Statement.

The need to aggregate preferences occurs in many disciplines: in welfare economics, where one attempts to find an economic outcome which would be acceptable and stable; in decision theory, where a person has to make a rational choice based on several criteria; and most naturally in electoral systems, which are mechanisms for extracting a governance-related decision from a multitude of voters' preferences.  The framework for Arrow's theorem assumes that we need to extract a preference order on a given set of options (outcomes). Each individual in the society (or equivalently, each decision criterion) gives a particular order of preferences on the set of outcomes. We are searching for a ranked voting electoral system, called a "social welfare function" ("preference aggregation rule"), which transforms the set of preferences ("profile" of preferences) into a single global societal preference order. Arrow's theorem says that if the decision-making body has at least two members and at least three options to decide among, then it is impossible to design a social welfare function that satisfies all these conditions (assumed to be a reasonable requirement of a fair electoral system) at once:  A later (1963) version of Arrow's theorem replaced the monotonicity and non-imposition criteria with:  This later version is more general, having weaker conditions. The axioms of monotonicity, non-imposition, and IIA together imply Pareto efficiency, whereas Pareto efficiency (itself implying non-imposition) and IIA together do not imply monotonicity.

Independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA).

The IIA condition has three purposes (or effects):  Arrow's death-of-a-candidate example (1963, page 26) suggests that the agenda (the set of feasible alternatives) shrinks from, say, X = {a, b, c} to S = {a, b} because of the death of candidate c. This example is misleading since it can give the reader an impression that IIA is a condition involving "two" agenda and "one" profile. The fact is that IIA involves just "one" agendum ({x, y} in case of pairwise independence) but "two" profiles. If the condition is applied to this confusing example, it requires this: Suppose an aggregation rule satisfying IIA chooses b from the agenda {a, b} when the profile is given by (cab, cba), that is, individual 1 prefers c to a to b, 2 prefers c to b to a. Then, it must still choose b from {a, b} if the profile were, say: (abc, bac); (acb, bca); (acb, cba); or (abc, cba).  In different words, Arrow defines IIA as saying that the social preferences between alternatives x and y depend only on the individual preferences between x and y (not on those involving other candidates).

Formal statement of the theorem.

Let be a set of outcomes, a number of voters or decision criteria. We shall denote the set of all full linear orderings of by.  A (strict) social welfare function (preference aggregation rule) is a function which aggregates voters' preferences into a single preference order on.  An -tuple of voters' preferences is called a "preference profile". In its strongest and simplest form, Arrow's impossibility theorem states that whenever the set of possible alternatives has more than 2 elements, then the following three conditions become incompatible:

Informal proof.

Based on two proofs appearing in "Economic Theory". For simplicity we have presented all rankings as if ties are impossible. A complete proof taking possible ties into account is not essentially different from the one given here, except that one ought to say "not above" instead of "below" or "not below" instead of "above" in some cases. Full details are given in the original articles.  We will prove that any social choice system respecting unrestricted domain, unanimity, and independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA) is a dictatorship. The key idea is to identify a "pivotal voter" whose ballot swings the societal outcome. We then prove that this voter is a partial dictator (in a specific technical sense, described below). Finally we conclude by showing that all of the partial dictators are the same person, hence this voter is a dictator.

Part one: There is a "pivotal" voter for B over A.

Say there are three choices for society, call them A, B, and C. Suppose first that everyone prefers option B the least: everyone prefers A to B, and everyone prefers C to B. By unanimity, society must also prefer both A and C to B. Call this situation "profile 0".  On the other hand, if everyone preferred B to everything else, then society would have to prefer B to everything else by unanimity. Now arrange all the voters in some arbitrary but fixed order, and for each "i" let "profile i" be the same as "profile 0", but move B to the top of the ballots for voters 1 through "i". So "profile 1" has B at the top of the ballot for voter 1, but not for any of the others. "Profile 2" has B at the top for voters 1 and 2, but no others, and so on.  Since B eventually moves to the top of the societal preference, there must be some profile, number "k", for which B moves above A in the societal rank. We call the voter whose ballot change causes this to happen the pivotal voter for B over A. Note that the pivotal voter for B over A is not, a priori, the same as the pivotal voter for A over B. In part three of the proof we will show that these do turn out to be the same.  Also note that by IIA the same argument applies if "profile 0" is any profile in which A is ranked above B by every voter, and the pivotal voter for B over A will still be voter "k". We will use this observation below.

Part two: The pivotal voter for B over A is a dictator for B over C.

In this part of the argument we refer to voter "k", the pivotal voter for B over A, as "pivotal voter" for simplicity. We will show that pivotal voter dictates society's decision for B over C. That is, we show that no matter how the rest of society votes, if Pivotal Voter ranks B over C, then that is the societal outcome. Note again that the dictator for B over C is not a priori the same as that for C over B. In part three of the proof we will see that these turn out to be the same too. In the following, we call voters 1 through "k − 1", "segment one", and voters "k + 1" through "N", "segment two". To begin, suppose that the ballots are as follows:  Then by the argument in part one (and the last observation in that part), the societal outcome must rank A above B. This is because, except for a repositioning of C, this profile is the same as "profile k − 1" from part one. Furthermore, by unanimity the societal outcome must rank B above C. Therefore, we know the outcome in this case completely.  Now suppose that pivotal voter moves B above A, but keeps C in the same position and imagine that any number (or all!) of the other voters change their ballots to move B below C, without changing the position of A. Then aside from a repositioning of C this is the same as "profile k" from part one and hence the societal outcome ranks B above A. Furthermore, by IIA the societal outcome must rank A above C, as in the previous case. In particular, the societal outcome ranks B above C, even though Pivotal Voter may have been the "only" voter to rank B above C. By IIA, this conclusion holds independently of how A is positioned on the ballots, so pivotal voter is a dictator for B over C.

Part three: There exists a dictator.

In this part of the argument we refer back to the original ordering of voters, and compare the positions of the different pivotal voters (identified by applying parts one and two to the other pairs of candidates). First, the pivotal voter for B over C must appear earlier (or at the same position) in the line than the dictator for B over C: As we consider the argument of part one applied to B and C, successively moving B to the top of voters' ballots, the pivot point where society ranks B above C must come at or before we reach the dictator for B over C. Likewise, reversing the roles of B and C, the pivotal voter for C over B must be at or later in line than the dictator for B over C. In short, if "k" denotes the position of the pivotal voter for X over Y (for any two candidates X and Y), then we have shown  Now repeating the entire argument above with B and C switched, we also have  Therefore, we have  and the same argument for other pairs shows that all the pivotal voters (and hence all the dictators) occur at the same position in the list of voters. This voter is the dictator for the whole election.

Interpretations.

Although Arrow's theorem is a mathematical result, it is often expressed in a non-mathematical way with a statement such as "no voting method is fair", "every ranked voting method is flawed", or "the only voting method that isn't flawed is a dictatorship". These statements are simplifications of Arrow's result which are not universally considered to be true. What Arrow's theorem does state is that a deterministic preferential voting mechanism—that is, one where a preference order is the only information in a vote, and any possible set of votes gives a unique result—cannot comply with all of the conditions given above simultaneously.  Various theorists have suggested weakening the IIA criterion as a way out of the paradox. Proponents of ranked voting methods contend that the IIA is an unreasonably strong criterion. It is the one breached in most useful electoral systems. Advocates of this position point out that failure of the standard IIA criterion is trivially implied by the possibility of cyclic preferences. If voters cast ballots as follows: then the pairwise majority preference of the group is that A wins over B, B wins over C, and C wins over A: these yield rock-paper-scissors preferences for any pairwise comparison. In this circumstance, "any" aggregation rule that satisfies the very basic majoritarian requirement that a candidate who receives a majority of votes must win the election, will fail the IIA criterion, if social preference is required to be transitive (or acyclic). To see this, suppose that such a rule satisfies IIA. Since majority preferences are respected, the society prefers A to B (two votes for A > B and one for B > A), B to C, and C to A. Thus a cycle is generated, which contradicts the assumption that social preference is transitive.  So, what Arrow's theorem really shows is that any majority-wins electoral system is a non-trivial game, and that game theory should be used to predict the outcome of most voting mechanisms. This could be seen as a discouraging result, because a game need not have efficient equilibria; e.g., a ballot could result in an alternative nobody really wanted in the first place, yet everybody voted for.

Remark: Scalar rankings from a vector of attributes and the IIA property.

The IIA property might not be satisfied in human decision-making of realistic complexity because the "scalar" preference ranking is effectively derived from the weighting—not usually explicit—of a "vector" of attributes (one book dealing with the Arrow theorem invites the reader to consider the related problem of creating a scalar measure for the track and field decathlon event—e.g. how does one make scoring 600 points in the discus event "commensurable" with scoring 600 points in the 1500 m race) and this scalar ranking can depend sensitively on the weighting of different attributes, with the tacit weighting itself affected by the context and contrast created by apparently "irrelevant" choices. Edward MacNeal discusses this sensitivity problem with respect to the ranking of "most livable city" in the chapter "Surveys" of his book "MathSemantics: making numbers talk sense" (1994).

Other possibilities.

In an attempt to escape from the negative conclusion of Arrow's theorem, social choice theorists have investigated various possibilities ("ways out"). These investigations can be divided into the following two:

Approaches investigating functions of preference profiles.

This section includes approaches that deal with Since these two approaches often overlap, we discuss them at the same time. What is characteristic of these approaches is that they investigate various possibilities by eliminating or weakening or replacing one or more conditions (criteria) that Arrow imposed.

Infinitely many individuals.

Several theorists (e.g., Kirman and Sondermann) point out that when one drops the assumption that there are only finitely many individuals, one can find aggregation rules that satisfy all of Arrow's other conditions.  However, such aggregation rules are practically of limited interest, since they are based on ultrafilters, highly non-constructive mathematical objects. In particular, Kirman and Sondermann argue that there is an "invisible dictator" behind such a rule. Mihara shows that such a rule violates algorithmic computability. These results can be seen to establish the robustness of Arrow's theorem.

Limiting the number of alternatives.

When there are only two alternatives to choose from, May's theorem shows that only simple majority rule satisfies a certain set of criteria (e.g., equal treatment of individuals and of alternatives; increased support for a winning alternative should not make it into a losing one). On the other hand, when there are at least three alternatives, Arrow's theorem points out the difficulty of collective decision making. Why is there such a sharp difference between the case of less than three alternatives and that of at least three alternatives?  "Nakamura's theorem" (about the core of simple games) gives an answer more generally. It establishes that if the number of alternatives is less than a certain integer called the Nakamura number, then the rule in question will identify "best" alternatives without any problem; if the number of alternatives is greater or equal to the Nakamura number, then the rule will not always work, since for some profile a voting paradox (a cycle such as alternative A socially preferred to alternative B, B to C, and C to A) will arise. Since the Nakamura number of majority rule is 3 (except the case of four individuals), one can conclude from Nakamura's theorem that majority rule can deal with up to two alternatives rationally. Some super-majority rules (such as those requiring 2/3 of the votes) can have a Nakamura number greater than 3, but such rules violate other conditions given by Arrow.

Pairwise voting.

A common way "around" Arrow's paradox is limiting the alternative set to two alternatives. Thus, whenever more than two alternatives should be put to the test, it seems very tempting to use a mechanism that pairs them and votes by pairs. As tempting as this mechanism seems at first glance, it is generally far from satisfying even Pareto efficiency, not to mention IIA. The specific order by which the pairs are decided strongly influences the outcome. This is not necessarily a bad feature of the mechanism. Many sports use the tournament mechanism—essentially a pairing mechanism—to choose a winner. This gives considerable opportunity for weaker teams to win, thus adding interest and tension throughout the tournament. This means that the person controlling the order by which the choices are paired (the agenda maker) has great control over the outcome. In any case, when viewing the entire voting process as one game, Arrow's theorem still applies.

Domain restrictions.

Another approach is relaxing the universality condition, which means restricting the domain of aggregation rules. The best-known result along this line assumes "single peaked" preferences.  Duncan Black has shown that if there is only one dimension on which every individual has a "single-peaked" preference, then all of Arrow's conditions are met by majority rule. Suppose that there is some predetermined linear ordering of the alternative set. An individual's preference is "single-peaked" with respect to this ordering if he has some special place that he likes best along that line, and his dislike for an alternative grows larger as the alternative goes further away from that spot (i.e., the graph of his utility function has a single peak if alternatives are placed according to the linear ordering on the horizontal axis). For example, if voters were voting on where to set the volume for music, it would be reasonable to assume that each voter had their own ideal volume preference and that as the volume got progressively too loud or too quiet they would be increasingly dissatisfied. If the domain is restricted to profiles in which every individual has a single peaked preference with respect to the linear ordering, then "simple" aggregation rules, which include majority rule, have an "acyclic" (defined below) social preference, hence "best" alternative. In particular, when there are odd number of individuals, then the social preference becomes transitive, and the socially "best" alternative is equal to the median of all the peaks of the individuals (Black's median voter theorem). Under single-peaked preferences, the majority rule is in some respects the most natural voting mechanism.  One can define the notion of "single-peaked" preferences on higher-dimensional sets of alternatives. However, one can identify the "median" of the peaks only in exceptional cases. Instead, we typically have the destructive situation suggested by McKelvey's Chaos Theorem: for any "x" and "y", one can find a sequence of alternatives such that "x" is beaten by "x" by a majority, "x" by "x", up to "x" by "y".

Relaxing transitivity.

By relaxing the transitivity of social preferences, we can find aggregation rules that satisfy Arrow's other conditions. If we impose "neutrality" (equal treatment of alternatives) on such rules, however, there exists an individual who has a "veto". So the possibility provided by this approach is also very limited.  First, suppose that a social preference is "quasi-transitive" (instead of transitive); this means that the strict preference formula_2 ("better than") is transitive: if formula_3 and formula_4, then formula_5. Then, there do exist non-dictatorial aggregation rules satisfying Arrow's conditions, but such rules are "oligarchic". This means that there exists a coalition L such that L is "decisive" (if every member in L prefers x to y, then the society prefers x to y), and each member in L "has a veto" (if she prefers x to y, then the society cannot prefer y to x).  Second, suppose that a social preference is "acyclic" (instead of transitive): there do not exist alternatives formula_6 that form a "cycle" (formula_7). Then, provided that there are at least as many alternatives as individuals, an aggregation rule satisfying Arrow's other conditions is "collegial". This means that there are individuals who belong to the intersection ("collegium") of all decisive coalitions. If there is someone who has a veto, then he belongs to the collegium. If the rule is assumed to be neutral, then it does have someone who has a veto.  Finally, Brown's theorem left open the case of acyclic social preferences where the number of alternatives is less than the number of individuals. One can give a definite answer for that case using the "Nakamura number". See limiting the number of alternatives.

Relaxing IIA.

There are numerous examples of aggregation rules satisfying Arrow's conditions except IIA. The Borda rule is one of them. These rules, however, are susceptible to "strategic manipulation" by individuals.  See also Interpretations of the theorem above.

Relaxing the Pareto criterion.

Wilson (1972) shows that if an aggregation rule is non-imposed and non-null, then there is either a dictator or an inverse dictator, provided that Arrow's conditions other than Pareto are also satisfied. Here, an "inverse dictator" is an individual "i" such that whenever "i" prefers "x" to "y", then the society prefers "y" to "x".

Remark.

Amartya Sen offered both relaxation of transitivity and removal of the Pareto principle. He demonstrated another interesting impossibility result, known as the "impossibility of the Paretian Liberal" (see liberal paradox for details). Sen went on to argue that this demonstrates the futility of demanding Pareto optimality in relation to voting mechanisms.

Social choice instead of social preference.

In social decision making, to rank all alternatives is not usually a goal. It often suffices to find some alternative. The approach focusing on choosing an alternative investigates either "social choice functions" (functions that map each preference profile into an alternative) or "social choice rules" (functions that map each preference profile into a subset of alternatives).  As for social choice functions, the Gibbard–Satterthwaite theorem is well-known, which states that if a social choice function whose range contains at least three alternatives is strategy-proof, then it is dictatorial.  As for social choice rules, we should assume there is a social preference behind them. That is, we should regard a rule as choosing the maximal elements ("best" alternatives) of some social preference. The set of maximal elements of a social preference is called the "core". Conditions for existence of an alternative in the core have been investigated in two approaches. The first approach assumes that preferences are at least "acyclic" (which is necessary and sufficient for the preferences to have a maximal element on any "finite" subset). For this reason, it is closely related to relaxing transitivity. The second approach drops the assumption of acyclic preferences. Kumabe and Mihara adopt this approach. They make a more direct assumption that individual preferences have maximal elements, and examine conditions for the social preference to have a maximal element. See Nakamura number for details of these two approaches.

Rated electoral system and other approaches.

Arrow originally rejected cardinal utility as a meaningful tool for expressing social welfare, and so focused his theorem on preference rankings, but later stated that a cardinal score system with three or four classes "is probably the best".  Arrow's framework assumes that individual and social preferences are "orderings" (i.e., satisfy completeness and transitivity) on the set of alternatives. This means that if the preferences are represented by a utility function, its value is an "ordinal" utility in the sense that it is meaningful so far as the greater value indicates the better alternative. For instance, having ordinal utilities of 4, 3, 2, 1 for alternatives a, b, c, d, respectively, is the same as having 1000, 100.01, 100, 0, which in turn is the same as having 99, 98, 1,.997. They all represent the ordering in which a is preferred to b to c to d. The assumption of "ordinal" preferences, which precludes "interpersonal comparisons" of utility, is an integral part of Arrow's theorem.  For various reasons, an approach based on cardinal utility, where the utility has a meaning beyond just giving a ranking of alternatives, is not common in contemporary economics. However, once one adopts that approach, one can take intensities of preferences into consideration, or one can compare (i) gains and losses of utility or (ii) levels of utility, across different individuals. In particular, Harsanyi (1955) gives a justification of utilitarianism (which evaluates alternatives in terms of the sum of individual utilities), originating from Jeremy Bentham. Hammond (1976) gives a justification of the maximin principle (which evaluates alternatives in terms of the utility of the worst-off individual), originating from John Rawls.  Not all voting methods use, as input, only an ordering of all candidates. Methods which don't, often called "rated" or "cardinal" (as opposed to "ranked", "ordinal", or "preferential") electoral system, can be viewed as using information that only cardinal utility can convey. In that case, it is not surprising if some of them satisfy all of Arrow's conditions that are reformulated. Range voting is such a method. Whether such a claim is correct depends on how each condition is reformulated. Other rated electoral system which pass certain generalizations of Arrow's criteria include approval voting and majority judgment. Note that Arrow's theorem does not apply to single-winner methods such as these, but Gibbard's theorem still does: no non-defective electoral system is fully strategy-free, so the informal dictum that "no electoral system is perfect" still has a mathematical basis.  Finally, though not an approach investigating some kind of rules, there is a criticism by James M. Buchanan, Charles Plott, and others. It argues that it is silly to think that there might be "social" preferences that are analogous to "individual" preferences. Arrow (1963, Chapter 8) answers this sort of criticism seen in the early period, which come at least partly from misunderstanding.  A multi-pronged refutation of Arrow's theorem was published by philosophy Professor Howard DeLong in 1991. He challenges the theorem on the basis that Arrow wrongly assumes Preference is transitive property and that Collective Preference is the same as summing up individual preferences. He also claims that Arrow's model fails to model democracy as it exists in the real world as the model ignores the possibility of consensual temporary dictatorships (i.e.: Greek tyrants in times of war) and the effect of allowing lotteries to decide tie breakers and to avoid the problem of the tyranny of the majority, the example used being a group of campers at a summer camp, 8 of whom prefer cake, 7 who prefer ice cream, but funds are limited to one choice or the other on a weekly basis. Under the collective preference of majority rule each week the group would select cake. By drawing lots the choices would more accurately reflect the preferences of the collective than the majority.

In social choice theory, Arrow's impossibility theorem, the general possibility theorem or Arrow's paradox is an impossibility theorem stating that when voters have three or more distinct alternatives (options), no ranked voting electoral system can convert the ranked preferences of individuals into a community-wide (complete and transitive) ranking while also meeting a specified set of criteria: "unrestricted domain", "non-dictatorship", "Pareto efficiency", and "independence of irrelevant alternatives". The theorem is often cited in discussions of voting theory as it is further interpreted by the Gibbard–Satterthwaite theorem. The theorem is named after economist and Nobel laureate Kenneth Arrow, who demonstrated the theorem in his doctoral thesis and popularized it in his 1951 book "Social Choice and Individual Values". The original paper was titled "A Difficulty in the Concept of Social Welfare".

Das von dem Ökonomen Kenneth Arrow formulierte und nach ihm benannte Arrow-Theorem (auch Arrow-Paradoxon oder Allgemeines Unmöglichkeitstheorem (nach Arrow) genannt) ist ein Satz der Sozialwahltheorie. Er besagt, dass es keine vollständige und transitive gesellschaftliche Rangordnung gibt, die sich aus beliebigen individuellen Rangordnungen unter Einhaltung bestimmter – aus ethischen oder methodologischen Gründen naheliegender – Bedingungen zusammensetzt. Voraussetzung ist lediglich, dass die Präferenzordnung jedes Individuums mindestens drei Elemente (Objekte) enthält. Die vier Bedingungen, von denen in diesem Fall stets mindestens eine verletzt ist, sind üblicherweise unter den Bezeichnungen "Universalität, schwaches Pareto-Prinzip, Unabhängigkeit von irrelevanten Alternativen" und "Nicht-Diktatur" bekannt.


The source of the world of Nekudim.

In the world of Nekudim, light emanates metaphorically out of the "eyes" of Adam Kadmon (AK), and descends to encompass AK from "naval" to "feet."

"Lights" and "Vessels" in the world of Nekudim.

In the realm of Nekudim, ten individual vessels are created to contain the ten sephirot lights of this world. The vessels are small, undeveloped or "immature". Relative to the fully developed vessels in the world of Atzilut, the vessels of Nekudim are merely "points". Unlike the world of Akudim, where the ten lights flow freely in and out of the single vessel in the process of "mati v'lo mati", in the world of Nekudim all of the lights enter, forcefully, into their respective vessels and break them. The world of Nekudim is generally referred to as Olam HaTohu (the "World of Chaos"). Tohu is characterised by high lights and weak vessels. The vessels' weakness derives from the Sephirot acting in the scheme of "Iggulim" (concentric "Circles"), without interacting and strengthening each other through harmony.  Often the two worlds of Akudim and Nekudim are considered to be two forms of Tohu-Chaos, relatively "stable chaos" (Akudim, the form of "chaos" which doesn't break) and "unstable chaos" (Nekudim, the form of "chaos" which breaks). In modern scientific Chaos Theory these two forms of "chaos" are described in relation to the physical world.

Manifestations of the world of Nekudim in human beings.

In the human soul, this is compared to a youth who possesses distinct but limited language skills, which hold him back from truly expressing his emotions. In the human soul the shattering of vessels of Nekudim is like a psychological "breakdown" (resulting from the trauma of adolescence). Relative to the physiology of the human body this is like "death"; the lights ("soul") returns to its source, the broken vessels ("the physical body") falls into the lower realms of reality ("burial ground"). However, contained within the broken vessels are "sparks" of life-force which, though temporarily hidden insure the eventual "resurrection" of the broken vessels.

The Emissaries who correspond to Nekudim.

The lights of the world of Nekudim, which emanate from the "eyes" of Adam Kadmon, correspond to the spiritual soul-root of those souls of Israel whose primary goal and purpose in life is to act as a "messenger" or "emissary" of God and His Mashiach ("Anointed One") and bring the light and goodness of God in order to permeate all consciousness with the reality that "God is King of the Earth." According to this explanation, the meaning of the "breaking of the vessels" is that these first "messengers" did not succeed in their mission. Rather than recognizing that God alone rules over all of reality, each of these "kings" of Tohu (hinted to in the Torah as the Kings of Edom who rule before the kingdom of Israel) said "I shall rule," as taught at length in Kabbalah.

The realm known as Nekudim/Olam HaNekudim (World of "Points/Spotted") is one of the many spiritual worlds (Olamot) described by Kabbalah, as part of the order of development in Creation. Its significance emerges in Lurianic Kabbalah as part of the process of Tohu and Tikun.

Nekkudim oder Nekudim ist ein Begriff aus der Kabbala. Er bezeichnet eine Phase innerhalb des göttlichen Schöpfungsprozesses, in der einzelne, voneinander unabhängige Punkte (hebr. "Nekkudim") übereinander angeordnet waren. Diese Punkte zeichneten sich durch Unabhängigkeit und Egoismus aus. Zu einem späteren Zeitpunkt wurde die Welt der Nekkudim zerstört, worauf die einzelnen Punkte im Universum verstreut wurden und sich physisch erkennbar materialisierten.


Plot summary.

The narrative follows the course of a man's life from his schoolboy days to his adulthood. The son of a north German merchant and a "Southern" mother (Consuelo) with artistic talents, Tonio inherited qualities from both sides of his family. As a child, he experiences conflicting feelings for the bourgeois people around him. He feels both superior to them in his insights and envious of their innocent vitality. This conflict continues into Tonio's adulthood, when he becomes a famous writer living in southern Germany. "To be an artist," he comes to believe, "one has to die to everyday life." These issues are only partially resolved when Tonio travels north to visit his hometown. While there, Tonio is mistaken for an escaped criminal, thereby reinforcing his inner suspicion that the artist must be an outsider relative to "respectable" society. As Erich Heller –who knew Thomas Mann personally– observed, "Tonio Kröger"'s theme is that of the "artist as an exile from reality" (with Goethe's "Torquato Tasso" (1790) and Grillparzer's "Sappho" (1818) for company). Yet it was also Erich Heller who, earlier, in his own youth, had diagnosed the main theme of "Tonio Kröger" to be the infatuation and entanglements of a passionate heart, destined to give shape to, intellectualize, its feelings in artistic terms.

Connection to other works.

"Tonio Kröger" forms a pair with the more famous story, "Death in Venice" ("Der Tod in Venedig"). They both describe the life of an artist and express Thomas Mann's views on art. In one story the artist travels from south to north, in the other from north to south. One journey ends in a tenuous reconciliation, and the other in death. But, as T. J. Reed has pointed out,  Thus the importance of the work lies, chiefly, in its autobiographical character, as well as in its contribution, through the description of an "amitié particulière", to the "theory of love".  The novel was made into a film in 1964, directed by Rolf Thiele.

Tonio Kröger is a novella by Thomas Mann, written early in 1901, when he was 25. It was first published in 1903. A. A. Knopf in New York published the first American edition in 1936, translated by Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter.

Tonio Kröger ist eine 1903 erschienene Novelle Thomas Manns, deren Titelheld, der unverkennbar autobiographische Züge trägt, zwischen Künstlertum und Bürgerlichkeit einen unüberbrückbaren Gegensatz sieht. Sie entstand in der Zeit vom Dezember 1900 bis zum November 1902.


Distinction between advection and convection.

The term "advection" often serves as a synonym for "convection", and this correspondence of terms is used in the literature. More technically, convection applies to the movement of a fluid (often due to density gradients created by thermal gradients), whereas advection is the movement of some material by the velocity of the fluid. Thus, somewhat confusingly, it is technically correct to think of momentum being advected by the velocity field in the Navier-Stokes equations, although the resulting motion would be considered to be convection. Because of the specific use of the term convection to indicate transport in association with thermal gradients, it is probably safer to use the term advection if one is uncertain about which terminology best describes their particular system.

Meteorology.

In meteorology and physical oceanography, advection often refers to the horizontal transport of some property of the atmosphere or ocean, such as heat, humidity or salinity, and convection generally refers to vertical transport (vertical advection). Advection is important for the formation of orographic clouds (terrain-forced convection) and the precipitation of water from clouds, as part of the hydrological cycle.

Other quantities.

The advection equation also applies if the quantity being advected is represented by a probability density function at each point, although accounting for diffusion is more difficult.

Mathematics of advection.

The advection equation is the partial differential equation that governs the motion of a conserved scalar field as it is advected by a known velocity vector field. It is derived using the scalar field's conservation law, together with Gauss's theorem, and taking the infinitesimal limit.  One easily visualized example of advection is the transport of ink dumped into a river. As the river flows, ink will move downstream in a "pulse" via advection, as the water's movement itself transports the ink. If added to a lake without significant bulk water flow, the ink would simply disperse outwards from its source in a diffusive manner, which is not advection. Note that as it moves downstream, the "pulse" of ink will also spread via diffusion. The sum of these processes is called convection.

The advection equation.

In Cartesian coordinates the advection operator is  where formula_2 is the velocity field, and formula_3 is the del operator (note that Cartesian coordinates are used here).  The advection equation for a conserved quantity described by a scalar field formula_4 is expressed mathematically by a continuity equation:  where formula_5 is the divergence operator and again formula_6 is the velocity vector field. Frequently, it is assumed that the flow is incompressible, that is, the velocity field satisfies  In this case, formula_6 is said to be solenoidal. If this is so, the above equation can be rewritten as  In particular, if the flow is steady, then  which shows that formula_4 is constant along a streamline. Hence, formula_11 so formula_4 doesn't vary in time.  If a vector quantity formula_13 (such as a magnetic field) is being advected by the solenoidal velocity field formula_6, the advection equation above becomes:  Here, formula_13 is a vector field instead of the scalar field formula_4.

Solving the equation.

The advection equation is not simple to solve numerically: the system is a hyperbolic partial differential equation, and interest typically centers on discontinuous "shock" solutions (which are notoriously difficult for numerical schemes to handle).  Even with one space dimension and a constant velocity field, the system remains difficult to simulate. The equation becomes  where formula_19 is the scalar field being advected and formula_20 is the formula_21 component of the vector formula_22.

Treatment of the advection operator in the incompressible Navier Stokes equations.

According to Zang, numerical simulation can be aided by considering the skew symmetric form for the advection operator.  where  and formula_6 is the same as above.  Since skew symmetry implies only imaginary eigenvalues, this form reduces the "blow up" and "spectral blocking" often experienced in numerical solutions with sharp discontinuities (see Boyd).  Using vector calculus identities, these operators can also be expressed in other ways, available in more software packages for more coordinate systems.  This form also makes visible that the skew symmetric operator introduces error when the velocity field diverges. Solving the advection equation by numerical methods is very challenging and there is a large scientific literature about this.

In the field of physics, engineering, and earth sciences, advection is the transport of a substance or quantity by bulk motion. The properties of that substance are carried with it. Generally the majority of the advected substance is a fluid. The properties that are carried with the advected substance are conserved properties such as energy. An example of advection is the transport of pollutants or silt in a river by bulk water flow downstream. Another commonly advected quantity is energy or enthalpy. Here the fluid may be any material that contains thermal energy, such as water or air. In general, any substance or conserved, extensive quantity can be advected by a fluid that can hold or contain the quantity or substance.

Advektion (von lat. "advectare" = heranbewegen, holen) bezeichnet allgemein das Heranführen von Dingen und wird häufig synonym mit Strömungstransport genutzt.


History.

From 1954 Canberra bombers equipped 69 (briefly), 102, 103, 104, 149 Squadrons, and later 59 Squadron at RAF Gütersloh. This force was under Bomber Command control from Britain and had been moved to Germany because of overcrowding of suitable airfields in the UK. With the establishment of the British nuclear bomber forces in the context of NATO's strategy of massive retaliation the Canberra bomber squadrons were again withdrawn from Germany.  After 1955, the majority of the airfields were handed over to the newly established German Air Force and RAF Bückeburg to the army of the German Armed Forces. The number of RAF squadrons were reduced. This was both because of the nuclear strategy of NATO and for financial reasons after the fiasco of the Suez crisis. From 1 January 1959 the command was officially called Royal Air Force Germany, the RAF Second Tactical Air Force (2TAF) renamed. At this time the focus was the flying units already on just six main use airfields RAF Bruggen, RAF Geilenkirchen, RAF Gutersloh, RAF Jever (No. 2 Squadron, Swifts), RAF Laarbruch and RAF Wildenrath. Important aircraft types at this time were the Canberra as night fighting-suited fighter bombers to three and the Hunter as a day fighter stationed at two airports. From 1960 around the clock there were two on alert Canberra loaded with tactical nuclear weapons who were ready within 15 minutes. In addition there were two seasons that the Swift used them as scouts and four squadrons of Gloster Javelin all-weather interceptors. Two English Electric Lightning squadrons - No. 92 Squadron RAF and No. 19 Squadron RAF - arrived in Germany from 1965.  RAF Jever was transferred in 1961 and RAF Geilenkirchen in 1968, reducing the command to four flying airfields. When Geilenkirchen closed, it appears there were two flying squadrons at the station. No. 3 Squadron RAF moved to RAF Laarbruch and No. 92 Squadron RAF moved to RAF Gutersloh.  RAF Germany was disbanded as a separate command in 1993 as part of the reduction of British Armed Forces presence in Europe at the cessation of the Cold War. The remaining RAF forces in Germany ceased to be a separate command, and instead became No 2 Group RAF, part of RAF Strike Command. No 2 Group was then disbanded on 1 April 1996 by being absorbed into No 1 Group RAF.

Flying units in 1989.

Note 1: Unit with nuclear strike role with 18x WE.177 tactical nuclear weapons.

The former Royal Air Force Germany (RAFG) was a command of the Royal Air Force and part of British Forces Germany. It consisted of units located in Germany, initially as part of the occupation following the Second World War, and later as part of the RAF's commitment to the defence of Europe during the Cold War. The commander of RAFG doubled as commander of NATO's Second Allied Tactical Air Force.

Royal Air Force Germany, meist kurz als RAF Germany (RAFG) bezeichnet, war die Bezeichnung für die obere Kommandobehörde der britischen Royal Air Force (RAF) in Nordwestdeutschland in der Zeit des Kalten Krieges. Ihr Ursprung liegt in der 2nd Tactical Air Force, die bei Kriegsende auf dem europäischen Kontinent lag.


History.

William Murdoch, a Scottish inventor, installed a number of his own innovations in his house, built in Birmingham in 1817; one of these was a loud doorbell, that worked using a piped system of compressed air. A precursor to the electric doorbell, specifically a bell that could be rung at a distance via an electric wire, was invented by Joseph Henry around 1831. By the early 1900s, electric doorbells had become commonplace.

Wired doorbells.

In most wired systems, a button on the outside next to the door, located around the height of the doorknob, activates a signaling device (usually a chime, bell, or buzzer) inside the building. Pressing the doorbell button, a single-pole, single-throw (SPST) pushbutton switch momentarily closes the doorbell circuit. One terminal of this button is wired to a terminal on a transformer. A doorbell transformer steps down the 120 or 240-volt AC electrical power to a lower voltage, typically 10 to 20 volts. The transformer's other terminal connects to one of three terminals on the signaling device. Another terminal is connected to a wire that travels to the other terminal on the button. Some signaling devices have a third terminal, which produces a different sound. If there is another doorbell button (typically near a back door), it is connected between the transformer and the third terminal. The transformer primary winding, being energized continuously, does consume a small amount (about 1 to 2 W) of standby power constantly; systems with lighted pushbutton switches may consume a similar amount of power per switch. The tradeoff is that the wiring to the button carries only safe, low voltage isolated from earth ground.  A common signaling device is a chime unit consisting of two flat metal bar resonators, which are struck by plungers operated by two solenoids. The flat bars are tuned to two pleasing notes. When the doorbell button is pressed, the first solenoid's plunger strikes one bar, and when the button is released, a spring on the plunger pushes the plunger up, causing it to strike the other bar, creating a two-tone sound (""ding-dong""). If a second doorbell button is used, it is wired to the other solenoid, which strikes only one of the bars, to create a single-tone (""ding"") sound.  More elaborate doorbell chimes play a short musical tune, such as Westminster Quarters.  Doorbells for hearing-impaired people use visual signaling devices — typically light bulbs — rather than audible signaling devices.  Fully battery-powered wired models are also common, either using a two-bar design or an electric bell. These do not consume standby power, but require the user to change the batteries, which are usually large primary cells located in the bell box.

Wireless doorbells.

In recent decades wireless doorbells have become popular, to avoid the expense of running wires through the building walls. The doorbell button contains a built-in radio transmitter powered by a battery. When the button is pushed, the transmitter sends a radio signal to the receiver unit, which is plugged into a wall outlet inside the building. When the radio signal is detected by the receiver, it activates a sound chip that plays the sound of gongs through a loudspeaker—either a two-note "ding-dong" sound or a longer chime sequence such as "Westminster Quarters". Frequencies in the 2.4 GHz ISM band are usually used. To avoid interference by nearby wireless doorbells on the same radio frequency, the units can usually be set by the owner to different radio channels.  In larger metropolitan cities, a trend has developed over the past decade that uses telephone technology to wirelessly signal doorbells as well as to answer the doors and remotely release electric strikes. In many cities throughout the world, this is the predominant form of doorbell signalling.

Musical and continuous power doorbells.

As with wireless doorbells, musical doorbells have also become more common. Musical and continuous power doorbells serve as an attempt to bridge the gap between newer digital circuitry and older doorbell wiring schemes. A major difference between the standard setup of a wired doorbell and a musical doorbell is that the musical doorbell must maintain power after the doorbell button is released to continue playing the doorbell song. This can be achieved in one of two ways.  For simple single-pole, single-throw doorbell buttons, the chime device employs a rectifier diode and ballast capacitor at the voltage input stage of the circuit. Upon pressing the doorbell button, power is connected through the rectifier diode or series of rectifier diodes called a full wave rectifier, which allows the current to flow in only one direction, into the ballast capacitor. The ballast capacitor charges at a rate far greater than the rest of the circuit needs to complete a given song. Once the button is released, the capacitor retains the charge and maintains power for a short duration to the rest of the circuit.  For mixed wireless and wired input doorbells, a special doorbell button is needed to maintain power continuously to the doorbell chime. The circuit is similar to the one above, except that the rectifier diode is now moved into the doorbell button housing. Pressing the doorbell button allows both negative and positive sides of the AC power signal to flow into the circuit, while releasing the button only allows either the positive or negative side to flow into the circuit. By differentiating the full and half wave signals, the doorbell is able to function as it does in the previous wired case, while also providing continuous power to the doorbell for other purposes, such as receiving wireless doorbell button input.

Mechanical bell systems.

Before electrical doorbells, large houses and estates often had complicated mechanical systems to allow occupants of any room to pull a bell pull and ring a bell at a central bell panel in the staff quarters, to summon a servant.

Smart doorbells.

With the adoption of the "Internet of Things" a number of internet connected bell systems, known as smart doorbells have appeared on the market.  Popular systems are the "Skybell", Ring doorbell, Nest Labs doorbell, the Google "Hello", and many others. These consist of a single unit which is located in place of the traditional push-button and in addition to the physical button, contain an HD camera, PIR sensor and WiFi electronics. The device is connected to the home wi-fi network, and notifications of a button-press or detected movement are pushed to a paired smartphone or other electronic device such as a tablet. When a notification is received, the user will typically see a live video stream from the device, clearly showing who is the door and they can engage in a 2-way audio conversation.  The devices can be powered by an internal battery, or they may use the existing bell wiring for continuous power.  The video is typically recorded direct to a cloud internet service, meaning that if the unit is tempered with, damaged or stolen then this event will be captured and can be analysed to determine the identity of the responsible party.

A doorbell is a signaling device typically placed near a door to a building's entrance. When a visitor presses a button the bell rings inside the building, alerting the occupant to the presence of the visitor. Although the first doorbells were mechanical, activated by pulling a cord, modern doorbells are electric, operated by a pushbutton switch. Modern doorbells often incorporate intercoms and miniature video cameras to increase security.

Als Klingel bezeichnet man ein akustisches Signalgerät, bestehend aus einem schwingungsfähigen Körper (z. B. Glocke) und einem Hammer zur Anregung der Schwingung. Die Aufgabe einer Klingel ist es, durch den Klingelton die Aufmerksamkeit des Adressaten zu erregen, somit ist die Klingel oft Bestandteil einer Hausrufanlage. Obwohl Klingeln im Gegensatz zu Glocken nicht durch einzelne Schläge, sondern mehrfach zu einem Dauerton angeregt werden, werden sie dennoch mitunter als Glocke bezeichnet. Als Klingel werden auch elektronische Klingeln bezeichnet, etwa Melodieklingeln.


Notable examples.

Literature.

An early example of analepsis is in the "Ramayana" and "Mahabharata", where the main story is narrated through a frame story set at a later time. Another ancient example occurs in the "Odyssey", in which the tale of Odysseus' wanderings is told in flashback by Odysseus to a listener. Another early use of this device in a murder mystery was in "The Three Apples", an "Arabian Nights" tale. The story begins with the discovery of a young woman's dead body. After the murderer later reveals himself, he narrates his reasons for the murder in a series of flashbacks leading up to the discovery of her dead body at the beginning of the story. Flashbacks are also employed in several other "Arabian Nights" tales such as "Sinbad the Sailor" and "The City of Brass".  Analepsis was used extensively by author Ford Madox Ford, and by poet, author, historian and mythologist Robert Graves. The 1927 book "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" by Thornton Wilder is the progenitor of the modern disaster epic in literature and film-making, where a single disaster intertwines the victims, whose lives are then explored by means of flashbacks of events leading up to the disaster. Analepsis is also used in "Night" by Elie Wiesel. If flashbacks are extensive and in chronological order, one can say that these form the present of the story, while the rest of the story consists of flash forwards. If flashbacks are presented in non-chronological order, the time at which the story takes place can be ambiguous: An example of such an occurrence is in "Slaughterhouse-Five" where the narrative jumps back and forth in time, so there is no actual present time line. "Os Lusíadas" is a story about voyage of Vasco da Gama to India and back. The narration starts when they were arriving Africa but it quickly flashes back to the beginning of the story which is when they were leaving Portugal.  The "Harry Potter" series employs a magical device called a Pensieve, which changes the nature of flashbacks from a mere narrative device to an event directly experienced by the characters, who are thus able to provide commentary.

Film.

The creator of the flashback technique in cinema was "Histoire d’un crime" directed by Ferdinand Zecca in 1901. Flashbacks were first employed during the sound era in Rouben Mamoulian's 1931 film "City Streets", but were rare until about 1939 when, in William Wyler's "Wuthering Heights" as in Emily Brontë's original novel, the housekeeper Ellen narrates the main story to overnight visitor Mr. Lockwood, who has witnessed Heathcliff's frantic pursuit of what is apparently a ghost. More famously, also in 1939, Marcel Carné's movie "Le Jour Se Lève" is told almost entirely through flashback: the story starts with the murder of a man in a hotel. While the murderer, played by Jean Gabin, is surrounded by the police, several flashbacks tell the story of why he killed the man at the beginning of the movie.  One of the most famous examples of a flashback is in the Orson Welles' film "Citizen Kane" (1941). The protagonist, Charles Foster Kane, dies at the beginning, uttering the word "Rosebud". The remainder of the film is framed by a reporter's interviewing Kane's friends and associates, in a futile effort to discover what the word meant to Kane. As the interviews proceed, pieces of Kane's life unfold in flashback, but Welles' use of such unconventional flashbacks was thought to have been influenced by William K. Howard's "The Power and the Glory". Lubitsch used a flashback in "Heaven Can Wait" (1943) which tells the story of Henry Van Cleve. Though usually used to clarify plot or backstory, flashbacks can also act as an unreliable narrator. The multiple and contradictory staged reconstructions of a crime in Errol Morris's 1988 documentary "The Thin Blue Line" are presented as flashbacks based on divergent testimony. Akira Kurosawa's 1950 "Rashomon" does this in the most celebrated fictional use of contested multiple testimonies.  Sometimes a flashback is inserted into a film even though there was none in the original source from which the film was adapted. The 1956 film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's stage musical "Carousel" used a flashback device which somewhat takes the impact away from a very dramatic plot development later in the film. This was done because the plot of "Carousel" was then considered unusually strong for a film musical. In the film version of "Camelot" (1967), according to Alan Jay Lerner, a flashback was added not to soften the blow of a later plot development but because the stage show had been criticized for shifting too abruptly in tone from near-comedy to tragedy.  In Billy Wilder's film noir "Double Indemnity" (1944), a flashback from the main character is used to provide a confession to his fraudulent and criminal activities.  A good example of both flashback and flashforward is the first scene of "La Jetée" (1962). As we learn a few minutes later, what we are seeing in that scene is a flashback to the past, since the present of the film's diegesis is a time directly following World War III. However, as we learn at the very end of the film, that scene also doubles as a prolepsis, since the dying man the boy is seeing is, in fact, himself. In other words, he is proleptically seeing his own death. We thus have an analepsis and prolepsis in the very same scene.  Occasionally, a story may contain a flashback within a flashback, with the earliest known example appearing in Jacques Feyder's "L'Atlantide". "Little Annie Rooney" (1925) contains a flashback scene in a Chinese laundry, with a flashback within that flashback in the corner of the screen. In John Ford's "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1962), the main action of the film is told in flashback, with the scene of Liberty Valance's murder occurring as a flashback within that flashback. Other examples that contains flashbacks within flashbacks are the 1968 Japanese film "Lone Wolf Isazo" and 2004's "The Phantom of the Opera", where almost the entire film (set in 1870) is told as a flashback from 1919 (in black-and-white) and contains other flashbacks; for example, Madame Giry rescuing the Phantom from a freak show. An extremely convoluted story may contain flashbacks within flashbacks within flashbacks, as in "Six Degrees of Separation", "Passage to Marseille", and "The Locket".  This technique is a hallmark of Kannada movie director Upendra. He has employed this technique in his movies - "Om" (1995), "A"(1998) and the futuristic flick "Super" (2010) - set in 2030 containing multiple flashbacks ranging from 2010 to 2015 depicting a Utopian India.  Satyajit Ray experimented with flashbacks in "The Adversary" (Pratidwandi, 1972), pioneering the technique of photo-negative flashbacks. He also uses flashbacks in other films such as Nayak (1966), Kapurush- O - Mahapurush ( 1965), Aranyer Din Ratri (1970), Jalsaghar(1959). In fact, in Nayak, the entire film proceeds in a non linear narrative which explores the Hero (Arindam's) past through seven flashbacks and two dreams. He also uses extensive flashbacks in the Kanchenjunga (1962).  Quentin Tarantino makes extensive use of the flashback and flashforward in many of his films. In "Reservoir Dogs" (1992), for example, scenes of the story present are intercut with various flashbacks to give each character's backstory and motivation additional context. In "Pulp Fiction" (1994), which uses a highly nonlinear narrative, traditional flashback is also used in the sequence titled "The Gold Watch". Other films, such as his two-part "Kill Bill" (Part I 2003, Part II 2004), also feature a narrative that bounces between present time and flashbacks.

Television.

The television series Quantico, "Kung Fu", "Psych", "How I Met Your Mother", "Grounded for Life", "Once Upon a Time," and "I Didn't Do It" use flashbacks in every episode. Flashbacks were also a predominant feature of the television shows "Lost", "Arrow", "Orange Is the New Black", "13 Reasons Why", "Elite" and "Quicksand". Many detective shows routinely use flashback in the last act to reveal the culprit's plot, e.g. "Murder, She Wrote", "Banacek," "Columbo."

A flashback (sometimes called an analepsis) is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point in the story. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story's primary sequence of events to fill in crucial backstory. In the opposite direction, a flashforward (or prolepsis) reveals events that will occur in the future. Both flashback and flashforward are used to cohere a story, develop a character, or add structure to the narrative. In literature, internal analepsis is a flashback to an earlier point in the narrative; external analepsis is a flashback to a time before the narrative started.

Als Analepse (von ), auch Rückblende, Rückwendung oder Retrospektive, im Englischen Flashback, bezeichnet man bei Film- und Fernsehproduktionen sowie in der Literatur eine Erzähltechnik. Ereignisse, die zeitlich vor dem bisher Erzählten stattgefunden haben bzw. haben müssten, werden erst im Nachhinein erzählt. Die Analepse ist eine Form des anachronischen Erzählens; ihr Gegenstück ist die Prolepse.


History.

Tiscali was created in January 1998 in Cagliari by Renato Soru, following the deregulation of Italian telephone system. The company owes its name to a Sardinian mountain at which remains of an ancient village were found. From March 1999 onward, Tiscali offered "Tiscali Free Net", a subscription-free Internet service where customers only had to pay for the time they were online. This pushed other Italian providers to repeal their fixed subscription fees, thus contributing to making the Internet accessible to the masses in Italy.

IPO.

In October 1999 (during the dot-com bubble), the company went through an initial public offering (IPO) to be traded on the Italian stock exchange at a share price of 46 Euros. 3,098,000 shares were offered to investors of which 2,658,000 shares were created through a capital increase and the rest were sold by Soru. Soru made 20,240,000 Euros on the IPO. In 2012, the price per share had plummeted to 0.04 Euros.  Between 2001 and 2003, shares were also traded on the French stock exchange.

Services.

Each of Tiscali's regional companies offer many services, which may include broadband internet access and telephone services. Between 2007 and 2008, Tiscali briefly operated an IPTV service in Italy (available in the cities of Bologna, Cagliari, Florence, Genoa, Milan, Naples, Palermo, Rome, Turin and Trieste). Its UK television service, Tiscali TV was acquired by TalkTalk in 2009.  Tiscali's former carrier company, Tiscali International Network, was a pure-play carrier business delivering wholesale services including Global IP Connectivity, MPLS lines, Voice over IP and Network Monitoring. In May 2009, its IP/MPLS backbone counted 90 Points of Presence and extended over 17 European countries and across the United States and Hong Kong. Its Autonomous System (AS3257) was a core ASN in the global Internet routing table, as well as the largest IPv6 backbone outside Asia. The network was sold to the Italian private equity firm BS Private Equity SpA on 27 May 2009, and renamed Tinet.  Tiscali ran similar web portals for each of its countries, which include features such as webmail, reviews, news, videos, dating, chat, radio, TV guide, streaming TV channels and others.  Tiscali published a self-branded web browser of the same name which was distributed with its dial-up Internet packages. It was produced by UltraBrowser and used the core of Microsoft's Internet Explorer to display web pages. The software has not been included in installation packages since Tiscali's corporate rebranding in 2004.  Tiscali offered dial-up Internet access in Finland under service name "Surfeu".  Tiscali Campus in Cagliari has 1,000 employees. The center includes a development division for Internet technologies where researchers like Antonio Tuzzi (one of the developers of Apple's macOS), Luca Manunza (inventor of the first webmail service) and Domenico Dato (developer of "Arianna", the first Italian search engine) work.

Sales and acquisitions.

Beginning in 2004, Tiscali sold off many of its regional sub-companies to native telecommunications operators in order to focus more on prime target areas.

Financial and economic data.

On 31 December 2009:

Shareholders.

Today, the shareholders of Tiscali are:

Tiscali s.p.a. (; ) is an Italian telecommunications company, based in Cagliari, Sardinia, that provides internet and telecommunications services to its domestic market. It previously had operations in other European nations through its acquisition of many smaller European Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the late 1990s.

Tiscali S.p.A. ist ein unabhängiges italienisches Telekommunikationsunternehmen, das hauptsächlich Breitbanddienste anbietet. Nach starker Expansion in Europa ist Tiscali heute nur noch im Heimatmarkt Italien aktiv.


Biography.

Kresilas hailed from the city-state of Kydonia, on the island of Crete. He was trained in Argos as a student of Dorotheos, with whom he worked at Delphi and Hermione. Between 450 and 420 BC he worked mainly in Athens, as a follower of Myron's school and in the post-Phidias period he brought elements of compactness due to the Peloponnesian period.  Roman writer Pliny the Elder wrote of a competition between the four sculptors Polykleitos, Phidias, Kresilas, and Phradmon, on the best statues of Amazons for the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. Each sculptor placed himself at first place, but Phidias, Kresilas, and Phradmon had all put Polykleitos at second place, thus, Polykleitos won, Pheidias came second, and Kresilas third.

Work.

In Athens he created, for example, a bronze statue of Pericles (440–430 BC) with the Corinthian helmet upon the head as a sign of his position as strategos. Pliny the Elder said of it: "a work worthy of the title; it is a marvellous thing about this art that it can make famous men even more famous". Its base was found in the Athenian Acropolis; it was doubtless the bronze that Pausanias saw there (Pausanias I.25.1, I.28.2). It seems the series of Pericles portrait busts derive from it, of which there are examples at the Vatican Museums, British Museum (found at Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli, and owned by Charles Townley) and Altes Museum.  Kresilas also created the wounded men and a dying Amazon for Ephesus in concurrence (in a competition with Phidias and Polykleitos), possibly the model for many copies, one of which is the wounded Amazon of Kresilas (volnerata; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxiv. 75) in the Vatican Museums. He has also been identified as the originator of the Velletri type of Athena statue ("Athena of Velletri"). He created a Diomedes statue according to Homer's description.

"Cresilla".

In 1804 CE, Kresilas was mistakenly identified as a woman named "Cresilla" by Matilda Betham, who thought "she" had placed third behind Polykleitos and Phidias in a competition to sculpt seven Amazons for the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. As a result, Kresilas was mistakenly included in artist Judy Chicago's symbolic history of women in Western civilization, "The Dinner Party".

Kresilas ( "Krēsílas"; c. 480 – c. 410 BC) was a Greek sculptor in the Classical period (5th century BC), from Kydonia. He was trained in Argos and then worked in Athens at the time of the Peloponnesian war, as a follower of the idealistic portraiture of Myron. He is best known for his statue Pericles with the Corinthian helmet.

Kresilas () war ein griechischer Bronzebildner aus Kydonia. Er war um 450–420 v. Chr. in Delphi, Hermione und Athen tätig.


Concept.

The Brera was originally unveiled as a concept car at the 2002 Geneva Motor Show, designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro of Italdesign Giugiaro. The concept was powered by a Maserati V8 engine rated at around. The Brera received positive feedback, and Alfa Romeo subsequently announced production plans for 2005.

Production.

The Alfa Romeo Brera was introduced in production form at the 2005 Geneva Motor Show. It translated the original's exterior appearance on a much smaller scale, becoming a mid-size coupé on the GM/Fiat Premium platform (shared with the Alfa Romeo 159), and designed to replace the outgoing GTV. A convertible version of the Brera called the Spider was also announced, to be launched shortly after the coupe to replace the existing GTV-based Spider.  In Europe, the Brera was initially available with two petrol engines, the 2.2-litre JTS and 3.2-litre V6; and a 2.4-litre JTD turbodiesel. Cars with the diesel or 2.2 petrol were front-wheel drive, whilst the V6 came with a Torsen four-wheel drive system similar to the 159's Q4.  At the 2008 Geneva Motor Show Alfa Romeo introduced updated Brera and Spider. The 3.2 liter V6 version became available in front-wheel-drive form, allowing for a top speed of ; all model variants adopted the e-Q2 electronic limited slip differential; the use of aluminum for various parts of the car helped reduce weight.<ref name="www.italiaspeed.com/2008/cars"></ref>  The following year, again at the Geneva Motor Show, an all-new turbocharged petrol engine model badged as "1750 TBi" (Turbo Benzina iniezione) was added to the lineup. This 1,742 cc unit featured direct injection and variable valve timing on both inlet and exhaust cams, and developed and of torque.<ref name="www.fiatautopress.com/download"></ref>

Production totals.

"*stated by Pininfarina production records"

Trims.

As with its predecessor, the Brera was initially available with two trim levels: 'Medium' and 'Sky View', the latter's name being derived from the panoramic glass roof available for the Brera's top specification. In 2008 a special trim was introduced; called the TI (Turismo Internazionale), featuring 19" alloy wheels, special badges on the front fenders and inside the front headrests. Alongside the bigger wheels, there were bigger Brembo brakes and stiffer shocks and springs.

Brera S.

In Spring 2008 the Brera 'S' Special Edition was announced. This Alfa Romeo-approved British-only limited-run version was developed by British engineering specialists Prodrive and was intended to address criticism regarding the handling of the standard car. 500 units of the Brera S were made. The Brera S was developed in 12 months and suspension and chassis components and settings of the 'S' were amended from the standard car, altering the handling characteristics. These include Bilstein and Eibach suspension, Prodrive sports exhaust and special 19" wheels and trim. Alfa Romeo and Prodrive had previously collaborated in motorsport, campaigning an Alfa Romeo 155 in the BTCC during 1994 and 1995.

Brera Italia Independent.

In 2009, Alfa Romeo released a limited edition of the Brera and Spider in association with Italia Independent, an Italian design company owned and run by Lapo Elkann, grandson of Gianni Agnelli of the Fiat empire. Limited to 900 units and named after Alfa Romeo's partner in the venture, the Italia Independent edition of the Brera was offered with opaque-finish titanium paintwork, 18" "turbine" style alloy wheels and an aluminum fuel-filler cap. The interior had a Sat-Nav system as standard and interior had a carbon-fiber trim.  The Italia Independent was offered with 125 kW (170 PS) 2.0 JTDM, 154 kW (210 PS) 2.4 JTDM diesel,157 kW (214 PS) 2.4 JTDM diesel (2009–10) or 147 kW (200 PS) 1.8 TBi, 136 kW (185 PS) 2.2 JTS, 191 kW (260 PS) 3.2 V6 petrol engines and six-speed transmission. Manual, "Selespeed" or automatic Q-Tronic transmission options were offered, and the V6 engine was also available with Alfa Romeo's Q4 all-wheel drive system.

Spider.

The New Spider version (Type 939) was introduced at the 2006 Geneva Motor Show, where it also received the "Cabrio of the Year" award. The Spider is based on the Brera coupe, seating two passengers rather than four passengers as in the coupe. Originally Alfa Romeo offered two engines: the 2.2 L straight-4 and 3.2 L V6 JTS engines — the JTD common rail turbodiesel was introduced at the 2007 Geneva Motor Show. This car replaced the GTV Spider, which was introduced in 1995.  The 939 Spider can be viewed as the 6th generation of Alfa Romeo Spiders, the first version of which was released in 1966. Production ended in November 2010.

Italia Independent.

In 2009, Alfa Romeo unveiled a limited edition of the Brera and Spider in association with Italia Independent. Limited to 900 units and named after Alfa Romeo's partner in the venture, the Italia Independent edition of the Brera was offered with opaque-finish titanium paintwork, 18" "turbine" style alloy wheels and an aluminum fuel-filler cap.  The Italia Independent was offered with 125 kW (170 PS) 2.0 JTDM, 154 kW (210 PS) 2.4 JTDM diesel, JTDM, 157 kW (214 PS) 2.4 JTDM diesel or 147 kW (200 PS) 1.8 TBi, 136 kW (185 PS) 2.2 JTS or 191 kW (260 PS) 3.2 V6 petrol engines and six-speed transmission. Manual, "Selespeed" or automatic Q-Tronic transmission options were offered, and the V6 engined-car was also available with Alfa Romeo's Q4 all-wheel drive system.

Spider 'Mille Miglia'.

Alfa Romeo has created a special edition of its Spider convertible in order to commemorate the historic Mille Miglia 1,000-mile race that takes place in Italy annually. The carmaker built just 11 examples of the 'Spider Mille Miglia' to mark the 11 victories it's had in the famous Italian race, which heralded the rise of the original sports grand tourer.  While there are no performance increases, the Spider Mille Miglia is based on the standard 3.2 V6 model and has a power output of. Rather than performance upgrades, each special edition features a silver plate that outlines one of Alfa Romeo's victories between 1928 and 1947. The special edition model also gets an exclusive, bright red paint job called 'Rosso 8C' and a 'Quadrifoglio' logo (a four-leaf clover) on its front wings, as well as red stitching for the black leather seats. Additionally, the rear caps on the roll hoops bars are chrome rather than being painted silver, with the body caps behind them - also silver on other versions - in red.

Spider Limited Edition.

The Alfa Romeo Spider Limited Edition features a choice of three color combinations (Carbonio Black, Alfa Red, Ghiaccio White) plus 19-inch alloy wheels, leather upholstery, electrically adjustable and heated memory front seats, and door mirrors. The car is also now available with Fiat Group's Blue&Me hands-free system with voice recognition and media player. Bespoke colors for the Alfa Spider Limited Edition include a Carbonio Black version with a natural leather upholstery while the Alfa Red exterior paintwork is matched to a black leather interior. The Ghiaccio White color scheme comes with a choice of either black or natural leather upholstery.  Under the hood sits the familiar 185 hp 2.2 L JTS petrol engine. The car can accelerate from 0-62 mph in about 8.8 seconds and reach a top speed of more than. The new limited edition diesel was only on sale in the UK from 2009, less than 500 were produced worldwide. The 214 hp diesel engine was exclusive to the limited edition spider.

The Alfa Romeo Brera and the Alfa Romeo Spider (Type 939) are mid-size sports cars using the GM/Fiat Premium platform, manufactured by Pininfarina and marketed by Alfa Romeo as a 2+2 coupé and roadster respectively.

Der Alfa Romeo Brera ist ein Shooting-Brake-Sportcoupé der italienischen Automobilmarke Alfa Romeo. Brera ist der Name eines Stadtviertels in Mailand, in dem sich unter anderem das Kunstmuseum Pinacoteca di Brera befindet. Der Brera wurde in Deutschland erstmals auf der 15. Auto Mobil International in Leipzig (2. bis 10. April 2005) präsentiert. Rund drei Jahre zuvor hatte Alfa Romeo das von Italdesign Giugiaro gezeichnete Coupé auf dem Genfer Auto-Salon noch als Studie vorgestellt.


Biography.

Svetlana Irekovna Ishmouratova was born in Zlatoust (Chelyabinsk region). Her father Irek Ishmouratov, master in cross-country skiing, became her first coach. She started learning to ski when she was five and got her first medal when she was in the fourth form of a sports college. Svetlana did well at school though she didn't like studying very much. At first, she didn't think about career in sport and even planned to study medicine after school. But then she decided not to leave her home town, to keep studying and training there. Svetlana graduated Trade Secondary School of Zlatoust first and then State Academy of Physical Education.  In 1991 Ishmouratova became the USSR junior champion in individual race and the champion in senior team race. By the mid 90s she became a strong skilled athlete and entered the national Russian team, showing stable and good results in all kinds of competitions. But in 1996 she was mistakenly accused of doping and so was disqualified for two years (later the official apologies followed). That was the end of her skiing career.  But in autumn of 1996 Valentin Zadonski, a coach from Moscow, offered Svetlana to train with his women biathlon team. And in a year Svetlana became the champion of Russia and got a few medals in World Cup races. Despite her brilliant results, she was included in the National Olympic team only after some successful races in Italy not long before the Olympic Games in Nagano. Unfortunately, Svetlana got ill and didn't take part in the Winter Games of 1998. But in 2002 in Salt Lake City she became a bronze medalist in the relay. Besides, she has six World Champion titles (in summer and winter biathlon) and a lot of World Cup medals. Svetlana has been showing stable results for the last five years, reaching high positions in World Cup Total standings (10, 7, 11, 11, 12 places). Svetlana's coaches are V. Zadonski and A. Brylov. They say she is a kind and considerate person, a nice young lady with great will power and a strong character.  She doesn't like to speak about sports in her interviews. She speaks German and likes reading books during her leisure time. Her dream is to have a good loving family and children. She will probably work as a coach after finishing her sporting career. Her height is 165 cm and her weight is 57 kg.

Record.

Source:

Svetlana Irekovna Ishmouratova () (born 20 April 1972) is a Russian biathlete. She lives in Chelyabinsk and is a soldier by profession.

Swetlana Irekowna Ischmuratowa (; * 20. April 1972 in Slatoust) ist eine ehemalige russische Biathletin. 1996 war Swetlana Ischmuratowa das erste Jahr im Biathlon-Weltcup aktiv, ihr erster großer Erfolg war der Gewinn des Weltmeistertitels mit der russischen Mannschaft 1998. Bis heute konnte sie bei Weltmeisterschaften fünfmal Gold mit russischen Staffeln oder Mannschaften gewinnen, außerdem zwei Silber- und eine Bronzemedaille.


Geography.

The Gastein valley is part of the High Tauern range of the Central Eastern Alps, it stretches from the broad Salzach valley at Lend southwards up to the Alpine divide and the border with Carinthia. Bad Hofgastein is located about halfway between Dorfgastein in the north and Bad Gastein in the south. It has access to the Tauern Railway line, running through the valley up to the Tauern Railway Tunnel.  The municipal area comprises the cadastral communities of Bad Hofgastein proper, Harbach, Heißingfelding, Vorderschneeberg, and Wieden.

Tourism.

Bad Hofgastein has a large number of luxury hotels, the largest of which is the five star Grand Park Hotel. Additionally the 4 plus star Hotel Österreichischer Hof and Hotel Bismarck have recently undergone renovations / refurbishments.  Significant investments have been made in the Gastein valley's ski-system over the past few years. In the last three years alone €45 million have been spent on new lifts and piste improvements. The 2008 / 09 saw the opening of the Senderbahn lift (new 8-seater cabin lift from Angertal to Stubnerkogel). The 2009 / 10 season will witness the opening of the new Stubnerkogelbahn (8-seater cabin lift in two sections from Bad Gastein to the Stubnerkogel summit) as well as the GipfelXpress (new 6-seater lift) in Dorfgastein.  In addition to the ongoing investments a new Schlossalmbahn lift is in planning stages. The new lift will connect downtown Bad Hofgastein (in direct vicinity of the Alpentherme) to the Schlossalm summit.  The town’s main square is the focal point of the town, often the site of live music bands.  Bad Hofgastein is generally more frequented by Austrians, as well as a large number of Russian and Italian visitors, and has successfully maintained its image / standing next to the ups and downs of its neighbor Bad Gastein (which now once again is receiving vast investments aimed at restoring the former glory days of Archduke Ferdinand).

Politics.

As of 2014 local elections, the political parties represented in the Bad Hofgastein municipal council ("Gemeinderat") are:

Bad Hofgastein () is a market town in the district of St. Johann im Pongau, in the Austrian state of Salzburg. The spa town is located in the Gastein Valley, a large ski resort belonging to the Ski Amadé network.

Bad Hofgastein [] ist eine Marktgemeinde mit Einwohnern (Stand ) im Bezirk St. Johann im Pongau, im Land Salzburg in Österreich. Sie ist eine Kur-, Sommer- und Wintersportgemeinde.


High school career.

Pollard attended Oakland Technical High School in his hometown of Oakland, California. He led the school's basketball team to three consecutive conference titles from 1937–38 to 1939–40. He averaged 19.8 points per game in his senior year, setting a school record.

College career and military service.

Pollard was recruited to Stanford University by former Stanford star and future Hall of Famer, Hank Luisetti. Pollard played for the Stanford Indians for two seasons, under head coach Everett Dean. During his sophomore season, he was a key member of the team's 1942 national championship team, but, due to illness, he did not play in the championship game.  Pollard's college career was ended early due to World War II, and he served with the United States Coast Guard from 1942 to 1946. During his service, he starred with the Coast Guard basketball team in Alameda, winning a Northern California title in 1943 and the Service League championship in 1946.  Pollard went on to graduate from the University of Minnesota in 1954.

Amateur career.

After World War II, Pollard played amateur basketball for one season with the San Diego Dons of the Amateur Athletic Union. The following season, he played for the Oakland Bittners in the same league. He led the AAU in scoring and earned Most Valuable Player honors both years. His teams were runners-up in the national AAU tournament both seasons.  Pollard also played amateur baseball for Jordan, Minnesota's Town Team baseball club, during his NBA career. He was reputed to be "a good pitcher and a powerful hitter." It was there that Pollard famously "hit a ball that didn't stop until it got to Chicago", because it landed in a gondola car in a freight train passing by the ballpark.

Professional career.

Pollard began his professional basketball career in 1947 after signing with the Minneapolis Lakers while the team was a part of the National Basketball League. On the team, Pollard was a member of a future Hall of Fame frontcourt alongside center George Mikan and power forward Vern Mikkelsen, as well as fellow Hall of Famer Slater Martin at shooting guard. Led by coach John Kundla, this core group of players have been called the "first legacy in the history of professional basketball". The Lakers won the NBL championship in 1948, the BAA championship in 1949, and four NBA championships in 1950, 1952, 1953 and 1954. Pollard was a four-time NBA All-Star, and was named to the All-NBA First Team in 1949 and 1950, and Second Team in 1952 and 1954.  Pollard was renowned for his tremendous leaping ability, and subsequently earned the nickname "The Kangaroo Kid". He could reportedly touch the top of the backboard and dunk from the foul line, being one of the few players in his era who was capable of dunking a basketball. Pollard was also known for his corner jumpshot, and was a respected player and teammate. In 1952, the Basketball Association of America selected Pollard as the best player of the era.  Pollard retired from playing basketball after eight seasons, and finished with career averages of 13.2 points, 7.8 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game.

Coaching career.

Pollard immediately moved into coaching after retiring, taking the head coach position at La Salle University for the Explorers men's basketball team in 1955. Over three seasons with the team, Pollard compiled a record of 48–28.  Pollard was named interim head coach of the Lakers midway through the 1959–60 NBA season on January 2, 1960, and recorded a 14–25 record. He was named the head coach of the newly established Chicago Packers in 1961, and managed an 18–62 record in the team's first NBA season.  He moved to the American Basketball Association for the league's inaugural season in 1967, and coached the Minnesota Muskies, which relocated to Miami and became the Miami Floridians the following season. He was fired by the team midway through the 1969–70 season. Pollard spent his final years of coaching at Florida Atlantic University with the Owls men's basketball team, which he coached for two seasons.

James Clifford Pollard (July 9, 1922 – January 22, 1993) was an American professional basketball player and coach. As a player in the NBA, Pollard was considered one of the best forwards in the 1950s and was known for his leaping ability, earning him the nickname "The Kangaroo Kid". A five-time NBA champion and four-time NBA All-Star, Pollard spent his entire eight-year professional career with the Minneapolis Lakers.

James Clifford Pollard (* 9. Juli 1922 in Oakland, Kalifornien; † 22. Januar 1993 in Stockton, Kalifornien), genannt "The Kangaroo Kid", war ein US-amerikanischer Basketballspieler zwischen 1947 und 1955. An der Seite von George Mikan gewann Pollard sechs Meisterschaften für das Team der Minneapolis Lakers in der National Basketball League (1948), der Basketball Association of America (1949) und der National Basketball Association (1950, 1952–1954). Pollard war 1,93 m groß und spielte auf der Position des Small Forward.


History.

Saanen is first mentioned in 1228 as "Gissinay". In 1340 it was mentioned as "Sanon".  During the Bronze Age there was a hill fort on the Cholis Grind near the modern village of Saanen. The region was occupied by the Gallo-Romans until the 10th or 11th century when the Alamanni began to drive them out. This migration created the modern language borders in Switzerland. During the Middle Ages several forts were built to guard the mule trails into the Valais and Vaud. These included the Kramburg (which was first mentioned in 1331 but is now covered by later construction), the Swabia Ried tower (11th-12th century) and the Schönried tower (remains are visible as part of house number 349). During the Middle Ages it was part of the vogtei of Vanel in the county of Gruyère. In 1244, the counts became the vassals of Savoy. The counts' financial problems forced them to sell parts of the vogtei and some of the rights to the residents of Saanen in the 14th century. The village then became the center of the Saanen district and parish.  The villagers often acted against the interests of the counts. In 1340 the valley concluded a peace treaty with the Simmental, which provided for arbitration in disputes. They entered into another treaty in 1393 with the Valais. In 1401, Count Rudolph of Gruyère entered into a treaty with Bern which included Saanen. Two years later Saanen negotiated their own alliance with Bern. Due to the Bernese alliance, Saanen sent troops, under their own banner, to support the Bernese invasions of Aargau in 1415 and Valais in 1418. The military losses and taxes following the Old Zürich War led Saanen to support the Evil League ("Böser Bund") in 1445 against Bern. It took about six years before Confederation mediation was able to resolve the arguments between Saanen and Bern.  During the Burgundian War in 1475 Saanen, together with troops from Château-d'Œx and the Simmental captured the Savoy district of Aigle for Bern. Saanen and the surrounding district enjoyed a great deal of independence during the 16th century. However, in 1555 the last Count of Gruyère lost the entire district to Bern when his county went bankrupt. Bern took over the entire valley in the following year and introduced the Protestant Reformation. The Bernese bailiff administered the districts of Gessenay (Saanen) and Pays-d'Enhaut until the great fire of 1575 which destroyed much of the town. The bailiff then moved to the former monastery of Mont Rouge.  The district covered eleven separate "Bäuerten" or agricultural collectives or farming villages and the towns of Saanen and Gstaad. The main sources of income were seasonal alpine herding, forestry and providing warehousing and extra oxen for wagon trains coming over the mule trails. Saanen was the market town for the surrounding villages, with weekly and yearly markets in the town. There were two taverns in Saanen for merchants and travelers.  The village church of St. Mauritius was built in 1228. It was expanded in 1444-47 and the wall paintings are from the second half of the 15th century. Other churches in the area included the St. Anna chapel, built in 1511, the St. John's chapel and the Plague chapel. The parish was administered by a group of five or six priests and chaplains.  Until the 1798 French invasion, the Pays-d'Enhaut and Saanen districts were jointly administered. Under the Helvetic Republic, Pays-d'Enhaut became part of the Canton of Léman while Saanen and the rest of the district became part of the Canton of Oberland. When the Helvetic Republic collapsed in 1803, Saanen and its district became a district in the new Canton of Bern.  In 1833, Saanen became a political municipality. In 1845 the Zweisimmen-Saanen road replaced the old mule trail and the town got postal service. Around 1900, tourism began to grow in Saanen and Gstaad and new hotels opened. The opening of the Montreux-Oberland Bernois rail road in 1905, made it easier for tourists to visit. During both World Wars, the tourism industry in Saanen suffered, but it has expanded since 1945. Between the wars, a small weaving industry developed which helped support the municipality. After the war a number of small local industries also developed in the area. The major employer at the beginning of the 21st century was Bergbahnen Destination Gstaad AG, a company that brings together more than 60 different cable cars and lifts in the region. There are 11 school buildings in Saanen, including a secondary school, which was first built in 1867. The Businessmen's Vocational School opened in 1908 and is now the Saanenland-Obersimmental business school, which is part of the Thun business school. The District Hospital opened in 1905.

Gstaad.

During the Middle Ages, Gstaad village developed at the fork in the trails into the Valais and Vaud. It had an inn, a warehouse for storing trade goods and oxen to help pull wagons over the alpine passes by the 13th-14th centuries. The St. Nicholas chapel was built in the village in 1402, while the murals are from the second half of the 15th century. The village was dominated by cattle farming and agriculture until the great fire of 1898. It was then rebuilt to support the growing tourism industry. In a short time there were more than 1,000 hotel beds in the region.  The Palace Hotel opened in 1913 as Gstaad's first luxury hotel. During the World Wars and the Great Depression, the tourism industry suffered and many hotels closed. After World War II, many of the large hotels remained closed, but they were replaced with a number of smaller non-hotel accommodation (chalets, apartment houses, residences). Most of the modern resorts and small hotels are built out of wood and retain traditional design elements.

Abländschen.

Abländschen is a small hamlet in the upper Jaun valley. It is the only Bernese settlement in the otherwise Fribourg valley. Its population was 52 in 1990, down from a peak of 132 in 1888. The area was transferred in 1555 along with the rest of the Saanen parish from the Counts of Gruyere to Bern. Abländschen has always been hard to reach from Saanen and even today it can only be reached by a road from Boltigen over the Jaun Pass. Agriculture is still important to this day and is still the most important source of income. About one-third of the farms have a home farm, a spring pasture and alpine shelters. However, almost all farmers also have a second job either in forestry, tourism or as commuters to another town for weekday work.

Geography.

Saanen has an area of. Of this area, or 51.3% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 35.3% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 4.6% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.6% is either rivers or lakes and or 8.3% is unproductive land.  Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 2.4% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.4%. Out of the forested land, 27.6% of the total land area is heavily forested and 5.5% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 15.3% is pastures and 35.9% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. Of the unproductive areas, 4.8% is unproductive vegetation and 3.5% is too rocky for vegetation.  The municipality is located in the upper Saane valley. It consists of the economic center and district capital, the village of Saanen along with the villages of Gstaad, Abländschen, Bissen, Ebnit, Gruben, Grund, Kalberhöni, Saanen, Saanenmöser, Schönried, and Turbach.

Coat of arms.

The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is "Gules a Crane rising Argent beaked and membered Or on a Mount of 3 Coupeaux of the second."

Demographics.

Saanen has a population () of., 24.6% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000–2010) the population has changed at a rate of 5.4%. Migration accounted for 6.1%, while births and deaths accounted for 1.4%.  Most of the population () speaks German (5,676 or 82.1%) as their first language, French is the second most common (247 or 3.6%) and Portuguese is the third (239 or 3.5%). There are 120 people who speak Italian and 5 people who speak Romansh. , the population was 50.2% male and 49.8% female. The population was made up of 2,584 Swiss men (37.2% of the population) and 906 (13.0%) non-Swiss men. There were 2,661 Swiss women (38.3%) and 804 (11.6%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 3,000 or about 43.4% were born in Saanen and lived there in 2000. There were 1,267 or 18.3% who were born in the same canton, while 842 or 12.2% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 1,392 or 20.1% were born outside of Switzerland. , children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 24.3% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 60.3% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 15.4%. , there were 3,104 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 3,147 married individuals, 390 widows or widowers and 273 individuals who are divorced. , there were 2,660 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.3 persons per household. There were 1,006 households that consist of only one person and 205 households with five or more people., a total of 2,446 apartments (48.8% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 2,325 apartments (46.4%) were seasonally occupied and 242 apartments (4.8%) were empty., the construction rate of new housing units was 5.4 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality,, was 1.48%.  The historical population is given in the following chart:

Heritage sites of national significance.

The Alte Kastlanei and the Church are listed as Swiss heritage site of national significance. The entire village of Saanen is part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites.

Politics.

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 54.58% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the FDP (17.06%), the SPS (8.03%) and the Green Party (5.92%). In the federal election, a total of 2,084 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 48.8%.

Economy.

, Saanen had an unemployment rate of 1.8%., there were 491 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 202 businesses involved in this sector. 1,199 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 110 businesses in this sector. 3,969 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 414 businesses in this sector. , there were 1,013 workers who commuted into the municipality and 256 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net importer of workers, with about 4.0 workers entering the municipality for every one leaving. Of the working population, 5.7% used public transportation to get to work, and 44.3% used a private car.

Religion.

From the, 1,089 or 15.8% were Roman Catholic, while 4,363 or 63.1% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 169 members of an Orthodox church (or about 2.44% of the population), there were 5 individuals (or about 0.07% of the population) who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 564 individuals (or about 8.16% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 15 individuals (or about 0.22% of the population) who were Jewish, and 146 (or about 2.11% of the population) who were Islamic. There were 10 individuals who were Buddhist and 6 individuals who belonged to another church. 342 (or about 4.95% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 480 individuals (or about 6.94% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education.

In Saanen about 2,437 or (35.2%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 695 or (10.1%) have completed additional higher education (either university or a "Fachhochschule"). Of the 695 who completed tertiary schooling, 53.2% were Swiss men, 21.4% were Swiss women, 14.7% were non-Swiss men and 10.6% were non-Swiss women.  The Canton of Bern school system provides one year of non-obligatory Kindergarten, followed by six years of Primary school. This is followed by three years of obligatory lower Secondary school where the students are separated according to ability and aptitude. Following the lower Secondary students may attend additional schooling or they may enter an apprenticeship.  During the 2009-10 school year, there were a total of 740 students attending classes in Saanen. There were 7 kindergarten classes with a total of 109 students in the municipality. Of the kindergarten students, 27.5% were permanent or temporary residents of Switzerland (not citizens) and 29.4% have a different mother language than the classroom language. The municipality had 17 primary classes and 335 students. Of the primary students, 13.1% were permanent or temporary residents of Switzerland (not citizens) and 18.5% have a different mother language than the classroom language. During the same year, there were 16 lower secondary classes with a total of 228 students. There were 10.1% who were permanent or temporary residents of Switzerland (not citizens) and 14.9% have a different mother language than the classroom language. , there were 238 students in Saanen who came from another municipality, while 51 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

Private schools.

John F. Kennedy International School is a private boarding school and summer camp located in Saanen. Originally, called Kinderheim Chalet Pfrundacker, the school later became known as John F. Kennedy International School. Founded in 1949 by Fred Sicking and his wife, the school is an institution, with 75 boarding and day students, whose ages range from 5 to 16. JFKIS's (upper) secondary education ("Middle and High School") is neither approved as a Gymnasium by the bureau for gymnasial and vocational education MBA ("Mittelschul- und Berufsbildungsamt MBA"), administration for education ("Erziehungsdirektion"), canton of Bern, nor by the Swiss Federal State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI). It is an English language school and offers daily ski instruction in the Swiss Alps. JFK School has a student-teacher ratio of 3 to 1.  Previously Gstaad International School had its Alpine Lodge Campus in Saanen.

International relations.

Saanen is twinned with:

Saanen () is a municipality in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. It is the capital of the Obersimmental-Saanen administrative district.

Saanen () ist eine politische Gemeinde und der Hauptort im Verwaltungskreis Obersimmental-Saanen des Kantons Bern in der Schweiz. Zur Einwohnergemeinde Saanen gehören die Ortschaften (Bäuert genannt): Saanen als Haupt- und Amtsort, Abländschen, Bissen, Ebnit, Gruben, Grund, Gstaad, Kalberhöni, Saanenmöser, Schönried und Turbach.