Early life and Muslim scholarship.

Al-Qassam was born in Jableh, northwestern Syria, to father Abd al-Qadar, a Sharia court official during Ottoman rule and a local leader of the Qadariyya Sufi order. His grandfather had been a leading sheikh of the Qadariyya order and moved to Jableh from Iraq. Al-Qassam also followed the Hanafi "fiqh" (school of jurisprudence) of Sunni Islam and studied at the local Istambuli Mosque under the teaching of well-known "′alim" (scholar) Sheikh Salim Tayarah.  Sometime between 1902 and 1905, al-Qassam left for Cairo to study at the al-Azhar Mosque. Who he studied with is disputed by sources; some accounts say he studied under the Muslim reformist scholar Muhammad Abduh and came into contact with the prominent proto-Salafist, Rashid Rida, who himself studied under Abduh, while others are skeptical of al-Qassam's relationships with either. However, the attitude al-Qassam later adopted toward the political issues in the Arab world suggests he was well-acquainted with the ideas Abduh and Rida espoused. At al-Azhar, al-Qassam developed the thinking that would guide his future activism. Critical of a stagnant Islam, he preached among the ranks of farmers and other locals about the necessity for a modern Islam, one capable of defending itself from Western colonialism through "jihad" (holy struggle). He returned to Jableh in 1909 as an "′alim" and worked as a teacher at a Qadariyya "madrasa" (Islamic school) where he taught both the mystical practices of the Qadariyya Sufi order and the jurisprudence and commentary of the Qur'an. In addition he preached as the imam of the Ibrahim Ibn Adham Mosque.  Following his return to Jableh, al-Qassam commenced a program of Islamic revival based on moral reforms which included the encouragement of maintaining regular "salaah" (prayer) and the "sawm" (fasting) during Ramadan as well as advocating an end to gambling and alcohol consumption. Al-Qassam's campaign highly influenced Jableh's residents who increasingly adopted his reforms. He developed amiable relations with the local Ottoman police who he would call upon to enforce Sharia law on rare cases of major violations. In some occasions, he would send disciples as vigilantes to intercept caravans transporting alcohol which would then be disposed of. Despite the support for Arab nationalism from some of his fellow alumni at al-Azhar and among Syrian notables, al-Qassam's loyalties most likely laid with the Ottoman Empire as his relationship with the authorities would indicate. He was well-regarded among much of Jableh's population where he gained a reputation for piety, simple manners and good humor.

Support for Libyan resistance.

Following Italy's September 1911 invasion of Libya, al-Qassam began collecting funds in Jableh for the joint Ottoman-Libyan resistance movement and composed a victory anthem. Jableh's district governor sought to gain control over the fundraiser and when locals nevertheless continued to send their donations to al-Qassam, he attempted to have him jailed. The district governor alleged that al-Qassam was working against the Ottoman state, but an official investigation found him not guilty and the governor was consequently dismissed.  In June 1912, during one of his Friday prayer sermons, he called for volunteers to engage in a "jihad" against the Italians. Accepting only volunteers with prior Ottoman military training, al-Qassam enlisted dozens of volunteers and set up a fund for the expedition to Libya as well as a small pension for the families of volunteers while they were abroad. Although accounts vary, al-Qassam was accompanied by 60 to 250 volunteers known as "mujahideen" (those who engage in jihad) when he arrived in Alexandretta in the latter part of that year. Intending to gain sea transportation from the Ottomans, al-Qassam's request was rejected by the authorities who ordered him and his men back to Jableh. A new Ottoman government in Istanbul had gained power and shifted the state's focus to the Balkan front in October, abandoning the Libyan resistance. Part of the money that was raised was then used to establish a "madrasa" in Jableh while the remainder was saved for future efforts.

Anti-French resistance in Syria.

He later enlisted in the Ottoman army when World War I broke out, where he received military training and was attached as a chaplain to a base near Damascus. Returning to Jableh before the war's end, al-Qassam used funds from his planned expedition to Libya to organize a local defense force to fight the French occupation. His principal role in the local resistance was financing the acquisition of weapons for Jableh's militia. By 1919, French forces moved into the coastal area of northern Syria while Faisal I established the Kingdom of Syria in Damascus as an independent Arab state. During this period, al-Qassam's Jableh militia fought against local French-backed Alawite militiamen who occupied areas around the city. The Alawites were eventually repelled, but French forces moved in soon after to consolidate their control. Consequently, al-Qassam and many of his disciples left Jableh for Mount Sahyun where he established a base near the village of Zanqufeh to launch guerrilla raids against the French Army.  Al-Qassam's militia grew when it was joined by another militia based in the mountains following the death of its commander Umar al-Bitar. However, as the French tightened their control of the area, they were able to successfully pressure several of Jableh's major landowners to drop their financial support for al-Qassam and pay taxes to the French Mandate government. This further isolated al-Qassam who decided to flee Mount Sahyun for Aleppo in May 1920. There he and his fighters joined ranks with Ibrahim Hananu who was leading attacks against the French Army until the latter captured Jisr ash-Shugur in July. As a result of this French victory and the impending capitulation of Aleppo, al-Qassam and members of his unit fled past French Army lines with forged passports to Tartus.

Activism in Palestine.

Establishment in Haifa.

From Tartus, al-Qassam traveled to Beirut by boat and then to Haifa, then under the British Mandate, where his wife and daughters later joined him. During the early 1920s, al-Qassam taught at the Madrasa Islamiya, an Islamic educational institution with many schools in Haifa and its periphery. It was funded by the Jamiat Islamiya, a "waqf" (religious endowments) administered by prominent Muslims from the city. Unlike other Muslim scholars, al-Qassam made himself easily accessible to the public and often arrived late to teach his classes because he was frequently stopped by passersby for advice. He resigned from his teaching career due to the school's insistence that he maintain consistent hours. As part of his Islamic revivalist teaching, he denounced and discouraged some local Palestinian traditions, including unorthodox funeral rituals, mothers' visitation to the al-Khidr shrine near Mount Carmel to give thanks for their children's well-being or achievements and tribal dances around religious sites, as superstitious innovations to Islam.  Al-Qassam concentrated his activities on the lower classes, setting up a night school for casual laborers and preaching to them as an imam, first in the Jerini Mosque, and later in the Istiqlal Mosque. He would seek them out on the streets, in brothels and hashish dens. His greatest following came from the landless ex-tenant farmers drifting into Haifa from the Upper Galilee where purchases of agricultural land by the Jewish National Fund and Hebrew labor policies excluding Arabs had dispossessed many of their traditional livelihoods. Al-Qassam grew increasingly popular with northern Palestine's poorer Muslims and was frequently sought out to preach at Mawlid celebrations.  In 1929 he was appointed the marriage registrar at the sharia court in Haifa by the Waqf authorities in Jerusalem, a role that allowed him to tour the northern villages, whose inhabitants he encouraged to set up agricultural cooperatives. According to the American historian Edmund Burke, al-Qassam was:An individual deeply imbued with the Islamic social gospel and who was struck by the plight of Palestinian peasants and migrants. Al-Qassam's pastoral concern was linked to his moral outrage as a Muslim at the ways in which the old implicit social compact was being violated in the circumstances of British mandatory Palestine. This anger fueled a political radicalism that drove him eventually to take up arms and marks him off from the Palestinian notable politicians.  He also took advantage of his travels to deliver fiery political and religious sermons in which he encouraged villagers to organize resistance units to attack the British and Jews. He intensified his agitation and obtained a fatwa from Shaykh Badr al-Din al-Taji al-Hasani, the Mufti of Damascus, which ruled that the struggle against the British and the Jews was permissible.

Relationship with local leaders.

According to Israeli historian Shai Lachman, between 1921 and 1935 al-Qassam often cooperated with Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. They were initially on good terms, and al-Qassam's various official appointments required the mufti's prior consent. He suggests their cooperation increased after the 1929 riots, in which one source claims al-Qassam's men were active. The two fell out in the mid-1930s, perhaps due to al-Qassam's independent line of activism. In 1933, al-Qassam sent an emissary to al-Husseini, requesting the latter's participation in a revolt against the British. At the time, al-Husseini refused, preferring a political solution.  Between 1928 until his death, al-Qassam served as the president of the Young Men's Muslim Association (YMMA) in Haifa. While he focused his activism with the lower classes, his position in the YMMA afforded him access with the middle and educated classes of the city who were attracted to Hizb al-Istiqlal (Independence Party), an Arab nationalist political party. In particular, he developed a strong relationship with leading local party member Rashid al-Hajj Ibrahim, the previous president of the Haifa YMMA. A wide ideological gap between the secularist al-Istiqlal and al-Qassam was bridged by a convergence in the view that the struggle against Zionist expansion in Palestine was inseparable from active opposition to British rule. This view separated al-Qassam and al-Istiqlal from the mainstream political forces in Palestine at the time. While men from al-Istiqlal and the YMMA generally refrained from joining al-Qassam's cause, his association with them helped protect him from political figures who opposed his activism. His activities were also financed by several well-off businessmen associated with al-Istiqlal due to his spreading reputation.

Organization of armed struggle.

In 1930 or 1931, al-Qassam had recruited numerous hand-picked followers and organized them into about a dozen different circles, each group of supporters unaware of the existence of the other groups. The majority of his men were peasants and urban laborers. The majority of al-Qassam's circles were based in northern Palestine, but he had disciples throughout the country, including in Gaza in the south. In contrast to traditional Palestinian leaders who campaigned against Zionist settlement while avoiding confrontation with the British authorities, al-Qassam saw it as a priority to fight against both. He also saw the brewing conflict in Palestine as a religious struggle, unlike most Palestinian leaders who advocated a secular and nationalist response. Al-Qassam advocated a moral, political and military "jihad" as the solution to end British rule and Zionist aspirations in Palestine.  In training his men, al-Qassam stressed that maintaining good character was of paramount importance. As such, fighters should provide for the needy, aid people with illness, maintain good ties with their families and pray regularly to God. These virtues, he claimed, were prerequisites to being disciplined and fearless fighters. The moral component of al-Qassam's teachings were especially geared towards the young men of Haifa's labor slums who lived away from their families and who were exposed to activities considered immoral in Islam. He viewed marriage as key to preventing the moral corruption of young men and managed to financially aid his more destitute supporters with their wedding expenses. He encouraged his men to grow beards as a sign of their commitment to "jihad" and to carry a Qur'an with them wherever they went. Although many of his followers had been illiterate, he taught them how to read and write using the Qur'an as their basis for learning. Al-Qassam also asked his fighters to engage in the spiritual exercises practiced by the Qadiriyya Sufi order and to recite Sufi chants before battle.  The guerrilla bands became known as the Black Hand ("al-kaff al-aswad"), an anti-Zionist and anti-British militant organization. The idea for such a group appeared to have crystallized after the 1929 riots. From the outset, a split occurred in the movement. One faction led by Abu Ibrahim al-Kabir argued for immediate attacks against British and Jewish targets, while the other faction, headed by al-Qassam, thought than an armed revolt was premature and risked exposing the group's preparations. According to Subhi Yasin, a comrade of al-Qassam, the group's attacks in the north were executed by Abu Ibrahim's group in defiance of al-Qassam, though in 1969, Abu Ibrahim denied this allegation. The Black Hand's ensuing campaign began with the ambush and killing of three members of Kibbutz Yagur on 11 April 1931, a failed bomb attack on outlying Jewish homes in Haifa in early 1932, and several operations that killed or wounded four members of northern Jewish settlements. The campaign climaxed with the deaths of a Jewish father and son in Nahalal, from a bomb thrown into their home, on 22 December 1932.  By 1935, al-Qassam had recruited several hundred men—the figures range from 200 to 800—organized in cells of five men, and arranged military training for peasants. The cells were equipped with bombs and firearms, which they used to raid Jewish settlements and sabotage British-constructed rail lines. Though striking a responsive chord among the rural poor and urban underclass, al-Qassam's movement deeply perturbed the Muslim urban elite as it threatened their political and patronage connections with the British Mandatory authorities. Following the October 1935 discovery of a clandestine cache of arms in the port of Jaffa apparently originating from Belgium and destined for the Haganah, a Jewish paramilitary force, Palestinian Arab indignation broke out in two general strikes. The arms shipment to the Haganah served as the final impetus for al-Qassam to launch a revolt against the authorities.

Death.

On 8 November the body of a Palestine Police constable, Moshe Rosenfeld, was discovered near Ein Harod. Al-Qassam and his followers were believed to have been responsible and search parties set out to capture him. In this context, al-Qassam and twelve of his men decided to go underground and, leaving Haifa, took to the hills between Jenin and Nablus. There they spent ten days on the move, during which they were fed by the residents of villages in the area. The British police manhunt eventually surrounded al-Qassam in a cave near Ya'bad, in the village of Sheikh Zeid. In the long ensuing firefight, al-Qassam and three of his followers were killed, and five captured on 20 November.  The manner of his last stand galvanized Palestinians at the time, according to American historian Abdallah Schleifer:  Surrounded, he told his men to die as martyrs, and opened fire. His defiance and manner of his death (which stunned the traditional leadership) electrified the Palestinian people. Thousands forced their way past police lines at the funeral in Haifa, and the secular Arab nationalist parties invoked his memory as the symbol of resistance. It was the largest political gathering ever to assemble in mandatory Palestine.  To the surprise of the Palestine Police Force, al-Qassam's funeral, which was held at the Jerini Mosque, attracted at least 3,000 mourners, mostly members of the peasant and working classes. His coffin and those of his slain comrades were draped in the flags of Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, the only three independent Arab countries at the time. In reaction to al-Qassam's death, strikes were held in Haifa and several Palestinian and Syrian cities. Al-Qassam is buried at the Muslim cemetery at the former Palestinian village of Balad al-Sheikh, now Nesher, a Jewish suburb of Haifa. An obituary for al-Qassam was published in the Egyptian newspaper "Al-Ahram" on 22 November, eulogizing him as a "martyr" with the following statement: "I heard you preaching from up in the pulpit, summoning to the sword... Through your death you are more eloquent than ever you were in life."

Legacy.

Five months following al-Qassam's death, members of his movement, known as "Qassamiyun" or "Qassamites", also "Ikhwan al-Qassam", (the Brothers of al-Qassam) under the leadership of Farhan al-Sa'di, al-Qassam's spiritual heir, shot and killed two Jewish passengers on a bus and shot 3 Jewish drivers, killing 2, in the 1936 Anabta shooting, acts that became major contributing factors in the start of the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine. Peasant and urban guerrilla factions ("fasa'il") led by the Qassamiyun played a significant role in commencing the countrywide revolt. At the start of the revolt, al-Qassam's close disciples al-Sa'di, Abu Ibrahim al-Kabir, and Attiyah Ahmad Awad led "fasa'il" in the Jenin region, the Upper Galilee and Balad al-Sheikh, respectively.  Al-Qassam, according to Palestinian-American Rashid Khalidi, played a crucial role in winning the populace away from the elite-brokered politics of compromise with the British, and in showing them the "correct" path of popular armed struggle against the British and the Zionists.  The first Israeli prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, compared the glory that al-Qassam's actions aroused in the 1930s to the fame won in Zionist discourse by Zionist activist Joseph Trumpeldor who died in a battle with Arab forces. Recalling this, Israeli historian Tom Segev has argued that "The terrorists that al-Qassam led and the intifada fighters, more recently, may also be likened to the terrorists that Menachem Begin led."  Although al-Qassam's revolt was unsuccessful in his lifetime, militant organizations gained inspiration from his example. His funeral drew thousands, which turned into a mass demonstration of national unity. The Palestinian fedayeen who emerged in the 1960s saw al-Qassam as their originator. The founders of the Palestinian nationalist armed movement Fatah had initially considered naming their group the "Qassamiyun". Leila Khaled, a well-known member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, once stated that her organization began "where al-Qassam left off: his generation started the revolution, my generation intends to finish it."  The military wing of the Palestinian Islamist armed movement Hamas, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, bears his name as does the Qassam rocket, a short-range rocket the group produces and uses.

Izz ad-Din Abd al-Qadar ibn Mustafa ibn Yusuf ibn Muhammad al-Qassam (1881 or 19 December 1882 Al-Qassam studied at Al-Azhar University in Egypt and afterward became an Islamic revivalist preacher in his hometown of Jableh in Syria during the last years of Ottoman rule. Following his return, he became an active supporter of the Libyan resistance to Italian rule, raising funds and fighters to aid the Libyans and penning an anthem for them. He would later lead his own group of rebels in alliance with Ibrahim Hananu to fight against French Mandatory forces in northern Syria in 1919–20.

Scheich Izz Abd al-Kader Mustafa Yusuf ad-Din al-Qassam oder Isaddin al-Kassam (; * 1882 in Dschabla bei Latakia, Osmanisches Reich; † 20. November 1935 in Palästina) war ein einflussreicher islamistischer Geistlicher während der Zeit des britischen Kolonialmandats in Palästina nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg. Er war ein militanter Gegner der britischen Kolonialmacht und der zionistischen Bewegung in Palästina.


Early life.

Jean Plantureux received his Baccalaureate from Lycée Henri-IV in 1969. Though he initially intended to pursue the study of medicine, he soon gave this up and moved to Brussels, where he enrolled in drawing courses at the École Saint-Luc.

Early professional career.

Plantu returned to Paris and attempted to sell his cartoons to the French daily newspapers. He was hired by Bernard Lauzanne of "Le Monde" and his first cartoon, about the Vietnam War, was published on October 1, 1972. In 1974, Claude Julien, then-director of "Le Monde Diplomatique", also began publishing Plantu's drawings.  In 1980 Plantu began to work with "Le Journal Phosphore", a relationship which would continue until 1986. In 1982, André Laurens and Claude Lamotte, respectively the director and editor in chief of "Le Monde", asked him to begin drawing cartoons for the Sunday edition of the newspaper. In September 1987, Plantu appeared on the television show "Droit de Réponse", with Michel Polac, on TF1.  In 1985, the head of "Le Monde", André Fontaine, started to publish Plantu's cartoons daily, saying that this would return political satire back to its former standing as a French tradition.

1985 - 1995.

In 1988 Plantu received the Mumm prize for his cartoon "Gordji chez le juge", followed by a "prix de l'humour noir" in 1989. In 1991, Plantu began to publish a comic in the weekly magazine "L'Express", which allotted him its entire third page every week.  In 1991 Plantu met Yasser Arafat during a showing of his cartoons in Tunis. Arafat liked Plantu's cartoons so much that he drew a Star of David on a Plantu cartoon, colored it in and signed it. The following year, Plantu traveled to Israel and met Shimon Peres, whom he convinced to sign the cartoon as well. This was the first time that signatures from both the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Israeli government had been affixed to the same document.

1995 - 2000.

"Le Monde" changed its methodology in 1995, causing Plantu to lose control over the subject matter of his cartoons. In 1996, Plantu had a showing of his cartoons and sculptures at the Cour de cassation (French Supreme Court) in Paris. Later that year he received the Spanish Gat Perich (International Caricature Prize). Some of his drawings and sculptures were auctioned at the Drouot Hotel in Paris, and he received exposure in Argentina through the Alliance Française of Buenos Aires.  In 1997 Plantu opened a gallery in Khartoum, Sudan. In Budapest, the president of the Hungary, Árpád Göncz, inaugurated an exhibit of Plantu and Gabor Papai. He also opened a new gallery opens at the French Arts centre of Mexico City. Finally, a collection of his work was exhibited at CRAC in Valence, France.  In 1998 a stamp worth three French francs was produced by the French postal service, with the proceeds dedicated to Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). A total of 8.5 million stamps were produced. To celebrate the 50th anniverseray of the universal Declaration of Human Rights, UNESCO published several foreign collections illustrated by Plantu. His drawings were translated into Chinese, Japanese, Ukrainian, and other languages. That same year he opened a gallery at the French Institute of Port-au-Prince, Haiti.  In 1999, Plantu opened a gallery at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Some of his drawings were exhibited in Iran at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Teheran; in the Hotel of Rohan; at the Museum Jean-Jaurès de Castres; and at the French Arts centre of Singapore.  In September 2000 a controversy arose involving the distribution of a Plantu drawing showing Jacques Chirac copulating with a sleeping Marianne. An exhibit of Plantu and Daumier written by curator Cyril Dumas opened in the Museum of Yves Brayer les Baux de Provence. The exhibition described traits shared by both caricaturists. Another installation opened that year at the French Arts center in Yaoundé, Cameroun.

2001 - present.

Plantu's art was featured in the Festival of the Caricature in Ankara, Turkey in 2001. In 2002, he met United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, to discuss an upcoming international conference of news cartoonists in Paris. A thesis was published by Rémi Pézerat entitled "La signification politique des dessins de Plantu (1972-2000)"(The Political Significance of the Cartoons of Plantu (1972-2000)). Plantu celebrated the publishing of his 15,000th cartoon and his thirtieth anniversary with "Le Monde", and launched his own website.  In 2003 an exhibit of his drawings was opened at the Carnavalet Museum. Toward the end of the year another exhibit opened at the Library of Alexandria in Egypt, as well as a street exhibition in Angers, France.  In 2004 his drawings were shown to the French National Assembly in February, and his 40th book, "Ils pourraient dire merci!" was published.  On February 3, 2006 he responded to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy by publishing a drawing in the first page of "Le Monde" representing Muhammad using many copies of the sentence "I may not draw Muhammad".  In 2009, another controversy occurred when the group "America Needs Fatima" launched a vast e-mail campaign against Plantu because of a drawing on Jesus distributing condoms, instead of loaves of bread, to poor people in Africa.  In 2015, his cartoon, which shows an IDF soldier firing his gun at Palestinian civilians, joined by a stereotypical religious Jew, depicted with a long beard, hat and coat, and even a rifle on his shoulder made a serious scandal and rose emotions on a 'Blood libel' accusation against Israeli Jews.

Jean Plantureux (born March 23, 1951 in Paris), who goes by the professional name Plantu, is a French cartoonist specializing in political satire. His work has regularly appeared in the French newspaper "Le Monde" since 1972.

Jean Plantureux (* 23. März 1951 in Paris) ist einer der bekanntesten politischen Karikaturisten Frankreichs. Unter dem Künstlernamen Plantu arbeitet er seit 1972 für die Tageszeitung Le Monde und seit 1991 für die Wochenzeitung L’Express.


Overview.

was the fourth nuclear-powered cruiser in the US Navy; the previous three were, and. The second "California"-class cruiser,, was the fifth nuclear-powered cruiser in the US Navy. Other than the four ships of the Soviet Navy's, which were actually built with a combination of nuclear and fossil-fuel propulsion, no other country has launched nuclear-powered cruisers.  Only two ships of the class were built, "California" and "South Carolina", and both were decommissioned in late 1999. These ships were followed on by the four nuclear-powered cruisers of the. These cruisers were named for states because they were seen as quite large, powerful, capable and survivable ships. Also, in the meantime, the names of cities had been given to the nuclear submarines in the very large, which eventually expanded to 62 boats, all (but one) named for American cities.  USS "California" and her sister ship, USS "South Carolina", were equipped with two Mk 13 launchers, fore and aft, capable of firing the Standard SM-1MR or SM-2MR surface-to-air missiles, one Mk 112 launcher for ASROC missiles, and eight Mk-141 launch tubes for Harpoon missiles. They were equipped with two Mk 45 5-inch rapid-fire guns, fore and aft. Four 12.75-inch torpedo launchers (two on each side, protruding from their magazine space on the main deck) were fitted for light weight anti-submarine torpedoes. Two Mk 15 Phalanx 20 mm gun systems were fitted in the 1980s.  The ships were originally designed to carry and launch the Mark 48 torpedo from a large space beneath the flight deck aft. Although a surface-launched version of the Mk 48 was never produced, the ships retained this large magazine space until their retirement.  Both ships underwent a mid-life refueling overhaul in the early 1990s to give them a further 18 years active service. This modernization upgraded their two 150 MW D2G reactor plants with new 165 MW D2W reactor cores, installed the New Threat Upgrade (NTU) to improve their AAW capability, and removed their ASW capability, which involved disabling their SQS-26 sonar and removing their ASROC anti-submarine weapons, though the two triple Mk 32 ASW torpedo launchers were retained. External differences resulting from this modernization included the removal of the ASROC launcher and the large deckhouse forward of it that served as the ASROC magazine, replacement of the SPS-40 radar antenna with the SPS-49 antenna, and replacement of the SPS-48C with the larger SPS-48E antenna. Both ships retained the bulbous sonar domes at the forefoot (beneath the waterline) until retirement, even after their sonar systems were disabled. While the ships were as modernized as much as possible, and were capable of service until 2010; they still were only capable of firing SM-2MR missiles from their Mk-13 launchers, and their high cost of operation made them targets for early retirement, and were both decommissioned in 1999.

The "California" class of cruisers were a set of two nuclear-powered guided missile cruisers operated by the United States Navy between 1974 and 1998. Other than their nuclear power supply and lack of helicopter hangars, ships of the "California" class were comparable to other guided missile cruisers of their era, such as the. The class was built as a follow-up to the nuclear-powered,, and classes. Like all of the nuclear cruisers, which could steam for years between refuelings, the "California" class was designed in part to provide high endurance escort for the navy's nuclear aircraft carriers, which were often limited in range due to their conventionally powered escorts continuously needing to be refueled.

Die California-Klasse war eine Klasse von Atomkreuzern, die in der United States Navy zwischen 1974 und 1998 in Dienst standen und zwei Einheiten umfasste, die USS California (CGN-36) und die USS South Carolina (CGN-37). Ihre Hauptaufgabe war die Luftverteidigung für die ebenfalls nuklear getriebenen Flugzeugträger.


Early life and education.

Lawford was born in Santa Monica, California on March 29, 1955, at Saint John's Health Center. He was named for Saint Christopher and because his mother liked the name. He was the eldest child and only son of actor and "Rat Pack" member Peter Lawford (1923–1984) and Patricia "Pat" Kennedy Lawford (1924–2006), who was President John F. Kennedy's sister. His three younger sisters were Sydney Lawford McKelvy (born 1956), Victoria Pender (born 1958), and Robin Lawford (born 1961). Lawford described himself as a "second-string Kennedy" because he did not get as much attention as his cousins. His parents divorced in 1966; Patricia Lawford moved from California to New York City with her son and daughters.  Before his parents' divorce, Lawford attended St. Martin of Tours Elementary School in Los Angeles, where at the age of 8, he was informed about his uncle John F. Kennedy's assassination. After moving to New York City with his mother, he attended the Middlesex School, a prep school in Concord, Massachusetts. He graduated from Tufts University in 1977 and earned a J.D. degree from Boston College Law School in 1983. He later earned a master's certificate in Clinical Psychology from Harvard University, and lectured on drug addiction at Harvard, Columbia University, and other colleges.

Drug and legal issues.

In 1969, the year after his uncle Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated, when Lawford was 14, he was introduced to LSD by his peers at school. He was addicted to alcohol, cocaine, uppers, downers, and "any other drugs he could buy" for the next 17 years. During that time, he was "in and out of hospitals and arrested three times", including in 1980, for impersonating a doctor in Aspen, Colorado in order to purchase prescription medication. The charges were later dropped when Lawford completed his probation. In 2000, Lawford was diagnosed with hepatitis C, which he contracted due to his years of drug use.  Lawford briefly attended Fordham Law School, but dropped out after a few months due to his dependency on heroin. In April 1984, the same year his father Peter Lawford died at the age of 61, after years of alcohol and drug abuse, Lawford's cousin and best friend David Kennedy, and third oldest son of Robert Kennedy, who also battled substance abuse issues, died of a drug overdose at the age of 28. David's death prompted Lawford to seek professional help for his issues. In 1986, at the age of 30, Lawford entered rehab and got treatment for his drug addiction, and remained clean and sober until his death in 2018.

Career.

Acting.

Lawford chose to become, like his father, an actor in the mid 1980s, after realizing that a law career would not suit him. He performed in commercials in Boston for two years, and then he and his wife moved to Southern California in 1988 so that he could pursue an acting career. He worked in film and television for over 20 years. His acting credits included the sitcom "Frasier" and the drama "The O.C.". In 2003, he had a brief stint on the soap opera "General Hospital", but was best known for playing Philip “Charlie” Brent, Jr. on "All My Children" from 1992 to 1995.  Lawford had small roles in films such as "The Russia House", a 1990 spy thriller co-starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Sean Connery, and the 1991 rock-music film "The Doors", which was directed by Oliver Stone. Lawford played a Navy officer in the 2000 film "Thirteen Days", a drama about the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1997, Lawford had a role in the independent comedy "Kiss Me Guido" as the gay lover of the main character. He also had a small role in "Terminator 3", co-starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, who directed Lawford in a 1990 episode of the HBO anthology series "Tales from the Crypt" ("The Switch") and was married to Lawford's cousin Maria Shriver at the time. In 2005, Lawford appeared in the motorcycle racing film "The World's Fastest Indian", co-starring Anthony Hopkins.

Writing.

Lawford wrote several books "that described his efforts to recover from drug addiction". In 2005, he published his memoir, "Symptoms of Withdrawal", in which he recounted decades of "better living through chemistry". In 2009, he wrote "Moments of Clarity", a compilation of first-person recollections by famous addicts, including Ed Begley, Jr., Alec Baldwin, Buzz Aldrin, Richard Dreyfuss, Martin Sheen, Judy Collins, and musician and federal prisoner Dejuan Verrett. The book was dedicated to Lawford's cousin David Kennedy, and another cousin, Patrick J. Kennedy, wrote the introduction. Lawford told interviewer Connie Martinson that although writing "Moments of Clarity" was "difficult" and he did not want to do it, the book was "meant to happen".  In 2013, Lawford published "Recover to Live: Kick Any Habit, Manage Any Addiction", in which he interviewed 100 addiction specialists and described treatments for alcohol and drug dependence, gambling, sex and porn, eating disorders, smoking, and hoarding. In 2014, he published "What Addicts Know: 10 Lessons From Recovery To Benefit Everyone"; Dr. Drew Pinsky wrote the foreword. Lawford's final book about addiction and recovery was 2016's "When Your Partner Has an Addiction", "a how-to manual for people who want to stay with their addicted partners", which he co-authored with psychotherapist Beverly Engel.  Lawford also wrote a book about dealing with hepatitis C, called "Healing Hepatitis C", which he co-wrote with Diana Sylvestre in 2009.

Activism.

Lawford traveled around the U.S. speaking about his experiences with addiction for 20 years. He was a public health campaigner, and worked with the World Health Organization (WHO), the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, and the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse, and was a public advocacy consultant to Caron Treatment Centers, on organization that ran treatment programs. In 2001, Lawford founded and was CEO of the Global Recovery Initiative, a not-for-profit organization that "seeks to remove barriers and provide opportunities for people in recovery".  Lawford also worked with the United Nations (UN). In March 2010, he traveled to Ukraine on behalf of the UN, to participate in a discussion with health officials and advocates about "issues related to hepatitis C (Hep C) prevention in Ukraine", and to raise awareness. In 2011, was named a Goodwill Ambassador on Drug Dependence Treatment and Care, in 2012, was involved in a campaign against opiate use in Afghanistan, and served on the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime. His cousin, former Rhode Island congressman Patrick J. Kennedy, said about Lawford: "Chris was one of those people who had a way of telling stories that lifted people’s perceptions and judgments of those who suffer from the disease of addiction".

Personal life.

Marriages and children.

Lawford was married and divorced three times. He had three children, David Christopher Kennedy Lawford (named after his cousin David Kennedy), Savannah Rose Lawford, and Matthew Peter Valentine Lawford with his first wife Jeannie Olsson, an ad-sales assistant for "New York Magazine". They divorced in 2000. In 2005, he married Russian actress Lana Antonova; they divorced in 2009. In 2014, Lawford married yoga instructor Mercedes Miller in Hawaii. At the time of his death in 2018, he had been in relationship with his girlfriend Kyla Resch since August 2017.

Death.

On September 4, 2018, Lawford died of a heart attack in Vancouver, British Columbia, where he was living with his girlfriend and working to open a recovery center. He had a medical emergency at a yoga studio and later died. Patrick Kennedy told the Associated Press that Lawford had been doing "hot yoga, which he did often, but the strain of it'must have been too much for him at that point'". Lawford's cousins Maria Shriver, Patrick Kennedy, and Kerry Kennedy took to Twitter after his death, honoring Lawford's work in the recovery community.

Christopher Kennedy Lawford (March 29, 1955 – September 4, 2018) was an American author, actor, and activist. He was a member of the prominent Kennedy family, and son of actor Peter Lawford and Patricia "Pat" Kennedy Lawford, who was the sister of President John F. Kennedy. He graduated from Tufts University in 1977 and earned a law degree from Boston College in 1983. He later earned a master's certificate in Clinical Psychology from Harvard University, and was a lecturer on drug addiction.

Christopher Kennedy Lawford (* 29. März 1955 in Santa Monica, Kalifornien; † 4. September 2018 in Vancouver, British Columbia) war ein US-amerikanischer Film- und Fernsehschauspieler sowie Buchautor.


Biography.

Henry-Russell Hitchcock was born in Boston and educated at Middlesex School and Harvard University, receiving his A.B. in 1924 and his M.A. in 1927. While teaching at Wesleyan University in Connecticut in the 1930, Hitchcock curated an exhibition on Berenice Abbott's photographs of urban vernacular American architecture.  In the early 1930s, at the request of Alfred Barr, Hitchcock collaborated with Philip Johnson (and Lewis Mumford) on "Modern Architecture: International Exhibition" at the Museum of Modern Art (1932), the exhibition that presented the new "International Style" architecture of Europe to an American audience. Hitchcock and Johnson's co-authored book "The International Style: Architecture Since 1922" was published simultaneously with the MoMA exhibit.  Four years later Hitchcock's book, "The Architecture of H. H. Richardson and His Times" (1936) brought the career of American architect Henry Hobson Richardson out of obscurity while also arguing that the distant roots of European Modernism were actually to be found in the United States. Hitchcock's "In the Nature of Materials" (1942) continued to emphasize the American roots of Modern architecture, in this case by focusing on the career of Frank Lloyd Wright.  In 1948, Hitchcock published the essay in the book/exhibition catalogue "Painting toward architecture: The Miller Company Collection of Abstract Art" (Meriden, CT). The foreword was written by Alfred Barr, and the main organizer of the exhibition, and Miller Co. art director, was art collector Emily Hall Tremaine. The exhibition originated at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford and travelled to several venues across the United States (1947–52). At the time, Hitchcock was teaching at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT. He arranged for a second viewing, with a different selection of works, after his arrival to Smith College.  Hitchcock taught at a number of colleges and universities, but primarily at Smith College (where he was also Director of the Smith College Museum of Art from 1949 to 1955). In 1968 he moved to New York City and thereafter taught at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. He also taught at Wesleyan University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale University, Harvard University, and Cambridge University.  He was also a founding member of the Victorian Society in Great Britain and an early president of the Victorian Society in America. One of that Society's book awards is the "Henry-Russell Hitchcock Award." An "Alice Davis Hitchcock Award" is awarded by both the Society of Architectural Historians and the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain (SAHGB) and named after Hitchcock's mother.  Hitchcock was gay, one of several gay men in the arts and humanities to emerge from Harvard.  Hitchcock focused primarily on the formal aspects of design and he regarded the individual architect as the chief determinant in architectural history. Hitchcock's work tended to diminish the role of broader social forces. He has sometimes been criticised for this "great man" or "genealogical" approach.  Over the course of Hitchcock's career, he produced more than a dozen books on architecture. His "Architecture: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries" (1958) is an exhaustive study of more than 150 years of architecture that was widely used as a textbook in architectural history courses from the 1960s to the 1980s, and is still a useful reference today.  Hitchcock died of cancer at age 83.

Henry-Russell Hitchcock (1903–1987) was an American architectural historian. A long-time professor at Smith College and New York University, his writings helped to define modern architecture.

Henry-Russell Hitchcock (* 3. Juni 1903 in Boston; † 19. Februar 1987 in New York City) war US-amerikanischer Architekturhistoriker, Museumsleiter sowie Architekturkritiker und -theoretiker.


Early years.

Wedgwood was born in London in 1883, the son of Alfred Allen Wedgwood, son of Hensleigh Wedgwood and Rosina Margaret Ingall. In 1894 he was sent to Windlesham House School, leaving for Brighton College in 1897. He then studied at University College, Nottingham, with the intention of making a living as a chemist, but found himself attracted to High Anglican worship, becoming an altar server and later being sent to York Minster, where as choirmaster he trained boys in plainchant.

Theosophy and Co-Masonry.

In 1904 Wedgwood attended a lecture on Theosophy given by Annie Besant in York. Having heard her once previously in Nottingham, he determined to end his interest in Theosophy by attending a second lecture and ridding himself of "that woman". Three days later he joined the Theosophical Society and was forbidden to return to the church. Citing the local canon, he wrote: "The Vicar could not have such a heretic as a church official!" He gave up the idea of ever having a career in the church and decided to dedicate himself to the work of the Theosophical Society and serving as General Secretary of the Society in England and Wales from 1911 to 1913, resigning only to join the British Jurisdiction of the Co-Masonic Order.

Old Catholic Church of Great Britain.

In 1913, Wedgwood took notice of the Old Catholic Church in England and wrote a letter to Archbishop Arnold Harris Mathew. Mathew’s reply caught him somewhat by surprise and rekindled his interest in both the church and in entering holy orders again. They exchanged letters for a time and Wedgwood explained his affiliation to the Theosophical Society. Mathew did not express any concern over the matter at the time. The same year, Wedgwood was rebaptised and reconfirmed "sub-conditione", received the Minor Orders including subdeacon. He was later ordained a deacon and finally a priest on 22 July 1913 in London.  In 1915, Wedgwood visited Australia as Grand Secretary of the Order of Universal CoMasonry and met Charles Webster Leadbeater, a leading figure in the Theosophical movement. He initiated Leadbeater into Freemasonry and talked about his ordination to the priesthood in the Old Catholic Church. In his words: “I talked with him about my ordination and he came to various celebrations of the Eucharist by myself. He was greatly impressed by the power for good which such ordination bestowed and with the splendid scope that the celebration offered for spreading spiritual blessing abroad on the world.”

Founding the Liberal Catholic Church.

On his return to England, Wedgwood learned that one of the bishops of the church, Frederick Samuel Willoughby, had become enmeshed in a homosexuality scandal and as a result had been suspended by Archbishop Mathew. He also learned that Mathew wanted all the clergy of the church to renounce Theosophy as he had heard from a non-Theosophical priest that the beliefs of the society were incompatible. Few bothered to reply to Mathew and shortly thereafter Mathew "dissolved" his church. Bishop Willoughby offered to consecrate Wedgwood to the episcopate in order to guard the apostolic succession as he had received it. Wedgwood, however, aware that the charges against Willoughby were substantially true, approached a number of other bishops seeking consecration. He wrote to the Old Catholic Archbishop of Utrecht, by whom Mathew had originally been consecrated, but received no reply. He then approached Bishop Frederick James, a fellow Theosophist and homosexual and a number of other freelance bishops, but none would oblige. With no other options open, Wedgwood received from Willoughy, King and Gauntlett the apostolic succession on 13 February 1916. This took place only after Archbishop Mathew had dissolved the Old Catholic Church in Great Britain and published a letter in The Times announcing his intention to join the Roman Catholic Church.  Later that year Wedgwood again travelled to Australia where he consecrated Leadbeater a bishop in Sydney on 22 July 1916. Leadbeater eventually succeeded Wedgwood as Presiding Bishop of the LCC. From that time forward Wedgwood travelled the world as a missionary bishop, creating the Liberal Rite (a form of Christian liturgy) in co-operation with Leadbeater, establishing missions of the church and publishing a stream of works on theology and liturgy including "New Insights into Christian Worship" and "The Presence of Christ in the Holy Communion".

Twilight years.

Wedgwood was a homosexual with what he described as an "almost unbelievably strong" sexual urge (he once visited 18 public toilets in two hours, explaining to police that he had been "searching for a friend"). This was matched by a strong religious strain, and he was dominated by those two fundamental, but often conflicting, drives. In 1919, together with several other priests and bishops of the Liberal Catholic Church, he came under investigation for sexual activities involving boys. The scandals continued through the following years, leading to Wedgwood's resignation from the Theosophical Society and various other bodies and organisations including the Liberal Catholic Church (12 March 1923), announcing in a letter to Annie Besant of the Theosophical Society that he would henceforth retire into private life.  Wedgwood now enrolled as a doctoral candidate at the Sorbonne, combining his studies with experiments at the works of a celebrated organ builder and activities at Russian Orthodox and Old Catholic churches. It was also in Paris that he became addicted to cocaine, which he used in quantity, smuggling it into England on his visits concealed in the head of his bishop's crozier. It was also in Paris that the symptoms of secondary syphilis manifested themselves – he had contracted the disease as the result of oral sex in Sydney but had refused to admit the fact or to take any treatment.  By 1924, with money running short, Wedgwood approached his old friend Annie Besant and through her influence again became involved with the church in Huizen, Netherlands, where he was offered a house and estate for his use. A little chapel was built and dedicated to St Michael and All Angels, where Wedgwood began to celebrate regular services. He also resumed his activities with the Theosophical Society, with increasingly frequent claimed visions and meetings with masters, angels, archangels and denizens of the higher realms.

Death and tributes.

Wedgwood died on 13 March 1951 in Farnham, Surrey, from a fall which broke several ribs and ruptured a lung. In the years before his death he continued to wander in and out of the dementia of tertiary syphilis, in the lucid periods devoting himself to the work of the centre at Huizen and to the establishment of a lesser centre at Tekels Park near Camberley, Surrey, in England, where he lived almost entirely from 1937 onwards. These periods became less and less over the years and during his last months he had to be kept from any involvement in public activities, even from eating in the communal dining room, because of his unpredictable behaviour.  His death brought eulogies from his most devoted followers. Bishop Vreede wrote: Privately, even his friends were more equivocal. E. L. Gardner, an eminent British Theosophist who was responsible for arranging for Wedgwood to be looked after in his declining years, wrote privately, "JIW was a 'dual' - at times skilled, able and impressive. Then a bout of sensualism of the worst grade, sexual perversion."

James Ingall Wedgwood (24 March 1883 – 13 March 1951) was the first Presiding Bishop of the Liberal Catholic Church.

James Ingall Wedgwood (* 24. Mai 1883 in London, England; † 13. März 1951 in Farnham, Surrey, England) war ein englischer Priester der Alt-Katholischen Kirche von England, Gründer und erster Erzbischof der Liberalkatholischen Kirche, Freimaurer, Rosenkreuzer und Theosoph.


Etymology.

The term "topography" originated in ancient Greece and continued in ancient Rome, as the detailed description of a place. The word comes from the Greek ("topos", "place") and ("-graphia", "writing"). In classical literature this refers to writing about a place or places, what is now largely called 'local history'. In Britain and in Europe in general, the word topography is still sometimes used in its original sense.  Detailed military surveys in Britain (beginning in the late eighteenth century) were called Ordnance Surveys, and this term was used into the 20th century as generic for topographic surveys and maps. The earliest scientific surveys in France were called the Cassini maps after the family who produced them over four generations. The term "topographic surveys" appears to be American in origin. The earliest detailed surveys in the United States were made by the “Topographical Bureau of the Army,” formed during the War of 1812, which became the Corps of Topographical Engineers in 1838. After the work of national mapping was assumed by the U.S. Geological Survey in 1878, the term topographical remained as a general term for detailed surveys and mapping programs, and has been adopted by most other nations as standard.  In the 20th century, the term topography started to be used to describe surface description in other fields where mapping in a broader sense is used, particularly in medical fields such as neurology.

Objectives.

An objective of topography is to determine the position of any feature or more generally any point in terms of both a horizontal coordinate system such as latitude, longitude, and altitude. Identifying (naming) features, and recognizing typical landform patterns are also part of the field.  A topographic study may be made for a variety of reasons: military planning and geological exploration have been primary motivators to start survey programs, but detailed information about terrain and surface features is essential for the planning and construction of any major civil engineering, public works, or reclamation projects.

Techniques.

There are a variety of approaches to studying topography. Which method(s) to use depends on the scale and size of the area under study, its accessibility, and the quality of existing surveys.

Field survey.

Surveying helps determine accurately the terrestrial or three-dimensional space position of points and the distances and angles between them using leveling instruments such as theodolites, dumpy levels and clinometers.  Work on one of the first topographic maps was begun in France by Giovanni Domenico Cassini, the great Italian astronomer.  Even though remote sensing has greatly sped up the process of gathering information, and has allowed greater accuracy control over long distances, the direct survey still provides the basic control points and framework for all topographic work, whether manual or GIS-based.  In areas where there has been an extensive direct survey and mapping program (most of Europe and the Continental U.S., for example), the compiled data forms the basis of basic digital elevation datasets such as USGS DEM data. This data must often be "cleaned" to eliminate discrepancies between surveys, but it still forms a valuable set of information for large-scale analysis.  The original American topographic surveys (or the British "Ordnance" surveys) involved not only recording of relief, but identification of landmark features and vegetative land cover.

Remote sensing.

Remote sensing is a general term for geodata collection at a distance from the subject area.

Passive sensor methodologies.

Besides their role in photogrammetry, aerial and satellite imagery can be used to identify and delineate terrain features and more general land-cover features. Certainly they have become more and more a part of geovisualization, whether maps or GIS systems. False-color and non-visible spectra imaging can also help determine the lie of the land by delineating vegetation and other land-use information more clearly. Images can be in visible colours and in other spectrum.

Photogrammetry.

Photogrammetry is a measurement technique for which the co-ordinates of the points in 3D of an object are determined by the measurements made in two photographic images (or more) taken starting from different positions, usually from different passes of an aerial photography flight. In this technique, the common points are identified on each image. A line of sight (or ray) can be built from the camera location to the point on the object. It is the intersection of its rays (triangulation) which determines the relative three-dimensional position of the point. Known control points can be used to give these relative positions absolute values. More sophisticated algorithms can exploit other information on the scene known a priori (for example, symmetries in certain cases allowing the rebuilding of three-dimensional co-ordinates starting from one only position of the camera).

Active sensor methodologies.

Satellite RADAR mapping is one of the major techniques of generating Digital Elevation Models (see below). Similar techniques are applied in bathymetric surveys using sonar to determine the terrain of the ocean floor. In recent years, LIDAR (LIght Detection And Ranging), a remote sensing technique that uses a laser instead of radio waves, has increasingly been employed for complex mapping needs such as charting canopies and monitoring glaciers.

Forms of topographic data.

Terrain is commonly modelled either using vector (triangulated irregular network or TIN) or gridded (Raster image) mathematical models. In the most applications in environmental sciences, land surface is represented and modelled using gridded models. In civil engineering and entertainment businesses, the most representations of land surface employ some variant of TIN models. In geostatistics, land surface is commonly modelled as a combination of the two signals – the smooth (spatially correlated) and the rough (noise) signal.  In practice, surveyors first sample heights in an area, then use these to produce a Digital Land Surface Model in the form of a TIN. The DLSM can then be used to visualize terrain, drape remote sensing images, quantify ecological properties of a surface or extract land surface objects. Note that the contour data or any other sampled elevation datasets are not a DLSM. A DLSM implies that elevation is available continuously at each location in the study area, i.e. that the map represents a complete surface. Digital Land Surface Models should not be confused with Digital Surface Models, which can be surfaces of the canopy, buildings and similar objects. For example, in the case of surface models produces using the lidar technology, one can have several surfaces – starting from the top of the canopy to the actual solid earth. The difference between the two surface models can then be used to derive volumetric measures (height of trees etc.).

Raw survey data.

Topographic survey information is historically based upon the notes of surveyors. They may derive naming and cultural information from other local sources (for example, boundary delineation may be derived from local cadastral mapping). While of historical interest, these field notes inherently include errors and contradictions that later stages in map production resolve.

Remote sensing data.

As with field notes, remote sensing data (aerial and satellite photography, for example), is raw and uninterpreted. It may contain holes (due to cloud cover for example) or inconsistencies (due to the timing of specific image captures). Most modern topographic mapping includes a large component of remotely sensed data in its compilation process.

Topographic mapping.

In its contemporary definition, topographic mapping shows relief. In the United States, USGS topographic maps show relief using contour lines. The USGS calls maps based on topographic surveys, but without contours, "planimetric maps."  These maps show not only the contours, but also any significant streams or other bodies of water, forest cover, built-up areas or individual buildings (depending on scale), and other features and points of interest.  While not officially "topographic" maps, the national surveys of other nations share many of the same features, and so they are often called "topographic maps."  Existing topographic survey maps, because of their comprehensive and encyclopedic coverage, form the basis for much derived topographic work. Digital Elevation Models, for example, have often been created not from new remote sensing data but from existing paper topographic maps. Many government and private publishers use the artwork (especially the contour lines) from existing topographic map sheets as the basis for their own specialized or updated topographic maps.  Topographic mapping should not be confused with geologic mapping. The latter is concerned with underlying structures and processes to the surface, rather than with identifiable surface features.

Digital elevation modeling.

The digital elevation model (DEM) is a raster-based digital dataset of the topography (hypsometry and/or bathymetry) of all or part of the Earth (or a telluric planet). The pixels of the dataset are each assigned an elevation value, and a header portion of the dataset defines the area of coverage, the units each pixel covers, and the units of elevation (and the zero-point). DEMs may be derived from existing paper maps and survey data, or they may be generated from new satellite or other remotely sensed radar or sonar data.

Topological modeling.

A geographic information system (GIS) can recognize and analyze the spatial relationships that exist within digitally stored spatial data. These topological relationships allow complex spatial modelling and analysis to be performed. Topological relationships between geometric entities traditionally include adjacency (what adjoins what), containment (what encloses what), and proximity (how close something is to something else).

Topography in other fields.

Topography has been applied to different science fields. In neuroscience, the neuroimaging discipline uses techniques such as EEG topography for brain mapping. In ophthalmology, corneal topography is used as a technique for mapping the surface curvature of the cornea. In tissue engineering, atomic force microscopy is used to map nanotopography.  In human anatomy, topography is superficial human anatomy.  In mathematics the concept of topography is used to indicate the patterns or general organization of features on a map or as a term referring to the pattern in which variables (or their values) are distributed in a space.

Topography is the study of the shape and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area could refer to the surface shapes and features themselves, or a description (especially their depiction in maps).

Die Topografie oder Topographie ist jenes Teilgebiet der Landesvermessung bzw. Kartografie, das sich mit der detaillierten Vermessung, Darstellung und Beschreibung der Erdoberfläche und der mit ihr fest verbundenen natürlichen und künstlichen Objekte (Situation) befasst. Die größte Bedeutung haben das Gelände und seine Formen (Relief), die Gewässer, die Bodennutzung bzw. der Bewuchs sowie die Bauwerke und Verkehrswege.


History.

JRuby was originally created by Jan Arne Petersen, in 2001. At that time and for several years following, the code was a direct port of the Ruby 1.6 C code. With the release of Ruby 1.8.6, an effort began to update JRuby to 1.8.6 features and semantics. Since 2001, several contributors have assisted the project, leading to the current () core team of around six members.  JRuby 1.1 added Just-in-time compilation and Ahead-of-time compilation modes to JRuby and was already faster in most cases than the then-current Ruby 1.8.7 reference implementation.  JRuby packages are available for most platforms; Fedora 9 was among the first to include it as a standard package at JRuby 1.1.1.  In July 2009, the core JRuby developers at Sun Microsystems, Charles Oliver Nutter, Thomas Enebo and Nick Sieger, joined Engine Yard to continue JRuby development. In May 2012, Nutter and Enebo left Engine Yard to work on JRuby at Red Hat.  JRuby has supported compatibility with Ruby MRI versions 1.6 through 1.9.3. JRuby 1.0 supported Ruby 1.8.6, with JRuby 1.4.0 updating that compatibility to Ruby 1.8.7. JRuby 1.6.0 added simultaneous support for Ruby 1.9.2, with JRuby 1.7.0 making Ruby 1.9.3 the default execution mode (Ruby 1.8.7 compatibility is available via a command-line flag). JRuby 9.0.0.0 added support for Ruby 2.2.  The current version of JRuby (9.2.11.0) support Ruby 2.5.7. The upcoming 9.3 version will support Ruby 2.6.

Ruby on Rails.

JRuby has been able to run the Ruby on Rails web framework since version 0.9 (May 2006), with the ability to execute RubyGems and WEBrick. Since the hiring of the two lead developers by Sun, Rails compatibility and speed have improved greatly. JRuby version 1.0 successfully passed nearly all of Rails's own test cases. Since then, developers have begun to use JRuby for Rails applications in production environments.

Multiple virtual machine collaboration.

On February 27, 2008, Sun Microsystems and the University of Tokyo announced a joint-research project to implement a virtual machine capable of executing more than one Ruby or JRuby application on one interpreter.

Dynamic invocation on Java Virtual Machines.

JSR 292 ("Supporting Dynamically Typed Languages on the JavaTM Platform") proposes:  The Sun Open source project Multi Language Virtual Machine aims to prototype this JSR. The first working prototype, developed as a patch on OpenJDK, was announced and made available on end of August 2008.  The JRuby team has implemented dynamic invocation into their codebase. Dynamic invocation initially shipped with the 1.1.5 release in a primitive form. Version 1.7.0 enabled it by default on Java 8 builds.

Release history.

This table presents only releases that present significant steps in JRuby history, aside from versions that mainly fixed bugs and improved performance. Performance improvements are also not shown in the table below, as every release has usually brought such improvements.

Design.

Since early 2006, the current JRuby core team has endeavored to move JRuby beyond being a simple C port, to support better performance and to aid eventual compilation to Java bytecode. To support this end, the team set an ambitious goal: to be able to run Ruby on Rails unmodified using JRuby. In the process of achieving this goal, the JRuby test suite expanded to such extent that the team gained confidence in the "correctness" of JRuby. As a result, toward the end of 2006 and in the beginning of 2007, they began to commit much more complicated redesigns and refactorings of JRuby's core subsystems.  JRuby is designed to work as a mixed-mode virtual machine for Ruby, where code can be either interpreted directly, just-in-time compiled at runtime to Java bytecode, or ahead-of-time compiled to Java bytecode before execution. Until October 2007, only the interpreted mode supported all Ruby's constructs, but a full AOT/JIT compiler is available since version 1.1. The compiler design allows for interpreted and compiled code to run side-by-side, as well as decompilation to reoptimize and outputting generated bytecode as Java class files.

Frameworks support.

JRuby has built-in support for Rails, RSpec, Rake, and RubyGems. It embeds an FFI subsystem to allow the use of C libraries bundled as gems. It also allows launching the Interactive Ruby Shell (irb) as Ruby MRI does.  The Netbeans Ruby Pack, available in NetBeans 6, allows IDE development with Ruby and JRuby, as well as Ruby on Rails for the two implementations of Ruby. It is no longer included in NetBeans 7.0 and later.

Programming.

Ruby meets Java.

JRuby is similar to the standard Ruby interpreter except written in Java. JRuby features some of the same concepts, including object-oriented programming, and dynamic-typing as Ruby. The key difference is that JRuby is tightly integrated with Java, and can be called directly from Java programs. Java has significant footing in the development of web applications.

JRuby calling Java.

One powerful feature of JRuby is its ability to invoke the classes of the Java Platform. To do this, one must first load JRuby's Java support, by calling "require 'java'". The following example creates a Java JFrame with a JLabel:  require 'java'  frame = javax.swing.JFrame.new frame.getContentPane.add javax.swing.JLabel.new('Hello, World!') frame.setDefaultCloseOperation javax.swing.JFrame::EXIT_ON_CLOSE frame.pack frame.set_visible true  JRuby also allows the user to call Java code using the more Ruby-like underscore method naming and to refer to JavaBean properties as attributes:  frame.content_pane.add label frame.visible = true

Calling JRuby from Java.

JRuby can just as easily be called from Java, using either the JSR 223 Scripting for Java 6 or the Apache Bean Scripting framework. //Example using JSR 233 Scripting for Java 6 ScriptEngineManager mgr = new ScriptEngineManager(); ScriptEngine rbEngine = mgr.getEngineByExtension("rb"); try { } catch (ScriptException ex) {

Performance.

According to some benchmarks, JRuby is faster than alternatives. Since implementations vary in how much code is loaded before execution, different methods of measuring speed can lead to biased interpretations of performance advantages. The time it takes for a Java Virtual Machine itself to load is often excluded from execution times when calculating benchmarks.  JRuby has the significant architectural advantage to be able to leverage JVM threads without being constrained by a global interpreter lock (similarly to Rubinius), therefore achieving full parallelism within a process, which Ruby MRI cannot achieve despite leveraging OS threads.  In a real Mongrel web server application tested in 2007, JRuby performance is better than Ruby MRI 1.8, after the Java Virtual Machine had been instantiated.  In a 2007 benchmark of Ruby implementations, JRuby was faster than Ruby MRI 1.8 in some tests, but YARV outperformed both of them.  As of April 2014, in The Computer Language Benchmarks Game, JRuby 1.7.4 typically has the same performance as Ruby MRI 2.1.0, but uses more memory.

JRuby is an implementation of the Ruby programming language atop the Java Virtual Machine, written largely in Java. It is free software released under a three-way EPL/GPL/LGPL license. JRuby is tightly integrated with Java to allow the embedding of the interpreter into any Java application with full two-way access between the Java and the Ruby code (similar to Jython for the Python language).

JRuby ist eine Implementierung eines Ruby-Interpreters in Java. JRuby ermöglicht die Interaktion von Java und Ruby in beiden Richtungen. Damit ermöglicht JRuby die Nutzung von Ruby als einer alternativen Sprache für die Java-Laufzeitumgebung, wie etwa BeanShell, Groovy oder Jython.


Plot.

The young English nobleman Sir Thomas Fitzpatrick Phillip Moore (Terence Hill) arrives in the West following the wish of his late father who years earlier had to leave England due to an affair. The trouble led to a conflict with "Vicci Windsor". In the West, the young man joins up with his father's former pals, the stagecoach robbers Monkey (Dominic Barto), Holy Joe (Harry Carey Jr.) and Bull (Gregory Walcott).  The characters are introduced as time moves on during Tom's journey, beginning with Bull who works at a stagecoach station disguised as a mute man. After Bull has listened in on the conversation of two headhunters and found out about the death of "The Englishman" (Tom's father), he begins a journey of his own. In a small town he finds a preacher in his church, conducting a fiery sermon to a somewhat dubious audience of drunkards, gamblers and easy women who he had to drive into his church just as he had to have the saloon's pianola moved into the church right before. Both of them then proceed to Yuma, where the third one, Monkey is in jail as usual. Through deceit they manage to free Monkey after they manage to keep him from taking revenge on the sadistic warden, because according to Holy on the day of the Lord you don't shoot people. From there they travel to the Englishman's gang's old hideout in the mountain, which is also the destination of Tom's journey, who had just before been in a stagecoach robbery performed by the masked trio of Monkey, Bull and Holy.  Tom was just about to inspect the property around the log cabin when suddenly his walking stick is shot out from under him by the three crooks, who do not know who Tom is and therefore suspect him to have come back to retrieve the stolen money.  Soon the situation is explained by Tom showing them a photograph of his father along with giving Holy a letter of his father for the three of them.  In his letter the father asks them to make a "real man" out of his progress-loving son. Initially they fail miserably since Tom refuses to touch a weapon and would rather ride his bicycle than a horse. This changes once he meets Candida (Yanti Somer) in the town's thrift store, the landowner's daughter who he had once met before when she travelled in the same train as him and had captivated his thoughts. There she asks for Books of Lord Byron, which he can procure, unlike the trader. Candida returns his love.  Since Morton (Riccardo Pizzuti), Candida's father's rough ranch administrator has also set his eyes on the girl this leads to several brawls during which Tom initially ends up on the receiving side. Only after an intensive course in all things brawling, shooting and spitting which his father's accomplices put him through Tom not only manages to put Morton in his place but also Candida's father (Enzo Fiermonte) who has been convinced of Tom's skills. It ends with a happy end although Monkey, Bull and Holy leave the town in which progress has taken a footing, driving them to flee further toward the west. In the last scene they reach the Pacific, shocked to hear the whistle of a steam train and so they turned back.

Production.

The film contains several running gags, like the three friends constantly being chased by two headhunters. During each encounter one of the three appears behind them, when they are just about to get to business with the others.  Bull every time slams their heads through a then destroyed table, making them appear more bandaged with each new additional encounter.  Another running gag is the calendar problem. Since for the Western heroes every day is a Saturday, Tom has his fair share of problems coordinating meetings with them.  Additionally, there is Bull's Yorkshire Terrier which he stole from a lady during the stagecoach robbery earlier and which he carries around with him. Every time he hands the dog to another person that person has to clean their hands afterwards since the dog appears to not be in control of his bladder.  The story is fairly similar to the comic "The Tenderfoot" from the series "Lucky Luke". It is not clear if there is any correlation between the film and the comic. However, in the early 1990s Terence Hill directed and played a TV adaptation of Lucky Luke.

Man of the East () is a 1972 Italian spaghetti western film directed by Enzo Barboni starring Terence Hill. The film is set in the Wild West during the time of the railway construction. A recurring theme is the always progressing modernisation which some of the protagonists are trying to escape.

Verflucht, verdammt und Halleluja, in der DDR unter dem Titel "Ein Gentleman im Wilden Westen" veröffentlicht, ist ein Spielfilm mit Terence Hill, gedreht Anfang der 1970er Jahre unter der Regie von E. B. Clucher alias Enzo Barboni.


Description.

"Phoenix canariensis" is a large solitary palm, tall, occasionally growing to. The leaves are pinnate, long, with 80–100 leaflets on each side of the central rachis. The fruit is an oval, yellow to orange drupe long and in diameter and containing a single large seed; the fruit pulp is edible but not the best of dates.

Names.

Common names in English include Canary Island date palm and pineapple palm. The common name in Spanish-speaking countries and in the Canary Islands is "palmera canaria".

Cultivation.

The Canary Island date palm is typically cultivated in wet-winter or Mediterranean climates, but also in wet-summer or humid subtropical climates like eastern Australia and the southeastern United States. There are even several instances of cultivated Canary Island Date Palms in high-latitude oceanic climates, such as Ireland, the UK, and the Channel Islands. It can be cultivated where temperatures rarely fall below for extended periods, although it will require some protection if cold periods are longer than normal. It is a slowly growing tree, exclusively propagated by seed.  The palm is easily recognized through its crown of leaves and trunk characteristics. It is not uncommon to see Canary Island date palms pruned and trimmed to enhance the appearance. When pruned, the bottom of the crown, also called the nut, appears to have a pineapple shape.  The Canary Island date palm is susceptible to Fusarium wilt, a fungal disease commonly transmitted through contaminated seed, soil, and pruning tools. Spread of the disease can be reduced when pruning tools are disinfected before use on this palm. It has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.

Other uses.

In the Canary Islands, the sap of this date palm is used to make palm syrup. La Gomera is where most of the sap is produced in the Canary Islands.

Invasiveness.

In some areas, "Phoenix canariensis" has proven to be an invasive plant. In Bermuda and the United States (Florida and California) it is considered naturalised (lives wild in a region where it is not indigenous). It has also spread in some areas of peninsular Spain, Portugal, Italy, Australia, and New Zealand. It is listed as invasive in California. In Auckland, New Zealand, the palm has itself become a host for the naturalised Australian strangler fig, "Ficus macrophylla".

Phoenix canariensis is a species of flowering plant in the palm family Arecaceae, native to the Canary Islands. It is a relative of "Phoenix dactylifera", the true date palm. It is the natural symbol of the Canary Islands, together with the canary "Serinus canaria". Mature "P. canariensis" are often used in ornamental landscaping and are collected and transplanted to their new planting location. A Canary Island date palm with of trunk is approximately 60 years of age.

Die Kanarische Dattelpalme ("Phoenix canariensis") ist eine Pflanzenart der Gattung Dattelpalmen ("Phoenix") aus der Familie der Palmengewächse (Arecaceae). Sie ist das Natursymbol der Kanarischen Inseln.


Overview.

A W-grammar consists of a finite set of meta-rules, which are used to derive (possibly infinitely many) production rules from a finite set of hyper-rules. Meta-rules are restricted to those defined by a context-free grammar. Hyper-rules restrict the admissible contexts at the upper level. Essentially, the "consistent substitution" used in the derivation process is equivalent to unification, as in Prolog, as was noted by Alain Colmerauer.  For example, the assignment codice_1 is only valid if the variable x can contain an integer. Therefore, the context-free syntax codice_2 is incomplete. In a two-level grammar, this might be specified in a context-sensitive manner as codice_3. Then codice_4 could be a production rule but codice_5 is not a possible production rule. This also means that assigning with incompatible types becomes a syntax error which can be caught at compile-time. Similarly,  allows codice_6 and codice_7 but not codice_8.

ALGOL 68 examples.

Prior to ALGOL 68 the language ALGOL 60 was formalised using the context-free Backus–Naur form. The appearance of new context-sensitive two-level grammar presented a challenge to some readers of the 1968 ALGOL 68 "Final Report". Subsequently, the final report was revised by Wijngaarden and his colleagues and published as the 1973 ALGOL 68 "Revised Report".  The grammar for ALGOL 68 is officially defined in the two-level Van Wijngaarden grammar, but a subset has been done in the one-level Backus–Naur form, compare:

ALGOL 68 as in the 1968 Final Report §2.1.

a) program : open symbol, standard prelude,

ALGOL 68 as in the 1973 Revised Report §2.2.1, §10.1.1.

program : strong void new closed clause

Implementations.

"yo-yo" parser for van Wijngaarden grammars with example grammars for "expressions", "eva", "sal" and Pascal (the actual ISO 7185 standard for Pascal uses extended Backus–Naur form).

History.

W-grammars are based on the idea of providing the nonterminal symbols of context-free grammars with "attributes" (or "affixes") that pass information between the nodes of the parse tree, used to constrain the syntax and to specify the semantics. This idea was well known at the time; e.g. Donald Knuth visited the ALGOL 68 design committee while developing his own version of it, attribute grammars. Quite peculiar to W-grammars was their strict treatment of attributes as strings, defined by a context-free grammar, on which concatenation is the only possible operation; in attribute grammars, attributes can be of any data type, and any kind of operation can be applied to them.  After their introduction in the Algol 68 report, W-grammars were widely considered as too powerful and unconstrained to be practical. This was partly a consequence of the way in which they had been applied; the revised Algol 68 report contained a much more readable grammar, without modifying the W-grammar formalism itself.  Meanwhile, it became clear that W-grammars are indeed too powerful. They describe precisely all recursively enumerable languages, which makes parsing impossible in general: it is an undecidable problem to decide whether a given string can be generated by a given W-grammar. Their use must be seriously constrained when used for automatic parsing or translation. Restricted and modified variants of W-grammars were developed to address this, e.g.

Applications outside of ALGOL 68.

Anthony Fisher has written a parser for a large class of W-grammars.  Dick Grune created a C program that would generate all possible productions of a 2-level grammar.  The applications of EAGs mentioned above can effectively be regarded as applications of W-grammars, since EAGs are so close to W-grammars.  W-grammars have also been proposed for the description of complex human actions in ergonomics.

In computer science, a Van Wijngaarden grammar (also vW-grammar or W-grammar) is a two-level grammar which provides a technique to define potentially infinite context-free grammars in a finite number of rules. The formalism was invented by Adriaan van Wijngaarden to define rigorously some syntactic restrictions which previously had to be formulated in natural language, despite their essentially syntactical content.

Eine Van-Wijngaarden-Grammatik (auch: "vW-Grammatik" oder "W-Grammatik") ist eine "Zweistufengrammatik" aus der Compilerprogrammierung, eine Art von formaler Grammatik, die es möglich macht, mit einer endlichen Menge von Regeln potentiell unendliche Grammatiken zu definieren.


Early life.

García Granados was born in Puerto de Santa María, Spain. As a young adolescent, he was brought to Central America. He was a member of a wealthy military family. At age twenty-three, Granados visited South America, Europe and the cities of New York and Philadelphia in the US. He completed his schooling in London.  He was the brother of Guatemalan writer María Josefa García Granados.

Career.

García Granados was known as a moderate liberal. He compromised with Rafael Carrera, and attempted to get along with his successor Vicente Cerna. Sympathetic with the revolt against the government, García Granados fled to exile and was supported by Guatemalan liberals. After returning to Guatemala, García Granados became the leader of the revolution against Cerna, eventually becoming known as its philosopher. García Granados played a key part in the regime of Justo Rufino Barrios, the founder of "the army of 45 men". He served as a provisional president from 1871 to 1873 after the liberal victory of Guatemala City. García Granados wanted to regularize the government by constructing a lawful regime. In 1872, Guatemala invaded Honduras, where García Granados decreed freedom of the press and expelled the Jesuits.  García Granados and his successor Barrios support multiple liberal revolts. During his presidency, García Granados created the Guatemalan flag by decree, which remains almost identical to his 1871 version. Garcia Granados supported education and the arts. In 1871 he invited Italian conductor Pietro Visoni to stay in Guatemala and become the director of the main military band. Visoni later founded the Martial Symphony Band and the School of Substitutes (Escuela de Substitutos), the first formal music conservatory in Central America. After García Granados stepped down, Barrios served as president until the mid-1870s.

Retirement.

García Granados retired from public life to write articles for Guatemalan magazines and newspapers; accounts of the time when he was the leader of the liberal forces and as president; an essay about monetary policy and two volumes of memoirs.  In 1877, he arrived in Guatemala José Martí, who started teaching in the just founded Instituto Nacional Central para Varones and Escuela Normal para Varones. In those days, the high schools' faculty included Spaniard politician Valero Pujol, German engineer Edwin Rockstroh and Cuban poet José Joaquín Palma, who used to gather for intellectual conversations. In one of those meetings, Martí met María García Granados y Saborío, general García Granados' daughter. Despite his engagement to a Cuban woman, Martí started visiting the Garcia Granados residency, where he frequently played chess with the general and paid his respects to María. María fell in love with Martí, but after a sudden trip to Mexico in early 1878, came back to Guatemala already married. A few weeks after Marti left for good, María died, followed shortly thereafter by her father. In 1891, Martí wrote a poem in her memory, named "La Niña de Guatemala", in which he implies that she died from love.

Death.

Garcia Granados died on September 8, 1878 at age 69. Garcia Granaods was laid to rest in the old San Juan de Dios Cemetery.  In 1894, his remains were transferred to a monument erected in his honor at the new General Cemetery.  His portrait appears on the 10 Quetzales bank note.

Miguel García Granados y Zavala (September 29, 1809 – September 8, 1878) was President of Guatemala from 1871 to 1873.

General Miguel García Granados Zavala (* 29. September 1809 in El Puerto de Santa María, Cádiz, Spanien; † 8. September 1878 in Guatemala-Stadt) war ein guatemaltekischer Präsident.


Use.

Fipronil is or has been used in:

Effects.

Toxicity.

Fipronil is classed as a WHO Class II moderately hazardous pesticide, and has a rat acute oral of 97 mg/kg.  It has moderate acute toxicity by the oral and inhalation routes in rats. Dermal absorption in rats is less than 1% after 24 h and toxicity is considered to be low. It has been found to be very toxic to rabbits.  The photodegradate MB46513 or desulfinylfipronil, appears to have a higher acute toxicity to mammals than fipronil itself by a factor of about 10.  Symptoms of acute toxicity via ingestion includes sweating, nausea, vomiting, headache, abdominal pain, dizziness, agitation, weakness, and tonic-clonic seizures. Clinical signs of exposure to fipronil are generally reversible and resolve spontaneously. As of 2011, no data were available regarding the chronic effects of fipronil on humans. The United States Environmental Protection Agency has classified fipronil as a group C (possible human) carcinogen based on an increase in thyroid follicular cell tumors in both sexes of the rat. However, as of 2011, no human data are available regarding the carcinogenic effects of fipronil.  Two Frontline TopSpot products were determined by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to pose no significant exposure risks to workers applying the product. However, concerns were raised about human exposure to Frontline spray treatment in 1996, leading to a denial of registration for the spray product. Commercial pet groomers and veterinary physicians were considered to be at risk from chronic exposure via inhalation and dermal absorption during the application of the spray, assuming they may have to treat up to 20 large dogs per day. Fipronil is not volatile, so the likelihood of humans being exposed to this compound in the air is low.  In contrast to neonicotinoids such as acetamiprid, clothianidin, imidacloprid, and thiamethoxam, which are absorbed through the skin to some extent, fipronil is not absorbed substantially through the skin.

Detection in body fluids.

Fipronil may be quantitated in plasma by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry or liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry to confirm a diagnosis of poisoning in hospitalised patients or to provide evidence in a medicolegal death investigation.

Ecological toxicity.

Fipronil is highly toxic for crustaceans, insects and zooplankton, as well as bees, termites, rabbits, the fringe-toed lizard, and certain groups of gallinaceous birds. It appears to reduce the longevity and fecundity of female braconid parasitoids. It is also highly toxic to many fish, though its toxicity varies with species. Conversely, the substance is relatively innocuous to passerines, wildfowl, and earthworms.  Its half-life in soil is four months to one year, but much less on soil surface because it is more sensitive to light (photolysis) than water (hydrolysis).  Few studies of effects on wildlife have been conducted, but studies of the nontarget impact from emergency applications of fipronil as barrier sprays for locust control in Madagascar showed adverse impacts of fipronil on termites, which appear to be very severe and long-lived. Also, adverse effects were indicated in the short term on several other invertebrate groups, one species of lizard ("Trachylepis elegans"), and several species of birds (including the Madagascar bee-eater).  Nontarget effects on some insects (predatory and detritivorous beetles, some parasitic wasps and bees) were also found in field trials of fipronil for desert locust control in Mauritania, and very low doses (0.6-2.0 g a.i./ha) used against grasshoppers in Niger caused impacts on nontarget insects comparable to those found with other insecticides used in grasshopper control. The implications of this for other wildlife and ecology of the habitat remain unknown, but appear unlikely to be severe. Unfortunately, this lack of severity was not observed in bee species in South America. Fipronil is also used in Brazil and studies on the stingless bee "Scaptotrigona postica" have shown adverse reactions to the pesticide, including seizures, paralysis, and death with a lethal dose of.54 ng a.i./bee and a lethal concentration of.24 ng a.i./μl diet. These values are highly toxic in "Scaptotrigona postica" and bees in general. Toxic baiting with fipronil has been shown to be effective in locally eliminating German wasps. All colonies within foraging range were completely eliminated within one week.  In May 2003, the French Directorate-General of Food at the Ministry of Agriculture determined that a case of mass bee mortality observed in southern France was related to acute fipronil toxicity. Toxicity was linked to defective seed treatment, which generated dust. In February 2003, the ministry decided to temporarily suspend the sale of BASF crop protection products containing fipronil in France. The seed treatment involved has since been banned.  Notable results from wildlife studies include:

Colony collapse disorder.

Fipronil is one of the main chemical causes blamed for the spread of colony collapse disorder among bees. It has been found by the Minutes-Association for Technical Coordination Fund in France that even at very low nonlethal doses for bees, the pesticide still impairs their ability to locate their hive, resulting in large numbers of forager bees lost with every pollen-finding expedition. A synergistic toxic effect of fipronil with the fungal pathogen "Nosema ceranae" was recently reported. The functional basis for this toxic effect is now understood: the synergy between fipronil and the pathogenic fungus induces changes in male physiology leading to infertility. A 2013 report by the European Food Safety Authority identified fipronil as "a high acute risk to honeybees when used as a seed treatment for maize and on July 16, 2013 the EU voted to ban the use of fipronil on corn and sunflowers within the EU. The ban took effect at the end of 2013."

Pharmacodynamics.

Fipronil acts by binding to allosteric sites of GABA receptors and GluCl receptors (of insects) as an antagonist (a form of noncompetitive inhibition). This prevents the opening of chloride ion channels normally encouraged by GABA, reducing the chloride ions' ability to lower a neuron's membrane potential. This results in an overabundance of neurons reaching action potential and likewise CNS toxicity via overstimulation.  In animals and humans, fipronil overdose is characterized by vomiting, agitation, and seizures, and can usually be managed through use of benzodiazepines

History.

Fipronil was discovered and developed by Rhône-Poulenc between 1985 and 1987, and placed on the market in 1993 under the. Between 1987 and 1996, fipronil was evaluated on more than 250 insect pests on 60 crops worldwide, and crop protection accounted for about 39% of total fipronil production in 1997. Since 2003, BASF holds the patent rights for producing and selling fipronil-based products in many countries.

2017 Fipronil eggs contamination.

The 2017 Fipronil eggs contamination is an incident in Europe and South Korea involving the spread of insecticide contaminated eggs and egg products. Chicken eggs were found to contain Fipronil and distributed to 15 European Union countries, Switzerland, and Hong Kong. Approximately 700,000 eggs are thought to have reached shelves in the UK alone. Eggs at 44 farms in Taiwan were also found with excessive Fipronil levels.

Fipronil is a broad-spectrum insecticide that belongs to the phenylpyrazole chemical family. Fipronil disrupts the insect central nervous system by blocking GABA-gated chloride channels and glutamate-gated chloride (GluCl) channels. This causes hyperexcitation of contaminated insects' nerves and muscles. Fipronil's specificity towards insects is believed to be due to its greater affinity to the GABAA receptors of insects, than to those of mammals, and to its action on GluCl channels which do not exist in mammals. there did not appear to be significant resistance, at least among fleas, to this insecticide.

Fipronil ist ein in vielen Ländern als Biozid und „systemisches Pflanzenschutzmittel“ („Insektizid“) verwendeter Wirkstoff aus der Gruppe der Phenylpyrazole. Es wirkt als Kontaktgift schnell und lang anhaltend gegen Ackerschädlinge sowie Ektoparasiten wie Flöhe, Haarlinge, Tierläuse, Zecken, Pelzmilben, Herbstgrasmilben und Räudemilben.