNA from an organism) or relatively simple (as when moving a previously cloned DNA fragment into a different plasmid), but it is almost always necessary to examine a number of different clones to be sure that the desired DNA construct is obtained. This may be accomplished through a very wide range of experimental methods, including the use of nucleic acid hybridizations, antibody probes, polymerase chain reaction, restriction fragment analysis and/or DNA sequencing.

Applications.

Molecular cloning provides scientists with an essentially unlimited quantity of any individual DNA segments derived from any genome. This material can be used for a wide range of purposes, including those in both basic and applied biological science. A few of the more important applications are summarized here.

Genome organization and gene expression.

Molecular cloning has led directly to the elucidation of the complete DNA sequence of the genomes of a very large number of species and to an exploration of genetic diversity within individual species, work that has been done mostly by determining the DNA sequence of large numbers of randomly cloned fragments of the genome, and assembling the overlapping sequences.  At the level of individual genes, molecular clones are used to generate probes that are used for examining how genes are expressed, and how that expression is related to other processes in biology, including the metabolic environment, extracellular signals, development, learning, senescence and cell death. Cloned genes can also provide tools to examine the biological function and importance of individual genes, by allowing investigators to inactivate the genes, or make more subtle mutations using regional mutagenesis or site-directed mutagenesis. Genes cloned into expression vectors for functional cloning provide a means to screen for genes on the basis of the expressed protein's function.

Production of recombinant proteins.

Obtaining the molecular clone of a gene can lead to the development of organisms that produce the protein product of the cloned genes, termed a recombinant protein. In practice, it is frequently more difficult to develop an organism that produces an active form of the recombinant protein in desirable quantities than it is to clone the gene. This is because the molecular signals for gene expression are complex and variable, and because protein folding, stability and transport can be very challenging.  Many useful proteins are currently available as recombinant products. These include--(1) medically useful proteins whose administration can correct a defective or poorly expressed gene (e.g. recombinant factor VIII, a blood-clotting factor deficient in some forms of hemophilia, and recombinant insulin, used to treat some forms of diabetes), (2) proteins that can be administered to assist in a life-threatening emergency (e.g. tissue plasminogen activator, used to treat strokes), (3) recombinant subunit vaccines, in which a purified protein can be used to immunize patients against infectious diseases, without exposing them to the infectious agent itself (e.g. hepatitis B vaccine), and (4) recombinant proteins as standard material for diagnostic laboratory tests.

Transgenic organisms.

Once characterized and manipulated to provide signals for appropriate expression, cloned genes may be inserted into organisms, generating transgenic organisms, also termed genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Although most GMOs are generated for purposes of basic biological research (see for example, transgenic mouse), a number of GMOs have been developed for commercial use, ranging from animals and plants that produce pharmaceuticals or other compounds (pharming), herbicide-resistant crop plants, and fluorescent tropical fish (GloFish) for home entertainment.

Gene therapy.

Gene therapy involves supplying a functional gene to cells lacking that function, with the aim of correcting a genetic disorder or acquired disease. Gene therapy can be broadly divided into two categories. The first is alteration of germ cells, that is, sperm or eggs, which results in a permanent genetic change for the whole organism and subsequent generations. This “germ line gene therapy” is considered by many to be unethical in human beings. The second type of gene therapy, “somatic cell gene therapy”, is analogous to an organ transplant. In this case, one or more specific tissues are targeted by direct treatment or by removal of the tissue, addition of the therapeutic gene or genes in the laboratory, and return of the treated cells to the patient. Clinical trials of somatic cell gene therapy began in the late 1990s, mostly for the treatment of cancers and blood, liver, and lung disorders.  Despite a great deal of publicity and promises, the history of human gene therapy has been characterized by relatively limited success. The effect of introducing a gene into cells often promotes only partial and/or transient relief from the symptoms of the disease being treated. Some gene therapy trial patients have suffered adverse consequences of the treatment itself, including deaths. In some cases, the adverse effects result from disruption of essential genes within the patient's genome by insertional inactivation. In others, viral vectors used for gene therapy have been contaminated with infectious virus. Nevertheless, gene therapy is still held to be a promising future area of medicine, and is an area where there is a significant level of research and development activity.

Molecular cloning is a set of experimental methods in molecular biology that are used to assemble recombinant DNA molecules and to direct their replication within host organisms. The use of the word "cloning" refers to the fact that the method involves the replication of one molecule to produce a population of cells with identical DNA molecules. Molecular cloning generally uses DNA sequences from two different organisms: the species that is the source of the DNA to be cloned, and the species that will serve as the living host for replication of the recombinant DNA. Molecular cloning methods are central to many contemporary areas of modern biology and medicine.

Klonování DNA (též molekulární klonování) je laboratorní metoda spočívající v namnožení určitého úseku DNA za pomoci enzymatických systémů živých buněk. Je to několikafázový proces, který zahrnuje tři základní kroky:


Motorways.

Motorways are identified by A followed by a number. There are few tolls for using roads in Romania. There is one at the Giurgeni – Vadu Oii Bridge over the river Danube on highway DN2A at Vadu Oii and one at the Cernavodă Bridge, on the A2 motorway, a 17 km long section between Feteşti and Cernavodă which consists of two road/railway bridges. Nevertheless, every owner of a car that uses a motorway (A) or a national road (DN) in Romania must purchase a vignette ("rovinietă") from any of the main petrol stations or at any post office throughout the country.

History.

The construction of the first motorway in Romania began in 1967, and the first segment of the A1 motorway, from Pitești to the capital Bucharest was opened in 1972 with a total length of 96 km. During the building of this motorway, a general plan was released in 1969, detailing the building of motorways in the incoming years, however, due to low volumes of traffic, the communist regime focused on improving current roads instead. Until the collapse of the communist regime in 1989, the building of the second motorway between Bucharest and Constanta had been planned, but only an 18 km long segment of A2 from Fetești to Cernavodă, opened in 1987, was completed, differing from the original plans from 18 years ago. The original plan of the A2 motorway envisaged a route running northwards through Urziceni and Slobozia, while the current route of the motorway runs eastwards in a straight line towards Fetești. In the 1990s, the transition from a centralized economy to a market economy severely limited investment into infrastructure projects, and the entire motorway network totaled 113 km for decades until the construction project of A2 was resumed in 1998.  Actual construction began in 2001 on three segments of A2, and in 2004 these finally opened: Bucharest – Fundulea 26.5 km, Fundulea – Lehliu 29.2 km, Lehliu – Drajna 41.6 km. Another segment opened in 2007: Drajna – Fetești 36.6 km, while the A1 motorway was extended also in 2007 with the Pitești bypass (13.6 km). Also in 2004, a large sector of A3, termed "Transylvania Motorway", was awarded controversially without bidding to the American Bechtel Corporation. Large cost overruns and delays ensued for this project, and after political controversies, most of the contracts were cancelled, and only the Cluj bypass (Gilău – Turda and Turda – Câmpia Turzii segments) of 51.7 km were opened between 2009 and 2010, at much larger costs than initially signed in the contract.  After joining the European Union in 2007, Romania was able to access funds for infrastructure development more easily, especially for those part of the Pan-European Corridor IV overlapping with A1 and A2 motorways. Many segments of the A1 motorway were started, and by the end of 2011, the A1 segments Timișoara – Arad (32.3 km), Sibiu bypass (17.5 km), and A2 segment Murfatlar – Constanța (14.6 km), together with the A4 Constanta bypass (8.5 km) and A11 Arad bypass (12.3 km) were partially or fully opened. By the end of 2012, the A1 the segment Deva – Simeria (14.8 km), the A2 segment Cernavodă – Murfatlar (36.6 km) and the final segment of the A4 Constanța bypass (11.2 km) were completed. The first A3 segment not completed by Becthel, the Bucharest – Ploiești (55.5 km) was also opened that year. At the end of 2013, more segments of A1 were finalized, including parts of Lugoj – Deva (17.3 km), Sibiu – Orăștie (60.0 km), Orastie – Simeria (17.7 km) and the adjacent first sector of A6 Balinț – Lugoj (11.4 km), and the final segments of the A4 Constanta bypass (2.1 km). In 2014 and 2015, more A1 segments were opened between Sibiu – Orăștie (22.1 km), Arad – Nadlac (38.9 km), and Timișoara – Lugoj (35.8 km), for a total of 726.6 km of motorways in use in Romania in December 2015.  Political debates and changes in priorities of left-leaning parties after 2014 greatly slowed down motorway projects. In 2016, there were no new segments opened, with a small segment part of Lugoj – Deva (15.2 km) opening in 2017, for a total of 751.9 km in use. In 2018, two segments of the A10 motorway, between Aiud and Turda, measuring 28.8 km, two segments of the A3 motorway, between Ungheni and Iernut (13.7 km), and the start segment of A3 motorway in Bucharest (6.5 km) opened to traffic, bringing the total to 806.7 km. Currently, two other segments of the A10 motorway are in execution (41.3 km), together with all the remaining segments of A1 (56.8 km, excluding Pitești – Sibiu) and several segments between Târgu Mureș and Câmpia Turzii (38.1 km), as well as two so-called "stubs" near Borș (5.4 km) and Brașov (6.3 km), and a segment (21.0 km) of the Bucharest South Ring Motorway.

Future projects.

Currently the only completed motorway is A2, with A10 likely being the next one to finish around 2020–2021. The unfinished segments of A1 and A3 are in various stages of planning and construction, with several segments likely to finish by 2022–2025. There are no active planned projects for extending the current A4, A6 and A11 motorways that are in usage, as only projected long-term plans are envisioned in various infrastructure masterplans.  A few other motorways have received active discussion, including a termed A0 Bucharest Motorway Ring Road as an outer ring to the Bucharest Ring Road. The A7 Ploiești–Bacău Motorway has been planned to be part of the Pan-European Corridor IX, but currently only plans of a Bacau bypass (16 km) are being actively pursued. Beyond Pașcani, the Corridor IX is envisioned to be covered by the A8 East–West Motorway. Plans have been brought forward to link Craiova to A1 through an A12 motorway. Highways crossing the Carpathian Mountains have been delayed due to large costs, with debates on whether to build A3 (through long-term concession contracts) or A1 (EU funds would cover most of the cost). Regardless, an A13 Făgăraș–Sibiu Motorway has been viewed as an alternative to link A1 and A3. Also, A5 as a Brașov–Bacău Motorway has been mentioned as a link between Moldavia and Transylvania. A9 is planned to link A1 to Serbia.

Expressways.

Planned expressways according to CNADNR (Romanian National Company of Motorways and National Roads):

Controlled-access highways in Romania are dual carriageways, grade separated with controlled-access, designed for high speeds. In 2012, legislation amendments defined two types of highways: motorways () and expressways ().

Celková délka dálnic v Rumunsku je v současné době (2017) 748 km. Nejvyšší povolená rychlost na dálnicích je pro osobní automobily 130 km/h, s praxí kratší než 1 rok nebo pro autobusy pak 110 km/h. Pro vjezd na rumunskou dálnici je potřeba mít platnou dálniční známku. Ta je nutná nejen na dálnicích, ale téměř na všech silnicích I. třídy.