title
stringlengths 3
85
| text
stringlengths 1k
2.99k
|
|---|---|
Dragon Quest VIII | Unlike the original Japanese version, the North American and European localizations of the game mark a departure from previous Dragon Quest titles due to the inclusion of voice acting in certain parts of the adventure pertaining to the advancement of the storyline. The game retains the series' tradition of allowing the player to name the lead character, reconciling the two by having the voice acting script skip incidences of the Hero's name, (e.g. the line "Okay, Hero, my boy..." appears on-screen, while the voice acting says, "Okay, my boy...") and occasionally replacing the name with Yangus' nickname for him, "guv" (as in "governor", pronounced with a Cockney accent). Unlike some earlier games in the series, which were censored during localization for North America, Dragon Quest VIII had no such censorship. The English translation is credited to Plus Alpha Translations and AltJapan Co., Ltd. Richard Honeywood, of Square Enix's localization office and famous for his work with Final Fantasy VIII and Chocobo Racing, was the main force behind the game's English localization. The iOS and Android version removed the voice acting, akin to the original Japanese PS2 version due to hardware limitations at the time. |
Dragon Quest VIII | Released for the PlayStation 2 on November 27, 2004, in Japan, Dragon Quest VIII sold 2,167,072 units in two days, 3 million in three days, and more than 3 million within a week, becoming the fastest-selling PlayStation 2 title in Japan. By September 2008, total worldwide shipments of Dragon Quest VIII surpassed 4.9 million copies, of which over 430,000 were from the North American release. Dragon Quest VIII is the biggest selling game ever for the PlayStation 2 in Japan. It was the first Dragon Quest game to receive a score of 39 out of 40 from Famitsu. It won both 1UP.com's and GameSpy's "Best RPG of E3 2005" award, ahead of runner-up Kingdom Hearts II. During the 9th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards (now known as the D.I.C.E. Awards), Dragon Quest VIII received a nomination for "Role-Playing Game of the Year". The iOS version became the 2nd top-seller of Japan AppStore in the debut half day, highlighting the influence of the series. The Nintendo 3DS version was nominated for "Handheld/Mobile Game of the Year" at the Golden Joystick Awards, for "Best Portable Game" at Destructoid's Game of the Year Awards 2017, and for "Handheld Game of the Year" at the 21st Annual D.I.C.E. Awards. In 2023, Time Extension included the game on their "Best JRPGs of All Time" list. |
Dragon Quest VIII | Characters from the game have made appearances in other Square Enix properties. Jessica and Yangus are playable characters in Dragon Quest Heroes. In the sequel Dragon Quest Heroes II, Jessica is instead accompanied by Angelo. Dragon Quest Yangus, a roguelike Mystery Dungeon game by Cavia for the PlayStation 2, follows the storyline of a young Yangus. It was released in Japan in 2006. Jessica, Angelo, and Yangus also appear opposite other Dragon Quest characters, as well as Final Fantasy and Mario characters in titles of the Itadaki Street franchise, a cross-over board game spanning multiple platforms. Appearances include Dragon Quest & Final Fantasy in Itadaki Street Portable for the PlayStation Portable, Itadaki Street DS for the Nintendo DS and Itadaki Street Wii/Fortune Street, an enhanced remake of Itadaki Street DS for the Wii. Dragon Quest VIII characters also make appearances in Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies: Jessica, Angelo, and King Trode appear as special Wi-Fi guests in the Quester's Rest inn in Stornway, Dhoulmagus and Rhapthorne appear as optional legacy bosses, and the player can acquire a "Trodain Royal Guard" costume to dress as VIII's Hero. |
Raymond Carver | With his B-minus average, exacerbated by his penchant to forsake coursework for literary endeavors, ballasted by a sterling recommendation from Day, Carver was accepted into the Iowa Writers' Workshop on a $1,000 fellowship for the 1963–1964 academic year. Homesick for California and unable to fully adjust to the program's upper middle class milieu, he only completed 12 credits out of the 30 required for a M.A. degree or 60 for the M.F.A. degree. Although program director Paul Engle awarded him a fellowship for a second year of study after Maryann Carver personally interceded and compared her husband's plight to Tennessee Williams' deleterious experience in the program three decades earlier, Carver decided to leave the University of Iowa at the end of the semester. According to biographer Carol Sklenicka, Carver falsely claimed to have received an M.F.A. from Iowa in 1966 on later curricula vitae. Maryann, who postponed completing her education to support her husband's educational and literary endeavors, eventually graduated from San Jose State College in 1970 and taught English at Los Altos High School until 1977. After completing graduate work at Stanford, she briefly enrolled in the University of California, Santa Barbara's English doctoral program when Carver taught at the institution as a visiting lecturer in 1974. |
Job Shattuck | Crippled by debt in the aftermath of the revolution, the state of Massachusetts levied upon its towns and citizens tax burdens higher than had been in place during British rule. Those who suddenly found themselves in arrears to the state quickly discovered that their land, livelihood and possibly even their freedom were at stake. Many who could not assuage their debts faced the unpleasant prospect of serving time in a debtors' prison. The high tax burden, combined with the demand that it be paid in specie and the high-handed control of the government by merchant interests, transformed rural resentment into a full-blown agrarian revolt. The rebellion was waged primarily by debt-ridden western farmers and landowners who banded together and captured shire town courthouses in Massachusetts, closing them to all proceedings. Violence was threatened and enacted against many officials who would not stand down. On a national scale, the rebellion was viewed with intense interest by citizens and public officials of all of the confederated former colonies because it "tested the precarious institutions of the new republic." To officials in Boston, Job Shattuck became, perhaps even more than Daniel Shays, the leader of the agrarians in the western part of the state, a leading firebrand and empathetic advocate of the soldier–farmer who had risked life, limb, and land for the cause of the revolution only to return from the war to find injustice and foreclosure still looming. |
Jang Jin | In January 1995, Jang entered newspaper daily The Chosun Ilbo's annual literary contest with Cheonho-dong Crossroad, his first full-fledged script. Using three characters which would feature in most of his theater plays and early films (Hwa-yi, Dal-soo and Deok-bae), his new and creative brand of storytelling won over the judges, who awarded him the top prize. He wrote his first stage play Heotang ("labor in vain") at the age of 21 while serving his military duty, and his followup Clumsy People, not only granted him much praise, but was also a big success, and allowed actress Song Chae-hwan to win the Best Actress Award at the Seoul Theater Festival. At the same time, he was helping adapt Song Jae-hee's original into what became A Hot Roof, a feminist comedy where a group of women from all walks of life protest their position in society from the roof of a building, while their husbands and the rest of the city try to cope with all that in the midst of one of the hottest summers Korea had ever seen. |
Kakashi (album) | "Suiren", the album's opening track, begins with what Padua describes as "a sampled loop that suggests an electronic meow" which then transitions into an "easy-going martial rhythm". Resident Advisor has called the track "jaunty jazz pop". Padua compares the title track to Japanese folk music, noting its "dreamy marimba" and "minimal rhythms" which "set up a foundation for brassy jazz figures and dissonant background fills". In a review of the album for Record Collector, Paul Bowler notes Shimizu's use of insect sounds. He highlights the use of "synthetic, cicada-like sounds" which "provide scattershot background for Eno-esque piano runs" on "Kono Yoni Yomeri (Sono 1)". Bowler also notes that these sounds return "in real form" on "Kono Yoni Yomeri (Sono 2)", on which Shimizu "melds calm sax lines to the sound of summer-night bugs." Both Resident Advisor and Bowler consider "Semi Tori No Hi" a highlight of the album; the former notes the track "alternates between placid new age vibes—shimmering chimes, strummed harps—and soulful horn bursts." |
Philippe Samyn | In 1978, Philippe Samyn established his first personal office in the house he had just built on Avenue Hyppolite Boulenger in Uccle. Two years later, in 1980, he founded Samyn and Partners. During the early years, his engineering expertise honed his knowledge while establishing a reputation for seriousness and reliability in the industrial world. Simultaneously, he developed his career as an architect through more personal projects, refining his approach. He avidly followed architectural publications and journals, especially those from English-speaking countries, as well as German, Dutch, Scandinavian, and others. He was interested in the Arup group and the architecture of Louis Kahn, whose influence could be seen in some of his works at the time. However, it was primarily Christian Van Deuren, his friend, architect, and associate, who helped him structure his architectural thinking. From this period, notable projects include the Royal Athenaeum of Waterloo , the Athenaeum of Leuze-en-Hainaut , the primary section of the Royal Athenaeum of Athus , and the Shell Research Centre in Louvain-la-Neuve , which marked a significant milestone for Samyn et Associés. Shell was indeed an essential step for Philippe Samyn, demonstrating his agency's capabilities to successfully manage large-scale and highly technical projects. Other industrial commissions allowed him to formalize his research, applying his engineering knowledge to create rational yet aesthetic architecture. The works from this period were distinguished by a thorough study of geometry, notably in the Athenaeum of Athus, where rigor, calculation, economy, and geometry came together to create a humanistic space. |
2015 GT50 | It is one a small number of detached objects with perihelion distances of 30 AU or more, and semi-major axes of 250 AU or more. Such objects cannot reach such orbits without some perturbing object, which has led to the Planet Nine hypothesis, that a massive trans-Neptunian planet is the perturber. However 2015 GT50 is an interesting outlier of these trans-Neptunian objects that make one of the lines of evidence for Planet Nine. Unlike the others, the shape of whose orbits (longitudes of perihelion) either cluster in anti-alignment with the modeled orbit of Planet Nine or cluster in alignment with it, 2015 GT50's major axis is almost at a right angle to that of the putative planet. Konstantin Batygin of Caltech suggests that this is only a cosmetic disagreement with his and Mike Brown's predictions for the positions of these bodies. In fact, he notes that without having to change the putative orbit of Planet Nine, 2015 GT50 falls into one of the predicted resonant orbits. This, he notes, may be a coincidence. This conclusion, however, is not unanimous, and others have instead suggested that the existence of a population of objects with orbital characteristics similar to those of 2015 GT50 may be at odds with the Planet Nine hypothesis. |
Shaker communities | The Shakers are a sect of Christianity which practices celibacy, communal living, confession of sin, egalitarianism, and pacifism. After starting in England, it is thought that these communities spread into the cotton towns of North West England, with the football team of Bury taking on the Shaker name to acknowledge the Shaker community of Bury. The Shakers left England for the English colonies in North America in 1774. As they gained converts, the Shakers established numerous communities in the late-18th century through the entire 19th century. The first villages organized in Upstate New York and the New England states, and, through Shaker missionary efforts, Shaker communities appeared in the Midwestern states. Communities of Shakers were governed by area bishoprics and within the communities individuals were grouped into "family" units and worked together to manage daily activities. By 1836 eighteen major, long-term societies were founded, comprising some sixty families, along with a failed commune in Indiana. Many smaller, short-lived communities were established over the course of the 19th century, including two failed ventures into the Southeastern United States and an urban community in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Shakers peaked in population by the 1840s and early 1850s, with a membership between 4,000 and 9,000. Growth in membership began to stagnate by the mid 1850s. In the turmoil of the American Civil War and subsequent Industrial Revolution, Shakerism went into severe decline. As the number of living Shakers diminished, Shaker communes were disbanded or otherwise ceased to exist. Some of their buildings and sites have become museums, and many are historic districts under the National Register of Historic Places. The only active community is Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village in Maine, which is composed of at least three active members. |
Shaker communities | A Shaker village was divided into groups or "families." The leading group in each village was the Church Family, and it was surrounded by satellite families that were often named for points on the compass rose. Managing each family was a leadership team consisting of two Elders and two Eldresses. Shakers lived together as brothers and sisters. Each house was divided so that men and women did most things separately. They used different staircases and doors. They sat on opposite sides of the room in worship, at meals, and in "union meetings" held to provide supervised socialization between the sexes. However, the daily business of a Shaker village required the brethren and sisters to interact, as did the dancing and other vigorous activity of their worship services. Though there was a division of labor between men and women, they also cooperated in carrying out many tasks, such as harvesting apples, food production, laundry, and gathering firewood. Every family was designed to be self-supporting with its own farm and businesses, but in times of hardship, other parts of the village, or even other Shaker villages, pitched in to help the afflicted. |
Radegast | Radegast is situated at the margin of the Köthen culture plain. Here it ascends from the Fuhne valley, so the difference in height is about 6 metres (20 ft) on a short distance. The town is situated right in the middle of a former swampland. The upper level of this swamp has been quite fertile for a long time. The official Radegast Chronicle says, "the lower level of the soil in this area is not bad, but its value is lowered because it is too damp." The upper level to a depth of about 0.3 m (1 ft) is meadowland with a lush vegetation of grasses and swampland, which is very fertile and became very calcareous, too because of the stagnant water. This is followed by peat, which was cut for being used as peat coal in former times. The upper level is bordered by an impermeable stratum of clay. At shallow depth large boulders can be found from ice age deposits. The quality of the soil became a lot better because of its agricultural use. It offers perfect conditions for cultivating sugar beets and wheat. |
Achaemenid coinage | Darius introduced the reformed currency system from about 510-500 BC, consisting of gold Darics and silver Sigloi. The rate of exchange was 1 Daric = 20 Siglos. A Daric was between 8.10 and 8.50 grams in weight, based on the Babylonian shekel of 8.33 grams, slightly heavier than the Croesus standard of 8.06 grams. The purity of gold was between 98 and 99%. 1 Daric = 25 Attic Drachmae. It represented initially about 1 month of a soldier's wage. This new coin became popular throughout all of the ancient world for more than 150 years. Around 395 BC, the Achaemenids, led by Satrap Pharnabazes, bribed Greek states by paying them tens of thousands of Darics in order to attack Sparta, which was then waging a campaign of destruction in Asia Minor under Agesilaus. This started the Corinthian War. According to Plutarch, Agesilaus, the Spartan king, said upon leaving Asia "I have been driven out by 10,000 Persian archers", a reference to "Archers" (Toxotai) the Greek nickname for the Darics from their obverse design, because that much money had been paid to politicians in Athens and Thebes in order to start a war against Sparta. |
Achaemenid coinage | The "archer" type used in Achaemenid coinage may have been derived from similar and contemporary images on Greek coinage, in particular those of Herakles shooting arrows. The adaptation of this design for the illustration of the Achaemenid king or hero on the obverse may have been meant as a way to glorify the king, in way a which was easily understandable to the Hellenized people in the Western areas of the Achaemenid Empire, who minted the Achaemenid coinage and to whom this coinage was mainly destined as a currency. Other depictions of the king as an archer (for example shooting from his charriot) are also known from Sumerian art, so this representation would also have been natural to subjects in the Achaemenid realm as well. The "archer" type of Type II, less hieratic and rigid than the traditional Achaemenid illustration of the bust of the king on Type I, may represent the fusion of the Eastern conception of the King as a royal hunter, and the Western conception of the King as a hero, and designed to represent the Achaemenid king as an Olympian contestant in a propaganda effort towards the West. These depictions also imply that the Achaemenids were the first ever to illustrate the person of their king on coinage. |
Achaemenid coinage | Although many of the first coins of Antiquity were illustrated with the images of various gods or symbols, the first ever portraiture of actual rulers appears with these Achaemenid satrapal issues in the 5th century BC, in particular with the coinage of Lycia. The Achaemenids had been the first to illustrate the person of their king or a hero in a stereotypical manner, showing a bust or the full body, but never an actual portrait, on their Sigloi and Daric coinage from circa 500 BC. Before the Lycian coins with dynastic portraits, a slightly earlier candidate for the first portrait is Themistocles, the Athenian general who became a Governor of Magnesia on the Meander for the Achaemenid Empire circa 465-459 BC, although there is some doubt that his coins may have represented Zeus rather than himself. Themistocles may have been in a unique position in which he could transfer the notion of individual portraiture, already current in the Greek world, and at the same time wield the dynastic power of an Achaemenid dynast who could issue his own coins and illustrate them as he wished. From the time of Alexander the Great, portraiture of the issuing ruler would then become a standard, generalized, feature of coinage. |
Brooke Lynn Hytes | As a drag queen, Hayhoe initially tried out the names Jackie D, Carmen and Bianca. After moving back to Toronto to pursue drag full-time, he was adopted by local queen Farra N. Hyte, who named her new drag daughter Brooke Lynn Hytes. Shortly after returning to Toronto, Brooke Lynn Hytes won a local drag pageant called Queen of Halloween, and quickly began to attract attention in the Toronto drag scene. Brooke Lynn Hytes began to regularly compete on the drag pageant circuit. In 2013, she won Miss Gay Toronto, Derby City Entertainer of the Year, and Miss Michigan Continental, and placed as first alternate in the National Entertainer of the Year and Miss Continental pageants on first entry. In 2014, Brooke Lynn Hytes won the prestigious Miss Continental title. In 2015, Brooke Lynn Hytes accepted a residency as a performer in PLAY Dance Bar in Nashville, Tennessee. She auditioned for the ninth and tenth seasons of RuPaul's Drag Race, but was unable to join either season as she did not yet have a green card. |
Old Mother Riley in Society | Old Mother Riley does the laundry for the dancers in the pantomime "Aladdin", where her daughter Kitty works as a chorus girl. Sneaking a peek at the show one day, Mother Riley accidentally pops up through a trap door onto the stage. Accosted by the angry star, Mother Riley's belligerent responses have the audience in stitches. Outraged, the star walks out, leaving Kitty to take over the leading role, to great success. Kitty is congratulated after the show by wealthy high society boy Tony Morgan, and the couple start to fall in love. Tony and Kitty eventually marry and move into the Morgan family mansion, taking Mother Riley with them, as Kitty's personal maid. During a swanky party to introduce Kitty to Tony's upper class friends, rumours start up about Kitty's former stage career. Kitty is about to confess her past, but Mother Riley — fearing this will have damaging effect on her daughter's social standing — causes a disruption, then leaves a goodbye note and vanishes. Kitty tells Tony the truth, and the couple hire a detective to trace Mother Riley, but without success. Mother Riley works her way through a variety of dead end jobs after separating from Kitty, and ends up living in a dingey hostel and picking up degrading casual work as a dishwasher. A chance encounter with old friend Tug Mulligan results in her reunion with Kitty; Tony's family explains they're not "high society" after all, merely "nouveau riche". "We made our money in sausages", declares Lady Morgan; "then we're all friends together", replies Mother Riley. |
Jacques the Fatalist | The critical reception of the book has been mixed. French critics of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries dismissed it as derivative of Rabelais and Laurence Sterne, as well as unnecessarily bawdy. It made a better impression on the German Romantics, who had had the opportunity to read it before their French counterparts did. Schiller held it in high regard and recommended it strongly to Goethe, who read Jacques in a single sitting. Friedrich Schlegel referred to it positively in his critical fragments (3, 15) and in the Athenaeum fragments (201). It formed something of an ideal of Schlegel's concept of wit. Stendhal, while acknowledging flaws in Jacques, nevertheless considered it a superior and exemplary work. In the twentieth century, critics such as Leo Spitzer and J. Robert Loy tended to see Jacques as a key work in the tradition of Cervantes and Rabelais, focused on celebrating diversity rather than providing clear answers to philosophical problems. As this was contrary to the Catholic Church's point of view, the novel got banned, being listed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. |
Youngest Toba eruption | The exact year of the eruption is unknown, but the pattern of ash deposits suggests that it occurred during the northern summer because only the summer monsoon could have deposited Toba ashfall in the South China Sea. The eruption lasted perhaps 9 to 14 days. The most recent two high-precision argon–argon datings dated the eruption to 73,880 ± 320 and 73,700 ± 300 years ago. Five distinct magma bodies were activated within a few centuries before the eruption. The eruption commenced with small and limited air-fall and was directly followed by the main phase of ignimbrite flows. The ignimbrite phase is characterized by low eruption fountain, but co-ignimbrite column developed on top of pyroclastic flows reached a height of 32 km (20 mi). Petrological constraints on sulfur emission yielded a wide range from 1×1013 to 1×1015 g, depending on the existence of separate sulfur gas in the Toba magma chamber. The lower end of estimate is due to the low solubility of sulfur in the magma. Ice core records estimate the sulfur emission on the order of 1×1014 g. |
Youngest Toba eruption | Bill Rose and Craig Chesner of Michigan Technological University have estimated that the total amount of material released in the eruption was at least 2,800 km3 (670 cu mi)—about 2,000 km3 (480 cu mi) of ignimbrite that flowed over the ground, and approximately 800 km3 (190 cu mi) that fell as ash mostly to the west. However, as more outcrops become available, the most recent estimate of eruptive volume is 3,800 km3 (910 cu mi) dense-rock equivalent (DRE), of which 1,800 km3 (430 cu mi) was deposited as ash fall and 2,000 km3 (480 cu mi) as ignimbrite, making this eruption the largest during the Quaternary period. Previous volume estimates have ranged from 2,000 km3 (480 cu mi) to 6,000 km3 (1,400 cu mi). Inside the caldera, the maximum thickness of pyroclastic flows is over 600 m (2,000 ft). The outflow sheet originally covered an area of 20,000–30,000 km2 (7,700–11,600 sq mi) with thickness nearly 100 m (330 ft), likely reaching into the Indian Ocean and the Straits of Malacca. The air-fall of this eruption blanketed the Indian subcontinent in a layer of 5 cm (2.0 in) ash, the Arabian Sea in 1 mm (0.039 in), the South China Sea in 3.5 cm (1.4 in), and Central Indian Ocean Basin in 10 cm (3.9 in). Its horizon of ashfall covered an area of more than 38,000,000 km2 (15,000,000 sq mi) in 1 cm (0.39 in) or more thickness. In Sub-Saharan Africa, microscopic glass shards from this eruption are also discovered on the south coast of South Africa, in the lowlands of northwest Ethiopia, in Lake Malawi, and in Lake Chala. In South China, Toba tephras is found in Huguangyan Maar Lake. |
Youngest Toba eruption | Greenland stadial 20 (GS20) is a millennium-long cold event in the north Atlantic ocean that started around the time of Toba eruption. The timing of the initiation of GS20 is dated to 74.0–74.2 kyr, and the entire event lasted about 1,500 years. It is the stadial part of Dansgaard–Oeschger event 20 (DO20), commonly explained by an abrupt reduction in the strength of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). Weaker AMOC caused warming in Southern Ocean and Antarctica, and this asynchrony is known as bipolar seesaw. The start of GS20 cooling event corresponds to the start of Antarctic Isotope Maxima 19 (AIM19) warming event. GS20 was associated with iceberg discharges into the North Atlantic, thus it was also named Heinrich stadial 7a. Heinrich events tend to be longer, colder and with weaker AMOC in the Atlantic ocean than other DO stadials. From 74 to 58 kyr, Earth transitioned from interglacial marine isotope stage (MIS) 5 to glacial MIS 4, experiencing cooling and glacial expansion. This transition is a part of Pleistocene interglacial-glacial cycle driven by variations in the earth's orbit. Ocean temperature cooled by 0.9 °C (1.6 °F). Sea level fell 60 m (200 ft). Northern Hemisphere ice sheets embarked on significant expansion and surpassed the extent of Last Glacial Maximum in eastern Europe, Northeast Asia and the North American Cordillera. Southern Hemisphere glaciation grew to its maximum extent during MIS 4. Australasian region, Africa and Europe were characterized by increasingly cold and arid environment. |
Youngest Toba eruption | While Toba eruption occurred in the backdrop of rapid climate transitions of GS20 and MIS 4 triggered by changes in ocean currents and insolation, whether the eruption played any role in accelerating these events is much more debated. South China Sea marine records of climate, sampled at every centennial interval, shows 1 °C (1.8 °F) cooling above Toba ash layer for a thousand year but the authors concede that it may just be GS20. Arabian Sea marine records confirm that Toba ash occurred after the onset of GS20 but also that GS20 is not colder than GS21 in the records, from which authors conclude that the eruption did not intensify GS20 cooling. Dense sampling of environmental records, at every 6–9 year interval, in Lake Malawi, show no cooling-induced change in lake ecology and in grassy woodlands after the deposition of Toba ash, but cooling-forced aridity killed high elevation afromontane forests. The Lake Malawi studies concluded that the environmental effects of the eruption were mild and limited to less than a decade in East Africa, but these studies are questioned due to sediment mixing which would have diminished the cooling signal. Environmental records from a Middle Stone Age site in Ethiopia, however, shows that a severe drought occurred concurrently with Toba ash layer which altered early human foraging behaviours. |
Youngest Toba eruption | The modeled climate effects of the Toba eruption hinges on the mass of sulfurous gases and aerosol microphysical processes. Modeling on an emission of 8.5×1014 g of sulfur, which is 100 times the 1991 Pinatubo sulphur, volcanic winter has a maximum global mean cooling of 3.5 °C (6.3 °F) and returns gradually within the range of natural variability 5 years after the eruption. An initiation of 1,000-year cold period or ice age is not supported by the model. Two other emission scenarios, 1×1014 g and 1×1015 g, are investigated using state-of-art simulations provided by the Community Earth System Model. Maximum global mean cooling is 2.3 °C (4.1 °F) for the lower emission and 4.1 °C (7.4 °F) for the higher emission. Strong decrease in precipitation occurs in high emission. Negative temperature anomalies return to less than 1 °C (1.8 °F) within 3 and 6 years for each emission scenario after the eruption. But so far no model can simulate aerosol microphysical processes with sufficient accuracy, empirical constraints from historical eruptions suggest that aerosol size may substantially reduce magnitude of cooling to less than 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) no matter how much sulfur emitted. |
Youngest Toba eruption | Recent analysis applies Markov model to the complete set of genetic material to infer human population history. In non-African populations, studies recover a long-term steep decline in numbers starting 200 kyr and reaching the lowest point around 40–60 kyr. During this bottleneck non-African populations experienced 5- to 15-fold reduction, with only 1,000–3,000 remaining individuals at 50 kyr, consistent with the earliest mtDNA studies. This severe non-African contraction is consistent with founder effect caused by Out-of-Africa dispersal. As a small group with a size of a few thousand people migrated from the African continent into the Near East, the drastic reduction in numbers imprinted on non-African genomic diversity. Genetic analysis identified 56 selective sweeps related to cold adaptations in non-African populations, of which 31 sweeps occurred during 72–97 kyr. This event of closely timed selections is named Arabian Standstill and may have been caused by the severe cold arid conditions from the onset of MIS 4 and exacerbated by Toba super-eruption. |
Youngest Toba eruption | Other research has cast doubt on an association between the Toba Caldera Complex and a genetic bottleneck. For example, ancient stone tools at the Jurreru Valley in southern India were found above and below a thick layer of ash from the Toba eruption and were very similar across these layers, suggesting that the dust clouds from the eruption did not wipe out this local population. However, another site in India, the Middle Son Valley, exhibits evidence of a major population decline and it has been suggested that the abundant springs of the Jurreru Valley may have offered its inhabitants unique protection. At the Jurreru Valley in southern India, Middle Paleolithic stone tools below the Toba ash layer are dated by OSL to 77±4 kyr, while the age of stone tools above the ash layer is constrained to be no older than 55 kyr. This age gap is suspected to be due to the removal of post-eruption sediments or decimation of the local population until re-occupation at 55 kyr. Additional archaeological evidence from southern and northern India also suggests a lack of evidence for effects of the eruption on local populations, causing the authors of the study to conclude, "many forms of life survived the supereruption, contrary to other research which has suggested significant animal extinctions and genetic bottlenecks". However, some researchers have questioned the techniques utilized to date artifacts to the period subsequent to the Toba supervolcano. The Toba Catastrophe also coincides with the disappearance of the Skhul and Qafzeh hominins. Evidence from pollen analysis has suggested prolonged deforestation in South Asia, and some researchers have suggested that the Toba eruption may have forced humans to adopt new adaptive strategies, which may have permitted them to replace Neanderthals and "other archaic human species". |
Fearless (novel series) | Meanwhile Gaia becomes the target of a series of attacks from unknown assailants, which her uncle Oliver and recent boyfriend Jake begin to investigate. Gaia approaches the geneticist Dr. Ulrich, an employee for Rodke Pharmaceuticals, with the hope of finding a cure for her fearless condition. Dr. Ulrich tells Gaia that he can cure her by way of a surgical procedure, which proves to ultimately be successful. This is confirmed when later on Gaia flees in terror from a group of Invince drug addicts instead of fighting them. Her relief and happiness at finally being "normal" leads to conflicted emotions when she discovers that the addicts she ran from assaulted her ex-boyfriend Ed and his new girlfriend Kai, leaving them both with lifelong scars. Gaia's new fearful disposition leaves her susceptible to psychological manipulation from Skylar Rodke, the eldest brother of the Rodkes. He emotionally manipulates Gaia into staying at his apartment for several days and skipping high school prom, which strains her relationship with Jake. Meanwhile Sam and Heather begin to date again, as Heather has a full recovery from her blindness. Ed falls in love with Kai while remaining bitter towards Gaia about their failed relationship. |
Fearless (novel series) | Gaia is surprised to find out Dr. Ulrich lied about the effectiveness of her surgery; the effects begin to wear off, leaving her in a fearless state once again. She overhears a plan that the Rodkes are going to kill and dissect her in order to examine her DNA for the source of her condition, but ultimately fails to escape Skylar and the Rodkes' clutches. She's saved from certain death by the arrival of her family (Tom, Oliver) and her boyfriend Jake. Chris (who at this point has had a change of heart) appears and informs his brother that he's called the police and they are on their way to make arrests, which prompts the two rival siblings to try killing each other. In the process Chris tries to shoot Gaia, who is saved when Jake shields her, taking the bullet meant for her. Jake bleeds to death from the gunshot wound, leaving the police with plenty of evidence to arrest both Rodke brothers and their father, whom eventually confess to all the corruptions and crimes of the Rodke company. Oliver vows never to become Loki again, as he recognizes similarities in the sibling rivalry between Chris and Skyler with Tom and himself. Gaia is emotionally destroyed by Jake's death and overwhelmed from all the violence and destruction she's had to face over the years in the city. She decides to run away and leaves New York forever. |
Sukhoi Su-30MKI | In October 2000, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed for Indian licence-production of 140 Su-30MKIs; in December 2000, a deal was sealed at Russia's Irkutsk aircraft plant for full technology transfer. The Indian Air Force (IAF) has ordered 272 aircraft, of which 50 were to be delivered by Russia in 2002-2004 and 2007. The rest of 222 planes are to be produced under license at HAL's Indian facilities in 2004. The first Nasik-built Su-30MKIs were to be delivered by 2004, with staggered production until 2017–18. In November 2002, the delivery schedule was expedited with production to be completed by 2015. An estimated 920 AL-31FP turbofans are to be manufactured at HAL's Koraput Division, while the mainframe and other accessories are to be manufactured at HAL's Lucknow and Hyderabad divisions. Final integration and test flights of the aircraft are carried out at HAL's Nasik Division. Four manufacturing phases were outlined with progressively increasing Indian content: Phase I, II, III and IV. In phase I, HAL manufactured the Su-30MKIs from knocked-down kits, transitioning to semi knocked-down kits in phase II and III; in phase IV, HAL produced aircraft from scratch from 2013 onwards. |
Sukhoi Su-30MKI | Su-30MKI aerodynamic configuration is a longitudinal triplane with relaxed stability. The canard increases the aircraft lift ability and deflects automatically to allow high angle of attack (AoA) flights allowing it to perform Pugachev's Cobra. The integral aerodynamic configuration combined with thrust vectoring results in extremely capable manoeuvrability, taking off and landing characteristics. This high agility allows rapid deployment of weapons in any direction as desired by the crew. The canard notably assists in controlling the aircraft at large angles-of-attack and bringing it to a level flight condition. The aircraft has a fly-by-wire (FBW) with quadruple redundancy. Dependent on flight conditions, signals from the control stick position transmitter or the FCS may be coupled to remote control amplifiers and combined with feedback signals from acceleration sensors and rate gyros. The resultant control signals are coupled to the high-speed electro-hydraulic actuators of the elevators, rudders and the canard. The output signals are compared and, if the difference is significant, the faulty channel is disconnected. FBW is based on a stall warning and barrier mechanism which prevents stalls through dramatic increases of control stick pressure, allowing a pilot to effectively control the aircraft without exceeding the angle of attack and acceleration limitations. Although the maximum angle of attack is limited by the canards, the FBW acts as an additional safety mechanism. |
Sukhoi Su-30MKI | The forward-facing NIIP N011M Bars (Panther) is a powerful integrated passive electronically scanned array radar. The N011M is a digital multi-mode dual frequency band radar. The N011M can function in air-to-air and air-to-land/sea mode simultaneously while being tied into a high-precision laser-inertial or GPS navigation system. It is equipped with a modern digital weapons control system as well as anti-jamming features. N011M has a 400 km search range and a maximum 200 km tracking range, and 60 km in the rear hemisphere. The radar can track 15 air targets and engage 4 simultaneously. These targets can even include cruise missiles and motionless helicopters. The Su-30MKI can function as a mini-AWACS as a director or command post for other aircraft. The target co-ordinates can be transferred automatically to at least four other aircraft. The radar can detect ground targets such as tanks at 40–50 km. The Bars radar was planned to be replaced by Zhuk-AESA in all Su-30MKI aircraft, but this has since been abandoned in favor of indigenous upgrades. |
Antoine LeClaire House | The title to the St. Anthony's church property, named Church Square, was deeded by LeClaire to Bishop Mathias Loras of the Diocese of Dubuque in 1839 to support the Catholic Church in Davenport. Commercial properties were built on the east side of the block. Income from these properties was a factor in Davenport being named a see city with its own bishop in 1881. The Very Reverend John McMullen from Chicago was named the first bishop of the Diocese of Davenport. The clergy of the diocese purchased the LeClaire House for the bishop's residence. McMullen died in the house less than two years later. His successor, Henry Cosgrove, moved into the residence after he was named Bishop of Davenport in 1884. When Cosgrove died in 1906 his successor, James Davis, chose to live elsewhere because the house needed extensive repairs and it needed to be renovated. Previously there had been a friendly rivalry between Cosgrove and Davis after the later had a new rectory built at Sacred Heart Cathedral, where he was the rector, because it was larger and more modern. The diocese sold the LeClaire House and purchased the F.H. Miller House as the new residence for the bishop. |
College Promise | One of the early Promise Programs began in 2007 in the Pacific Northwest; graduating students from one high school were able to attend their first year of a local community college due to scholarships with both government and private funding. The selected high school was located in a large city in a low-income neighborhood, and more than half of the students were minorities. From the period between 2005 and 2007 before the Promise Program was announced, only 6.2% of graduating seniors enrolled in college, but following the implementation of the Promise program in 2008, 60.7% of graduating seniors enrolled to college. The fall-to winter retention rates of first-year students who attended college because of the Promise Program was 90%, indicating that the initiative increased student enrollment in college and academic success. Despite the high retention rates observed in this study, few students were placed into college-level math and English classes, and the average college grade point average (GPA) during their freshman year was 1.83, suggesting that students were not prepared in high school for the rigor of college classes. A total of 51 students participated in the study, with 46 students reenrolling for a second semester. Nonetheless, this Promise Program increased college attendance for lower-income students more than other Promise Programs, such as the Oregon Promise, because it does not take into account family income. |
College Promise | A state-wide Promise Program was started in Oregon in 2016, where community college tuition is covered to residents of Oregon with a cumulative high school GPA of 2.5 or higher. The Oregon Promise is a "last-dollar" scholarship, meaning that aid will only be rewarded after all other federal loans are applied, such as the Pell Grant. In 2016–2017, students from middle-income families received 53% of all aid rewarded from the Oregon Promise because they did not meet the requirements for the Pell Grant, while lower-income families received 47% of tuition covered because slightly higher percentages of these students qualified for more federal and state grants. Overall, 6,745 students who attended Oregon Community Colleges received the scholarship out of 10,500 applicants who met the scholarship requirements. Despite the problems in allocating scholarships primarily to need-based students, it was observed that Oregon community colleges saw an increase of 4%-5% in student enrollment in 2017. |
College Promise | Most Promise Programs in the United States currently award scholarships on a "last dollar" approach, meaning that students who qualify for need-based grants will only receive their scholarships after federal and state grants are exhausted. Creating programs based on "last dollar" financial aid is cheaper to states and cities than the alternate "first dollar" scholarships. In last dollar programs, low-income students should be receiving less aid from Promise scholarships than middle-income and high-income students. However, this is not necessarily true. Lower-income students will receive their Promise Program scholarship as well as federal grants, but middle-class students may only receive the Promise Program scholarship. Many middle-class families make too much money for students to qualify for federal grants such as the Pell Grant, but they do not make enough to comfortably send their children to public universities even with financial aid. Often middle-class families are not able to afford college tuition prices and do not receive additional aid, and these students end up graduating college with thousands of dollars in student loan debt. Shifting scholarship aid from last dollar to first dollar can greatly benefit both low-income and middle-class students, but that would require the assistance of the federal government. |
Vachellia farnesiana | Of all Acacia species, this plant has the greatest distribution. It was first described by Europeans in 1625 by Tobias Aldini from plants grown from seed collected in Santo Domingo, in what is now the Dominican Republic. The native range of V. farnesiana has been or is sometimes disputed. While the point of origin is thought to be the Caribbean, the Guianas, Mexico, and/or Central America, the species has a pantropical distribution incorporating most of the Americas (from the Southern U.S. to Chile, excluding the Amazon), most of Australia, much of Africa, southern Europe, and southern Asia. In the Caribbean, it is present from the Bahamas and Cuba south to Trinidad, Curaçao, and Aruba, where in it is believed to be native to Hispaniola and certainly Cuba, but possibly native or naturalised elsewhere. In the U.S., it is thought to be native to southern Texas, southern New Mexico, southern Arizona, and southern California, but perhaps naturalized in southern Louisiana, coastal Mississippi, coastal Alabama, coastal Georgia, and southern Florida. Whether the extra-American distribution is natural (the seed pods have probably floated across the Pacific) or anthropogenic remains disputed. It was introduced to Europe, the Middle East, India, Africa, and recently Gran Canaria and Hawaii. It has long been thought to be native to the Philippines and Australia, having spread there by natural means, because plants were collected there before colonisation in 1788, it was distributed throughout the country, indigenous knowledge on the plant is extensive, and 2017 DNA investigations show this as most likely. In Australia, however, the government now considers it as non-native or even invasive. |
Paulo Dybala | A creative, elegant, and agile player, with excellent technical ability and a low centre of gravity, Dybala is known for his powerful and accurate shots from outside the box, dribbling skills, balance, and close control in limited spaces, as well as his ability to beat opponents in one on one situations and protect or hold up the ball for teammates with his back to goal. Due to his speed on the ball, positioning, intelligent movement, and ball skills, he excels during counter-attacks and at beating the offside trap when making attacking runs. A hardworking player, he is also known for his stamina and defensive contribution off the ball. Dybala is capable both of creating chances for teammates, as well as scoring goals himself, due to his vision, passing, link-up play, and ability to drop deep and play off other players, as well as his powerful and accurate ball-striking ability from both inside and outside the area. Despite his diminutive stature, Dybala is also effective at scoring with his head, due to his acceleration over short distances, and his ability to anticipate defenders inside the box. |
Paulo Dybala | A versatile forward, he is capable of playing in any offensive position: he started out playing as a left winger for Instituto in Argentina towards the beginning of his career, but since moving to Italy he has been deployed in a variety of attacking roles, including as a main striker, as a centre-forward, as a second striker, as an attacking midfielder, in a free role as a wide playmaker, as a right-sided inside forward, as a false attacking midfielder, as a false 9, or even as an inverted winger on the right flank, where he is able to cut into the centre and curl shots on goal with his stronger left foot. He has also been used in a free attacking role on occasion, in which he is given licence to roam about the final third of the pitch, and either drop into the middle, or switch between the flanks, due to his ability to create from the left or cut inside and score from the right. Because of his work-rate and involvement in the build-up of his team's attacking plays, in addition to his goalscoring ability, his former manager at Juventus Massimiliano Allegri even deployed Dybala as an offensive-minded central midfielder on occasion (known as a "mezzala", in Italian), and described him as a "box-to-box player" ("tuttocampista", in Italian) in 2018. He has also operated in a deeper playmaking role on occasion. Dybala is also accurate from both free kicks and penalties. His playing style has drawn comparisons with compatriots Sergio Agüero, Javier Pastore, Carlos Tevez, Omar Sívori, Diego Maradona, and Lionel Messi, as well as former Italian forwards Vincenzo Montella, Alessandro Del Piero, and Roberto Baggio; the latter described Dybala as the number 10 of the future in 2017. Widely considered to be a highly talented prospect in world football, in 2014, Don Balón named him one of the 100 most promising young players in the world born after 1993. Despite his talent, however, his mentality, consistency, and leadership qualities have come into question at times in the media. Moreover, he has also struggled with injuries throughout his career. |
Ji Desheng | In order to make improvements himself, Ji Desheng tasted dozens of herbal ingredients commonly used for detoxification and pain reduction. Some of the ingredients have adverse effects when taken alone. When accidentally poisoned, Ji Desheng immediately took the antidotes taught by his father. With his intuition, experience, and repeated trials of ingredient tasting, he was able to determine the effectiveness and the performance of each herb he tried. He also courageously let snakes bite his shoulders, arms, and toes; when poisoned, he applied different medicines to the different types of wounds. Ji Desheng only applied the medicine onto his patients after testing out the medicine himself. After spending nearly 10 years of hard work, he finally achieved his long-cherished wish of producing a standardized product. The end product was produced by a crushing a variety of ingredients into powder then adding liquid to form a cake-shaped tablet 2.5 cm in diameter and 0.5 cm in thickness. The medicine also came in the shapes of pills. Each piece of the medicinal cake and pills were printed with a red Chinese character of "Ji" bearing the family name. |
Ji Desheng | Viper snakes are the most common type of snake in China as they are widely distributed. They also have the highest number of snakebite victims. Ji Desheng explained the viper's general behavior patterns to better cure their bites. He described that "during the spring the vipers began their activities; during the summer solstice to the autumnal equinox the vipers are productive and very venomous; during the morning and evening vipers are very active because the insects fly lower." He also explained that vipers are very active before abrupt climate changes such as thunderstorms. Ji Desheng discovered that snakes are typically more active during the spring and autumn. They are active in the dark, damp areas, caves, bushes, tree holes, shrubs, and flooded areas. Ji Desheng recognized that snakes with a flat triangular head, thinner neck, bright skin color, tail short and thick tail can be the most dangerous snakes. These snakes leave the bitten area with clear fang marks that cause quick edema and threaten lives as the toxin spreads quickly. |
Ji Desheng | Impressed, in 1956, Nantong Municipal Health Bureau invited him to join the Nantong Ji Desheng Hospital as an out-patient specialist treating snakebites. This was a major turning point of Ji Desheng's nomadic life. The original Ji Desheng snakebite medicine was effective but had several flaws. For instance, the original snakebite medicinal cake was easy to rot and degenerate. Also, the original dose was a black particle with a foul smell that could cause coloring of the teeth. For these reasons, the hospital set up a snakebite research group to improve the snakebite medicine. Together with the research group, Ji Desheng made adjustments to eliminate the earlier drawbacks. Respecting Ji Desheng's contributions, the improved product was officially named Ji Desheng Snake Tablets. By 1958, Ji Desheng had treated over 100 patients and without a single case of death, attracted the attention of the pharmaceutical industry outside Nantong. The Ministry of Science and Technology of China, with affirmation from the Ministry of Health (China), published the "Research of Ji Desheng Snake Medicine" as a major scientific and technological achievement. In August, officials invited Ji Desheng to Beijing to meet the Party and State leaders including premier Zhou Enlai. Chinese Academy of Sciences subsequently appointed him as a Research Fellow and the Ministry of Health awarded him the "Vanguard of Medical and Health Technology", a title of high honor. |
Ji Desheng | On August 28, 1960, the Ministry of Health, requested Ji Desheng go to Wuhan to treat a PLA officer. At the age of 63 and hospitalized for pleurisy, Ji Desheng accepted the request and left for Wuhan immediately. After nine hours of travel on water, land, and air, Ji Desheng arrived at 11:30pm. He immediately went to his patient regardless of his illness and fatigue. The patient had 2 bite marks on his left foot and was suffering from limb swelling, genital swelling and was at a semi-conscious state with his life at stake. Judging from the bite marks and symptoms, Ji Desheng determined that the officer was bitten by a powerful viper and had only a few more hours to live. He acted decisively to provide acupuncture to a Ba Feng pressure point, apply topical snake medicine to the ankle and knee, and had the patient intake snakebite tablets. The patient woke up from his coma after one hour. After three days the swelling the patient's condition improvement dramatically and he could walk slowly. After 8 days of treatment and care Ji Desheng effectively saved this man's life. Throughout his life he saved countless number of patients like this individual. |
Plagiarism | It is frequently claimed that people in antiquity had no concept of plagiarism, or at least did not condemn it, and that it only came to be seen as immoral much later, anywhere from the Age of Enlightenment in the 17th century to the Romantic movement in the 18th century. Although people in antiquity found detecting plagiarism difficult due to long travel times and scarcity of literate persons, there are a considerable number of pre-Enlightenment authors who accused others of plagiarism and considered it distasteful and scandalous, including historians Polybius and Pliny the Elder. The 3rd century Greek work Lives of the Eminent Philosophers mentions that Heraclides Ponticus was accused of plagiarizing (κλέψαντα αὐτὸν) a treatise on Heliod and Homer. In Vitruvius's 7th book, he acknowledged his debt to earlier writers and attributed them, and he also included a strong condemnation of plagiarism: "Earlier writers deserve our thanks, those, on the contrary, deserve our reproaches, who steal the writings of such men and publish them as their own. Those, who depend in their writings, not on their own ideas, but who enviously do wrong to the works of others and boast of it, deserve not merely to be blamed, but to be sentenced to actual punishment for their wicked course of life." Vitruvius went on to claim that "such things did not pass without strict chastisement". He recounted a story where the well-read Aristophanes of Byzantium judged a poetry competition and caught most of the contestants plagiarizing others' poems as their own. The king ordered the plagiarizers to confess that they were thieves, and they were condemned to disgrace. Although the story may be apocryphal, it shows that Vitruvius personally considered plagiarism reprehensible. |
Plagiarism | Some institutions use plagiarism detection software to uncover potential plagiarism and to deter students from plagiarizing. However, plagiarism detection software does not always yield accurate results, and there are loopholes in these systems. Some universities address the issue of academic integrity by providing students with thorough orientation, including required writing courses and clearly articulated honor codes. Indeed, there is a virtually uniform understanding among college students that plagiarism is wrong. Nevertheless, each year a number of students are brought before their institutions' disciplinary boards on charges that they have misused sources in their schoolwork. However, the practice of plagiarizing by using sufficient word substitutions to elude detection software, known as rogeting, has rapidly evolved. "Rogeting" is an informal neologism created to describe the act of modifying a published source by substituting synonyms for sufficient words to fool plagiarism detection software, often resulting in the creation of new meaningless phrases through extensive synonym swapping. The term, a reference to Roget's Thesaurus, coined by Chris Sadler, principal lecturer in business information systems at Middlesex University, who uncovered the practice in papers submitted by his students, though there is no scholarly evidence of Rogeting more broadly, as little specific research has been conducted. |
Plagiarism | Several studies investigated factors predicting the decision to plagiarize. For example, a panel study with students from German universities found that academic procrastination predicts the frequency plagiarism conducted within six months followed the measurement of academic procrastination. It has been argued that by plagiarizing, students cope with the negative consequences that result from academic procrastination such as poor grades. Another study found that plagiarism is more frequent if students perceive plagiarism as beneficial and if they have the opportunity to plagiarize. When students had expected higher sanctions and when they had internalized social norms that define plagiarism as very objectionable, plagiarism was less likely to occur. Another study found that students resorted to plagiarism in order to cope with heavy workloads imposed by teachers. On the other hand, in that study, some teachers also thought that plagiarism is a consequence of their own failure to propose creative tasks and activities. |
Plagiarism | Though widely employed in high schools and universities, plagiarism detection tools create a delicate environment in the classroom, as they place instructors in the role of guardians of ethical principles, establishing an adversarial relationship between teachers and students. These tools presuppose that students are prone to plagiarizing and that instructors should use advanced techniques to uncover it. Such scrutiny can cause students to feel afraid and disempowered, as they may consider these tools as omnipotent monitors. The WriteCheck reviews demonstrate that students may be afraid of being caught, leading to writing with pressure and anxiety. These reviews highlight the power dynamics and the culture of fear around plagiarism in the classroom. Additionally, inherent power imbalances between instructors and students exist since students may feel obligated to submit their work to Turnitin for evaluation Furthermore, Turnitin endeavors to promote Western writing values globally. It inherently promotes standardized writing around the world, advancing Western ideas of authorship and EAE, which reinforce harmful ideologies that impact writing instructors. |
Plagiarism | In general, plagiarism detection systems deter rather than detect plagiarism, but they do not reflect the ultimate educational objectives. Given the serious consequences that plagiarism has for students, there has been a call for a greater emphasis on learning in order to help students avoid committing plagiarism. This is especially important when students move to a new institution that may have a different view of the concept when compared with the view previously developed by the student. Indeed, given the seriousness of plagiarism accusations for a student's future, the pedagogy of plagiarism education may need to be considered ahead of the pedagogy of the discipline being studied. The need for plagiarism education extends to academic staff, who may not completely understand what is expected of their students or the consequences of misconduct. Actions to reduce plagiarism include coordinating teaching activities to decrease student load, reducing memorization, increasing individual practical activities, and promoting positive reinforcement over punishment. A student may opt to plagiarize due to a lack of research methods, knowledge of citation practices, or an excessive workload. To eventually reduce plagiarism, students should be educated about the ethical and legal concerns surrounding these tools, and teachers should devise suitable and innovative assignments that require more independent thinking. |
Plagiarism | Many scholars and members of academia have taken a negative position on the use of plagiarism detection technologies arguing that its use promotes a culture of surveillance and conformity in higher education. Many have called for a reevaluation of higher learning away from a focus on grades and credentials towards a more holistic approach. One such recommendation outlined by scholars is to turn students towards revision as opposed to plagiarism detection. This updated focus has culminated in the creation of sites such as Eli Review which is intended to facilitate improved writing through peer review. Educators have recognized the need for careful consideration when implementing plagiarism detection software in order to balance the promotion of academic integrity with maintaining a positive learning environment. This balancing act has been at the center of the pushback against traditional plagiarism detection systems, as educators have become increasingly aware of the potential negative impact of such technology on trust and privacy. This emphasis on striking a balance between these competing interests highlights the importance of thoughtful and nuanced approaches to addressing plagiarism in the academic context. |
Plagiarism | Some academic journals have codes of ethics that specifically refer to self-plagiarism (e.g., the Journal of International Business Studies). Some professional organizations such as the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) have created policies that deal specifically with self-plagiarism. Other organizations do not make specific reference to self-plagiarism such as the American Political Science Association (APSA). The organization published a code of ethics that describes plagiarism as "...deliberate appropriation of the works of others represented as one's own." It does not make any reference to self-plagiarism. It does say that when a thesis or dissertation is published "in whole or in part", the author is "not ordinarily under an ethical obligation to acknowledge its origins." The American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) also published a code of ethics that says its members are committed to: "Ensure that others receive credit for their work and contributions", but it makes no reference to self-plagiarism. |
Plagiarism | The increase in plagiarism can also be attributed to developments in artificial intelligence. The emergence of large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-3 and ChatGPT raised global discussion about the impact of artificial intelligence on writing and plagiarism. One such innovation is the GPT-2 model, which is capable of generating coherent paragraphs and achieving high scores on various language modeling assessments. It can also perform basic tasks such as reading comprehension, machine translation, question answering, and summarization. Currently, detectors of AI language such as GPTZero have been introduced to cope with this problem. Noam Chomsky called ChatGPT "nothing more than high-tech plagiarism". In contrast, others have proposed that "the essay is dead", declaring that artificial intelligence will transform academia and society. One scholar of plagiarism, Eaton, proposed the idea of a postplagiarism era, in which human and artificial-intelligence hybrid writing become normal. The impact of artificial intelligence on plagiarism has yet to be fully understood. |
Plagiarism | (p. 437) There is between 'translation proper' and 'transmutation' a vast terrain of 'partial transformation'. The verbal signs in the original message or statement are modified by one of a multitude of means or by a combination of means. These include paraphrase, graphic illustration, pastiche, imitation, thematic variation, parody, citation in a supporting or undermining context, false attribution (accidental or deliberate), plagiarism, collage, and many others. This zone of partial transformation, of derivation, of alternate restatement determines much of our sensibility and literacy. It is, quite simply, the matrix of culture. (p. 459) We could, in some measure, at least, come closer to a verifiable gradation of the sequence of techniques and aims, which leads from literal translation through paraphrases, mimesis, and pastiche to thematic variation. I have suggested that this sequence is the main axis of a literate culture, that a culture advances, spiralwise, via translations of its own canonic past. |
Helen C. White | She taught several classes, including freshman English, 17th century English literature, metaphysical poetry, and a graduate course in John Donne, George Herbert, Andrew Marvell, Richard Crashaw, and Henry Vaughan. Margaret Thoma of Demcourier described White's English 5 writing seminar as "now famous" in 1942. White taught two classes when the Wisconsin Writers' Institute opened in 1945. White's classes emphasized unambiguous writing and constructive, honest feedback. She was known to amiably reply to all of her mail. White used a four desk system in her apartment, where each desk served a specific function: personal letters, low-priority book notes, high-priority work, or typing. Some of her most notable students, such as August Derleth, Herbert Kubly, and Mark Schorer, continued to rely on White's editorial opinion after their own careers were established. Mark Schorer wrote that White's "patience", "tact", "humor", and "sympathy" were the fundaments of her successful style. White considered teaching "not only stimulating but ... the most worthwhile thing a person can do." |
Helen C. White | White had little time to write due to her other academic obligations, and once said, "belonging to things is an occupational disease of my profession". White became the English department chair in 1955 and once again in 1961. As chair, White recruited faculty members from established universities, fought for the recognition of her staff, and worked with the faculty members individually, as she would with her students. She wrote in the summers, often while she traveled. Aided by Guggenheim Fellowships, White visited most of Europe. On her first fellowship, she traveled in Italy and studied at Oxford University and the British Museum between 1928 and 1929 for a year. While abroad, White wrote English Devotional Literature, 1600–1640 and was inspired to start her first novel, A Watch in the Night. In mid-1930, she received her second fellowship to verify her work in England. She received a grant from the university to finish her 1935 The Metaphysical Poets in London. White was a visiting scholar at the California Huntington Library between 1939 and 1940, where she worked on Social Criticism in Popular Religious Literature of the Sixteenth Century. She returned to the library in mid-1941. White was a visiting professor at Barnard College between 1943 and 1944, and a visiting professor at Columbia University during the summer of 1948. She also had a strong interest in poetry, though she didn't think highly of her own. |
Helen C. White | White was the first female elected president of the American Association of University Professors and thrice served as president of the American Association of University Women (AAUW), including from 1941 to 1947. White received an AAUW achievement award in 1949 for her scholarly work and international service in the humanities. She also served as the vice president of the International Federation of University Women, president of the University of Wisconsin Teachers' Union, and the first woman president of the University Club. White was awarded two Guggenheim Fellowships, the 1942 Laetare Medal, the 1944 Siena Medal, the 1947 Radcliffe Alumni Association's Distinguished Achievement Award for Education, and 23 honorary degrees from places such as Miami University, Mount Mary College, Mount Saint Scholastica College, Rockford College, Smith College, and Wilson College. She became an Honorary Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1958 for her renown as a scholar of 16th and 17th century English literature. In 1959 she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. White was on the United States National commission for UNESCO and represented the United States twice at UNESCO meetings: the 1946 Preparatory Commission for UNESCO and the 1947 second UNESCO General Conference held in Mexico City. White was also on the 1946 U.S. Education Mission to Germany. Additionally, she sat on the boards of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, the American Council on Education, and the Phi Beta Kappa Senate, and was appointed by the U.S. President to the Fulbright Board of Foreign Scholarships. |
Grace Episcopal Church (Chicago) | In 1851, parishioners from Chicago's oldest Episcopal congregation, then about a decade old, Trinity Episcopal Church helped found Grace Episcopal Church in the developing downtown district, which is now known as the Chicago Loop. The first building, a wooden structure, was at Dearborn and Madison Streets, and its first rector, Rev. Cornelius F. Swope, served until 1854. In 1859, the Rev. Clinton Locke became rector, and mostly served in a building at Wabash Avenue and East 8th Street and later at Wabash between 14th and 15th Street, while its parent Trinity Church moved to Jackson street between Michigan Avenue and Wabash by 1860. The Great Chicago Fire in 1871 destroyed both churches, as well as much of the city. That third Grace Church building burned down in 1915, so the congregation rebuilt the partially damaged parish house nearby, and used it for a decade. In 1929, the congregation moved to a new building at 1450 South Indiana Avenue, near St. Luke's Hospital, with which some were associated. The congregation returned to the Loop when it dedicated its fifth building, at 33 West Jackson in 1966. |
2014 Women's Rugby World Cup final | Having the superior historical form, superior scorelines against Spain and Samoa, as well as their most recent outing with Canada being a comfortable 32–9 win, England were favourites to take the final match of the pool on 9 August. Canada had the confidence with their first and second wins over England in the 2013 Nations Cup. England scored early on with a penalty from Emily Scarratt, with a quick response from a Canadian try of Karen Paquin, with Magali Harvey's conversion missed. The score remained 3–5 until another Scarratt penalty in stoppage time; England leading 6–5 at half-time. Canada scored another quick try in the second half from Kayla Mack, again unconverted from Harvey. Scarratt however was able to convert the try of vice-captain Sarah Hunter to take the lead back for England a third time, before Harvey's late penalty brought the scores level. What was to follow would become controversial over forthcoming years. England were awarded a penalty again in stoppage time that was easily kickable to the posts, the teams however discussed the decision, and agreed England should kick the ball into touch for a draw instead of over the posts for a win. This was after defending four-time champions New Zealand were upset by Ireland four days earlier. By drawing the game, the Black Ferns would be eliminated with both England and Canada going through with Ireland and hosts France. Had England gone for the posts, this would have meant New Zealand would have gone through instead of Canada, which both teams did not desire as Canada would have been knocked out and England had been beaten by New Zealand in the last three finals. In the tournament, the draw resulted in New Zealand being knocked out of the tournament for the first time since losing to the United States in the semi-finals in 1991, as well as guaranteeing new finalists as England were the only former finalists that had qualified for the 1st-4th semi-finals. Outside of the tournament, along with Canada failing to qualify for the 1st-4th semi-finals in 2017, the draw resulted in the format being changed for the 2021 tournament so that there would be quarter-finals preceding the semi-finals. |
2014 Women's Rugby World Cup final | With the teams drawing, they were seeded 3rd and 4th overall, with England playing 2nd ranked Ireland, and Canada against 1st ranked France. Having only ever lost one out of their six semi-finals and being against Ireland who hadn't yet played one, England were predicted to win the game despite their recent form against the Irish which had dwindled in recent games. England were not seen to be outright favourites as Ireland had recently beaten New Zealand for the first time and won the Grand Slam in the Six Nations the previous year. Canada had the much harder task of defeating the current Six Nations Grand Slam champions France. With the Black Ferns gone, France were new favourites along with England having claimed the Grand Slam for the first time since 2005. The semi-finals commenced on 14 August, with England playing Ireland first. Ireland fielded the exact same side that beat the Black Ferns and pressurised England until scoring first after quarter of an hour. England however, took cruise control and replied with 40 unanswered points with tries from Rochelle Clark, Katherine Merchant, Kay Wilson and two from Marlie Packer; a performance that seemed like those England had previously put over Ireland. In the other game, Canada came out mostly second-best against the hosts. This was until an end-to-end solo effort from Magali Harvey, an effort that would win her the IRB Women's Player of the Year and subsequently Women's Try of the Decade. France responded but Canada held on to win, their second consecutive win over France in France, and made their first final, resulting in France's sixth successive semi-final defeat. England meanwhile entered their fourth successive final, and sixth overall. |
2014 Women's Rugby World Cup final | England were favourites for the same reason, and they dominated the entire game with two Emily Scarratt penalties before Karen Paquin prevented tries from Katherine Merchant and Natasha Hunt. England however did score when Canadian skipper Kelly Russell was fooled by a Tamara Taylor dummy, giving England an overlap sending Danielle Waterman into score their first try. Scarratt's conversion went bizarrely wide but England still had a healthy 11–0 lead. Magali Harvey then scored a penalty before halftime to make the score 11–3. Harvey then continued England's lead after the break to 11–9. England then entered cruise control as they did against Ireland first with a response from Scarratt restoring the score to 14–9. In the last quarter, play was mostly contested in England's half, but a miscommunication between centres Rachael Burford and Scarratt confused both England's attack and Canada's defence, allowing Scarratt to break several lines to score the winner. She comfortably converted to put England twelve points clear with five minutes left. England won their second Women's Rugby World Cup, their first in twenty years, and their third overall Rugby World Cup triumph. |
Chemical looping combustion | Although proposed as a means of increasing efficiency, in recent years, interest has been shown in CLC as a carbon capture technique. Carbon capture is facilitated by CLC because the two redox reactions generate two intrinsically separated flue gas streams: a stream from the air reactor, consisting of atmospheric N2 and residual O2, but sensibly free of CO2; and a stream from the fuel reactor predominately containing CO2 and H2O with very little diluent nitrogen. The air reactor flue gas can be discharged to the atmosphere causing minimal CO2 pollution. The reducer exit gas contains almost all of the CO2 generated by the system and CLC therefore can be said to exhibit 'inherent carbon capture', as water vapor can easily be removed from the second flue gas via condensation, leading to a stream of almost pure CO2. This gives CLC clear benefits when compared with competing carbon capture technologies, as the latter generally involve a significant energy penalty associated with either post combustion scrubbing systems or the work input required for air separation plants. This has led to CLC being proposed as an energy efficient carbon capture technology, able to capture nearly all of the CO2, for example, from a Coal Direct Chemical Looping (CDCL) plant. A continuous 200-hour demonstration results of a 25 kWth CDCL sub-pilot unit indicated nearly 100% coal conversion to CO2 with no carbon carryover to the air reactor. |
Richie Roberts | Lucas, and his associates (largely drawn from family and close friends), sold heroin under the name "Blue Magic", and claimed that it was 98-100% pure when shipped from Thailand. However, it was cut with mannite and quinine and resulted in a final product that was only 10 percent pure when it hit the streets. However, this was much better than the rival "brands," which were lucky to be at 5 percent purity and likely less. By bypassing the trafficking middlemen, using innovative shipping, and providing a higher quality product, Lucas was able to dominate the market through the sale of heroin at inexpensive prices. Lucas claimed that he earned $1 million a day selling heroin from his base of operations on 116th Street in Manhattan, although this was later believed to be an exaggeration. Roberts disclosed on the WBGO 88.3 public radio program Conversations With Allan Wolper that heroin dealers in New York area were claiming their drugs were "Blue Magic," hoping to take advantage of the publicity generated by American Gangster. |
Jesse Lee (politician) | Lee was hired in 2003 to do Internet-related work for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). From 2004 to 2006, Lee worked for the online division of the DCCC. Rahm Emanuel became DCCC chair in 2005, and allowed Lee discretion in his online postings. Lee served as the Senior New Media Advisor to Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi during the 110th United States Congress. Lee blogged for Pelosi on the Speaker's official blog called "The Gavel". During the 2008 United States presidential election, Lee performed online rapid response for the Democratic National Committee. Lee worked in the Presidential transition of Barack Obama, in the New Media department, performing online outreach during the transition and work on the website Change.gov. The Washington Post noted "Lee is well respected in the blogosphere". Greg Sargent, a blogger with The Washington Post partner WhoRunsGov.com, wrote positively of Obama's choice of Lee for his transition team. "Lee, meanwhile, is highly regarded by liberal bloggers. He wrote the first-ever blog for the House Speaker, and in the closing days of the campaign he did online rapid response for the DNC, helping the Obama camp frame its message outreach to the blogosphere," wrote Sargent on Talking Points Memo. |
Jesse Lee (politician) | On February 23, 2004, President Barack Obama announced Lee was hired as Online Programs Director for his administration, in a release from the White House Press Secretary of "key White House staff". Part of Lee's duties as White House Online Programs Director include running Whitehouse.gov, and innovating techniques to engage individuals on the Internet. Lee came up with a program called "Open for Ideas", and this led to a town hall meeting in March 2009 where President Obama answered questions that had been submitted online. "I think the online town hall is the coolest thing I've seen come to fruition. I'd like to get to the point where that kind of stuff replaces the comment forums you typically find on government websites," said Lee to the National Journal. In September 2009, Lee posted to the White House blog defending the Obama Administration against criticism from conservative political commentator, Glenn Beck. Lee criticized Beck for what he asserted to be factual inaccuracies, and recommended the Pulitzer Prize-winning website PolitiFact.com for further information about "Fox lies ... repeated by Glenn Beck and others on the network". Jim Kuhnhenn of the Associated Press wrote that "calling a news networks' assertions 'lies' is unusually confrontational". |
Highland High School (Bakersfield, California) | Approximately 10 percent of Highland's graduates go directly to a four-year college or university with an additional 40 percent attending community and technical colleges. The fine arts department provides a wide variety of enrichment courses including orchestra, intermediate and advanced band (Symphonic Band and Wind Ensemble), five choirs, beginning, intermediate, and advanced arts/crafts, as well as beginning, intermediate, and advanced drama/theater studies. Forensics (public speaking) and journalism/ publications are taught through the English department. Additionally, Highland offers two four-year Project Lead the Way programs: engineering and biomedicine. Students are highly encouraged to participate in extra-curricular activities and in athletics. Highland provides more than 30 clubs and 32 athletic teams. Highland has an Academic Decathlon team which typically places in the top five teams each year in the county competition and a Science Bowl team that has won the regional competition and represented the region in the national competition several times. Highland's athletic teams are competitive. Highland's students are active in community service, typically among the top schools in the highest percentage of eligible donors giving blood. |
Highland High School (Bakersfield, California) | Highland High School, located in the northeast part of Bakersfield, serves a multi-cultural population of more than 2,000 students drawn from three distinct eastside neighborhoods, two of which are uniquely "island" areas outside the immediate school neighborhood from which Highland draws approximately 53% of its students. Career-technical education courses that are offered at the school include agriculture, computer applications and CAD/drafting. The CAD/drafting classes focus on architectural design, qualify for UC fine arts credit, and are articulated with Bakersfield College. Highland's drafting students compete each year in the California State Fair; the 2006 competition resulted in 8 student ribbons won and another 7 Honorable Mention awards given. Highland's agriculture program is outstanding and produced the state science project winner who will be one of eight semi-finalists who will present their projects at the national Future Farmers of America Conference in October. Highland's music programs are well known throughout the county and state. |
Duckie Thot | Pirelli's 2018 annual calendar spectacular, shot by Tim Walker and styled by Edward Enniful, was a powerful all-black retelling of Alice in Wonderland in which Thot was cast as Alice and is credited to helping her rise to fame. Before her work with Pirelli, Thot stated that she often provided her own makeup at shoots as there often wasn't a consideration for her skin colour. She has since been vocal about diversity, race inclusion and Black Lives Matter in the fashion industry, after stating that she is often the only person of colour on set. Speaking to The Glass Magazine in 2020, Thot said "I think that the fashion industry has come far, but to really push it forward it needs to go further than just hiring models of colour. The industry needs to be more receptive when it comes to hiring diverse talent to work in the creative and decision-making fields." Thot stated that when she was growing up she did not see people that looked like her in the beauty industry. She hopes that her work will allow others to see themselves reflected and know that nothing is off limits to them. |
The Prince of Los Cocuyos | Riqui's family immigrated from Cuba during the early 1970s, escaping Fidel Castro's takeover. He opens up the memoir by detailing his family's journey to Miami. His grandmother paid for his whole family to travel to go from Cuba then Spain, then New York, then finally Miami. When Riqui's family finally settled in Güecheste, Miami they went to work at a bodega, a store owned by his uncle. Riqui's family held tight to their Cuban Heritage and only ate Cuban food. However, Riqui had a hard time accepting this as he wanted to eat American food like Pop-Tarts and Cool Whip. His grandmother, Abuela, would frequently disapprove because real food was Cuban food to her. Abuela did not want to shop at Winn-Dixie out of fear of the American language barrier. Riqui insisted and finally his grandmother gave him money to shop at Winn-Dixie. She later started enjoying American products and offered to cook Riqui a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner, she referred to as San Giving. However, his extended family decided to bring and merge the Cuban food with the American food, which frustrated Riqui. Towards the end of Thanksgiving Riqui connects pilgrims to his family and how their journeys to America are similar. |
Stawa Młyny | There is a legend associated with the Mill Pond. When Świnoujście became a port city, its inhabitants began to work on ships, leaving for long cruises. The wives waited for the sailors, who returned exhausted and aged. One of them, Alice, distraught by the appearance of her beloved Christopher, went to the seashore at night and cried. A mysterious voice told her to seek rescue in the windmill behind her, from which the old miller came out. He ordered Alice to come the next day with her husband; then he ordered to cover him with mud, take a bath in the sea and walk on the shore. A week later, he took him to a windmill. After some time, Alice's husband came out of the interior rejuvenated. The windmill was quickly visited by other sailors as well. However, when the old miller died, it turned out that no one knew the secrets of his treatments, and the mechanism of the windmill stopped. Despite this, people thirsty for rejuvenation continued to come – and still come today – to Świnoujście to cover themselves with mud, swim and walk. |
Collapsology | As a systemic approach, collapsology is based on prospective studies such as The Limits of Growth, but also on the state of global and regional trends in the environmental, social and economic fields (such as the IPCC, IPBES or Global Environment Outlook (GE) reports periodically published by the Early Warning and Assessment Division of the UNEP, etc.) and numerous scientific works as well as various studies, such as "A safe operating space for humanity"; "Approaching a state shift in Earth's biosphere", published in Nature in 2009 and 2012, "The trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration", published in 2015 in The Anthropocene Review, and "Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene", published in 2018 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. There is evidence to support the importance of collective processing of the emotional aspects of contemplating societal collapse, and the inherent adaptiveness of these emotional experiences. |
The Fox and the Lion | Since the story was not related in Latin until very late, it was not included in early European collections of Aesop's fables. Neo-Latin poems based on it were written by Hieronymus Osius and Gabriele Faerno in the 16th century, while in England it was included in Geoffrey Whitney's Choice of Emblemes and the collections of Francis Barlow and Roger L'Estrange in the late 17th century. Most of these followed the fable's original Greek source in giving it the moral that acquaintance overcomes fear. When it appeared in emblem books, however, it was as an illustration of how difficult things become easy with practice, but after its appearance in Samuel Croxall's The Fables of Aesop in 1722, the story was given a social interpretation. In his long commentary, Croxall remarks that the lesson to be learned from it is of 'the two extremes in which we may fail, as to a proper behaviour towards our superiors', namely bashfulness and 'overbearing impudence'. Although the proverb 'Familiarity breeds contempt' hardly fits the story as it stands, Jeffreys Taylor made it do so in a poem for children from his Aesop in Rhyme . In this the fox criticizes the lion's cold behaviour and is thrown by him into the river to teach him better manners. |
Augustin Diamacoune Senghor | Born on April 4, 1928, Father Augustin Diamacoune Senghor would go on to be an influential person in the Casamance conflict. In 1967, Diamacoune started speaking on the topic of Casamance independence. In 1978, he published a booklet outlining the many injustices that the people of Casamance had suffered as a result of the Senegalese government. Father Diamacoune began to get more heavily involved in raising awareness of the Casamance conflict from 1980-1981. During this time, Diamacoune held conferences, wrote letters to the Senegalese authorities, and distributed pamphlets. Father Diamacoune was quickly recognized as a leading figure in the movement for Casamance independence, and in 1984, after a series of protests in Ziguinchor, he was arrested and sentenced to 10 years for violating territorial integrity . Approximately halfway through his 10-year sentence, Diamacoune was granted amnesty by President Diouf because the aggressive military action taken by the Senegalese government in response to the MFDC was not working and Diouf wanted to try negotiating a peace accord. Diamacoune went on to serve a total of 5 years in prison between 1984-1991, but was released early on May 31, 1991, after Sidi Badji signed a ceasefire agreement with Senegalese Defence Minister Medoune . |
Augustin Diamacoune Senghor | A year later, in September 1996, Father Diamacoune accomplished what had previously seemed to be inconceivable as he successfully reunited the front nord through rapprochement with Sidy Badji. Because of the reunion of the two branches, the front nord had a much more impactful voice in peace negotiations. Looking to seize upon the new opportunity, Diamacoune proposed peace negotiations between the MFDC and the Senegalese government. He suggested holding the negotiations in Paris in 1997, but the Senegalese government declined the proposition. In January 1999 in Ziguinchor, Father Diamacoune went on to meet with President Diouf for the first time ever. After the meeting, President Diouf addressed the Casamance people and urged them to forgive the Senegalese government, and to think about reconciliation . A period of peace was ushered in, characterized by peaceful marches under the leadership of women and religious leaders. However, Diouf lost the 2000 presidential elections and was succeeded by President Wade. In September 2001, for the first time since the beginning of the conflict, the leader of the MFDC was invited to meet the Senegalese president in his palace. The meeting between Father Diamacoune and President Wade resulted in increased economic activities in Casamance under the Programme de Reconstruction Economique et Sociale de la Casamance. As president of the MFDC, Diamacoune declared that the MFDC had obtained a state of satisfaction, and that there was no more reason to fight . The last peace accord between the MFDC and the Senegalese government was signed in December 2004. |
Jesper Olsen (runner) | The concept of Olsen's world run originated as a suggestion made in 2001 by Olsen to David Blaikie, who published it with an invitation for comments on his website ultramarathonworld.com. Olsen suggested that, without taking sides in then-current controversies in the ultra-running world, a professionally organized world run would be a "constructive" and "truly sportsman" response to widespread ultrarunner community skepticism and discussion concerning Robert Garside's world run, which had been in progress since 1997 but was viewed with great skepticism by Blaikie and many ultra-runners and had not yet been authenticated by Guinness at the time. In his letter, Olsen stated that while he was "fairly new to the 'real' ultra-running" world, he did hold the Danish national record for the 100 km run (6:58:31) and for the 24-hour run (223 km), had been running marathons since around 1986 (15 years), and having finished a degree, was able to commit the time required if the proposal gained the necessary support from others. |
Jesper Olsen (runner) | Olsen's run around the world took 22 months. It started on 1 January 2004 and finished on 23 October 2005. His route consisted of: London-Copenhagen-Moscow-Vladivostok-(air)-Niigata-Tokyo-(air)-Sydney-Perth-(air)-Los Angeles-Vancouver-New York-(air)-Shannon-Dublin-(air)-Liverpool-London. Olsen averaged 28 miles (45 km) a day, slightly more than a marathon. It totalled just over 16,000 miles (26,000 km), exceeding the distance of the first verified walk around the world (Dave Kunst, 1970-1974, 14,452 miles (23,123 km)) but around (or slightly under) half the distance of the first verified run around the world, when Garside's run was eventually verified by Guinness in 2007 (Robert Garside, 1997-2003, estimated 30,000 - 40,000 miles (48,000 - 64,000 km)) During most of the run, Olsen pushed a baby carriage, in which he kept food, beverages, a tent, and other equipment. While running through Russia and half of the U.S., he was aided by a support car transporting these supplies. From London to central Siberia he was accompanied by Alexander Korotkov of Russia, who planned to run around the world with Olsen but gave up in central Siberia. |
Jesper Olsen (runner) | Olsen and Sarah Barnett ran the North-South route starting on 1 July 2008. The North-South run aimed to complete a distance of 40,000 kilometres (25,000 mi) with GPS tracking and live coverage, thus making it the world's longest fully GPS-documented run. The run went from top to bottom of the globe and back, running across four continents and a huge range of temperatures and terrain. It can be seen as a run in a circle around the world in southern, later northern direction with the poles excluded. It started at North Cape, Norway passing Helsinki, Finland (4 August), Copenhagen, Denmark (25 August), Budapest, Hungary (25 September), and Istanbul, Turkey (5 November). On December 1, 2008, near Silifke, Turkey, Barnett had to give up after 7,334 kilometres (4,557 mi), and Olsen continued alone. He passed Cairo, Egypt and Addis Abeba, Ethiopia (16 April). Cape Town in South Africa was reached by 15 March 2010, thereby completing the first half of the run and the first documented run through Africa, a distance of 21,449 kilometres (13,328 mi). |
Marc Bloch bibliography | Born in Lyon to an Alsatian Jewish family, Marc Bloch was raised in Paris, where his father—the classical historian Gustave Bloch—worked at Sorbonne University. Bloch was educated at various Parisian lycées and the École Normale Supérieure, and from an early age was affected by the antisemitism of the Dreyfus affair. During the First World War, he served in the French Army and fought at the First Battle of the Marne and the Somme. After the war, he was awarded his doctorate in 1918 and became a lecturer at the University of Strasbourg. There, he formed an intellectual partnership with modern historian Lucien Febvre. Together they founded the Annales School and began publishing the journal Annales d'histoire économique et sociale in 1929. Bloch was a modernist in his historiographical approach, and repeatedly emphasised the importance of a multidisciplinary engagement towards history, particularly blending his research with that on geography, sociology and economics, which was his subject when he was offered a post at the University of Paris in 1936. |
Marc Bloch bibliography | Bloch's most important early work—based on his doctoral dissertation—was published in 1924 as Rois et Thaumaturges; it was published in English as The Royal Touch: Monarchy and Miracles in France and England in 1973. Here he examined medieval belief in the royal touch, and the degree to which kings used such a belief for propaganda purposes. It was also the first example of Bloch's inter-disciplinary approach, as he used research from the fields of anthropology, medicine, psychology and iconography. It has been described as Bloch's first masterwork. It has a 500-page descriptive analysis of the medieval view of royalty effectively possessing supernatural powers. Verging on the antiquarian in his microscopic approach, and much influenced by the work of Raymond Crawfurd—who saw it as a "dubious if exotic" aspect of medicine, rather than history—Bloch makes diverse use of evidence from different disciplines and periods, assessing the King's Evil as far forward as the 19th century. The book had originally been inspired by discussions Bloch had with Louis, who acted as a medical consultant while his brother worked on it. Bloch concluded that the royal touch involved a degree of mass delusion among those who witnessed it. |
Marc Bloch bibliography | 1931 saw the publication of Les caractéres originaux de l'histoire rurale francaise. In this—what Bloch called "mon petit livre"—he used both the traditional techniques of historiographical analysis(for example, scrutinising documents, manuscripts, accounts and rolls) and his newer, multi-faceted approach, with a heavy emphasis on maps as evidence. Bloch did not allow his new methods to detract from the former; he knew, says the historian Daniel Chirot, that the traditional methods of research were "the bread and butter of historical work. One had to do it well to be a minimally accepted historian". The first of "two classic works", says Hughes, and possibly his finest, studies the relationship between physical geographical location and the development of political institutions. Loyn has called Bloch's assessment of medieval French rural law great, but with the addendum that "he is not so good at describing ordinary human beings. He is no Eileen Power, and his peasants do not come to life as hers do". In this study, Chirot says Bloch "entirely abandoned the concept of linear history, and wrote, instead, from the present or near past into the distant past, and back towards the present". Febvre wrote the introduction to the book for its publication, and described the technique as "reading the past from the present", or what Bloch saw as starting with the known and moving into the unknown. |
Margaret Bell (physician) | Completely changing her tune from the Great Depression almost a decade earlier, Bell believed the advancement of women was dependent on women's physical health. In the midst of World War II, Bell was adamant that girls needed to have endurance, skill, and agility in order to "replace her brother on the home front in industry and in community life". Bell wanted to take advantage of the men being off at war, as she believed it posed a "great opportunity for women to demonstrate the great range of capacities". She believed the only way to accomplish this was to increase the physical fitness of women, which would allow them to increase their strength, skill, and speed of actions and movement. Doing so, Bell felt, would allow women to both be more vigorous in their own lives, but more importantly, serve the country in the wake of World War II. She believed the role of women in the war effort was to replace the men in their jobs that they could no longer do due to the war, and she felt that physical fitness was crucial in being able to do so. Bell was able to accomplish this goal by serving on the Committee on Physical Fitness and Recreation through the Michigan Council on Defense from 1942 to 1945. |
Alexander Barkan | In 1955, with the merger of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organization Mr. Barkan became assistant director of the AFL-CIO's political arm, COPE. He was appointed director by George Meany in 1966 giving him a major say in the distribution of a substantial amount of money and number of volunteers, which gave him major influence in the Democratic Party. He was also known as a gifted orator and tireless union advocate. Al, as he was generally known was well respected by his friends and enemies alike for his accomplishments, integrity, and directness. Lane Kirkland, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. said of him "Al Barkan was one of labor's most dedicated and most unforgettable stalwarts. Few achieve the rank of legend, but Al did. He left an indelible memory with all of us and his work inspired more than one generation of trade unionists to continue their work 'on to victory.'" Mr. Barkan often used "on to victory" to rally his troops in electing pro union candidates. |
Asterix and the Picts | Following Getafix's administrations, the young Pict regains only limited power of speech and the Gauls cannot understand him. One day, he chisels a map on one of Obelix's menhirs, leading to his home. With this clue, and additional enticement provided by the village women's increasing fascination for the handsome young man, Asterix and Obelix are tasked with taking him home, along with some healing elixir for the Pict's throat. As they leave in Unhygenix's fishing boat and encounter (and fight) the pirates, the Pict fully recovers his voice. He introduces himself as MacAroon and tells them how he was ambushed by MacCabaeus, the chief of the MacCabee clan, tied to a log and thrown into the loch near his home because MacCabeus is longing for the hand of MacAroon's fiancée Camomilla, the adopted daughter of Mac II, late monarch of Caledonia, in order to make himself king of all Picts. In an effort to consolidate his claim, MacCabaeus has pleaded for an alliance with Rome and secretly invited a Roman legion to his coronation. |
Richard Ponsonby (politician) | He was the first of six surviving children of Susannah (née Grice) and Thomas Ponsonby of Crotta, where his family had been the landowners for two generations after the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. He was educated at Trinity College Dublin. His first marriage was to Helen Meade, third surviving child of Elizabeth (née Butler) and Sir John Meade, on 11 January 1711; she died on 28 March 1743. His second marriage was to Arabella Blennerhassett , 48 years his junior, daughter of Jane (née Denny) and Colonel John Blennerhassett of Ballyseedy. Blennerhassett had made an agreement with Maurice Crosbie of Ardfert and Arthur Denny (politician) of Tralee to partition the county representation amongst the families. The Ponsonbys at Crotta and other southern counties benefited from these agreements through marriage and other arrangements; Ponsonby's family, despite being tainted by legal disputes in his father's earlier years, became in favour with and increasingly influential within the Irish government. Notwithstanding this, Ponsonby had no children by either marriage. |
Pundranagar | Some 10 kilometre northeast of Bogra stands Mahasthan, on the banks of the river Karatoya celebrated in ancient literature as a sacred river. Karatoya was once a mighty river before its parent stream – the Teesta or Trisrota (meaning combined flow of three rivers – the Karatoya, the Pundrabhava and the Atrai) flowing down from the Jalpaiguri suddenly shifted its old channel and rushed into the Brahmaputra (Jamuna) in the devastating flood of 1787 AD. Mahasthan or Pundranagar was an important location on a major north south navigation as can be seen in James Rennell's map of Bengal drawn in 1767. It was an impressive fortified citadel enclosed on the south, the west and part of north by a deep moat. Its eastern and part of its northern rampart overlooked the mighty Karatoya. Looking at the dried up skeleton of the river today, one can hardly have any idea of what great role Karatoya played on ancient history of this region. The Karatoya is mentioned in the great epic Mahabharata. A 12th/13th century Sanskrit text, called Karatoya Mahatyam, ascribed to Parsurama, celebrates this river which is described as big as a sea. The Karatoya-Teesta navigation system was the route followed by Ikhtiyar Uddin Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khilji when he tried to conquer Tibet in 1205/06. A Persian source mentions an army sailing down the river in the 16th century. So it can be surmised that the importance of Pundranagar was due to its location as an important stage in the north–south fluvial axis from the Bay to Nepal and Tibet. |
Pundranagar | Along with the discoveries of Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW) pottery whose date is known to vary from the 4th century BC to 2nd century BC points to Pundranagar's Buddhist past during the Mauryan rule in the Sub-continent, there is another very strong evidence of its Buddhist past that comes from the accounts of the Chinese pilgrim, Xuanzang (Hiuen Tsang). He visited Pundranagar between the years 638 AD and 645 AD. Xuanzang noticed a large stupa near the city which he called Po-Shi-Po. From his descriptions it appears that the site mentioned by him is the Vasu-Vihara, a Buddhist educational institution. Here Ashoka is said to have erected a large stupa on the body relic of the Enlightened One. The Chinese pilgrim claims in his account that Buddha himself came and stayed here for three months preaching his religion. All these references conclusively establish Pundranagar's close association with the Mauryan rule. With the dissolution of the Mauryan rule what happened to Pundranagar is still a matter of conjecture. Precise historical records are not available for the Shunga phase which is roughly between the 1st century BC and 73 BC. But the discovery of terracotta figurines assigned to this period strongly suggests that the city of Pundranagar continued to flourish during this period. The discovery of a gold coin bearing the bearded figure of Kanishka on the obverse suggests its association with the Kushanas but it does not conclusively prove their sway over Pundranagar. However, epigraphic records suggest that from the 4th century onward Bengal came to be subjugated by the Guptas and Pundranagar came to be regarded as the stronghold of Gupta defences in the eastern flank of their empire. The Damodarpur copper plate of Buddha Gupta suggests that Pundranagar flourished as the capital of the entire northern Bengal and it formed an integral part of the Gupta empire down to the end of the 5th century. In the early 7th century Shashanka who established an independent rule in Gauda undertook a systematic persecution of the Buddhists and during this period Pundranagar's strong Buddhist influence may have suffered an eclipse. It is, however, with the rise of the Palas that Pundranagar once again became the seat of an independent government under Gopala. Though his son Dharmapala shifted his capital to Magadha, Pundranagar continued to thrive under the Palas. Its prosperity continued unabated until the coming of the Muslims in the early 13th century. The Bengal Sultans established' their capital in Gauda region. Pundranagar was abandoned and left to fall into decay and ruin. |
Pundranagar | A visitor to Mahasthan / Pundranagar is impressed by the city walls enclosing an area of 22,500,000 sq. feet. The citadel (see map alongside), the fortified heart of the ancient city, is rectangular in plan, measuring roughly 1.523 km long from north to south, and 1.371 km from east to west, with high and wide ramparts in all its wings. The Karatoya, once a mighty river but now a small stream, flows on its east but the presence of other ruins and mounds around suggest that the citadel had flourishing suburbs. At present there are several mounds and structural vestiges inside the fortifications. Of these a few of note are: Jiat Kunda (well possessing life giving power), Mankalir Dhap (place consecrated to Mankali), Parasuramer Basgriha (palace of a king named Parasuram), Bairagir Bhita (palace of a female anchorite), Khodar Pathar Bhita (place of stone bestowed by God), and Munir Ghon (a bastion). There are some gateways at different points: Kata Duar (in the north), Dorab Shah Toran (in the east), Burir Fatak (in the south), and Tamra Dawaza (in the west). Besides these, there are 31 other sites and mounds around Mahasthan. |
Pundranagar | Xuanzang (Hiuen Tsang) visiting Pundranagar in the mid-7th century observed that its circumference was about five miles (30 li). He noticed about 20 Buddhist monasteries accommodating some 3000 monks and about 100 Brahmanical temples, but the greater numbers of heretics were Nirgrantha (Jaina) who went about naked. Sandhyakar Nandi writing in the middle of the 12th century has drawn a glorious picture of the city in his Ramacharita as 'the crown jewel of Varenda'. The splendours of the city's royal palaces, state secretariate, mansions, luxurious villas of the noblemen and merchants, flourishing marts, ornate temples, assembly halls, the garrison within the heavily fortified city ramparts and moats as portrayed by him seem to be no less brilliant than Vaisali, Rajagriha, Sravasti, Kausambi, Pataliputra or any other famous ancient cities of Aryavarta during the early historic period. The poet further mentioned that the social workers, labourers and the dwellings of the middle class citizens were located in its extensive suburbs outside the protected area of the citadel. The excavation and exploration in its ambient areas agree exactly with the descriptions of Sandhyakar Nandi. |
Pundranagar | The French have for the first time put things on a scientific basis having done some C14 dating. Phase 5 of their excavation work of the northern building provided 'two C14 dates of the 1st and 2nd century AD'. This is confirmed by archaeological materials such as cast copper coins of Mauryan type still in use in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, numerous terracotta plaques of Shunga style, and a large variety of Black Polished Ware. The discovery of this N.B.P. pottery whose date is known to vary from the 4th century BC to 2nd century BC points to Pundranagar's Buddhist past during the Mauryan rule in the Sub-continent. The discovery of a limestone tablet from Mahasthan in 1931 confirms this. The tablet bears six lines of Ashokan Brahmi inscription directing the Mahamatra (governor) of Pundranagar to distribute food grain and money from government stores to the famine-stricken people of the area. The sympathy evinced in the inscription strongly suggests that this was an imperial order from Ashoka himself. Excavations in 1907 and 1961 exposed the plan of a dwelling house which is comparatively modern and is ascribes to the later 18th century or early 19th century. But a deep trench dug at a later date revealed a fragmentary building phases of an earlier date, probably 8th century AD. |
Misszhouia | Misszhouia longicaudata is almost flat (dorso-ventrally). The upper (or dorsal) side of the body consists of a non-calcified headshield (cephalon) and tailshield (pygidium) without body segments between. The body is narrowed at the articulation between cephalon and pygidium. The long many-segmented antennae are directed forward. There are no eyes. The gut has a relatively small diameter, and there are four pairs of relatively small digestive sacs (or caeca) in the cephalon only, and no branches towards the edge of the cephalon (unlike Naraoia). There are 25 limb pairs with two branches on a common base, like Naraoia and trilobites. The outer branch (or exopod) has many parallel long fine flattened side branches (setae) that probably functioned as gills with a large surface area. This exopod is attached along the whole length of the base segment (coxa) and at least the proximal part of the first segment of the inner branch (endopod). The shaft of the exopod tapers gently towards its tip. The endopod is composed of seven podomeres including a terminal claw. |
John Ebers | In 1822, Ebers ventured to take a four years' lease of the theatre from a banker named Chambers, who owned the theatre at the time. Ayrton seems to have been uniformly unfortunate in his relations with managers, for the connection between him and Ebers was dissolved that year. A Signor Petracchi, conductor at La Scala, Milan, was summoned to succeed him, and a board of directors, consisting of various noblemen, was associated with the management of the undertaking. The strength of the company was increased by the addition of Maria Caterina Rosalbina Caradori-Allan and Pierre Begrez. The productions of the year were Rossini's Pietro l'eremita (i.e. Mosè in Egitto) and Otello, Giuseppe Mosca's I pretendenti delusi, and Giovanni Pacini's Il barone di Dolsheim, both of which last failed. In spite of this, the season was on the whole successful. In 1823 the management was placed in the hands of a committee, under a certain guarantee to Ebers. Rossini's La donna del lago, Ricciardo e Zoraide, Matilde di Shabran and Saverio Mercadante's Elisa e Claudio were produced. Although the bad accounts of the season which are to be read in the 'Harmonicon' for 1823 must be taken with a grain of salt (Ayrton was the editor of the paper, which appeared first in that year), it is still to be perceived that the affairs of the theatre were in an unsatisfactory state. Lucia Elizabeth Vestris was the only addition to the company, and Violante Camporese retired at the end of the season. |
John Ebers | Ebers now sublet the theatre for two years to Giovanni Battista Benelli, who had been assistant stage manager. In January 1824 the season opened with Rossini's Zelmira with Isabella Colbran in the principal part, the composer himself being advertised to be present. He had undertaken to write an opera, Ugo, re d'Italia, but it was never finished. Pasta made her appearance on 24 April, and the season lasted, in spite of enormous losses, until 14 August, shortly after which Benelli decamped, leaving Rossini and the artists unpaid. The matter came before the courts, with Ebers appealing to the Lord Chancellor to put him again into the management of the theatre. The particulars of the actions may be read in the 'Quarterly Musical Magazine,' vi. 516–521. It was generally considered that the engagement of Rossini was unwise; but the patronage bestowed by the fashionable world had been so great that Ebers felt justified in announcing a new season, returning again to the directorship of Ayrton. The fact that the leases of the 'property-boxes' were to fall in at the end of 1825 gave a prospect of success. His prospectus is more or less apologetic, but he had secured the services of a fairly good company, and in the course of the season Pasta was prevailed on to accept a portion of the salary due to her from the previous year in lieu of the whole amount, and to return to London. |
John Ebers | The board of works declaring the King's Theatre to be unsafe, the Haymarket Theatre was taken for a time, from the beginning of March until the middle of April. Rossini's Semiramide was brought out on 20 June, and Giacomo Meyerbeer's Il crociato in Egitto on 23 July, for the first appearance of Giovanni Velluti, the castrato, who was one of the great attractions of the year. At the end of the season Ayrton again retired, possibly on account of a difficulty which the management had had with Manuel García, the correspondence relating to which is published in the 'Quarterly Musical Magazine,' vii. 188–91. In November, Velluti was appointed director, and the new season was announced to begin on the last day of the old year. It began on 7 January 1826, when great dissatisfaction was caused by the substitution of many inexperienced orchestral performers for those who had played for many seasons. Francesco Morlacchi's Tebaldo ed Isolina was produced without success on 25 February. In May Pasta appeared, and drew large audiences. Velluti's voice began to give out at the end of the season, and Ebers's choice of Rossini's Aureliano in Palmira for his benefit, 22 June, did not add to his popularity. He got into trouble concerning the pay to the chorus on this occasion, and the matter was decided against him in the sheriff's court. On 12 August the season came to an abrupt end, several performances being still due. In the next season Carlo Coccia, the conductor, resigned his post, and after considerable difficulty his place was taken by Nicolas-Charles Bochsa, who had undertaken two seasons of oratorios at the King's Theatre without any success, was now appointed director, and on 2 December the house opened with Gasparo Spontini's La vestale. Pacini's La schiava in Bagdad and Coccia's Maria Stuarda were produced, and on 7 August the theatre again closed prematurely. At the end of the year Ebers, being unable to pay the enormous rent demanded of him by the assignees of Chambers, became a bankrupt. |
John Ebers | Messrs. Chambers at first intended to carry on the undertaking themselves, but they ultimately let the theatre to a certain Laurent, who was also lessee of the Théâtre Italien in Paris. After a year he was succeeded by Pierre François Laporte. In 1828 Ebers published his Seven Years of the King's Theatre, a book put together with some skill, and in its way an entertaining history of his career. He lays before the public all his accounts, in order to justify his own position, and on the whole it must be admitted to be a valuable contribution to the history of the Italian opera in England. After his failure as a manager, he resumed his business as a bookseller and stationer. His name appears in the directories as the proprietor of the business at 27 Old Bond Street down to 1830; in 1831 the style is John Ebers & Co., and from 1836 onwards the name is given as S. Ebers & Co. An Emily S. Ebers, who may have been his daughter, carried on the business, being called in the directory 'opera agent,' until 1863. |
2002–03 New Jersey Devils season | For the Devils, this was their fourth Stanley Cup Finals appearance, after making the Finals previously in 1995, 2000, and 2001. As for the Mighty Ducks, it was their first ever Stanley Cup Finals appearance in franchise history after defeating the Detroit Red Wings, Dallas Stars, and Minnesota Wild. The Devils had a strong start in game one at the Meadowlands as they shut out the Ducks 3–0. Game two was pretty much Deja Vu for the Devils as they once again blanked the Ducks 3–0. Down 2–0 in the series, the Ducks responded at home in Anaheim with a 3–2 overtime victory. Then, in game four, Anaheim tied the series at two in a 1–0 overtime win. Back at the Meadowlands, game five was much more competitive and high tempo. While both teams went back and forth with three goals each, the Devils would add three more goals to win 6–3. Facing elimination in game six, the Ducks did not disappoint their fans as they won game six 5–2. However, during that game, Scott Stevens laid a vicious check on Paul Kariya, knocking him to the ground. Kariya quickly recovered and scored the game-winning goal, tying the series at three games apiece. The Devils ended the series with an exclamation mark as they shut out the Ducks 3–0 once more to capture their third Stanley Cup championship in nine seasons. While the Devils did win the cup, Jean-Sébastien Giguère of Anaheim won the Conn Smythe Trophy, making it the first time in sixteen years that a player from the losing team won the Conn Smythe Trophy. |
Tatyana Zaslavskaya | In the later years of the Soviet Union accurate detailed information regarding conditions in Soviet agriculture was considered a state secret when not censored outright. A major breach in security occurred in 1983 when the details of a classified paper, "for internal use only", the report from the closed conference in Novosibirsk by Tatyana Zaslavskaya regarding the crisis in Soviet agriculture, were published in The Washington Post. It was called "О совершенствовании социалистических производственных отношений и задачах экономической социологии" ("About the perfection of socialist relations of production and problems of economic sociology") and was next to the United States also published in Germany. In the USSR all copies of the "Novosibirsk manifesto" were withdrawn by the KGB. Later it became known as the Novosibirsk Report in the West and was often considered one of the first signs of perestroika. Although expressed in terms of Marxist theory, this paper—an outline of a proposed research project to study the social mechanisms of economic development as exemplified in Siberian agriculture—was sharply critical of current conditions. Zaslavskaya was the author of a number of works in Russian which deal with economics and social conditions in Soviet agriculture although some of her work was suppressed by Soviet censors. For example, The Methodology of Comparing Labour Productivity in Agriculture in the USSR and the USA, written together with M.I. Sidorova, was suppressed due to its pessimistic results. |
Lawrence H. Gipson | In 1924, Gipson was appointed professor of history at Lehigh University, a position he held until his death. Although best known as a historian of Colonial America and its place in the British Empire, two of Gipson's earliest articles had to do with the Civil War and Reconstruction. His assessment of Andrew Johnson ("The Statesmanship of President Johnson: A Study of the Presidential Reconstruction Policy") was published in the Mississippi Valley Historical Review in December 1915; and "The Collapse of the Confederacy" appeared in the Mississippi Valley Historical Review in March 1918. His Yale doctoral dissertation, which was written under the guidance of Charles M. Andrews, was accepted in 1918 and published two years later by Yale University Press as Jared Ingersoll: A Study of American Loyalism in Relation to British Colonial Government , for which he received the Justin Winsor Prize from the American Historical Association. He contributed seven entries to the Dictionary of American Biography, and three articles to the Dictionary of American History. |
Initial public offering | When a company lists its securities on a public exchange, the money paid by the investing public for the newly issued shares goes directly to the company (primary offering) as well as to any early private investors who opt to sell all or a portion of their holdings (secondary offerings) as part of the larger IPO. An IPO, therefore, allows a company to tap into a wide pool of potential investors to provide itself with capital for future growth, repayment of the debt, or working capital. A company selling common shares is never required to repay the capital to its public investors. Those investors must endure the unpredictable nature of the open market to price and trade their shares. After the IPO, when shares are traded in the market, money passes between public investors. For early private investors who choose to sell shares as part of the IPO process, the IPO represents an opportunity to monetize their investment. After the IPO, once shares are traded in the open market, investors holding large blocks of shares can either sell those shares piecemeal in the open market or sell a large block of shares directly to the public, at a fixed price, through a secondary market offering. This type of offering is not dilutive since no new shares are being created. Stock prices can change dramatically during a company's first days in the public market. |
Initial public offering | A large IPO is usually underwritten by a "syndicate" of investment banks, the largest of which take the position of "lead underwriter". Upon selling the shares, the underwriters retain a portion of the proceeds as their fee. This fee is called an underwriting spread. The spread is calculated as a discount from the price of the shares sold (called the gross spread). Components of an underwriting spread in an initial public offering (IPO) typically include the following (on a per-share basis): Manager's fee, Underwriting fee—earned by members of the syndicate, and the Concession—earned by the broker-dealer selling the shares. The Manager would be entitled to the entire underwriting spread. A member of the syndicate is entitled to the underwriting fee and the concession. A broker-dealer who is not a member of the syndicate but sells shares would receive only the concession, while the member of the syndicate who provided the shares to that broker-dealer would retain the underwriting fee. Usually, the managing/lead underwriter, also known as the bookrunner, typically the underwriter selling the largest proportions of the IPO, takes the highest portion of the gross spread, up to 8% in some cases. |
Initial public offering | Before legal actions initiated by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, which later became known as the Global Settlement enforcement agreement, some large investment firms had initiated favorable research coverage of companies in an effort to aid corporate finance departments and retail divisions engaged in the marketing of new issues. The central issue in that enforcement agreement had been judged in court previously. It involved the conflict of interest between the investment banking and analysis departments of ten of the largest investment firms in the United States. The investment firms involved in the settlement had all engaged in actions and practices that had allowed the inappropriate influence of their research analysts by their investment bankers seeking lucrative fees. A typical violation addressed by the settlement was the case of CSFB and Salomon Smith Barney, which were alleged to have engaged in the inappropriate spinning of "hot" IPOs and issued fraudulent research reports in violation of various sections within the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. |
Initial public offering | Historically, many IPOs have been underpriced. The effect of underpricing an IPO is to generate additional interest in the stock and a rapid rise in share price when it first becomes publicly traded (known as an "IPO pop"). Flipping, or quickly selling shares for a profit, can lead to significant gains for investors who were allocated shares of the IPO at the offering price. However, underpricing an IPO results in lost potential capital for the issuer. One extreme example is theglobe.com IPO which helped fuel the IPO "mania" of the late 1990s internet era. Underwritten by Bear Stearns on 13 November 1998, the IPO was priced at $9 per share. The share price quickly increased 1,000% on the opening day of trading, to a high of $97. Selling pressure from institutional flipping eventually drove the stock back down, and it closed the day at $63. Although the company did raise about $30 million from the offering, it is estimated that with the level of demand for the offering and the volume of trading that took place they might have left upwards of $200 million on the table. |
Initial public offering | A Dutch auction allows shares of an initial public offering to be allocated based only on price aggressiveness, with all successful bidders paying the same price per share. One version of the Dutch auction is OpenIPO, which is based on an auction system designed by economist William Vickrey. This auction method ranks bids from highest to lowest, then accepts the highest bids that allow all shares to be sold, with all winning bidders paying the same price. It is similar to the model used to auction Treasury bills, notes, and bonds since the 1990s. Before this, Treasury bills were auctioned through a discriminatory or pay-what-you-bid auction, in which the various winning bidders each paid the price (or yield) they bid, and thus the various winning bidders did not all pay the same price. Both discriminatory and uniform price or "Dutch" auctions have been used for IPOs in many countries, although only uniform price auctions have been used so far in the US. Large IPO auctions include Japan Tobacco, Singapore Telecom, BAA Plc and Google (ordered by size of proceeds). |
Initial public offering | In determining the success or failure of a Dutch auction, one must consider competing objectives. If the objective is to reduce risk, a traditional IPO may be more effective because the underwriter manages the process, rather than leaving the outcome in part to random chance in terms of who chooses to bid or what strategy each bidder chooses to follow. From the viewpoint of the investor, the Dutch auction allows everyone equal access. Moreover, some forms of the Dutch auction allow the underwriter to be more active in coordinating bids and even communicating general auction trends to some bidders during the bidding period. Some have also argued that a uniform price auction is more effective at price discovery, although the theory behind this is based on the assumption of independent private values (that the value of IPO shares to each bidder is entirely independent of their value to others, even though the shares will shortly be traded on the aftermarket). Theory that incorporates assumptions more appropriate to IPOs does not find that sealed bid auctions are an effective form of price discovery, although possibly some modified form of auction might give a better result. |
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist | The most common criticisms of The Hyperstone Heist focused on its difficulty, length, and repetitiveness. MegaTech magazine gave an overall 87% score, praising the graphics and sound but commenting that the gameplay wasn't hard work and experienced players would be able to beat the game easily. Four reviewers of Electronic Gaming Monthly gave the game positive ratings, praising the graphics and the animation, although there was criticism for the game being too easy and not having enough levels. Mega Action criticized the game for being too easy and gave praise to its graphics, calling it "fairly impressive." They also commented that The Hyperstone Heist had a lot of potential but used it very sparingly, stating that "Hyperstone Heist isn't a terrible game, but the Turtles do deserve better." They concluded with a 78% review score. Kirk Rutter of Mega Guide praised the game's action, graphics, and the two-player mode, but felt that The Hyperstone Heist was similar to Turtles in Time. Conceding that the action was fun at first, he criticized it for becoming repetitive and the difficulty for being too easy, concluding: "The lack of real challenge knocks a big dent in its lastability. But it's still a laugh." Power Unlimited gave a score of 90% and recommended the game to those who are fans of TMHT, but criticized the repetitive gameplay. |