Hubert Lafayette Sone

Hubert Lafayette Sone, (1892–1970), Soong (or Sung) Hsu-Peh in Chinese, was an American Methodist missionary in China. He was a professor of Old Testament at Nanjing Theological Seminary during the Japanese invasion in 1937. Sone was among the small group of foreigners who remained in the city and provided aid to the Chinese victims of the Japanese atrocities. He served with John Rabe on the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone and was Associate Food Commissioner. On 18 February 1938 the name of the committee was changed to the "Nanjing International Relief Committee." After the departure of George Fitch, Sone was elected Director of the Nanjing International Relief Committee. For their actions in support of the Chinese people, Sone and thirteen other Americans were awarded "The Order of the Blue Jade" by the Chinese government.
Early life and call to ministry.
Hubert Lafayette Sone was born in Denton, Texas, in the United States, on 7 June 1892, to J. William and Martha Anne Ballew Sone.
Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas, was founded in 1911, however the first class was delayed until 1915 due to construction. Sone was among the seven hundred students admitted to the inaugural class and received a Bachelor of Arts from SMU in 1916. After serving in the U.S. Army, Sone was licensed to preach by the Methodist Episcopal Church South District Conference on 7 May 1918. With the support of Highland Park Methodist Church in Dallas, Texas, known today as Highland Park United Methodist Church, Sone applied to the Board of Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, for an assignment as a missionary to China. He married Katie Helen Jackson in Chillicothe, Texas on 15 June 1918.
Leaving the United States for China.
The Sones departed the United States in April 1920 for the mission field in China. They arrived in Shanghai to begin their new life of ministry and teaching in China in May 1920.
The Methodist Episcopal Church South mission in China was opened in Shanghai by C. Taylor, M.D. and J. Jenkins, D.D. in 1848 and 1849 respectively. They were followed by six others until 1860. Because of the Civil War in America no missionaries came to China until 1875. The missionary work was "evangelistic, educational, medical, literary, woman's work, etc." As of 1906 there were sixty missionaries in the field, including wives of missionaries and the representatives of the Woman's Board. The field of endeavor included the southern end of Kiangsu and the northern end of Chekiang Provinces, one of the most densely populated regions in China.
Studying the Chinese language and missionary work.
Sone's first assignment was Chinese language study at Soochow University, Suzhou China. In addition to his language studies, Rev. Sone was assigned to Huzchou to build a Methodist Mission station. Language studies were interrupted in 1921 when Hubert Sone traveled to Tehchow in northern China to do famine relief work, driving a rice truck from village to village.
The Sones embarked on their first trip back to the United States on 24 June 1925, sailing from Shanghai via Hawaii to San Francisco. During this time, Hubert Sone received a Bachelor of Divinity (B.D.) and a Master of Arts degree (M.A.) in 1926 and in 1927 both from Southern Methodist University. In 1928, Sone was made Superintendent of the Institutional Church in Huzchou. On 27 April 1933, Bishop Paul B. Kern appointed Sone to the faculty of the Nanking Theological Seminary, today known as the Nanjing Union Theological Seminary upon his return to China. In the summer of 1934 the Sones returned to Huzhou, China.
Missionary work in China – Nanjing.
After leaving Huzhou and moving to Nanjing, Sone taught four courses at the seminary; one in Chinese(Mandarin); two in English, and one in Hebrew. During this time, Helen Sone taught first and second grade in the Nanjing American School.
The Imperial Japanese Army reign of terror.
Nanjing Datusha
南京大屠殺
13 December 1937 – 18 February 1938
The Second Sino-Japanese War began in July 1937 after several incidents in northern China. Air raids by the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) began in Nanjing on 15 August 1937, and school started at Nanjing Theological Seminary on 30 September 1937. Much like Londoners during the blitz by the Germans that began on Sept. 7, 1940, the residents, students and faculty of Nanjing Theological Seminary repaired to the shelters when the air raid warnings sounded. The Imperial Japanese Army captured the port city of Shanghai in November 1937, and the Chinese and foreign residents of Nanjing braced themselves for the coming invasion. Meanwhile, in November 1937, Sone sent his wife and children to Moganshan, providing them relative safety, while he remained in Nanjing. The family arrived at the base of the mountain and took a rickshaw up to Moganshan.
In spite of Chinese and foreign news accounts of the destruction of Suzhou, (which lay on the IJA path between Shanghai and Nanjing) no one was ready for the scope of brutality by the IJA that followed. Some historical accounts indicate Suzhou was reduced in population from 350,000 to 500. Part of this could be attributed to Chinese fleeing the city, but the exact number of Chinese casualties may never be known.
On Sunday, 28 November 1937, uncertainty hung over the city of Nanjing. Some felt the Japanese would arrive in days, some thought it would be weeks. Prudent steps were taken to preserve order; some of the city gates were closed to keep out Chinese soldiers and the wounded were no longer being brought into the city. A meeting was called at the U.S. Embassy which Sone attended:
At 10 A.M was at a conference over at Embassy. Others present, Sone of Seminary; Fitch, Y.M.C.A.; Bates of University, and Trimmer of Hospital. Mr. Paxton spoke of possibility of looting soldiers and the danger to foreigners. Said that as many as possible should leave at once, and those who cannot leave immediately should be prepared to go out when and if Embassy leaves for U.S.S. Panay. If city gates are closed two places were designated as points for going down over city wall by ropes. Each person was then asked to report for himself and group. Searl (M.S. Bates) and I feel that our responsibilities make it necessary to stay through. Our explanations were accepted and respected...
On 9 December 1937, Japanese troops launched the attack upon the city of Nanjing. For safety, a group of missionaries, including Sone, left their homes and moved into the Pearl Buck home. The was escorting U.S. residents out of the city when it was sunk by the Japanese on 12 December. The Sone family assumed Hubert Sone was on that ship evacuating with the other Americans. However, Sone had decided to stay in Nanjing and was one of the fourteen Americans who remained in Nanjing and witnessed the events of the monstrous horror.
By 13 December 1937 the Japanese troops entered the city and began what is known as the Nanking Massacre or the Rape of Nanking. Historians generally agree that as many as 300,000 civilian Chinese were shot, bayoneted, and burned. As many as 20,000 innocent women, young and old, even children, were raped, and mutilated. Sone was one of twenty-seven Western nationals in Nanjing who experienced its fall and witnessed the ensuing massacre. In a letter to Professor P.F. Price, Sone described what was happening in Nanjing:
There has been nothing or no one safe. Soldiers have taken anything they wanted, destroyed what they did not want, raped women and girls openly and publicly by the scores and hundreds. Those who opposed them were bayoneted or shot on the spot. Women who have opposed being raped, have been bayoneted. Children who have interfered have also been bayoneted. One woman who was being raped on Frank's place—there have been about 150 people staying at his house—had her four or five months old baby near her, and it cried, so the soldier raping her smothered it to death. One refugee girl in the B.T.T.S. was raped 17 times. Finally we got Japanese guards stationed at the gates of the larger compounds, but they often themselves go in and rape women. Every day and night brings forth repeated cases. These cases have occurred by the hundreds—they make a tale of horror almost indescribable.
In a letter to Rev. Marshal T. Steel, Pastor of Highland Park Methodist Church, today Highland Park United Methodist Church, in Dallas, Texas, US, on 14 March 1938 Sone said:
The Japanese soldiers came into the city in quite large numbers on Monday Dec. 13th. Many civilians were killed on the spot—shot or bayoneted. Everyone who ran, and many were frightened on the first appearance of the troops, was immediately shot. On the afternoon of Monday I went down the street on my bike, and saw many dead and dying along the road. I sent a number of them to the hospital in the ambulance.
In a letter to his missionary colleague, Dr. A.W. Wasson, Sone related:
They shot and bayoneted on the spot and without question anyone whom they might consider to be a soldier. As a result, great numbers of people were shot down, even though in civilian clothes ... The streets were literally littered with the dead. The next few days—in fact two weeks or more, and even until the present, the military have been busily engaged in weeding out all the Chinese soldiers. These have been taken in groups of tens, fifties, hundred, and several hundreds at a time, and machine gunned and bayoneted en masse. Many of them were thus dispatched on the bank of the Yangtse River, and their bodies tumbled into the river to be carried off by the rushing waters. Others were burned in heaps. Some of them tumbled into pits.
In light of more horrific crimes, looting seems almost trivial but during this time, it was rampant, and both Chinese and foreigners were victims. Minnie Vautrin, a professor at Ginling College, and later described as "the Living Goddess of Mercy" for her role defending the Chinese, picked Sone up in her vehicle after the Japanese had stolen Sone's car.
A little past Hillcrest saw Mr. Sone on road and took him into the car. Said his car had just been taken—he had left it out in front of his house when he went in for a few minutes. There was an American Flag on it and it was locked.
Physical violence against foreigners was also not uncommon. On 23 December, around 5 p.m., two Japanese soldiers approached a residence belonging to the Nanjing Theological Seminary, an American institution. As they began to occupy the property by force the soldiers struck and manhandled Hubert Sone, who was a member of the faculty and Chair of the Property Committee of the seminary. Sone reported this incident to the Japanese Embassy:
I wish to report that on yesterday afternoon, December 23rd, about 5:00 o'clock, two Japanese soldiers entered the premises of No. 2 Shanghai Road, took down the American flag and hoisted a banner stating that this house is to be the residence of the Investigating Committee.
This house at No. 2 Shanghai Road is American property. It is the residence of Prof. R. A. Felton of the Nanking Theological Seminary, and also has stored in it the household and personal effect of Prof. C. S. Smith, and Prof. Edward James, both of our Seminary.
The proclamation placed on the front gate by the Japanese Embassy was removed just a few minutes before I found these soldiers taking down the American flag. The American Embassy proclamation was still displayed in a prominent place. One of the soldiers was obviously drunk. They insisted that they wanted to borrow the place for ten days, which I declined to grant. They then became very angry and rough with me, shouting and striking me on the shoulder, and finally by force took hold of me and dragged me across the yard and out into the middle of Shanghai Road. It was only after I agreed to sign a statement allowing them to borrow the house for two weeks that they would release me. After signing this statement, they released me, and allowed us to raise again the American flag. But they put their banner on the front gate and said they would return today at 9:00 o'clock and occupy the house. They ordered the Chinese refugees who are living in the house at present to move out completely.
Establishment of the Nanjing Safety Zone.
A "safety zone" had been implemented in Shanghai by a French, Catholic Priest, Father Robert Jacquinot de Besange, in August 1937. It was a successful model and the Nanking Safety Zone (南京安全区) began organizational efforts in November 1937.
On 22 November 1937, trusting their privileged status as third-party nationals, those remaining foreigners voluntarily organized a committee called the "International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone" to provide Chinese people with refuge and relief. They elected a German businessman of Siemens China Corporation, John Rabe, as its chair presumably for not only his character, but also his status as a Nazi. Japan and Germany had signed the bilateral Anti-Comintern Pact in 1936.
The Nanjing Safety Zone was established in the western district of the city. It was composed of a score of refugee camps that occupied an area of about 3.4 square miles (8.6 square kilometers). On 1 December 1937, Mayor Ma Chaochun of Nanjing met the International Committee and authorized them to take over the city administration once he and his staff were evacuated. Unlike Shanghai, the Japanese never gave assurance that the Nanjing Safety Zone would not either be attacked. In spite of this the International Committee issued "an open letter to the residents of Nanjing on Dec. 8, 1937." Residents of Nanjing began streaming into the safety zone and ultimately "over ninety percent of the city's population crowded into it."
Sone was Chairman of the Property Committee of the Nanjing Theological Seminary. He also was Associate Food Commissioner of the International Committee for the Nanjing Safety Zone. He delivered rice to the refugee camps, driving the rice truck personally. To a missionary colleague Sone wrote of the looting, rape, murder, burning and destruction caused by the Japanese.
With the coming of the Japanese soldiers we thought order would soon be restored, and peace would come, and people would be able to return to their homes and get back to normal life again. But the surprise of surprises came to us all. Robbery, looting, torture, murder, rape, burning—everything that can be imagined was carried out from the very beginning without any limit. Modern times have nothing to surpass it. Nanking has been almost a living hell.
Sone attempted to prevent assaults on Chinese civilians and was beaten by the Japanese soldiers. He filed protest letters with the Japanese embassy in Nanjing, the United States Embassy and tried to alert the outside world through correspondence with colleagues in the United States. On 18 February the official name of the International Committee for the Nanjing Safety Zone was changed to the "Nanjing International Relief Committee." After George Fitch departed, Sone was elected Administrative Director of the Nanjing International Relief Committee. During the attack on Nanjing, Sone's family, Helen, and the two children remained on Moganshan.
Order of the Blue Jade.
In 1939 the Chinese government awarded Sone and thirteen other Americans, one of China's highest civilian awards for valor, the "Order of the Blue Jade" for their humanitarian efforts. Sometimes referred to as the Star of the Jade Order, or Emblem of the Blue Jade, this beautiful gold and dark and light blue jade medallion was designed like a traditional military medal; to be draped over the neck hanging over the chest by a red, white, and blue silk ribbon.
Sone's award came in a black lacquer box with red silk lining inside. The box was personalized with the Chinese character for Sung (Sone). The box also contained the Chinese characters for Silk Neck Piece, Beautiful Jade, Meritorious Official Decoration with the number 131 on the back of the box. Much as decorated military veterans dismiss their awards for valor, Sone never discussed the award with his family in the years after the event.
Before Sone left China in 1951, he disposed of the award in Nanjing. In a letter to his parents he described the medal and alluded that he discarded it to avoid any further difficulty leaving China. However, he drew a picture of the medal, the lapel pin, and box in which it was presented and mailed this in a letter to his parents in the United States.
Return to Nanjing and relief work.
The years 1938 through 1941 represented a return to teaching and also the work of the Nanjing International Relief Committee, of which Sone was now the director. Sone continued his work in Nanjing with the Nanking International Relief Committee, formerly the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone. It is estimated that the committee served "about 11,000 families."
Return to the United States and WW II.
On 3 May 1941, Sone sailed on the "President Pierce" steamer for a furlough in the United States, arriving on 21 May 1941. The Sone family settled in Chicago where Hubert Sone enrolled in a doctoral program at The University of Chicago. For the United States, World War II began 7 December 1941 which indefinitely postponed returning to China.
Return to China – Nanjing.
In 1946, after World War II had ended, the Sones returned to their old home at 89 Mo Tsou Road in Nanjing. They resumed the duties of teaching, relief work, preaching in the churches, and music lessons taught by Helen Sone. Hubert Sone led an effort in 1948 to feed 15,000 refugees in Nanjing.
Leaving China for the last time.
On 1 October 1949, Mao Zedong declared the advent of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The United States then suspended diplomatic ties, for decades. In 1950, the United States recalled its ambassador and urged United States citizens to leave China. On 25 June 1950, the struggle between North and South Korea became an international conflict with the adoption of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 83 and the entry of the United States into the Korean War. On 2 December 1950, Sone requested an exit visa from the People's Republic of China (PRC). The Chinese government required departing foreigners to advertise in the paper for three days in the event there was an outstanding issue someone wished to bring. While others were granted visas, the Sone's visa was delayed and he was informed that his request was sent to Beijing for consideration. Finally in April, 1951 the Sones were allowed to leave after much of their personal effects were confiscated, such as Helen's One Thousand Flowers pattern dishes, all United States currency, his field glasses and radio with a comment that it could be used to send signals. On 12 April the Sones arrived in Hong Kong, the last American missionaries to leave Nanjing. On their fourth furlough, they departed Hong Kong on 8 May 1951 for San Francisco on board the SS "President Wilson", never to return to China.
Trinity Theological College, Singapore, Malaya.
After being in the US for a little over one year, the Sones left New York City by boat in 1952 for a new assignment, Trinity College, today known as Trinity Theological College, in Singapore, Malaya. Here the Sones would make their home for the next nine years. Today the institution is known as Trinity Theological College (TTC). It "serves all Christian churches and denominations by educating and equipping Christian leaders for the manifold ministries of the church across Asia."
During his tenure in Singapore at Trinity College, Sone served as a faculty member, Dean, then Principal of Trinity Theological College. He also preached at local churches, and served as Secretary of the Trustees of the Methodist Church in Malaysia.
Retirement, death and legacy.
In 1961, the Sones return to the United States and retired from active mission work after forty one years of service. For the next nine years Sone preached at area churches and travelled widely, lecturing on the work of the Methodist Church in Asia.
Hubert Sone's everlasting legacy is the inspiring humanitarian work done to assist the Chinese during the events in Nanjing from 1937–1938. Hubert and Helen Sone dedicated their own lives, not only to the church and the Methodist mission in China, but to the Chinese people and to Malaysians in Singapore. Hubert and Helen Sone's support of the Chinese people at personal risk, and their dedication to the calling of being missionaries, will forever enshrine their love of the Chinese people and their Christian faith.
Hubert L. Sone died in Fort Worth, Texas, USA on 6 September 1970 at age 78. On 18 October 1982, Helen Jackson Sone died in Fort Worth, Texas, USA at the age of 89.
Bibliography.
A Century of Protestant Missions in China (1807–1907) Edited by Donald MacGillivray, Printed at the American Presbyterian Mission Press, Shanghai, 1907
China Mission Year Book, Edited by the National Christian Council, Editor, Henry T. Hodgkin, M.D., Shanghai, Christian Literature Society
They Were in Nanjing-The Nanjing Massacre Witnessed by American and British Nationals, by Suping Lu, Hong Kong University Press, 2004
Terror in Minnie Vautrin's Nanjing-Dairies and Correspondence, 1937-38-Minnie Vautrin Edited and with an Introduction by Suping Lu, University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, 2008.
Chang, Iris, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, Foreword by William C. Kirby; Penguin USA (Paper), 1998.
Further reading.
The Woman Who Could Not Forget: Iris Chang Before and Beyond the Rape of Nanking
Pegasus Books, LLC, 80 Broad Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 100004, 2011
Fogel, Joshua A. (2000). The Nanjing Massacre in history and historiography. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 248..
Timothy Brook, "Introduction: Documenting the Rape of Nanking," in Documents on the Rape of Nanking, 3
Askew, David. "The International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone: An Introduction" Sino-Japanese Studies Vol. 14, April 2002 (Article outlining membership and their reports of the events that transpired during the massacre)
Askew, David, "The Nanjing Incident: An Examination of the Civilian Population" Sino-Japanese Studies Vol. 13, March 2001 (Article analyzes a wide variety of figures on the population of Nanking before, during, and after the massacre)
Bergamini, David, "Japan's Imperial Conspiracy," William Morrow, New York; 1971.
Galbraith, Douglas, A Winter in China, London, 2006. . A novel focussing on the western residents of Nanking during the massacre.
Hsū Shuhsi, ed. (1939), Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone (reprinted in Documents on the Rape of Nanjing Brook ed. 1999)
Qi, Shouhua. "When the Purple Mountain Burns: A Novel" San Francisco: Long River Press, 2005.
Qi, Shouhua. Purple Mountain: A Story of the Rape of Nanking(A Novel) English Chinese Bilingual Edition (Paperback, 2009)
Rabe, John, The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe, Vintage (Paper), 2000.
Robert Sabella, Fei Fei Li and David Liu, eds. Nanking 1937: Memory and Healing (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2002). .
Young, Shi; Yin, James. "Rape of Nanking: Undeniable history in photographs" Chicago: Innovative Publishing Group, 1997.
Zhang, Kaiyuan, ed. Eyewitnesses to Massacre, An East Gate Book, 2001 (includes documentation of American missionaries M.S. Bates, G.A. Fitch, E.H. Foster, J.G. Magee, J.H. MaCallum, W.P. Mills, L.S.C. Smyth, A.N. Steward, Minnie Vautrin and R.O. Wilson.)
Brook, Timothy, ed. Documents on the Rape of Nanjing, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1999. (Does not include the Rabe diaries but does include reprints of "Hsu Shuhsi, Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone, Kelly & Walsh, 1939".)
Hua-ling Hu, American Goddess at the Rape of Nanking: The Courage of Minnie Vautrins, Foreword by Paul Simon; March 2000,


Triflumuron

Triflumuron is the active ingredient in some IGRs (insect growth regulators). An aromatic ether, organofluorine compound from the benzoylurea class and member of monochlorobenzenes.


Old Bahama Channel

The Old Bahama Channel () is a strait of the Caribbean region, between Cuba and the Bahamas.
Geography.
The strait/channel is located off the Atlantic coast of north-central and northeastern mainland and the Sabana-Camagüey Archipelago of Cuba, and south of the Great Bahama Bank of the Bahamas. It is approximately long and wide. It divides the northernmost bank of the Caribbean islands into two nearly equal parts. To the north and northeast is the Great Bahama Bank and the Bahama Islands; and to the south the bank on which the island of Cuba rests.
The Old Bahama Channel is connected at its north-western extremity end to the Florida Straits by two arms, enclosing Cay Sal Bank, of which the northern is called Santaren Channel and the southern Nicholas Channel. It is considered as terminating on the east between Cape Maysi in Cuba, and Inagua island in the Bahamas. However, it can also be considered to include the deep sea which separates the minor banks north of Haiti from this island, so that it extends to the Mona Passage, or the strait between the islands of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico.
The narrowest portion of the Old Bahama Channel is between 22° and 23° North latitude, where its width rarely exceeds .
History.
In the 1500s, Alonso Valiente was one of the discoverers of the Old Bahama Channel.
The Spanish colonial trade routes in the Spanish West Indies originally favored the Old Bahama Channel, then shifted to the Straits of Florida—New Bahama Channel, as it was a safer alternative.
In the Old Bahama Channel, ship captains had to pick their way through the low-lying cays and shoals of the southern Bahama Banks. A Royal Navy vessel, the 44-gun , was wrecked in the Channel in 1762.


Thomas Stevenson (toxicologist)

Thomas Stevenson (1838 – 18 January 1908) was an English toxicologist and forensic chemist. He served as an analyst to the Home Office and in England he served as an expert witness in many famous poisoning cases. These included the Pimlico Mystery, The Maybrick Case, the Lambeth Poisoner, and the George Chapman case.
In 1857 Stevenson became a medical pupil to Mr Steel of Bradford. He entered Guy's Hospital Medical School in 1859 and graduated MB, London, in 1863 and M.D. in 1864. He won several gold medals whilst a student. He became MRCP in 1864 and FRCP in 1871. Stevenson became demonstrator in practical chemistry at Guy's in 1864, and was lecturer in chemistry, 1870–98, and in forensic medicine, 1878-1908, in succession to Alfred Swaine Taylor (1806–80). He also served as the President of the Institute of Chemistry and of the Society of Public Analysts.
He is notable as the scientific mentor of the Nobel Prize winner Frederick Hopkins.
Stevenson died of diabetes on 27 July 1908 at his home in Streatham High Road, London and was buried at West Norwood Cemetery. One of his children became a medical missionary in India.


List of public dispensaries

A public dispensary provides "outpatient medical treatment and advice to patients, in contrast to the inpatient service provided by hospitals". Examples include:


Hendrick Lucifer

Hendrick Jacobszoon Lucifer (1583–1627) was a Dutch-born pirate.
Hendrick's last name, Lucifer, referred to a lighting stick, not to the fallen angel Lucifer, and was most likely used as a nickname due to his use of fire and smoke to surprise enemies.
Greatest success and death.
In 1627, Hendrick was in charge of 3 ships transporting colonists to Guyana for the Dutch West India Company, accompanied by two other pirate captains. One encounter off the coast of Cuba caused by a near collision with a two-ship Honduran treasure fleet allowed Hendrick's fleet to capture a ship and contents worth 1.2 million guilders. Hendrick fought "as brave as a lion", (according to surviving crewmen), and personally killed around ten enemy soldiers in close combat, before being hit by a bullet. He still continued his plundering, but another bullet hit him in the chest and he had to quit fighting. He made it back safely to his ship, and his crew finished up the last of the treasure fleet's sailors.
Lucifer, by then mortally wounded, gave the order to transfer the loot (1404 chests of Indigo, 4280 animal skins, 32 jars of balsam ointment and several other items) to his ship. He then walked to his cabin. He slowly lay down to bed, saying he would go to rest, and then died as a result of wounds received during the encounter.


Lavanya Rajamani

Lavanya Rajamani is an Indian lawyer, author and professor whose area of expertise is international climate change law, environmental law, and policy. She is currently a professor of International Environmental Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, a Yamani Fellow in Public International Law at St Peter's College, Oxford, and a visiting professor at the Centre for Policy Research.
She has been a Rhodes Scholar and is the youngest Indian academic to be invited to offer a course in public international law at the Hague Academy of International Law in Netherlands.
Background and education.
Lavanya Rajamani grew up in south India. She holds a Bachelor of Law (LLB) degree from the National Law School of India University in 1996 and a Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL) from the University of Oxford in 1997, where she was a Rhodes scholar. In 1998 she completed her Master of Laws (LLM) from Yale University where her supervisor was Professor Daniel Esty. She then went on the complete her Doctor of Philosophy (D.Phil.) from the University of Oxford in 2002, where her supervisor was Professor Marcel Brus, and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) (By Incorporation "Ad eundem" degree) from the University of Cambridge in 2006.
Career.
Lavanya Rajamani has worked on and analysed the international climate negotiations since 1998. Among other roles, she has served as a legal consultant to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat, as a negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States, and as a legal adviser to the Chairs of Ad Hoc Working Groups under the UNFCCC. She was also part of the UNFCCC core drafting and advisory team for the 2015 Paris Agreement. Rajamani has advised government and multilateral agencies, including the Danish Ministry of Climate Change, the UNDP, the World Bank, and the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests.
She was previously a professor at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi. She has been a lecturer of Environmental Law, and a Fellow and Director of Studies in Law, at Queens’ College, Cambridge, and a Junior Research Fellow in Public International Law at Worcester College, Oxford. She has also taught public international law, international climate change law, international environmental law, and human rights law at the Hague Academy of International Law, Ashoka University, Osaka Gakuin University, Aix-Marseille University, and University of Bologna. Rajamani serves as Coordinating Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Sixth Assessment Report.
She is a frequent contributor to national Indian dailies such as The Indian Express and Livemint, where she provides expertise on India's engagement with the global climate negotiations.
Research.
Her recent co-authored book, International Climate Change Law (Oxford University Press, 2017), was awarded an American Society of International Law Book Prize. Her course at the Hague Academy of International Law on 'Innovation and Experimentation in the International Climate Change Regime,' is due to be published as part of the Collected Courses of the Hague Academy of International Law/ Receuil des Cours.
Rajamani has published various articles in prestigious peer-reviewed international journals such International & Comparative Law Quarterly, International Affairs, European Journal of International Law and Theoretical Inquiries in Law.


Burgess v Rawnsley

Burgess v Rawnsley [1975] Ch 429 is an English land law case, concerning co-ownership of land, and the conditions for severance of a joint tenancy in a circumstances where there is not a domestic relationship, that is two or more owners living together, co-occupancy.
Facts.
Mr Honick and Mrs Rawnsley were joint tenants, but Mr Honick occupied the property alone. They bought it thinking they would both live there. Mr Honick was thinking of marriage, but Mrs Rawnsley intended to live alone in the upstairs flat, as they found out after. Mrs Rawnsley did not move in and they agreed orally she would sell her share for £750. But then she changed her mind and wanted more. Later on, Mr Honick died. The house was sold and his administratrix, Mrs Burgess, wanted to establish severance to get half the sale proceeds which would be more than £750.
Judgment.
Lord Denning MR held that there was a sufficient common intention for severance at £750. The subsequent repudiation made no difference. He remarked Walton J was wrong on s 36(2) in Nielson-Jones v Feddon, and that severance also occurred through a course of dealings.
Browne LJ noted that simply because LPA 1925 section 40 is not fulfilled (now LPMPA 1989 section 2) did not mean an oral agreement would not bind because that section merely made it unenforceable, not void, in absence of writing. This was based on mutual agreement, not a course of dealings, but expressed no final opinion. Pennycuick LJ said that a course of dealings is a distinct head, not a subheading of mutual agreement.
As the three judges found there was severance, at £750, this was the amount declared to be payable in law to the executrix of Rawnsley, less than the half of the sale proceeds she sought.


Yaxley v Gotts

Yaxley v Gotts [1999] is an English contract law case with specific relevance to formalities in land law. The case deals with whether section 2 of the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989 which requires that contracts be in writing prevents an oral contract from taking effect where otherwise an interest would arise by proprietary estoppel, i.e. whether the provision in subsection 5 on resulting, implied or constructive trusts covers also proprietary estoppel.
Facts.
Yaxley was a self-employed builder who attempted to persuade Gotts to lend him money for the purchase of a building. Gotts instead bought the building but agreed Yaxley could have the bottom floor in return for renovating the other flats and managing the building. After performing the work at his own cost and time. Yaxley argued that an oral agreement between himself and Mr. Gotts was to reward him with ownership of the ground floor of the building. Gotts failed to convey the title deeds in the name of Yaxley. Yaxley sued Gotts.
Whilst the plaintiff was working on the top two floors between January and March 1992, he was doing so in the mistaken belief that Brownie Gotts was the owner of the property; Alan Gotts, the owner, knowing of this mistaken belief, allowed the plaintiff to continue to carry out the work on his property knowing that his father had represented that the plaintiff would have the ground floor.
Judgment.
The judge in the case took (found credible) most of the evidence of Yaxley, not that which conflicted from the defendants. In the end, the Judge found an oral contract between the plaintiff and defendants existed. This entitled the plaintiff to ownership in the form of a 99 year lease on the portion of the structure per the agreement.
Appeal.
The Gottses (father and son) appealed. The Court of Appeal dismissed their appeal alleging that the claimant was entitled only to a portion of interest in the lease.
It would not be possible to imply an agreement between the plaintiff and Alan from these facts but they would give rise to a claim of proprietary estoppel. When, from April to September 1992 the plaintiff was working on the ground floor, he by then knew that Alan was the owner but neither Alan nor Brownie had said that the promise made by Brownie was withdrawn. There was a continuing representation of which Alan Gotts was aware that if the plaintiff did the work of converting the ground floor it would be his "forever".
Again it would be difficult to imply a contract between Alan and the plaintiff from these facts but they would support a case of proprietary estoppel. It would be unconscionable for Alan to deny the plaintiff an interest in the property.
For my part I cannot see that there is any reason to qualify the plain words of Section 2(5). They were included to preserve the equitable remedies to which the Commission had referred. I do not think it inherent in a social policy of simplifying conveyancing by requiring the certainty of a written document that unconscionable conduct or equitable fraud should be allowed to prevail.
In my view the provision that nothing in Section 2 of the 1989 Act is to affect the creation or operation of resulting, implied or constructive trusts effectively excludes from the operation of the section cases in which an interest in land might equally well be claimed by relying on constructive trust or proprietary estoppel. — Clarke LJ


Homelessness in the Netherlands

Homelessness in the Netherlands is a growing social problem in the Netherlands, affecting 39,300 people in 2018. The homeless population has risen between the years of 2009 and 2019.
Statistics.
In 2015, 31,000 people did not have a permanent place to stay, 13,000 more than in 2009 (74% increase over 6 years). The increase of non-Western population was larger, about 100%. Especially among young people homelessness is high. Between January 2015 and 2016 homelessness among people aged 18 through 30 increased from 8,000 to 12,400, an increase of 55% in just one year. In 2018, the number of homeless has risen to 39,300.
In international comparison, the proportion of homelessness among legal residents of the Netherlands (0.23%) is higher than homelessness in the United States (0.18%), slightly higher than in France (0.21%), and lower than in the United Kingdom (0.31%) and Germany (0.35%). Official statistics of homelessness in the Netherlands are collected by Statistics Netherlands and do not include numbers of people who live in the Netherlands who are homeless, but do not have legal immigration status in the country.
Housing solutions.
Several organizations in the Netherlands, like the Salvation Army, offer places to stay for a night. Reasons that many homeless people do not want to sleep in shelters, sometimes even when it freezes, include high drunkenness among residents, fighting, screaming, sexual harassment, and stealing of personal properties by residents of shelters.
Homeless people sleep in the streets, alleys, under bridges, in fields, dunes, along highways, in forests or illegally enter buildings. The number of outside dwellers is higher in the summer than in the winter, when additional places are offered in the shelters. It is illegal to sleep without a permit on property that isn't one's own, so homeless people regularly get fined.


Volunteers of America

Volunteers of America (VOA) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1896 that provides affordable housing and other assistance services primarily to low-income people throughout the United States. Headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, the organization includes 32 affiliates and serves approximately 1.5 million people each year in 46 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.
In addition to those in need of affordable housing, VOA assists veterans, low-income seniors, children and families, the homeless, those with intellectual disabilities, those recovering from addiction, and the formerly incarcerated.
History.
Volunteers of America was founded on March 8, 1896 by social reformers Ballington Booth and his wife Maud Booth in Cooper Union's Great Hall. Ballington Booth was the son of General William Booth, founder of The Salvation Army, and the couple served as officers with the Army in Great Britain.
The Booths first moved to New York in the 1890s to assume command of The Salvation Army forces in the United States. The couple was successful in bolstering the image of The Salvation Army in America and in growing the movement's social work mission. After disagreements with other Salvation Army leaders, including Ballington Booth's brother Bramwell Booth, the Booths left the organization and established Volunteers of America.
In the early 1900s, the organization began an expansive philanthropic program that included employment bureaus, co-operative stores, medical dispensaries, distribution of clothes, women's sewing classes, Thanksgiving meals, reading rooms, fresh air camps and other establishments. During the advent of the Great Depression in the 1930s, Volunteers of America mobilized to assist the millions of people who were unemployed, hungry and homeless. Relief efforts included employment bureaus, wood yards, soup kitchens and "Penny Pantries" where every food item cost one cent.
By the 1960s, Volunteers of America was well known for its thrift stores and annual fundraising efforts like the Sidewalk Santa campaign in New York City. In an effort to modernize its programs, the organization began to focus its work in the area of housing for the poor following the establishment of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Volunteers of America is ranked among the largest charities in the United States by "The NonProfit Times", "The Chronicle of Philanthropy" and "Forbes" among other publications, with annual revenue of more than $1 billion in 2015. The organization is one of the largest nonprofit providers of affordable housing for the elderly, low-income families and people with intellectual or physical disabilities in the United States.
Origin of the name 'Volunteers of America'.
When Volunteers of America was founded in 1896, volunteerism in the modern sense of the word did not exist. To "volunteer" at that time meant serving others as a full-time vocation. Early members of the organization came to call themselves the "Volunteers of America" to differentiate themselves from The Salvation Army as an organization by Americans, for Americans.
In fact, Volunteers of America is staffed primarily by paid staff, rather than unpaid volunteers. More than 16,000 paid professionals serve as administrators, caregivers, skilled nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech language pathologists, psychologists, housing experts, architects, and a number of other positions at the organization.
Housing.
As of 2017 the organization owned and/or managed around 19,000 affordable housing units that provide homes to nearly 25,000 people each year.
In 2009 "Affordable Housing Finance" magazine ranked Volunteers of America as the top nonprofit in its "Top 50 Affordable Housing Owners," and also ranked the organization in the "Top 50 Affordable Housing Developers" in 2007 and "Top 10 Companies Completing Acquisitions." The magazine also selected a Volunteers of America multifamily community, Lord Tennyson outside San Francisco, as the "best of the best" affordable housing project in the country for 2007.
VoA also reaches out to homeless people in many cities through street outreach and mobile outreach services.
Children, youth and families.
In 2017, Volunteers of America has donated a backpack to every student living in New York City shelters, resulting in the donation of over 140,000 backpacks over 14 years.


Median nerve palsy

Injuries to the arm, forearm or wrist area can lead to various nerve disorders. One such disorder is median nerve palsy. The median nerve controls the majority of the muscles in the forearm. It controls abduction of the thumb, flexion of hand at wrist, flexion of digital phalanx of the fingers, is the sensory nerve for the first three fingers, etc. Because of this major role of the median nerve, it is also called the eye of the hand. If the median nerve is damaged, the ability to abduct and oppose the thumb may be lost due to paralysis of the thenar muscles. Various other symptoms can occur which may be repaired through surgery and tendon transfers. Tendon transfers have been very successful in restoring motor function and improving functional outcomes in patients with median nerve palsy.
Causes.
Median nerve palsy is often caused by deep, penetrating injuries to the arm, forearm, or wrist. It may also occur from blunt force trauma or neuropathy.
Median nerve palsy can be separated into 2 subsections—high and low median nerve palsy. High MNP involves lesions at the elbow and forearm areas. Low median nerve palsy results from lesions at the wrist. Compression at the different levels of the median nerve produce variable symptoms and/or syndromes. The areas are:
Anatomy.
The median nerve receives fibers from roots C6, C7, C8, T1 and sometimes C5. It is formed in the axilla by a branch from the medial and lateral chords of the brachial plexus, which are on either side of the axillary artery and fuse together to create the nerve anterior to the artery.
The median nerve is closely related to the brachial artery within the arm. The nerve enters the cubital fossa medial to the brachialis tendon and passes between the two heads of the pronator teres. It then gives off the anterior interosseus branch in the pronator teres.
The nerve continues down the forearm between the flexor digitorum profundus and the flexor digitorum superficialis. The median nerve emerges to lie between the flexor digitorum superficialis and the flexor carpi ulnaris muscles which are just above the wrist. At this position, the nerve gives off the palmar cutaneous branch that supplies the skin of the central portion of the palm.
The nerve continues through the carpal tunnel into the hand, lying in the carpal tunnel anterior and lateral to the tendons of the flexor digitorum superficialis. Once in the hand, the nerve splits into a muscular branch and palmar digital branches. The muscular branch supplies the thenar eminence while the palmar digital branch supplies sensation to the palmar aspect of the lateral 3 ½ digits and the lateral two lumbricals.
Diagnosis.
Because lesions to different areas of the median nerve produce similar symptoms, clinicians perform a complete motor and sensory diagnosis along the nerve course. Decreased values of nerve conduction studies are used as indicators of nerve compression and may aid in determining the localization of compression.
Palpation above the elbow joint may reveal a bony consistency. Radiography images may show an abnormal bony spur outgrowth (supracondyloid process) just proximal to the elbow joint. Attached fibrous tissue (Struthers' ligament) may compress the median nerve as it passes underneath the process. This is also known as supracondylar process syndrome. Compression at this point may also occur without the bony spur; in this case, aponeurotic tissue found at the location of where Struthers' ligament should be is responsible for the compression.
If patients mention reproduction of symptoms to the forearm during elbow flexion of 120–130 degrees with the forearm in maximal supination, then the lesion may be localized to the area underneath the lacertus fibrosus (also known as bicipital aponeurosis). This is sometimes misdiagnosed as elbow strain and medial or lateral epicondylitis.
A lesion to the upper arm area, just proximal to where motor branches of forearm flexors originate, is diagnosed if the patient is unable to make a fist. More specifically, the patient's index and middle finger cannot flex at the MCP joint, while the thumb usually is unable to oppose. This is known as hand of benediction or Pope’s blessing hand. Another test is the bottle sign—the patient is unable to close all their fingers around a cylindrical object.
Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is caused by compression of the median nerve as it passes under the carpal tunnel. Nerve conduction velocity tests through the hand are used to diagnosis CTS. Physical diagnostic tests include the Phalen maneuver or Phalen test and Tinel's sign. To relieve symptoms, patients may describe a motion similar to "shaking a thermometer", another indication of CTS.
Pronator teres syndrome (also known as pronator syndrome) is compression of the median nerve between the two heads of the pronator teres muscle. The Pronator teres test is an indication of the syndrome—the patient reports pain when attempting to pronate the forearm against resistance while extending the elbow simultaneously. The physician may notice an enlarged pronator teres muscle. Tinel's sign the area around the pronator teres heads should be positive. The key to discerning this syndrome from carpal tunnel syndrome is the absence of pain while sleeping. More recent literature collectively diagnose median nerve palsy occurring from the elbow to the forearm as pronator teres syndrome.
In uncooperative patients, the skin wrinkle test offers a pain-free way to identify denervation of the fingers. After submersion in water for 5 minutes, normal fingers will become wrinkled, whereas denervated fingers will not.
In "Ape hand deformity", the thenar muscles become paralyzed due to impingement and are subsequently flattened. This hand deformity is not by itself an individual diagnosis; it is seen only after the thenar muscles have atrophied. While the adductor pollicis remains intact, the flattening of the muscles causes the thumb to become adducted and laterally rotated. The opponens pollicis causes the thumb to flex and rotate medially, leaving the thumb unable to oppose. Carpal tunnel syndrome can result in thenar muscle paralysis which can then lead to ape hand deformity if left untreated. Ape hand deformity can also be seen in the hand of benediction deformity.
The Anterior Interosseus Nerve (AIN), a branch of the median nerve, only accounts for the movement of the fingers in hand and does not have any sensory capabilities. Therefore, the AIN syndrome is purely neuropathic. AINS is considered as an extremely rare condition because it accounts for less than 1% of neuropathies in the upper limb. Patients suffering from this syndrome have impaired distal interphalangeal joint, because of which they are unable to pinch anything or make and "OK" sign with their index finger and thumb. The syndrome can either happen from pinched nerve, or even dislocation of the elbow.
Prevention.
One way to prevent this injury from occurring is to be informed and educated about the risks involved in hurting your wrist and hand. If patients do suffer from median nerve palsy, occupational therapy or wearing a splint can help reduce the pain and further damage. Wearing a dynamic splint, which pulls the thumb into opposition, will help prevent an excess in deformity. This splint can also assist in function and help the fingers flex towards the thumb. Stretching and the use of C-splints can also assist in prevention of further damage and deformity. These two methods can help in the degree of movement the thumb can have. While it is impossible to prevent trauma to your arms and wrist, patients can reduce the amount of compression by maintaining proper form during repetitive activities. Furthermore, strengthening and increasing flexibility reduces the risk of nerve compression.
Treatment.
Depending on the severity of the lesion, physicians may recommend either conservative treatment or surgery. The first step is simply to rest and modify daily activities that aggravate the symptoms. Patients may be prescribed anti-inflammatory drugs, Physical or Occupational therapy, splints for the elbow and wrists, and corticosteroid injections as well. This is the most common treatment for CTS. Especially involving compression at the wrist, such as in CTS, it is possible to recover without treatment. Physical therapy can help build muscle strength and braces or splints help recover. In pronator teres syndrome, specifically, immobilization of the elbow and mobility exercise within a pain-free range are initially prescribed. However, if the patient is not relieved of symptoms after a usual 2 to 3 month refractory period, then decompression surgery may be required. Surgery involves excising the tissue or removing parts of the bone compressing the nerve.
Many tendon transfers have been shown to restore opposition to the thumb and provide thumb and finger flexion. In order to have optimal results the individual needs to follow the following principles of tendon transfer: normal tissue equilibrium, movable joints, and a scar-free bed. If these requirements are met then certain factors need to be considered such as matching up the lost muscle mass, fiber length, and cross-sectional area and then pick out muscle-tendon units of similar size, strength, and potential excursion.
For patients with low median nerve palsy, it has been shown that the flexor digitorum superficialis of the long and ring fingers or the wrist extensors best approximate the force and motion that is required to restore full thumb opposition and strength. This type of transfer is the preferred method for median nerve palsy when both strength and motion are required. In situations when only thumb mobility is desired, the extensor indicis proprius is an ideal transfer.
For high median nerve palsy, the brachioradialis or the extensor carpi radialis longus transfer is more appropriate to restore lost thumb flexion and side-to-side transfer of the flexor digitorum profundus of the index finger are generally sufficient. To restore independent flexion of the index finger could be performed by using the pronator teres or extensor carpi radialis ulnaris tendon muscle units. All of the mentioned transfers are generally quite successful because they combine a proper direction of action, pulley location, and tendon insertion.
Rehabilitation.
In high median nerve palsy patients, recovery time varies from as early as four months to 2.5 years. Initially, patients are immobilized in a neutral position of the forearm and elbow flexed at 90° in order to prevent further injury. Additionally, gentle exercises and soft tissue massage are applied. The next goal is strengthening and flexibility, usually involving wrist extension and flexion; however, it is important not to overuse the muscles in order to prevent re-injury. If surgery is required, post operative therapy initially involves decreasing pain and sensitivity to the incision area. Adequate grip and elbow strength must be achieved before returning to pre-operative activity.


Inland marine insurance

Inland marine insurance in the United States indemnifies loss to movable or specialized types of property, historically developing as an outgrowth of ocean marine insurance. This category of insurance includes property coverage for construction equipment, medical diagnostic equipment, fine arts, solar panels and wind turbines, cameras and movie equipment, musical instruments, and a wide variety of other types of property.
The inland marine insurance definition has evolved over time to cover a wide range of property and materials:
Traditionally, marine insurers such as the underwriters at Lloyd's of London covered cargo in the course of international commercial voyages by sea, providing coverage on an "all risk" basis: physical loss or damage from "any" cause was covered "unless" the policy specifically excluded that cause. Subsequently, a marketplace for fire insurance for buildings on land arose, especially after the Great Fire of London in 1666. Fire insurance companies typically provided narrower coverage, where the policies specifically listed specifically the only perils covered, and excluded all losses from any other causes.
In the 19th century the course of the Industrial Revolution gave rise to new exposures on land, such as telegraphs, railroad equipment, and other types of property with which fire insurance companies were unfamiliar, and inclined to grant coverage only for "enumerated perils". Marine insurers, accustomed to providing "all risk" coverage to cargo in transit, began competing in the insurance marketplace for these types of equipment and other "instrumentalities of communication and transportation". Despite the word "marine", most inland marine coverages are for property on land, with property transported by water insured under ocean marine. This led to marine insurers competing in the fire insurance marketplace against fire insurance companies. Ultimately, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners regulated the situation, adopting a Nationwide Marine Definition in 1933 which laid out what types of property were eligible for "inland marine" insurance coverage.
In the United States, inland marine insurance comprises about 2% of total premiums but account for a higher percent of the profit. Like ocean marine insurance, inland marine insurance has been traditionally less regulated in the United States.
Inland marine policies became known as "floaters" since the property to which coverage was originally extended was essentially "floating." The coverage has grown to include property that just involves an element of transportation. The property that is insured under inland marine coverage is typically one of the following:
The following coverages represent a wide range of the types of coverages typically called "inland marine":


War College (The Salvation Army)

The Salvation Army War College was a cult established in 2003 by Founders Majors Stephen Court and Danielle Strickland, along with Pioneers Captains Ruth and Ian Gillingham. The War College began in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and is still its longest running campus. In 2006 a War College campus was opened in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States by Death and Glory Alumni Heather and Rob Dolby and in 2008 another in Chicago Illinois, United States by Envoys Jen and Josh Polanco. The Vancouver campus is led by Training Principal Nicole Brindle.
About.
The War College is a one-year (including three three-month semesters and one two-month deployment) incarnational, biblically based, urban missions training college.
The mission statement of The War College is "to equip and enlist warriors to win the world for Jesus."
The Salvation Army endorses The War College on divisional, territorial and international structural schemes in personnel, finances and curriculum.
In Vancouver, students live primarily in The Empress Hotel, a 77 unit slum hotel at the Main and Hastings intersection in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. The Downtown Eastside of Vancouver is known for its addiction, poverty and prostitution rates. Students who attend The War College identify themselves with the poor and immerse themselves in the neighbourhood.
Students continuing their formation may select an Associate of Practical Ministry degree and continue with The War College in its Phase Two option.
The 24-7 Prayer Movement endorses and refers their pilgrims to fulfil their discipleship and training endeavours with The Salvation Army through The War College.
Curriculum.
100 Level Spiritual Basics Courses
200 Level Spiritual Disciplines Courses
300 Level Spiritual Warfare Courses
There are modular courses that vary by year.
A list of the above courses can be found here.
Board of Reference/Faculty.
The Board of Reference features established leaders from around the world. These people offer insight, spiritual support and endorse The War College. The Board of Reference is reforming and will be announced mid-June 2010.
The War College local and/or visiting faculty include: Jonathan Evans, Carla Evans, Aaron White, Cherie White, Major Doug Burr, Michael Collins, Major Winn Blackman, Faytene Kryskow, Patricia King, Commissioners Marilyn and William Francis and Nicole Brindle (a full list can be found in the reference).
Phase Two.
Upon graduation, students can apply for a second or third year with The War College.
Phase 1: (initial War College year)
Phase 2a:
Phase 2b:
Battle School.
Battle School students select core basics each term. They will not be required to live in residence and the application process is the same. The cost is adjusted accordingly (which is either training only or training and meals). There is access to most War College scheduled events.


Ben Hana

Bernard "Ben" Hana, a.k.a. "Blanket Man" (1957 – 15 January 2012) was a homeless man who wandered the inner city streets of Wellington, New Zealand. He was a local fixture and something of a celebrity, and was typically found on the footpath in the precincts of Cuba Street and Courtenay Place.
Hana was a self-proclaimed devotee of the Māori sun god Tama-nui-te-rā, and claimed that he should wear as few items of clothing as possible, as an act of religious observance. As a result, he would sometimes remove all his clothing, which resulted in the consequent attendance of police officers.
His name of "Blanket Man" was a reference to his usual mode of dress, which was a single blanket, long dreadlocks and either a loin cloth or briefs. His activities and presence provoked a degree of public debate within Wellington.
It's believed Hana chose to live on the streets after killing a friend in a drink-driving accident as a form of self-penance.
Early life.
Hana was born in Inglewood, New Zealand in 1957 to a Jehovah's Witness family.
In the late 1970s Hana associated with the Black Power gang, living in Wellington, going by the name "Bugs" and fathering two children.
Judicial hearings and convictions.
Hana was arrested and imprisoned several times for offences including public nudity and possession of cannabis. His criminal record reportedly ran 17 pages long. In 1979, he was convicted of drunk driving causing death.
Hana visited the South Island for the first time in 2010, was arrested, charged and flown home after being provided with a shower and new overalls.
In 2010, a judge ordered that Hana be detained under the Mental Health Act 1992, and he was admitted to Wellington Hospital's psychiatric ward Te Whare O Matairangi, where "he will have clean clothes, regular meals, and no access to drink and drugs." In the same year he was released back onto the streets without any notable change in character. In mid 2011 he was sectioned and detained again, subsequently diagnosed as living with schizophrenia. He was then discharged from hospital and given daily medication under a community treatment order, which allowed forced medical treatment as an outpatient. He mostly resided at his usual location on the central Wellington street of Courtenay Place until his death.
Local celebrity.
With his distinctive look and high visibility location, Hana became something of a local celebrity. In general, he was tolerated by some shopkeepers outside whose premises he sat, and by passers-by, although there had been times of opposition from other shopkeepers. Also, on occasions when he decided to push the boundaries of offensive behaviour, police officers were likely to be in attendance. As someone who departed from the patterns of normal behaviour, Hana had become a figure of amusement, sympathy, disgust and even some academic interest. During the 2006 Rugby Sevens tournament, one costumed group appeared in dreads and blankets, mimicking his distinctive look.
In media.
Hana featured in several works:
Death.
Hana, age 54, died in Wellington Hospital at 3:35 p.m. on 15 January 2012 of suspected viral myocarditis. However, he was suffering medical problems stemming from heavy alcohol use and malnutrition. A temporary shrine was created outside the ANZ Bank on Courtenay Place, a location where Hana could often be found. Messages were written on the building's facade, and flowers, candles, food and other items were left in tribute.
Among those who paid tribute were Wellington mayor Celia Wade-Brown and sports athlete Sonny Bill Williams. His funeral was paid for by philanthropist Gareth Morgan.


Sun Xiaoguo

Sun Xiaoguo, (also known as Chen Guo and Li Linchen), (27 October 1977-20 February 2020), was a serial rapist and gang leader from Kunming, China. Sun was known for the brutality of his crimes as well as his evasion of justice. Sun was sentenced to death in 1998, but his sentence was commuted to twenty years due to corruption within the system. He was released in April 2010, after serving 12 years and 5 months. After being released from prison, Sun participated in organised crime under the name "Li Linchen". During a crackdown on organised crime, Sun was arrested on charges of leading an organised criminal gang. When Sun’s name appeared in the list of criminal gangs, his case attracted the attention of the media, as he had been sentenced to death 21 years prior. Sun was executed on February 20, 2020. Sun's brutal methods stunned the investigating staff, and the phrase "[Deng] Xiaoping rules in the day, [Sun] Xiaoguo rules in the night" spread in Kunming.
Early life.
Sun was born in Kunming, Yunnan on October 27, 1977. In December 1992, before Sun reached the age of enlistment, his stepfather Li Qiaozhong took advantage of his position as deputy director of the Police Department of the Yunnan Border Guard Command to change Sun's date of birth to October 27, 1975. Subsequently, Sun served in various law enforcement positions.
Criminal activities.
October 1994- April 1996.
On October 16, 1994, Sun, who was a student of the Public Security Border Defense Forces Kunming Command School, and two other youths wandered by a car. They dragged two women into their car on the South Ring Road, Kunming, and drove to Chenggong district, where they gang-raped them.
On October 28, 1994, Sun Xiaoguo was detained, and on April 4, 1995, his arrest was approved. During this time, Sun’s age was corrected from 19 back to 17. In an attempt to get Sun released, his mother Sun Heyu provided a false certificate of illness. On December 20, 1995, the People's Court of Panlong District sentenced Sun to three years in prison. In April 1996, the second ruling of the Kunming Intermediate People's Court ruled that the defendant's appeal was rejected and the original sentence was upheld.
1997.
On March 27, 1997, Sun was not sent to prison because of medical procedures. According to the Chinese Yearbook of Law, within eight months of his release, Sun and his gang committed at least eight crimes, including rape, intentional injury, forced obscenity and insult to women, and provocation.
Between April and June 1997, Sun raped several underage girls in the Chayuan Lou Hotel. The victims included a 15-year-old girl, a 17-year-old female student and her friend, another 15-year-old female student and a 13-year-old female student.
On June 17, 1997, Sun brought a female student under the age of 14 to the Xingzhao Hotel in Kunming and attempted to rape her. Due to her resistance, Sun did not succeed. He then instructed his subordinates to take the girl downstairs and beat her to the point of being "unrecognisable."
On July 13, 1997, Sun's gang had a dispute with another gang in the Bopei Entertainment City in Kunming. Sun and his associates committed vehicular assault and assaulted rival gang members. After the police investigated the gang dispute, they found that Sun was actually a criminal who was currently supposed to be in prison. The police called Sun's mother, who claimed that Sun had returned to his grandmother's house in Sichuan and was not involved in the dispute.
On October 22, 1997, Sun assaulted a restaurant patron who did not obey his commands.
On November 7, 1997, Sun kidnapped two 17-year-old girls and took them to Kunming's Yueguangcheng Night Club, where he violently assaulted one of them. The next day, Sun moved the girls to a beer house in Haosheng Entertainment City in Kunming and further assaulted them. In the end, one girl suffered severe injuries, multiple extensive soft tissue contusions throughout the body, right frontal lobe contusion and laceration, 2-8 rib fractures in the left thoracic rib, limited lower limb movement and peripheral nerve damage. She also suffered retrograde amnesia, and fell into a coma.
1998 trial and aftermath.
On February 18, 1998, the Kunming Intermediate People's Court tried and sentenced Sun to death, and deprivation of political rights for life for rape; 15 years in prison for assaulting women; 7 years imprisonment for intentional harm; 3 years imprisonment for provocation and nuisance; 2 years, 4 months and 12 days of imprisonment for other offences; the total punishment was execution and deprivation of political rights for life.
On March 9, 1999, the Higher People's Court of Yunnan province reprieved his death sentence for two years. On September 27, 2007, the Yunnan Higher People's Court retrialed Sun and sentenced him to 20 years in prison
In 2008, while Sun was detained in the First Prison in Yunnan Province, his mother, Sun Heyu, and stepfather, Li Qiaozhong, asked Yunnan justice system officials to change Sun's inmate assessment score to "active improver", and falsely credited several inventions to Sun. These falsifications counted towards the reduction of Sun’s sentence.
In January 2009, Sun was transferred to the Second Prison in Yunnan province. Due to his supposed inventions and good behaviour, according to Article 78 of the criminal law, Sun was eligible for a commutation of two years and eight months.
2010 release.
On April 11, 2010, Sun was released after several commutations which resulted in an actual sentence of 12 years and 5 months. After being released from prison, he changed his name to Li Linchen, became a shareholder in several businesses and operated many bars in Kunming.
On the evening of July 21, 2018, Sun beat up a person known only as "Wang" in Guandu District, Kunming, causing them to be seriously injured and several other people to suffer various degrees of injury. After the incident, the Guandu Branch of the Kunming Public Security Bureau opened an investigation on July 30, 2018.
Intervention of Central Anti-crime Supervision Team and arrest.
On January 3, 2019, Sun's case was transferred to the Guandu District People's Court and it was discovered that Sun was a criminal who had been sentenced to death in 1998. This breach of justice was conveyed to the Yunnan Provincial Party Committee. At this point, the case began to attract significant media attention.
On March 18, 2019, the Guandu District People's Court arrested Sun; public security organisations investigated Sun's suspected crimes after his release from prison in April 2010, and found that Sun and his gang members had gathered to fight, opened a casino, tried to cause trouble, and falsely imprisoned others, as well as other suspected crimes.
In April 2019, after the 20th Central Anti-crime and Evil Supervision Team entered Yunnan, the case was designated as a key case for supervision. In May, the Office of the Leading Group of the National Anti-Crime Special Campaign also listed the case.
On June 4, 2019, a team consisting of the National Supervisory Commission of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, led by the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, the Office of the Leading Group of the National Anti-Crime Special Commission, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Justice urged relevant departments of Yunnan Province to handle Sun's case.
On July 26, 2019, the Yunnan Provincial Higher People's Court declared the original trial decision on September 27, 2007 to be the result of a mistrial and announced a retrial. Sun was detained while he was re-tried.
2019 re-trial and execution.
On October 14, 2019, the Yunnan Provincial Higher People's Court re-tried Sun's rape and assault offences. In addition, the Procuratorate of Yunnan Province filed a public prosecution for Sun's suspected participation in gang organisations after his 2010 release. Nineteen public officials and affiliates suspected of crimes relating to Sun's case were summoned to court for review and prosecution.
On November 6 and 7, 2019, the Intermediate People's Court of Yuxi City, Yunnan Province tried 13 people, including Sun, on suspicion of leadership and participation in gang organisations. The People's Court of Jiangchuan District of Yuxi City also accused Li Shuang and other 22 protectors involved in Sun's case of opening a casino, provoking trouble, assault, false imprisonment, fraud and intentional harm.
On November 8, 2019, the Intermediate People's Court of Yuxi City, Yunnan Province continued to hold court, and announced the trial of a criminal case involving 13 people including Sun, accusing them of the organisation, leadership, and participation in gang organisations. Sun was accused of organising and leading a gang, setting up casinos, causing trouble, false imprisonment, intentional harm, hindering testimony, and bribery. Combining the punishments, Sun was sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment, deprivation of political rights for 5 years, and confiscation of all personal property. Sun’s rape trial was scheduled to occur later. (It would later be announced at 23 December 2019.) On December 17, the Yunnan Provincial Higher People's Court publicly re-trialed the previous case and dismissed the appeal of 4 people including Sun, and maintained the original sentence of 25 years in prison.
On December 14, 2019, the Yunnan Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection investigated five officials involved in Sun’s case. They were punished with warnings within the party.
On December 15, 2019, multiple courts (including the Yuxi Intermediate People's Court of Yunnan Province) issued public sentences on 19 criminal cases involving public officials and important related persons in Sun’s case. Among them, Sun's stepfather Li Qiaozhong was sentenced to 19 years in prison, and Sun's mother Sun He was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
On December 23, 2019, the Yunnan Higher People's Court publicly sentenced Sun in the retrial of the crimes of rape, assault, intentional injury, and provocation from 1997, and decided to uphold the first ruling of the Kunming Intermediate People's Court in February 1998, in which Sun was sentenced to death. On February 12, 2020, the Supreme People's Court approved the death sentence issued by the Higher People's Court of Yunnan Province.
On 20 February 2020, according to the Supreme Court's death penalty execution order, the Kunming Intermediate People's Court executed Sun.
Rulings on Sun's associates.
On December 15, 2019, courts including the Yuxi Intermediate People's Court of Yunnan Province, the People's Court of Hongta district in Yuxi City, and the People's Court of Tonghai County in Yuxi City sentenced 19 criminal cases involving people protecting Sun, including officers protecting him and his accomplices.
Some defendants were also fined separately and the stolen money was confiscated.


IMO 5003966


Travis Branch

The Travis Branch is a branch of the Staten Island Railway in New York City, that operates from Arlington Yard to Fresh Kills, which is used for freight transportation along the West Shore, Staten Island.
History.
The Gulf Oil Corporation opened a dock and tank farm along the Arthur Kill in 1928 and in order to serve it, the Travis Branch was built south from Arlington Yard into the marshes of the island's western shore to Gulfport. The small yard on the refinery property had a capacity for 150 tank cars. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) built wood trestles to carry the track over the many creeks that dissect the right-of-way to Travis. The branch was never electrified.
At this time, the two West Shore branches were mapped to be joined together by the B&O. The West Shore Line between Arlington and Tottenville, would have allowed rail freight headed to Nassau Smelting and other freight customers on the Main Line to avoid the congestion of Saint George Yard and the frequent passenger train service on the North Shore, South Beach and Perth Amboy sub-divisions. This proposal was killed by the Great Depression.
In 1958, the line was extended to Travis in order to serve the newly built Consolidated Edison power plant. It carried 100 car B&O unit trains of coal from West Virginia to the plant. The wood trestle over Old Place Creek () was replaced in 1966 with a steel-deck girder bridge. The branch was mostly a single track line all the way to South Avenue.
In the early 1980s, the power plant changed to coal delivery by barge. The branch was then abandoned and used for rolling-stock storage. A six-track former coal yard at the end of the branch once held coal hoppers. Whitchomb center-cab diesel No. 9 and three multiple-unit electric cars were being stored in the year for the Trolley Museum of New York. In 1990, the Whitcomb diesel and two of the cars were moved to the trolley museum's new home in Kingston, New York. ME-1 Car No. 353, deemed too damaged to move, remained a resident of Travis Yard until 2003, when it was scrapped in the revitalization of Travis Yard.
Current uses.
In 2005, the Travis Branch was renovated and was extended from the old Consolidated Edison plant to the New York Sanitation Fresh Kills Landfill. Prior to reactivation in 2007, all the trestles on the branch were replaced with robust concrete bridges. Pratt Industries, a manufacturer of cardboard, has access to the railroad for shipments but has yet to use it. A new yard was built at Fresh Kills to serve the trash-transfer station there. The track along the branch was relaid along with the track extension, totalling to of new track. Regular service to the facility began in April 2007. Unit trains made up of bright orange container flatcars serve the facility–sometimes up to five times daily. The line is part of Conrail Shared Assets territory, and both CSX and NS locomotives operate on the line. A wye was added between the North Shore Line and the Travis Branch. The portion of the line connecting the line to the east end of Arlington Yard is called the Travis Lead.
Soon after service restarted on the line, Mayor Michael Bloomberg officially commemorated the reactivation on April 17, 2007. On behalf of the City of New York, the New York City Economic Development Corporation formed an agreement with CSX Transportation, Norfolk Southern Railway, and Conrail Shared Assets Operations to provide service over the reactivated line to haul waste from the Staten Island Transfer Station and ship container freight from the Howland Hook Marine Terminal and other industrial businesses. The Travis Branch has a length of 4.41 miles, with milepost 0.00 being Arlington Yard.
A proposed route alignment for light rail on the west shore of Staten Island would have the light rail go on the North Shore rail right-of-way to the Travis branch of the line, and from there, onto the median of the West Shore Expressway.


Danny Moss

Dennis Moss MBE (16 August 1927 – 28 May 2008) was a British jazz tenor saxophonist. He was known for playing with many figures in British jazz, including Vic Lewis, Ted Heath, John Dankworth, Alex Welsh, and Humphrey Lyttelton.
Biography.
The son of a toolmaker, Moss was born in Redhill, Surrey in 1927. His childhood was spent on the south coast, in the Brighton-Worthing area, and he attended Steyning Grammar School. At the age of thirteen, he saw a jazz band appear briefly in a Bowery Boys film on a family cinema visit, and was so inspired by the clarinet playing that he swapped his most valued possession, his ice skates, for a second-hand instrument of his own. He was self-taught on both this and the tenor saxophone, which he took up at school.
A spell of National Service at the age of eighteen saw Moss performing for three years in a Royal Air Force regional band. After leaving the forces he joined the Vic Lewis Orchestra, and in the next few years moved around various bands, especially ones with the potential for a soloist. In 1952, he joined Ted Heath's band, a well-paid role which he described as "the prestige job of all time". Soon, however, Moss found the group's focus on novelty numbers and faithful musical reproductions, including that of solos, to be limiting to his skills as an improviser, and he left after three years.
In 1957, Moss joined John Dankworth's orchestra. Here, with the band's encouragement, he began to develop his characteristic saxophone sound, eschewing the contemporary focus on light tone and fast phrasing in favour of a thicker and more spacious sound informed by American tenor saxophonists such as Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster. When the Dankworth band visited America, Moss' style was singled out for compliment by Count Basie, who declared his playing "real Texas tenor... the way it should sound!" He left Dankworth's band in 1962, as the band itself was winding down. From here, he joined Humphrey Lyttelton's group, where he continued to hone his style for another two years.
He then married jazz singer Jeanie Lambe on 6 January 1964, and the couple moved from London to Sussex at her suggestion. Here, he formed his own quartet, playing a mix of club gigs, festival appearances and radio broadcasts for the BBC. He continued to tour with this quartet throughout the 1970s and 1980s, also playing and recording with American singers like Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, Sarah Vaughan and Rosemary Clooney, and appearing as a guest soloist with Buck Clayton in the mid-'60s and Louis Armstrong on his last British tour. Moss also co-founded British jazz "supergroup" Pizza Express All-Stars in 1980, playing with them until the end of the 1980s.
Moss and Lambe moved to Perth, Western Australia in 1989, although Moss continued to play regularly in Europe.According to his obituary in "The Daily Telegraph", his distance from Europe only seemed to increase the level of demand for his performances there.
Illness and death.
In November 2005, he was diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma, a rare form of lung cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. He participated in a video produced by Phil Strachan for the Australian medical website Virtual Medical Centre where he was interviewed about his illness and chemotherapy treatment. He died on 28 May 2008, aged 80, survived by Lambe and the couple's two sons.


Sean Ekins

Sean Ekins is a British pharmacologist and expert in the fields of ADME/Tox, computational toxicology and cheminformatics at Collaborations in Chemistry, a division of corporate communications firm Collaborations in Communications. He is also the editor of four books and a book series for John Wiley & Sons.
Biography.
Sean Ekins is a scientific leader with over twenty-three years of broad experience in drug discovery. He was born in Cleethorpes, England, on 2 March 1970 to John Ekins and Elsie May Ekins. He grew up in Grimsby. Ekins attended Edward Street Primary and Middle School followed by Havelock School. Ekins then earned his HND Science Applied Biology from Nottingham Trent University (formerly Polytechnic, 1988–1991), graduating in 1991, with a sandwich year (1989–1990) at the pharmaceutical company Servier in Fulmer, UK where his interest in drug discovery was established. Ekins then earned his MSc in Clinical Pharmacology (1991–1992) at the University of Aberdeen with a dissertation entitled "Speculations on the relative roles of cytochrome P450 and flavin containing monooxygenase in the metabolism of S12363" he then earned a PhD in clinical pharmacology, at the University of Aberdeen in 1996, funded by Servier, and wrote a thesis entitled "Maintenance and cryopreservation of xenobiotic metabolism in precision-cut liver slices. Evaluation of an alternative in vitro model to isolated hepatocytes". During his PhD he developed an interest in predicting drug-drug interactions computationally as an alternative to using animal models.
From 1996-1998 Ekins continued his research as a Postdoc at Eli Lilly and Company laboratories characterizing the little-known CYP2B6 and applied computational methods to this enzyme. He collected drug-drug interaction Ki data for other P450s and generated pharmacophores. He created test sets to test the models, that were ultimately published. He published seminal ideas on how such models could be used to profile libraries of compounds for predicted drug-drug interactions.
In late 1998 Ekins joined Pfizer and continued his interest in predicting drug-drug interactions and ADME properties. In 1999 he moved to Lilly to build a predictive ADME/Tox group. Between 1999 and late 2001 he generated pharmacophores and statistical models for various proteins including P-glycoprotein, PXR and enzymes.
In December 2001 he started work for a start-up company, Concurrent Pharmaceuticals (now Vitae Pharmaceuticals) as the Associate Director, Computational Drug Discovery. He was responsible for developing computational models for ADME/Tox and targets of interest. During this time he developed an interest in the polypharmacology of ADME/Tox proteins. In 2004 he joined GeneGo (now owned by Thomson Reuters) as vice president, Computational Biology and developed the MetaDrug product (patent pending).
In 2005 he earned his D.Sc. in Science from the University of Aberdeen with a thesis entitled "Computational and in vitro models for predicting drug interactions in humans".
From 2006-2016 Ekins consulted for several companies including for Collaborative Drug Discovery.
In 2011 Ekins Co-Founded Phoenix Nest working on treatments for Sanfilippo Syndrome.
In 2015, Ekins founded Collaborations Pharmaceuticals, a privately owned company that performs research and development on innovative therapeutics for multiple rare and infectious diseases. Collaborations Pharmaceuticals partners with academics and companies to identify and translate early preclinical to clinical stage assets.
Ekins has also carried out independent research and collaborative research on topics including pharmacophores for drug transporters, cheminformatics for predicting immunoassay cross reactivity, models for studying nuclear receptor-ligand co-evolution, computational models for PXR agonists and antagonists as well as analyses of large datasets and crowdsourcing data.
Making Pharmaceutical Data Open.
In 2010 Sean Ekins was the co-author of seminal papers around data sharing and making pharmaceutical data more open publishing papers:
1. on the long overdue need for making preclinical ADME/Tox data precompetitive
2. how crowdsourcing could be used in the pharmaceutical industry
3. how computational models for pharmacoeconomics could be shared by the scientific community
4. what tools are still needed in cheminformatics and how methods for model sharing will be important
5. How pharmaceutical companies could use open source molecular descriptors and algorithms which would facilitate computational model sharing with the academic and neglected disease community
This work is important because it was the first prominent advocacy for making a broad array of approaches to make preclinical and postmarketing data and models available as well as the demonstration of the feasibility of such approaches. Ekins served on the advisory group for ChemSpider and provided an array of pharmaceutical data sets to the database to make it available to the community.
Tuberculosis and Malaria Research.
While working for Collaborative Drug Discovery, (funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) he analyzed data provided to the public domain by the pharmaceutical industry. Specifically this was malaria screening data from GlaxoSmithKline for over 13,000 compounds. As a result of this work an important caution was provided to the scientific community in accepting such data at face value. These data were compared to other malaria and tuberculosis data.
In addition he provided analyses of very large libraries of tuberculosis data which highlight important physicochemical properties.
Ekins has highlighted gaps in TB research, specifically in how cheminformatics and other computational tools could be integrated to improve efficiency and provided examples of how computational methods can be used to assist in screening for compounds active against TB
In February 2011 Ekins began participating in the MM4TB project as part of Collaborative Drug Discovery. led by Professor Stewart Cole.
Science Mobile Applications.
Ekins co-developed a Wiki with Antony John Williams called Science Mobile Applications launched 21 June 2011. Initially this grew out of a desire to track chemistry Apps (for a paper submitted) and then Apps for science in the chemistry classroom.
Database quality.
Using their respective blogs, Ekins and Antony Williams alerted the scientific community within days of the release of the NCGC NPC browser. that there were significant errors in molecule structures. These observations were later published as an editorial in Drug Discovery Today.
Collaborations Pharmaceuticals.
In 2015, Sean founded Collaborations Pharmaceuticals to build upon collaborations and projects that came out of applying using machine learning approaches. The projects involved neglected diseases such as Tuberculosis, Chagas disease and rare diseases such as Batten Disease, Pitt Hopkins Syndrome and others. To date they have obtained 8 orphan drug designations across 5 rare or neglected diseases, and have widely published their results in peer reviewed journals.[SE1]  The company has obtained over $7.6M of funding from NIH and DOD grants to date.
Ebola Research
Since 2014 Sean has worked on Ebola drug discovery publishing 19 articles. One of these was the first use of a machine learning model to identify compounds active against Ebola (here). [SE2] This identified three active compounds (tilorone, quinacrine and pyronaridine) in vitro which have been subsequently tested in vivo and found to be active in mouse (Articles 1,2,3) (Most recently pyronaridine was shown to have some in vivo activity against Ebola in a Guinea pig. These molecules have also shown activity against Marburg, and bind the Ebola glycoprotein.
Chagas Disease Research
In 2015 Sean developed a machine learning model to predict molecules with activity against T.Cruzi, the parasite which cause Chagas Disease. Pyronaridine was one of several molecules identified with in vitro and in vivo activity.
SARS-CoV-2 Research
In 2020 the three molecules identified with activity against Ebola were tested against SARS-CoV-2 and were of potential interest as tilorone was shown to inhibit MERS and is well known to inhibit other viruses.
Software Products
Collaborations Pharmaceuticals Inc. has developed several software products including Assay Central®, MegaTox®, MegaTrans® and MegaPredict® which leverage data curation and machine learning to curate models relevant for drug discovery and computational ADME/Tox.
Editorships.
Ekins has edited or co-edited 4 books for Wiley including: "Computer Applications in Pharmaceutical Research and Development" (2006), "Computational Toxicology: Risk Assessment For Pharmaceutical and Environmental Chemicals"(1007), "Drug Efficacy, Safety, and Biologics Discovery"(2009) and "Collaborative Computational Technologies for Biomedical Research" (2011) All the books have an underlying connection with computational technologies and their application for pharmaceutical R&D.
His most recent edited book is Computational Toxicology: Risk Assessment for Chemicals which follows on from the earlier book Computational Toxicology: Risk Assessment for Pharmaceutical and Environmental Chemicals.
Patents.
Ekins is inventor on four issued US patents, and


Water Mission

Water Mission (previously known as Water Missions International) is a nonprofit, Christian engineering organization based in North Charleston, South Carolina, USA that designs, builds and implements safe water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) solutions for people in developing countries and disaster areas.
Since 2001, Water Mission claims to have provided access to safe water for more than 3 million people in 52 countries. Water Mission has over 200 staff members working around the world in permanent country programs located in Africa, Asia, North, South and Central America and the Caribbean.
History.
In 1998, under the direction of George and Molly Greene, General Engineering Laboratories responded to the devastation in Honduras caused by Hurricane Mitch. They designed, constructed and delivered six drinking water treatment units, each capable of producing safe drinking water at the rate of 10 gallons per minute. Within three weeks of the hurricane, sixteen volunteers from the company were in remote locations of Honduras setting up these water treatment units. This initial effort was called "Project Living Water" and the water treatment unit became known as the Living Water Treatment System (LWTS). Most recently, they responded to the 2015 Nepal earthquake, with both Living Water Treatment Systems and Erosion Chlorinators being installed at numerous locations throughout Kathmandu and the surrounding area.
Out of this effort, Water Mission was founded. George and Molly went on to sell General Engineering Laboratories and Water Missions International was officially established as a 501(c)(3) non-profit in 2001. WMI now has country programs with full-time staff located in Belize, Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, Kenya, Malawi, Mexico, and Uganda. "In 2004, the water mission sent more than 100 purification systems to communities in Indonesia and Sri Lanka after the deadly tsunami, restoring drinking water to hundreds of thousands of people." They responded to the 2010 Haiti earthquake, with both Living Water Treatment Systems and Erosion Chlorinators being installed at numerous locations throughout Port-au-Prince and the surrounding area.


An act concerning Servants and Slaves

The Virginia Slave Codes of 1705 (formally entitled An act concerning Servants and Slaves), was a series of laws enacted by the Colony of Virginia's House of Burgesses in 1705 regulating the interactions between slaves and citizens of the crown colony of Virginia. The enactment of the Slave Codes is considered to be the consolidation of slavery in Virginia, and served as the foundation of Virginia's slave legislation.
These codes effectively embedded the idea of slavery into law by the following devices:
The law was devised to establish a greater level of control over the rising African slave population of Virginia. It also served to socially segregate white colonists from black enslaved persons, making them disparate groups hindering their ability to unite. A unity of the commoners was a perceived fear of the Virginia aristocracy which had to be addressed, and who wished to prevent a repeat of events such as Bacon's Rebellion, occurring 29 years prior.


List of criminal original habeas cases

This is a list of cases concerning criminal law heard by the Supreme Court of the United States in its original habeas jurisdiction granted by § 14 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, 1 Stat. 73, 81–82. That section provides: