Julius Sumner Miller

Julius Sumner Miller (May 17, 1909April 14, 1987) was an American physicist and television personality. He is best known for his work on children's television programs in North America and Australia.
Off-screen.
Julius Sumner Miller was born in Billerica, Massachusetts, as the youngest of nine children. His father was Latvian and his Lithuanian mother spoke 12 languages.
Miller graduated with a master's degree in physics from Boston University in 1933. Due to the Great Depression, he and his wife Alice (née Brown) worked as a butler and maid for a wealthy Boston doctor for the following two years. They had no children, but he was to reach millions of children through his popular science programs.
After submitting over 700 job applications, he was offered a place in 1937 in the physics department of Dillard University, a private, African American liberal arts college in New Orleans. During World War II he worked as a civilian physicist for the US Army Signal Corps while holding fellowships in physics at the universities of Idaho and Oklahoma. He was a Ford Foundation fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles.
In 1950, Miller won a Carnegie Grant that allowed him to visit Albert Einstein at his home in Princeton, New Jersey, and also to visit the Institute for Advanced Studies. He greatly admired Einstein and went on to amass a collection of Einstein memorabilia. In 1952 he joined the physics department at the then small El Camino College in Torrance, California (1952–1974), to maximum student enrollments due to his great popularity and where he was instantly recognizable by his casual hair and horn-rimmed eyeglasses.
Miller was intolerant of misspelled words and misplaced punctuation, and often angered his colleagues because he charged that the students of most faculties were not learning enough. During an interview in the 1940s, he stated that intellectual life in America was in trouble, a belief he held for the rest of his life.
We are approaching a darkness in the land. Boys and girls are emerging from every level of school with certificates and degrees, but they can't read, write or calculate. We don't have academic honesty or intellectual rigor. Schools have abandoned integrity and rigor.
From 1963 to 1986, Miller was the visiting lecturer for the physics department of the University of Sydney, and from 1965 to 1985 at the United States Air Force Academy.
Television.
In 1959, Miller began hosting his educational program, "Why Is It So?", on KNXT Channel 2 in Los Angeles. From 1962 to 1964, he was Disney's "Professor Wonderful" on new introductions, filmed at Disneyland, to the syndicated reruns of "The Mickey Mouse Club". He also starred in the Disney series "Great Moments in Science" and "Science and its Magic". During the same period, he appeared on a semi-regular basis, performing physics experiments, on Steve Allen's late night TV show in Hollywood, syndicated by Group W. Eventually, he also had his own TV shows in Australia, Canada, Norway, and New Zealand.
Miller's first television appearance in Australia was on "Bob Sanders People" in 1963. In an improvised physics demonstration, he attempted to drive a drinking straw through a raw potato. A paper straw normally does not have sufficient strength but if one pinches the end, the trapped air acts as a piston, easily piercing the potato. For the first time in his career he could not get this to work, and he loudly exclaimed "Australian straws ain't worth a damn!". The next morning, Miller arrived at his Sydney University laboratory to find one million drinking straws on the floor with a telegram reading "You might find one of these fitting your requirements". He later stated "I sat amongst the straws with straws stuck in my hair and ears. But clearly I had made a mistake. I should have said: 'Australian potatoes ain't worth a damn', and I'd have cornered the potato market!"
Shortly after, he was offered a job presenting science for Australia's ABC Television. When asked how much money he wanted, he replied that he never asked, he listened to an offer then "multiplied it by a factor between two and ten". Due to budget constraints the offer was withdrawn, but an agreement was reached for Miller to host his own science-based TV series which was filmed at the University of Sydney where he taught. "Why Is It So?" (the program title, which also would become his stock phrase), was broadcast from 1963 to 1986 and became an instant hit known for its "cool experiments, interesting science, and fantastic hair". The 1960s program became "Demonstrations in Physics" (also called "Science Demonstrations" when it was aired on American PBS television). He introduced each episode with the line:
"How do you do, ladies and gentlemen, and boys and girls" [sometimes adding some others like: "and teachers, and fathers, and mothers, and people"].<br> "I am Julius Sumner Miller, and physics is my business" [whereupon often presenting the subject of each lesson after the characteristical phrase: "And my very special business today is ..."]
Around 1963, Miller was also one of the team of celebrity lecturers in the University of Sydney's pioneering "Summer School of Science", broadcast early in the morning during Australia's long summer holidays in January. Fellow presenters included physicist Harry Messel and the molecular biologist James Watson fresh from his triumphant co-discovery of the helical structure of DNA, but decades ahead of his work on the Human Genome.
My first TV series on demonstrations in physics – titled "Why Is It So?" – were now seen and heard over the land. The mail was massive. The academics were a special triumph for me. They charged me with being superficial and trivial. If I had done what they wanted my programs would be as dull as their classes! I knew my purpose well and clear: to show how Nature behaves without cluttering its beauty with abstruse mathematics. Why cloud the charm of a Chladni plate with a Bessel function?
Miller's on-air popularity was due to an enthusiasm not normally associated with serious science. Shows would be liberally sprinkled with phrases such as "He who is not stirred by the beauty of it is already dead!" and he also liked to trick the audience. A common ploy would be to hold up an empty glass and ask guests to confirm it was empty...then chide them for not noticing it was full of air. Before each demonstration he would usually ask for a show of hands to indicate which of several results they expected. Often he would then add "hands up those who don't care".
In 1964 Miller suffered a near fatal heart attack. Scheduled to give a lecture in Australia, he sent Sydney University a telegram saying; "I've dropped dead here." He would suffer a second heart attack in 1986.
In 1966, questions from his show with an answer to the previous day's question were published as "Millergrams" in "The Australian" newspaper. A selection of 112 of these questions was published as a book "Millergrams; Some Enchanting Questions for Enquiring Minds". Further books were published in 1967: "The Second Book of Millergrams: Some More Enchanting Questions for Enquiring Minds", and 1988: "Why is it So?: The Very Best Millergrams of Professor Julius Sumner Miller".
Sample Millergram:
Q32: A juggler comes to a footbridge of rather flimsy design. He has in hand four balls. The maximum load is no more than the juggler himself and one ball. Can he get across the bridge by juggling the balls, always having at most one ball in the hand (and three in the air)?
A: No. A falling ball exerts a force on the hand greater than its own weight. Rather, a "thrown" ball exerts greater force than a "held" one. That is, the additional force equal and opposite to that imparted to a flung ball, in addition to the juggler's mass, would exceed the bridge's tolerance (the bridge can tolerate a juggler and held ball, but not the additional downward force associated with forcing a ball "up").
Miller appeared as "The Professor" in the Canadian series "The Hilarious House of Frightenstein" (1971), in a 4- to 5-minute segment each episode where he demonstrated physics experiments and explained the principles involved.
In the 1970s, Miller was also an occasional guest on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" in the United States.
Commercials.
During the 1980s, Miller appeared in a famous series of Australian television commercials for Cadbury chocolate, using his stock phrase "Why is it so?", demonstrating a simple scientific principle, and describing how each block of chocolate "embraces substantial nourishment and enjoyment," and contained "a glass and a half of full-cream dairy milk." The ads were sufficiently popular to be played for some years after his death.
While in Australia, Miller also appeared in ads for non-stick saucepans and Ampol petroleum, which included demonstrations of real principles of physics, albeit briefly.
Death.
In February 1987, Miller became ill while visiting Australia and returned to the United States where he was diagnosed with leukemia. Miller died six weeks later on April 14, 1987, in Torrance, California. Miller willed his body to the University of Southern California's School of Dentistry; no services were held at his request.
Foundations.
Professor Miller's wife, Alice Brown Miller, wanted to perpetuate the memory and achievements of her husband, and so conceived the idea of the Julius Sumner Miller Foundation, which was established in 1998.
Through an offer by Cadbury-Schweppes Pty Ltd, the Cadbury-Julius Sumner Miller Scholarship for Academic Excellence was set up to provide undergraduate scholarships in the School of Physics at the University of Sydney.
In 1993 the Australian Science Foundation for Physics established the Julius Sumner Miller Fellowship in his memory. The fellowship is currently held by Karl Kruszelnicki, best known as "Doctor Karl" for his appearances on Australian radio and television as a science commentator and author.
Popular culture.
In 1966 Miller devised a word game, "Milleranagrams," which was published in Australia by John Sands Limited. The game, whose only materials were 200 Scrabble-like letter tiles, required players in their turn to draw an unseen tile from the "pool" then either make a word from their stock of tiles or add a tile to a word already on the table (rearrangement of the letters being permitted, hence the name) to form another word.
Miller remains popular in Australia, where he is still quoted. The phrase "As Professor Julius Sumner Miller often asked, "Why is it so?"" and its variations are still often used in newspaper articles that pose questions, even those unrelated to science.


ANGEL Learning

ANGEL Learning, Inc. was a privately held educational software company specializing in eLearning. Its main products are the ANGEL Learning Management Suite (LMS), ANGEL ePortfolio, and services offerings. In May 2009, it was acquired by Blackboard Inc.
Background.
ANGEL Learning and the ANGEL LMS evolved from research at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). The initial research system deployed in 1996 became Indiana University's OnCourse founded by Ali Jafari and David Mills. The ANGEL LMS was created using the early system concepts and was released by the newly formed CyberLearning Labs, Inc. in July 2000. The company has since changed its name to ANGEL Learning. On May 6, 2009, competitor Blackboard Inc announced that it is purchasing ANGEL Learning with the merger's completion planned for the end of May, 2009.
Products.
ANGEL Learning Management Suite.
The ANGEL LMS is used by K-12 schools and districts, community colleges, universities and proprietary schools to create Virtual Learning Environments for online learning and to offer hybrid or blended (web-enhanced) classes. Corporations also use the system for online corporate training. The latest version, 7.4, was released in April 2009. It is for all students of the United States
ANGEL ePortfolio.
ANGEL ePortfolio is used by students to create an electronic portfolio of their digital work. Schools use ANGEL ePortfolio to collect and report on data for accreditation purposes. The latest version, 2.1, was released in June 2008.
Services.
ANGEL Learning also offers services such as training, implementation, integration, and application hosting.
R&D projects.
Open Source Contributions.
ANGEL Learning recently contributed source code to the development of the IMS/GLS Common Cartridge Digital Content and to educational wiki development through a source code contribution to TiddlyWiki.
Second Life.
ANGEL Learning created and maintains ANGEL Learning Isle in Second Life. The island is open to educators for educational experimentation in the use of virtual collaboration technologies for online learning. The San Jose School of Library and Information Science is now working with ANGEL Learning on a project to integrate Second Life with the ANGEL LMS.
Partnerships.
ANGEL Learning has a number of partners who either offer content in the ANGEL format or integrations to the ANGEL LMS. Some of these partners include BigGyan, Elluminate, Emantras, Pearson Education, SMARTHINKING, Tegrity, Turnitin, Wiley, and Wimba.
Awards.
The ANGEL LMS has received several industry awards, and ANGEL Learning has also been recognized by various organizations. Recent awards include:


Olav Anton Thommessen

Olav Anton Thommessen (born 16 May 1946) is a Norwegian contemporary composer.
His main compositions include "Et glassperlespill" and "Gjennom Prisme". He is a former professor of composition at the Norwegian Academy of Music and has been influential in Norwegian contemporary classical music since the 1970s, particularly within music education and music organisations. Thommessen has played a significant role in aesthetic discourse in Norway and is known for his modernist and atonal stance. He has engaged in a critical dialogue with his former student Marcus Paus that includes the opera monologue "The Teacher Who Was Not To Be"; a 2015 debate between the two was described as "the biggest public debate about art music" in Norway since the 1970s.
Background.
He is a son of the diplomat Knut Thommessen (né Knut Saenger), a grandson of the German gynecologist Hans Saenger and a great-grandson of the gynecologist Max Saenger (also spelled Sänger). He trained in the United States, earning degrees from Westminster Choir College and Indiana University. He is a former professor of composition at the Norwegian Academy of Music, where he was employed in 1972. He is now retired.
Work.
Thommessen is a productive composer who utilizes a tonal language bordering on the radical while also harking back to classical roots. Through his compositional career, Thommessen has influenced the outlook on modern music through his career as a scholar and an advocate for dissemination of information on Norwegian contemporary music. Thommessen's list of works includes numerous symphonic works, chamber music pieces, and vocal music works. He has written several operas.
From 1972 onwards, Thommessen distinguished himself more and more as a composer through performances of his works at major festivals and with key orchestras: his work "Some Sound" was nominated for the 1972 ISCM World Music Days in London, "Down-Up/Sunpiece" saw a performance with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra in 1973 and "Mutually" was bestowed with the award "Samtida Musiks Quality Prize" and was premiered at the Bergen International Festival in 1973. Following this breakthrough, Thommessen received a number of commissions; "Stabsarabesk", "Banners for Music", "Maldoror", "The Secret Gospel"; "The Overtone" and "A Concert Chamber" are all works that represent this compositional period, not to mention an early version of "The Hermaphrodite", premiered at the Vadstena Academy in 1976.
The early 80s saw Thommessen gradually employing quotes and well-known phrases as basis for some of his works. The initial works that would later constitute his full-length concert opera "A Glass Bead Game" saw the light of day during this period: "From a Glass Bead Game" featuring themes from Beethoven and Verdi – premiered by the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra in 1980, "Macrofantasy On Grieg's, 'Piano Concerto in a Minor', Op. 16" premiered by the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra in 1981 and "Beyond Neon" performed by the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra in 1982. "Through a Prism" was penned in 1982. As composer in residence at the 1982 Bergen International Festival, Thommessen’s piano work "EingeBACHt" saw its premiere at the festival as did a performance of the final version of his opera "The Hermaphodite" – a work that was premiered earlier the same year by the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm. The same year also saw Thommessen composing the stage music for a version of "Romeo and Juliet" performed at the unveiling of the Norwegian Theatre’s new Oslo building, while "The Emerald Tablet" saw its premiere at the Høvikodden/Henie Onstad Kunstsenter and "Gnostic Fragments" as well as "The Phantom of Light" were commissioned by the Swedish National Concert Institute.
During the latter half of the 80s, Thommessen composed a number of major works: the trumpet concerto "The Second Creation", the opera "The Duchess Dies", the viola concerto "Near the Comet Head", the synthesizer concerto "From Above" as well as the organ and cello concerto "Through a Prism". These works in turn led to Thommessen being bestowed with a number of awards: The Norwegian Critics’ Award (1987), the Wilhelm Hansens Family Endowment (1987), the Lindeman Prize (1989). "Through a Prism" earned Thommessen a 1989 Norwegian Society of Composers "Work of the Year" Award, a second prize at the 1990 International Rostrum of Composers as well as the 1990 Nordic Council Music Prize.
2005 saw the premiere of Thommessen’s concert opera "A Glass Bead Game" in the entirety. The work is made up of six individual orchestral works which when united constitutes a full-length "concert opera": "Prologue", "Macrofantasy On Grieg's, 'Piano Concerto in a Minor', Op. 16", "Beyond Neon", "Choral Symphony over Beethoven’s Eight Symphony", "Through a Prism" and "Aposteose".
Recent Thommessen works includes "Kristi Brud" (2012), "Tuba Mirum" (2012), "Felix Remix, String Quartet No. 4" (2014) and "A symphonic scherzo for strings and orchestra" (2015).
Involvement in music organisations.
Thommessen has been an advocate for artists' rights and has frequently partaken in public debate; in particular defending the composers' rights to rightful remuneration for performances of new works. Thommessen has been a board member of Ny Musikk – the Norwegian section of the ISCM, the Norwegian Society of Composers, the National Music Council and was instrumental in the foundation of the Music Information Centre Norway as well as serving as the organization's chairman from 1979 to 1985.
Thommessen in aesthetic discourse.
Thommessen has also been active in stylistic and aesthetic discourse and is regarded as a critic of non-modernist and tonal music. In addition to public debate, his stance on this matter has also led to compositional output by third parties: a 2006 letter he wrote to the then-26 year old composer Marcus Paus was years later utilized as the libretto for Paus' opera monologue "The Teacher Who Was Not To Be", which premiered at the concert "Paus & Paus" (with works by Marcus Paus and Ole Paus) in the Atrium of the University of Oslo as part of Oslo Opera Festival in 2013. Thommessen was later identified by Paus as the previously anonymous librettist. In the letter/libretto, Thommessen wrote:
In 2015 Thommessen initiated a lengthy debate in the music journal "Ballade" over Paus' "Concerto for Timpani and Orchestra" and the merits of the contemporary use of tonal music; it was described as "the biggest public debate about art music" in Norway since the 1970s.


Martin Sommerfeld

Martin Sommerfeld (May 2, 1894 – July 26, 1939) was a Jewish emigre from Nazi Germany to the U.S. who was a professor at the University of Frankfurt and subsequently at Columbia University, the City College of New York, Smith College, and Middlebury College, where he taught German language and literature. He authored and edited a number of volumes on German literature from the 16th to the 20th centuries, and he wrote numerous contributions to the four-volume "Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturgeschichte" (1925–31).
Biography.
Martin Sommerfeld was born in Angerburg, East Prussia, to Bertha (née Klein) and Heinrich Sommerfeld, a factory owner. After attending school in Königsberg (Prussia) and Insterburg and passing the Abitur at the Prinz-Heinrichs-Gymnasium in Berlin-Schöneberg, he studied German language and literature as well as English and French literature, art history, philosophy, and medieval and modern history in Berlin, Frankfurt, and Munich, where in 1916 he received his Ph.D. with a dissertation on Friedrich Nicolai written under the direction of Franz Muncker. In 1919 he married Helene Schott (1892-1974). After completing a habilitation thesis on Goethe and Hebbel under the supervision of Franz Schultz (1877-1950) at the University of Frankfurt, he became a lecturer there in 1922 and in 1927 advanced to a professorship. Among his students who later rose to prominence were Wilhelm Emrich, Ernst Erich Noth, Richard Plaut, and Oskar Salo Koplowitz. Among Sommerfeld's colleagues in the department of German studies at the University of Frankfurt, his antipode was Hans Naumann, who backed the Nazi book burnings in May 1933.
After the National Socialist seizure of power in 1933, Sommerfeld's professorship was terminated on the basis of the anti-Semitic Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. He emigrated to the U.S., where he was initially employed as a "Visiting Foreign Instructor of German" at Columbia University and there advanced to a visiting professorship. In 1935-36 he moved to the City College of New York as a "Special Lecturer", and in 1936 he relocated again, this time to a professorship at Smith College. He had accepted an appointment to begin teaching at the newly founded Queens College in the fall of 1939 when he died, aged 45, while teaching at the Middlebury Summer School. "He was happy in his new surroundings, enthusiastic about his American students and colleagues, and thankful to the democracy that had so generously opened its doors to him and his family."
In 1936 his doctoral dissertation was placed on the Nazi list of works by forbidden authors. On May 30, 1939, the Third Reich voided his German citizenship, and on August 1, 1940, it was announced that the University of Munich had posthumously divested him of his doctorate.


Tip and ring

Tip and ring are the names of the two conductors or sides of a telephone line. The terms refer to the telephone plugs used for connecting telephone calls in manual switchboards. One side of the line is connected to the metal "tip" of the plug, and the second is connected to a metal "ring" behind the tip, separated and insulated from the tip by a non-conducting material. When inserted into a jack, the plug's tip conductor connects first, followed by the ring conductor. In many European countries, tip and ring are referred to as the "A" and "B" wires.
Neither of the tip and ring conductors is permanently connected to earth ground, but may be connected to ground during signaling operations. Typically, the ring conductor has a direct current (DC) potential of to with respect to the tip conductor when the line is in the on-hook (idle) state. Floating both conductors, not referencing either one to ground, minimizes the pickup of hum from any nearby alternating current (AC) power wires.
Origin.
The terms "tip" and "ring" originated in the early days of telephony when telephone operators used plugs to connect customer calls. They are named after the parts of the plug to which the wires were connected. The words are often abbreviated as "T" and "R".
Line voltage.
The telephone company maintains large battery systems that supply DC line voltage for the operation of analog telephone service at customer locations. The voltage supplied is a compromise between operational needs for reliable service and safety precautions for customers and service personnel. The length of the line to a customer telephone interface presents a resistance across which the central office voltage experiences a drop and therefore the voltage at the customer site may vary. The nominal battery ("system") voltage is 52.1 V, based on a 24-cell lead-acid battery. The voltage at a subscriber's network interface is typically 48 V between the ring and tip wires, with tip near ground and ring at -48 V.
In the middle 20th century, long loops in many rural areas of North America used range extenders, which operated at 100 or 130 volts to ensure reliable signaling. Some rural switching systems were designed to apply range extenders internally and thus share a few extenders among many lines, while for other lines, one extender was applied externally per line.
To ring the telephone to alert a subscriber to an incoming call, the central office superimposes a 20 Hz AC signal, at a nominal voltage of 105 volts, over the DC voltage present on the idle line. Historically several multi-frequency systems have been used, however, for selective alerting of multiple subscribers connected to a party line, for which the A.C. voltage may be as high as 150 V.
Polarity.
To provide cathodic protection against corrosion of line wires, the operating potential of telephone lines is typically negative with respect to ground, and the tip side is generally close to the ground potential. Thus, all power supplies for telecommunication equipment are designated to supply a negative voltage.
In the era of the telephone industry when rotary dial instruments were in use, the polarity when connecting a telephone set to the tip and ring wires was usually important only for properly ringing a telephone, especially in party line service with selective ringing, and for correctly identifying the calling customer on certain party lines for toll calls.
When Touch-Tone service was introduced in the 1960s, the dual-tone multi-frequency signaling (DTMF) tone generator also required correct polarity as it depended on the line D.C. voltage for operation. Later Touch-Tone telephones included a diode bridge that eliminated the polarity sensitivity so that consumer telephone service is essentially immune to reversal today. However, some special circuits, such as some direct inward dialing (DID) trunks, T-1 lines, and ground start lines connected to field side ("terminal") equipment, e.g., a corporate private branch exchange (PBX) switch, correctly operate only with proper tip and ring polarity.
Color code.
In on-premises wiring the first or only pair of inside wiring and jacks are color-coded in green for the tip conductor, and red for the ring side. A second pair is coded in black for tip and yellow for ring. A third pair consists of white tip coding and blue ring coding. For larger cable assemblies more complex schemes, such as the 25-pair color code, are used.
Some telephone technicians used mnemonic phrases, such as "red-right-ring-rear", or "ring-right-red-rough", to remember that the red wire connects to the right-side post in the wall jack and to the ring on the plug and to the rear lug on main distribution frames. Sometimes "rough" or "ridge" was added for jumper wires with a tactile code.


Yendang language

Yendang is a member of the Leko–Nimbari group of Savanna languages. It is spoken in northeastern Nigeria. Dialects are Kuseki, Yofo, Poli (Akule, Yakule).
ISO code.
Yendang's ISO 639-3 code was changed from 'yen' to 'ynq' in March 2012 when Yotti was recognized as a distinct language; older references may still link to the older code.


Minacs

Minacs is a business and technology outsourcing company with headquarters in Oshawa, Canada; Farmington Hills, United States; and Bangalore, India.
With 21,000 employees (as of March 2014) and 35 operations centers in Canada, Germany, Hungary, India, Jamaica, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, and the United States, Minacs provides the manufacturing, banking, financial services, insurance, telecom, high technology, media, and entertainment, healthcare, and government and public sectors with outsourced customer life cycle, marketing, finance and accounting, procurement and IT services.
The company is now part of Concentrix, a wholly owned subsidiary of SYNNEX Corporation (NYSE: SNX) and a business services company.
History.
SYNNEX Corporation (NYSE: SNX), a leading business process services company, acquired The Minacs Group Pte on Aug 2, 2016. The company has now been integrated into its Concentrix business segment. The new combined Concentrix organization will have more than 90,000 Concentrix staff providing services in over 40 languages from 125 delivery centers across six continents.
Minacs was formed in 2007 with the coming together of TransWorks, one of India's first business process outsourcing (BPO) players, with Minacs, a North American CRM services company. The unified Aditya Birla Minacs entity was a result of the Aditya Birla Group acquiring a controlling stake in Minacs Worldwide Inc., Canada in 2006 through its TransWorks subsidiary. Minacs was founded in 1981 in Oshawa (near Toronto), Canada by Elaine Minacs. Trans Works was co-founded in 1999 in Mumbai, India by Rizwan Koita and Jagdish Moorjani, who later went on to found CitiusTech, an IT company for healthcare.
Minacs Minacs started out as a Temporary Employment Agency In Oshawa Ontario Canada in approximately 1981 and ran as such until becoming a contact center business in 1999 supporting the American and Canadian automotive industries, Minacs subsequently grew its client portfolio to encompass leading banking, telecom, and technology clients. It also expanded its services portfolio from contact center to Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and added integrated marketing services by acquiring the US-based Phoenix Group in 2001.
Minacs was the first North American contact center/BPO company to achieve the quality certification in 1996. Similarly, TransWorks too helped develop the Customer Operations Performance Center Incorporated (COPC Inc.) standard that benchmarks BPO performance, going on to become one of the first companies in the world to be COPC certified in 2002.
integrated with PSI Data Systems, which was renamed as Aditya Birla Minacs IT Services in 2009, to strengthen its portfolio with technology-enabled customer services, and a full range of IT outsourcing services. The Aditya Birla Group had earlier acquired PSI in 2001.
Corporate affairs.
Minacs partners with global corporations in the manufacturing, retail, telecommunication, technology, media and entertainment, banking, insurance, healthcare and public sector. As of April 2014, there are 21,000 Minacs experts across 3 continents and 35 centers spanning Canada, Germany, Hungary, India, Jamaica, Philippines, the UK and United States.
In 2009, Minacs opened operations centers in Vadodara (Baroda), Aurangabad, Chennai, Kolkata and Ranchi in India, to offer outsourcing services to domestic Indian clients. It announced the acquisition of London-headquartered Compass BPO in March 2010 to acquire a significant Finance and Accounting outsourcing capability.
It acquired the Minnesota-based Bureau of Collection Recovery (BCR) in June 2010 to add accounts receivable management and collections services to its portfolio.


EducationCity

EducationCity provides educational software to schools and homes. The elearning service was founded in 1999 and the company said the site has over 15,500 schools registered and 8,000 families. The service provides educational learning experiences mapped to the National Curriculum in English, Mathematics, Science, language education and computing. The company has won awards and was recently a BETT and ERA finalist and has been reviewed by the Times Educational Supplement a number of times.
In April 2010 EducationCity.com became one of the first ICT content providers to receive accreditation by South West Grid for Learning (SWGfL) Merlin for the integration of the resource into the Merlin Learning platform through the use of Shibboleth and the Systems Interoperability Framework (SIF) .
On 16 May 2011, the site had an Alexa rating of 78,987. EducationCity.com have recently launched a new module, "Learn English" to address English as an Additional Language (English language learning and teaching) needs in primary school.
EducationCity.com has offices in Rutland, UK and Naperville, US.
Products.
EducationCity.com at School.
EducationCity.com has interactive learning materials currently used by over 15,000 classrooms.
EducationCity.com at Home.
EducationCity.com assists children’s education. Parents register their children on EducationCity.com and subscribe for a period of time, which grants access to all the subjects in one academic level.
Characters.
Stig - Focus on English
Sten - Focus on Mathematics
Manu - Focus on Science
Klara - Focus on Learn English
Emma - Focus on French
Hilda - Focus on German
Rosa - Focus on Spanish
Chip and Meg - Focus on Computing
History.
In June 2010 Archipelago Learning (), acquired EducationCity.com. EducationCity.com is planned to remain a stand-alone business unit of Archipelago. Its headquarters will remain in Rutland, U.K. and Naperville, IL.


Rank reversals in decision-making

In decision-making, a rank reversal is a change in the rank ordering of the preferability of alternative possible decisions when, for example, the method of choosing changes or the set of other available alternatives changes. The issue of rank reversals lies at the heart of many debates in decision-making and multi-criteria decision-making, in particular.
Unlike most other computational procedures, it is hard to tell if a particular decision-making method has derived the correct answer or not. Such methods analyze a set of alternatives described in terms of some criteria. They determine which alternative is the best one, or they provide relative weights of how the alternatives perform, or just how the alternatives should be ranked when all the criteria are considered simultaneously. This is exactly where the challenge with decision making exists. Often it is hard, if not practically impossible, to determine whether a "correct" answer has been reached or not. With other computational methods, for instance with a job scheduling method, one can examine a set of different answers and then categorize the answers according to some metric of performance (for instance, a project's completion time). But this may not be possible to do with the answers derived by most decision making methods. After all, determining the "best" decision making method leads to a decision making paradox.
Thus the following question emerges: How can one evaluate decision-making methods? This is a very difficult issue and may not be answered in a globally accepted manner.
A critical part in answering this fundamental question is played by what is known as rank reversals.
Rank reversal.
One way to test the validity of decision-making methods is to construct special test problems and then study the solutions they derive. If the solutions exhibit some logic contradictions (in the form of undesirable rank reversals of the alternatives), then one may argue that something is wrong with the method that derived them.
To see the above point more clearly, suppose that three candidates are evaluated for some job opening. Let us designate these candidates as A, B, and C. Suppose that some decision making method has determined that the best candidate for that job is person A, followed by B, who is followed by C. This is the first ranking and it is indicated as follows: A > B > C (where ">" means "better than"). Next, suppose that candidate B (who is not the best one) is replaced by an even worse candidate, say person D. That is, now we have B > D, and candidate B is replaced by D while candidates A and C remain in the pool of candidates with exactly the same characteristics as before. When the new set of alternatives (i.e., candidates A, D and C) are ranked together and by assuming that the criteria have exactly the same weights as before, then should not candidate A still be the best one? It turns out that under some decision making methods the best alternative may be different now. This is known as a rank reversal and it is one of the types of rank reversals.
The first type of rank reversal in the above context was observed by Belton and Gear in 1983 as part of a study of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). They first considered a simple decision problem comprised by 3 alternatives and 2 criteria. Next a copy of a non-optimal alternative was introduced. When the 4 alternatives (i.e., the previous 3 plus the copy) were evaluated, and under the assumption that the criteria weights are exactly the same as before, it was observed that now the indication of the best alternative can change. That is, a rank reversal may occur with the AHP. A few years later it was observed that the AHP, as well as a new variant to it that was introduced by Professor Thomas Saaty (the inventor of the AHP) in response to the previous observation by Belton and Gear, may exhibit rank reversals when a non-optimal alternative is replaced by a worse one (and not a copy of an alternative as in Belton and Gear's experiment).
The issue of rank reversals has captured the interest of many researchers and practitioners in the field of decision-making. It is something that continues to be considered controversial by many and is frequently debated.
Different types of rank reversals.
There are many different types of rank reversals, depending on how the alternatives in a problem are defined and evaluated. These types are described next as Type 1, Type 2, Type 3, Type 4, and Type 5.
Rank reversals of Type 1.
As stated earlier, one may introduce identical or near-identical copies of non-optimal alternatives and then check to see if the indication of the best alternative changes or not.
Rank reversals of Type 2.
Another way is to replace a non-optimal alternative with a worse one and then see if the indication of the best alternative changes or not.
Rank reversals of Type 3.
First consider a problem with all the alternatives together and get a ranking. Next, decompose the original problem into a set of smaller problems defined on two alternatives at a time and the same criteria (and their weights) as before. Get the rankings of these smaller problems and check to see if they are in conflict with the ranking of the alternatives of the original (larger) problem.
Rank reversals of Type 4.
Type 4 is like Type 3, but ignores the ranking of the original (larger) problem. Instead, check to see if the rankings of the smaller problems are in conflict with each other. For instance, suppose that the following 3 alternatives A, B, and C are considered. Next, suppose that some 2-alternative problems are solved and the rankings A > B, B > C, and C > A, are derived from these 2-alternative problems. Obviously, the above situation indicates a case of non-transitivity (or contradiction) as we get A > B > C > A.
Rank reversals of Type 5.
All previous types of rank reversals are known to occur with the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and its additive variants, the TOPSIS and ELECTRE methods and their variants.
The weighted product model (WPM) does not exhibit the previous types of rank reversals, due to the multiplication formula it uses. However, the WPM does cause rank reversals when it is compared with the weighted sum model (WSM) and under the condition that all the criteria of a given decision problem can be measured in exactly the same unit. The same is true with all the previous methods as well. This is the Type 5 ranking reversal.
It is quite possible to define more types of rank reversals. One only needs to determine ways to alter a test problem and see how the ranking of the alternatives of the new problem differs from the original ranking of the alternatives of the original problem. Furthermore, the difference in rankings, somehow, should indicate the presence of undesirable effects.
Are rank reversals always undesirable?
Decision-making methods are used to make decisions in many aspects of human activity. This is especially true with decisions that involve large amounts of money or decisions that may have huge impact on large numbers of people. Given the well-established fact that different methods may yield different answers when they are fed with exactly the same problem, the question is how to evaluate them. Rank reversals are at the very heart of assessing the merits of such methods. At the same time, they are at the center of many heated debates in this area. Many authors use them as means to criticize decision making methods or to better explain rational behavior.
Consider a simple example of buying a car. Suppose that there are two cars available to the decision maker: Car A and Car B. Car A is much cheaper than Car B but its overall quality is much less when compared to that for Car B. On the other hand, Car B is more expensive than Car A but it is also of better quality. A decision maker who is concerned of the high price issue, may choose Car A over the better quality and more expensive Car B. Next suppose that the car dealer presents to the decision maker a third car, say Car C, which is way more expensive than Car B but now the overall quality of Car C is marginally higher than that of Car B. Under such a scenario, it is quite possible for a decision maker to alter his/her opinion and purchase Car B instead of Car A, even if he/she has not actually seen Car C.
Such events may take place with many rational decision makers. In other words, rank reversals may actually be possible in rational decision making. The issue of having rank reversals by rational decision makers has been studied extensively by Amos Tversky. In other words, having rank reversals in certain occasions and of certain types may not be indicative to faulty decision making. However, the key question is how to be able to distinguish when rank reversals indicate that something is wrong or when they do not conflict rational decision making. This is a highly debated issue in the decision making community.
Methods that have been verified to exhibit rank reversals.
The following is just a partial list of multi-criteria decision making methods which have been confirmed to exhibit various types of rank reversals:


Spelling reform of Irish


Kyle Abraham

Kyle Abraham (born August 14, 1977) is an American choreographer. He began dancing when he was young at the Civic Light Opera Academy and the Pittsburgh Creative and Performing Arts School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He received BFA from SUNY Purchase and an MFA from the NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Prior to starting his company A.I.M (Abraham.In.Motion), he performed with a number of companies, including David Dorfman Dance, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, The Kevin Wynn Collective, Nathan Trice/Rituals, Dance Alloy and Attack Theatre.
Critical acclaim.
In 2009, Abraham was listed in "Dance Magazine"′s "25 to Watch" where he was described as, "equal parts power and grace." In 2010, he was awarded a Bessie Award for his piece "The Radio Show". Critic Wendy Perron has described him as "sensual, thoughtful, wild, stuttering", commenting that he was "burning a hole through that tiny space" with regard to his "Heartbreaks and Homies" evening of dance at Joe's Pub. Abraham's work "The Runaway" for the New York City Ballet’s 2018 Fall Fashion Gala was recognized as a “Best Dance of 2018” by The New York Times.
Works and career milestones.
Abraham established his company A.I.M (formerly Abraham.In.Motion) in 2006 with its first major work, "Fading into Something Tangible", premiering in Pittsburgh. Abraham creates work for his company that draws from his personal experiences; often exploring themes of adversity, emotion and the relationship between music and dance.
In Abraham's "The Radio Show," he "delves into identity and personal history...Creating an abstract narrative around the loss of communication, he investigates the effects of the abrupt discontinuation of a radio station on a community and the lingering effects of Alzheimer's and aphasia on a family. Abraham mixes recordings of classic soul and hip-hop with contemporary classical compositions to create an eclectic score that evokes fond memories and a passion for what is lost."
Abraham's other works include "A Ramp to Paradise, Op. 1, Live! The Realest MC, and Pavement." "A Ramp to Paradise", choreographed by Kyle Abraham and commissioned by THPAC, is about a true story by Alex Smith that describes the history of the black gay underground club called Paradise Garage. This club was the "it" place in the New York City 1970s and '80s dance world. "Op. 1" is a performance inspired by photographer Eadweard Muybridge's art. "Live! The Realest MC" (commissioned by The Kitchen and choreographed by Kyle Abraham) is a reenactment of Walt Disney's "Pinocchio" in an urban environment. In consists of a journey to find "realness" and includes hip hop karaoke. "Pavement", premiered at Harlem Stage in November 2012, is inspired by the 1991 film "Boyz n the Hood". It includes a wide variety of music, ranging from Bach to Sam Cooke, to express the themes of violence, love, and pain in "Pavement". Seen from the perspective of a group of friends struggling to stay together while their community is tearing apart, critics were struck by this piece, Andrew Boynton of "The New Yorker" saying: "Pavement is a hard, unforgiving thing, but for some people it's also home."
Abraham was the 2012-14 Resident Commissioned Artist at New York Live Arts, and created two new works for the Live Arts stage. "The Watershed" premiered at New York Live Arts on September 23, 2014 with scenic design by visual artist Glenn Ligon and a score ranging from a contemporary cello suite to Otis Redding. The second work developed at Live Arts, "When the Wolves Came In" premiered on October 25, 2014, also with scenic design by Glenn Ligon and featuring music from "We Insist!" by Max Roach as well as an original composition by Robert Glasper.
In addition to creating work for his company, Abraham has also been commissioned by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and New York City Ballet for new works. "Another Night", commissioned for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, premiered at New York's City Center in December 2012. Of this piece, Rebecca Bengal of "Vogue" writes: "What Abraham brings to Ailey is an avant-garde aesthetic, an original and politically minded downtown sensibility that doesn't distinguish between genres but freely draws on a vocabulary that is as much Merce and Martha as it is Eadweard Muybridge and Michael Jackson." "Untitled America", also commissioned for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, is a 3-part work which premiered in 2016. "The Runaway" for New York City Ballet, premiered at the 2018 Fall Fashion Gala, and was recognized as "Best Dance of 2018" by the New York Times.
Abraham collaborated with New York City Ballet principal dancer Wendy Whelan to create a duet entitled "The Serpent and the Smoke" that premiered at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in 2013. Abraham has choreographed for film as well, including the 2017 feature-length film "The Book of Henry" directed by Colin Trevorrow. Abraham is also visiting professor in residence at UCLA.
"INDY", a 2018 work commissioned by the Joyce Theater, was the first full-length solo choreographed and performed by Abraham in nearly ten years. The dance features original music by Jerome Begin and visual art by Abigail DeVille.
Abraham's choreography has been presented around the United States at venues such as Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Joyce Theater, Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, Dance Theater Workshop, Bates Dance Festival, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Fall for Dance Festival at New York's City Center, Lincoln Center, South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center, On The Boards, Portland's Time Based Arts Festival, REDCAT, Philly Live Arts, Danspace Project, The Andy Warhol Museum, and the Harlem Stage. Outside the United States, AIM and Abraham have performed ar The Okinawa Prefectural Museum (Japan), Théâtre de la Ville (France), Maison de la Dance (France), Project Arts Centre (Ireland), Springboard Danse Montreal, (Canada) and the Internationales Solo-Tanz-Theater Festival (Germany), as well as venues Jordan and Ecuador.


Eric Nelson (historian)

Eric Matthew Nelson (born August 13, 1977) is an American historian and Professor of Government at Harvard University.
Biography.
Eric Nelson was born in 1977 and grew up in New York City. According to "Harvard Magazine", he went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art every week as a child.
Nelson attended Harvard College, where he was inducted to Phi Beta Kappa as a junior and graduated summa cum laude. His thesis, entitled "The Reluctant Humanist: Thomas Hobbes and the Classical Historians" won the Hoopes Prize, an award given for exceptional undergraduate theses. While at Harvard, he was a regular columnist for "The Harvard Crimson", where he often wrote about the parallels between history and modern day.
After graduating from Harvard, he attended graduate school in the United Kingdom as a Marshall Scholar. Nelson earned an M.Phil. from Trinity College at the University of Cambridge in 2000, where he wrote a thesis on the Greek influence on English Republicanism. Two years later, he earned his Ph.D. from the same college at Cambridge.
Nelson is Jewish, and his grandparents were Holocaust survivors. He served as the Director of the Harvard Center for Jewish Studies from 2012 through 2015. He reads seven languages—English, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, French, Italian, and German—and speaks four of them.
Career.
After earning his Ph.D., Nelson taught for another year at Cambridge before returning to Harvard as a Junior Fellow in 2004. By 2009, he was named the Frederick S. Danziger Associate Professor of Government, and was granted tenure just one year later at the age of 32. In 2014, he was named the Robert M. Beren Professor of Government. He has also been awarded fellowships by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies.
He has published four books since returning to Harvard and is working on a fifth that will explore theology and contemporary liberal philosophy.
Nelson has taught classes at Harvard that cover topics including Thomas Hobbes, the American Revolution, the English Revolution, Jewish political tradition, monarchy, republicanism, and the Enlightenment.
According to Diana Muir, Nelson is "one of a group of scholars engaged in the enterprise of re-evaluating the origins of modern political theory". According to Nathan Perl-Rosenthal, Nelson's "Hebrew Republic" "demonstrates unforgettably that we need to understand piety to comprehend politics."
Nelson, along with Harry Lewis, Margo Seltzer, and Richard Thomas, wrote an op-ed expressing their opposition to Harvard's proposed policy to ban members of final clubs and other officially unrecognized social clubs from holding captaincies or receiving endorsements for top fellowships.


Peter Daland

Peter Daland (April 12, 1921 – October 20, 2014) was a swimming coach from the United States.
He was born in New York City. His coaching career spanned over 40 years. Daland attended Harvard University before enlisting in the United States Army for World War II. After the war, he graduated from Swarthmore College in 1948 and got his first coaching job at Rose Valley, Pennsylvania, where he won 8 straight Suburban League titles (1947–55). He founded and was first coach of the Suburban Swim Club in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania and served as an assistant to Bob Kiphuth at Yale University before deciding to take Horace Greeley's advice and head west in 1956 as coach at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Athletic Club. In 1958, he returned to Yale with 5 USC Freshmen and won the National AAU Team Title from the New Haven Swim Club.
For 35 years (1957–1992), Daland was the swimming coach for the USC Trojans, where he led the Trojans to 9 NCAA Championships. He also led teams to 14 AAU Men's National titles, and 2 AAU Women's National titles. He is the only coach to have won all three major national team championships -- 8 NCAA, 14 National AAU Men's, and 2 National AAU Women's (LAAC). Specializing in family dynasties, Daland had the good fortune of championships wins from the brothers Devine, Bottoms, Furniss, Orr, and the House brother and sister act. His Trojan teams won more than 160 dual meets with more than 100 individual titles. As of 1974, Daland's record boasted 183 individual national champions.
Daland also coached the U.S. women's swim team at the 1964 Olympics, where his swimmers won 15 of the 24 medals awarded in women's swim events. He then coached the US men's team at the 1972 Olympics, where his men swimmers won 26 of 45 medals awarded in men's events. In those Olympics, Mark Spitz of the United States had a spectacular run, lining up for seven events, winning seven Olympic titles and setting seven world records.
Daland was also active in the swimming community via his roles/positions with FISU, the International University Sports Federation, and ASCA, the American Swimming Coaches Association. He was one of the founders of ASCA, and was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1977. The pool of USC's Uytengsu Aquatics Center bears his name.
Daland was married to former German top-class swimmer Ingrid Feuerstack. They had three children, Peter Jr., Bonnie, and Leslie. Leslie now owns Daland Swim School, which was founded by Ingrid, in Thousand Oaks, California. Leslie's daughter, Reyna, is currently a standout high school swimmer and is employed at the Daland Swim School. On October 20, 2014, he died in Thousand Oaks, California at the age of 93 of Alzheimer's disease.


Matthew Harrison (director)

Matthew Harrison (born 1959 in New York City) is an American television and film director, producer and writer. He first came to prominence when his feature film "Rhythm Thief" was awarded Special Jury Recognition for Directing at the Sundance Film Festival. His first studio feature "Kicked in the Head" was executive produced by Martin Scorsese and released by Universal Studios. He directed episodes 1X11 and 1X12 of HBO's "Sex and the City".
Early films.
Harrison attended in downtown Manhattan where he began making 8mm films at age nine. During the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, Harrison made 8mm and S8mm short films. His first public screening of a film was a 1971 screening of his short S8mm film "Mission: Preposterous" with an accompanying audio track played using a Wollensak ¼" tape recorder at the Ocean Bay Park Volunteer Fire Department. He completed his undergraduate studies at Cooper Union school of art in New York City. Harrison's 34 minute S8mm film "Apartment Eight" won "Best Comedy" at the 1988 New York Film Festival Downtown, was included in Anthology Film Archives “Masters of Super 8” program and received the "Mystic Fire Independent Film Award" at the 1989 Ann Arbor Film Festival. In 1989 his 27-minute 16mm short film "Two Boneheads" screened at the Salzburg, Austria Film Festival and was an award winner at the 1990 Long Island Film Festival.
Film Crash.
In 1985 Harrison launched a film festival in the Lower East Side, adopting the name Film Crash in early 1988. He was joined later that year by film directors Karl Nussbaum and Scott Saunders. Film Crash grew, playing in venues such as Performance Space 122 and the Angelika Film Center. The festival inaugurated awards in 2014.
Films for theater.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Harrison was also a contributing member of the experimental theater group Ridge Theater, producing and directing films for several theater productions, including "Jack Benny" at La Mama in 1988 and "The Manson Family" opera at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 1990.
Feature films.
In 1992 Harrison’s first feature film "Spare Me" was awarded the Prix Tournage at Avignon Film Festival. He used the cash award from this prize to finance his second feature film "Rhythm Thief", which was awarded Special Jury Recognition for Directing at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. He directed his feature "Kicked in the Head" for October Films in 1997. Kicked in the Head was executive produced by Martin Scorsese, premiered in the Directors' Fortnight section of the 1997 Cannes Film Festival and was released theatrically by Universal Studios. On June 28, 2006, Harrison premiered his feature film "The Deep and Dreamless Sleep" at the Avignon Film Festival.
Television.
He directed episode 7 of "Popular" for The WB Television Network and the television show "Dead Last" for Warner Brothers. According to InkTip.com, Harrison recently optioned the screenplay from screenwriter Anthony Keep, for the original pilot episode of the 30-minute television sitcom "SHOE DOGS".
Producing.
In 2002 Harrison executive produced Mark Christensen's debut feature film "Box Head Revolution". In 2006 Harrison executive produced Ben Rodkin’s debut feature film "Big Heart City" starring Seymour Cassel and Shawn Andrews.
Short films.
Harrison has continued to direct short films. His S8mm short "The Bystander From Hell" screened at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival and the 1998 Toronto International Film Festival. His S8mm short film "Puke" screened at the 1999 New York Underground Film Festival. His 16mm short film "Wrist" screened at the 2000 New York Underground Film Festival and the Bronwyn Keenan Gallery. His short "Hey Vendor" screened at the 2009 Slamdance Film Festival.
Music videos.
Harrison has directed music videos for Lee Curreri, Travis Rush, Evan Clayburn’s band Ansel and the Norwegian band Alexandria Quartet .
Teaching.
Harrison has taught film at CalArts, American Film Institute, West Los Angeles College, Culver City High School and UCLA Extension Writers' Program .


Deborah Bial

Deborah Bial (born 1965) is an education strategist, the founder and president of the Posse Foundation and a trustee of Brandeis University.
Bial is known for the concept of her foundation, which is to send groups of around ten students to collaborating colleges so that they can support each other and achieve a greater success rate. She is also known for the Bial–Dale College Adaptability Index, an activity-based test of college readiness that incorporates Lego play.
She was one of the 2007 winners of the MacArthur "Genius" awards and is a frequent speaker at college graduations.
Life.
Bial was born in Manhattan and
grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey. Her father played bassoon and contrabassoon with the New York Philharmonic and her mother worked as a public relations professional for the New York State Psychiatric Institute. She describes her younger self as shy and not standing out in any way: "There was nothing remarkable about me growing up." Her childhood ambition was to become a writer and illustrator of children's books.
She attended Brandeis University, graduating in 1987. She worked briefly as a paralegal, and then became a counselor for the CityKids Foundation in New York. After starting Posse, she returned to graduate school, and earned master's and Ed.D. degrees from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1996 and 2004, respectively.
She delivered the 2012 commencement speech at her alma mater, Brandeis University.
She has also been chosen as a commencement speaker at numerous colleges and universities including
at DePauw University (2008),
at the University of Rochester (2015),
at Vassar College (2017),
, Kalamazoo College (2018). and at The College of Wooster (2019).
Contributions.
Bial's Posse Foundation sends talented young people from diverse backgrounds in "posses" of approximately ten students at a time to cooperating universities, with the intention that the students in each posse will support each other. The idea for the foundation came to Bial in 1989 when
she was working as a youth counselor in New York City. One student had dropped out of college; when she asked why, he told her that he would have stayed in school if only he had his posse to support him. Based on this experience, she started her foundation as a way to create these posses as support groups for students. As well, she designed the selection process of the foundation to focus on urban students who might otherwise be overlooked by traditional college admissions processes.
As well as being known for this concept for the foundation, Bial is known for developing the Bial–Dale College Adaptability Index, a method for determining whether students are ready for college that avoids written testing in favor of interviews and activity-based assessment. It has been dubbed "the Lego test" because of its incorporation of play with Lego bricks as one of its components.
Awards.
Besides winning a MacArthur Fellowship in 2007, Bial has been given honorary degrees from many institutions of higher education including
Brandeis University (2012),
Hamilton College (2014), Colby College (2015), Agnes Scott College (2017), Hobart and William Smith Colleges (2017). and The College of Wooster (2019).
She was one of the 2013 winners of the Harold W. McGraw Prize in Education.
In 2013, the Harvard Graduate School of Education gave her their Anne Roe Award.


Factory Farming Awareness Coalition

Factory Farming Awareness Coalition (FFAC) is a nonprofit organization founded in 2014 by Katie Cantrell in the San Francisco Bay Area. FFAC "educates and empowers individuals and communities to support just and sustainable food systems."
FFAC currently operates in ten different regions across the United States.
History.
In 2010, Katie Cantrell, then a student at the University of California, Berkeley, (UCB) developed a presentation on the impacts of factory farming. She began giving the presentation at local colleges and K-12 schools around the San Francisco Bay Area.
In 2012, FFAC received the second most votes in a Facebook poll sponsored by BART's sustainability-focused Blue Sky Program. As a result, FFAC was awarded a month's worth of advertising on BART trains and stations. The ads encouraged BART riders to adopt Meatless Mondays citing the environmental benefits of doing so.
In 2018, FFAC piloted its first intern program, training students to give humane education presentations, campaign for plant-based options in their cafeterias, and work in other areas of outreach.
Current Programs.
FFAC's current programming consists of educational outreach, a semester-long Student Advocates program, and auxiliary programs.
The educational outreach consists of customizable programming on the impacts of factory farming for students from K-12 and above, as well as environmental organizations, faith- and values-based communities, businesses, and government agencies.The Student Advocates program includes a comprehensive environmental and social justice curriculum, leadership and communication training, and collaborative peer groups.
The auxiliary programs include community and educational webinars, a book group, and veg support to help people transition to a plant-based lifestyle.


System Y

System Y is an electronic switching system and digital telephone exchange used by BT, the operator of the telephone network in the United Kingdom.
In the mid-1980s, British Telecom decided to use the AXE10 digital switch to end its reliance on System X from Plessey and General Electric Company (GEC) (companies later combined as GPT). This kept Plessey/GEC from using a position of dominance to charge BT unfair costs of provisioning System X equipment parts. Although System X is more abundant in BT's network, AXE10 is still widespread in Britain.
AXE10 covers two main types of digital telephony switching equipment: the remote subscriber switch (RSS) and the AXE10 local switch. RSS acts as a remote concentrator and deals with the conversion of analogue telephony signals used in the access network, which is the copper pairs between exchange buildings and customer premises, also called local loop, and the multiplexing of customer lines over cabling to the AXE10 local switching unit. The AXE10 local switch uses a processor-controlled switch to route calls and data depending on the destination of the telephony transmission.
BT's AXE10 network, which has been in service since 1986, is maintained in house by its own engineers although Ericsson still provide high-level support, software upgrades and repairs at component level.
Both System Y and System X are likely to be phased out as BT implements its 21st Century Network based on VoIP and replacing existing switches, ADSL and analogue equipment with fully digital multi-service access nodes (MSAN).


Kpasam language

Kpasam (Kpasham; Nyesam) is an Adamawa language of Demsa LGA, Adamawa State, Nigeria.
The speakers refer to their language as Nyesam [ɲé sàm], their ethnic group as "Isam" [ísàm], and their territory as "Asam" [ásàm]. The Nyesam language is spoken in the villages of Kpasham, Dakli, and Dem.


Helen Krich Chinoy

Helen Krich Chinoy (September 25, 1922 – May 24, 2010) was an American theater historian who documented the role of women in United States theater.
Biography.
Helen Krich was born on September 25, 1922, in Newark, New Jersey. She was awarded bachelor's and master's degrees from New York University, where she majored in English. She later earned her doctorate, also in English, from Columbia University. Together with Toby Cole, she co-authored the 1949 book "Actors on Acting" in 1949 which was a collection of pieces about the theater from Ancient Greece to the modern stage. She wrote an essay to introduce the book, which has been used over the years as a college textbook. She and Cole wrote the 1953 compilation "Directors on Directing" as a followup to their first book, providing a historical perspective on the director's craft, primarily using their own writings. These two books on acting and directing, which have remained in print since their first publication, were described as "her most influential work".
Before joining the faculty of Smith College in 1953, Chinoy taught at Rutgers University from 1944 to 1948 and Queens College and spent time teaching at the University of Leicester from 1963 to 1964 during a five-year break while she was working on her doctorate. Chinoy spent some 30 years at Smith College, serving as chairwoman of the school's theater department from 1968 to 1971. Ar Smith, Chinoy lectured on acting, directing, the history of theater, Shakespeare and the contributions of women on the stage. Her 1976 book "Reunion: A Self-Portrait of the Group Theater" focused on the founders of the Group Theatre, and its role in the development of method acting. Together with Linda Walsh Jenkins, Chinoy published the 1981 collection "Women in American Theater", which focused on women such as Cheryl Crawford, Ruth Draper and Susan Glaspell, with a revised edition of the book issued in 2005. She was working on a second book about the Group Theatre before her death.
Death and legacy.
Chinoy died at age 87 on May 24, 2010, in Turners Falls, Massachusetts, of pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease. She was survived by a daughter, a son and three grandchildren. Her husband, sociologist Ely Chinoy, died in 1975.
Her final book, "The Group Theatre, Passion, Politics, and Performance in the Depression Era", was completed posthumously by colleagues Don Wilmeth and Milly Barrenger and published by Palgrave Macmillan in their Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History
The Helen Krich Chinoy Papers, c1923-2010, are held in the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College.
Awards and honors.
She shared an Emmy Award for her work as academic adviser on "Broadway's Dreamers: The Legacy of the Group Theatre", a Public Broadcasting System documentary that aired on "Masterpiece Theatre" in 1989.


Enloe High School

William G. Enloe High School, also known as Enloe Magnet High School or Enloe High School, is a public magnet high school offering Gifted & Talented and International Baccalaureate programs located in eastern Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. It is operated under the Wake County Public School System. The first integrated public high school in the city of Raleigh, it was named after William Gilmore Enloe, the Mayor of Raleigh at the time the school was opened.
History.
William G. Enloe High School was originally organized as two different schools that shared athletic facilities between adjacent campuses—William G. Enloe Senior High School (named after Raleigh Mayor William G. Enloe) and Charles B. Aycock Junior High. The original Enloe campus was opened in 1962 as the first integrated secondary school in Raleigh for the education of students participating in grades seven through twelve and served as the secondary educational institution for the Longview Gardens community. Enloe's mixed population was drawn from the white student body at Needham B. Broughton High School and the black one at John W. Ligon High School. It was deemed undesirable to pull Broughton's upcoming seniors out, so Enloe had only 160 juniors for its highest class out of a student body of 910 during its first year. George A. Kahdy was the school's first principal. He held the post for five years.
Three years after Enloe opened, Aycock was created on an adjacent campus as a junior high school to educate students in the seventh through ninth grades, taking the place of recently shuttered Hugh Morson Junior High. Enloe became a senior high school with concentrated education for grades ten through twelve. In 1973, Enloe became the first fully integrated high school in Raleigh to hire a black principal. Enloe absorbed the Aycock campus in 1979, becoming a modern high school focused on educating ninth through twelfth grade students. The Aycock building became the "East Building", while the original Enloe complex became the "West Building".
In 1980, Enloe began providing magnet courses for "gifted and talented" students in Wake County. Around 300 students participated in the first two years of the program's existence. The school was promoted to full magnet status in 1982. Until the mid-1990s, Enloe was the only magnet high school in the Wake County Public School System, leading to a high concentration of academically talented students. The 1993 graduating class included 42 National Merit Semifinalists, a number that remains a state record.
In July 1997, Enloe became an IB World School, allowing students to pursue the challenging International Baccalaureate Programme. Enloe IB students are occasionally invited to attend special events or trips through their involvement in the IB Programme. Enloe IB students participated in exchanges with high schools in China (2004–2005) and Germany, and started a relationship with students at a high school in Turkey through the use of video conferencing technology (2005–2006).
Enloe was the first high school in the state of North Carolina to accommodate a student Gay-Straight Alliance.
In 2006, Enloe finished the construction of a new building adjacent to the West Campus and consequently closed the 50-year-old, outdated East Campus for renovation. Almost all of the classes migrated from the East Campus to the new building, reducing the need to share classes with its larger capacity. The East Campus was reopened on January 22, 2008 at the start of the second semester. It included autotech classes, the new East Gym, student services, healthful living classrooms, and other classrooms. The next stage of Enloe's renovation was completed in January 2009, and involved the locker rooms in the West Gym being converted to house the audio-visual classrooms as well as the television studio.
The Wake County School Board considered removing the International Baccalaureate and magnet status from Enloe in 2008, but this decision was overturned due to the intense lobbying of students and their parents.
On June 29, 2010 historian Timothy Tyson and North Carolina NAACP President William Barber II spoke before the Wake County Public School System Board about racial segregation, arguing that Mayor William G. Enloe had been in favor of it. As result, the school board announced it would review its school naming policy. Many students and alumni from Enloe High School feared the name of the school would be altered, and quickly organized to protest any potential moves to do so. Wake County Commissioner Stan Norwalk accused the school board of attempting to retaliate against Enloe students for opposing its decision to eliminate the county's diversity policy. NAACP officials later clarified that the mentioning of Enloe was intended to bring in historical context, and that they did not desire for the school's name to be changed. In the face of growing criticism, board member John Todesco stated that the board would not remove Enloe's name from the school unless something "horrid" about him was uncovered.
As of 2016, Enloe had 35 AP courses and 24 IB courses.
In between March 14 and 15, 2019 the school was vandalized with racist and homophobic graffiti. Some of the messages were targeted at the school's principal, William Chavis. The damage was discovered on the morning of March 15 and school officials had the messages covered.
Evangelist controversy.
In February 2007, the school came under fire from Muslim advocacy groups and the American Civil Liberties Union after history teacher Robert Escamilla invited Kamil Solomon, a Coptic Christian Evangelist and head of Kamil International Ministries, to speak about his experiences with Christianity and Muslims. The Council on American Islamic Relations and parents of Muslim and secular students accused the school of breaching federal civil rights laws and promoting hate in a public school.
Escamilla was suspended with pay for 90 days while the school district investigated the complaint. He was later transferred to an alternative school and reprimanded by Superintendent Del Burns. In addition, Burns apologized to Muslims for Solomon's visit. He subsequently issued new guidelines that require guest speakers to sign forms saying they will not denigrate any culture, race, gender, national origin or religion. Escamilla appealed the punishment, but the grievance was rejected by the school board. In a controversial move, the school board voted to release part of Escamilla's confidential personnel file to justify its decision. Escamilla filed a lawsuit asking to be transferred back to Enloe. Escamilla and the school district reached a settlement in which Wake agreed not to punish him any further over the Evangelist controversy.
Charity ball.
In 2004, Enloe High School began hosting a "Charity Ball" and raising money in connection with the dance for local philanthropic causes. By 2019 the school had raised over $1 million for charitable causes.
Demographics.
Student body.
In the 2008–2009 school year, Enloe had approximately 2,640 enrolled students. Of this population, 12% were of Asian descent. The remainder of Enloe's student population were composed of students with ancestries of White (42%), African (35%), and Hispanic (9%) descent.
At the beginning of the 2015–2016 school year, a cap was placed on Enloe's enrollment at 2,650 to prevent overcrowding. As of 2016, Enloe had 2,610 enrolled students. Of those, 38% were African American/Black, 29% were Caucasian/White, 18% were Asian/Pacific Islander, 12% were Hispanic/Latino, 4% were multi-ethnic, and less than 1% were Native American. This cap was removed prior to the 2019–2020 school year.
Graduation rate.
Enloe's graduation rate is above the county average. In the 2018–19 school year, 93.7% of Enloe students graduated in four years, compared to 89.9% of all Wake County high school students, according to the N.C. Department of Public Instruction.
Poverty.
During the 2013–2014 school year, 32% of Enloe's students were eligible for free lunch and another 4% qualified for reduced-price lunch. As of November 2015, Enloe worked with about 75 families designated homeless as per the McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act. Principal Scott Lyons petitioned Wake County Public School System for the transfer of an additional social worker from a less disadvantaged school to help address the problem.
Faculty and staff.
There were 148 members of the Enloe teaching staff in 2006, and many support personnel were employed in administration, guidance and similar positions. Twenty-five members were certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and 39% possessed an advanced degree (Masters or PhD) in their respective fields.
During the 2015–2016 school year, Enloe employed 210 staff members, of whom 157 were classroom teachers. Twenty-four were certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, 78 had an advanced degree, and 19 had over 25 years of teaching experience.
Science and technology.
From 1994–1995, Enloe teachers were trained in the use of computers and technology. Instruction occurred in two phases. The first phase involved basic computer skills, word processing, data management, email, and multimedia (including handling of laserdisc players, Quicktake cameras, and camcorders), while the second focused on educating teachers on technology that could be specifically applied to their curriculum.
In 2008, a team from Enloe won the Team America Rocketry Challenge.
Arts and humanities.
As of 1997, Enloe had the largest arts facilities of any school in Wake County. The school was one of only three high schools in the United States to host a production of the play "Miss Saigon" in the Spring of 2015.
As of 2011, Enloe was the only school in the state to offer a Russian language course.
Media and publications.
Newspaper.
The student newspaper, "The Eagle's Eye", has been in circulation since the 1960s. The first attempt to publish the paper failed. In 1966, the paper briefly lost the financial support of the student body. In response, the staff stopped distributing the publication freely and renamed it "Enloe News". By 1968, the change had been reverted. In 1998 senior Matt Williams, an editor on the paper, sold ad space to the North Carolina Lambda Youth Network, a self-described leadership development group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and straight young people. Principal Lloyd Gardner objected to the wording and potential political message that the ad could convey. Students argued that they should publish it on the basis of being allowed to run a Christian group's ad in a previous edition. Gardner responded by banning the Christian ad from being run a second time. Williams appealed both decisions to the Wake County Public School System's board. The censorship was unanimously upheld by a three-member panel, which asserted that the county policy allowed the principal to make final decisions regarding school publications.
Unofficial publications.
In the fall of 1992, students founded an independent newspaper, "Vanguard". Taking in submissions from students, it was seen as an alternative to "The Eagle's Eye", which some students thought did not fully address controversial topics of the time. Principal Bobby Allen found a series of jokes in one article offensive and asserted that he could review each monthly issue before its release, as per county policy. He also maintained that if the content were inappropriate it could not be distributed on campus. A student argued that the review process would interfere with the paper's printing schedule and infringe upon students' first amendment rights, and appealed to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for assistance. In May 1994, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the public school system on behalf of the paper's editors. After months of negotiation, the school board reached a settlement whereby students could publish free from prior review as long they did not distribute during class. In 1995, two other independent newspapers, "Glass Butterfly" and "Spare Ribs", were published at the school. "Vanguard" ceased publication several years later.
Magazine.
Enloe's original student literary magazine, "Image", was first published in 1964 and was issued at least through 1968. A succeeding publication, "Stone Soup", has been in circulation since the 1980s.
Television.
Enloe also has its own control room and broadcast desk where students produce the school's live television news show, the "'Loe Down". It has won numerous National Academy Television Student Awards for the Nashville Midsouth Chapter.
Through its video and audio production classes, Enloe High School has also gained multiple Emmys. This includes two awards and six nominations since 2012.
Athletics.
Enloe's sports image was designed by the Broughton sophomores allotted to attend the school their junior year in 1962. During a meeting in Broughton's gymnasium, it was decided that the mascot would be an eagle, the colors would be the same as the Green Bay Packers', the football helmets would be all gold in the style of the University of Notre Dame's Fighting Irish, and the fight song would be University of Michigan's "The Victors".
Enloe's current sports teams are as follows:
The men's swimming & diving team won nine consecutive state championships from 1999 to 2007 and had additional wins in conference and regional championships.
Enloe's historical rival in athletics is Needham B. Broughton High School.
Rankings and awards.
In 2012, the school posted the sixth highest average SAT score in the Raleigh Durham area: 1692 with 77.1% of students taking the test.
Until 2010, Enloe was ranked in the top 100 high schools in the U.S. according to "Newsweek" magazine's annual rankings:
Enloe was recognized in 2014 as a School of Distinction by Magnet Schools of America.
For the 2014–2015 school year, Enloe's graduating class received over $15.4 million in scholarships, the highest of any high school in the Wake County Public School System.
In 2015, according to the U.S. News & World Report, Enloe was ranked 854th in the nation, 18th in North Carolina, and 112th in the nation for magnet schools.
In 2016, according to the Washington Post, Enloe ranked seventh in the state and 280th nationally for most challenging high schools.


Oren Brown

Oren Brown (April 13, 1909 – March 6, 2004) was a well-known and highly successful American vocal pedagogue and voice teacher.
Born in Somerville, Massachusetts, Brown attended Boston University, where he earned a Bachelor of Music with an emphasis in vocal performance and a master's degree in music composition. In 1932 he began his long career as a voice teacher which would last up until his death 72 years later. He notably served as a faculty member of the Mannes College of Music during the late 1940s and was on the voice faculty at the Juilliard School from 1972 through 1991. Many of his students have had successful singing careers, including John Aler, Cecilia, Eva Johansson, James King, Ann Monoyios, and Bo Skovhus among many others.
In 1952 Brown joined the staff of the Washington University School of Medicine, serving as a lecturer in voice therapy and otolaryngology up through 1968. While there he collaborated with medical personnel to develop an interdisciplinary approaches to voice training, making him one of the first vocal pedagogues, along with William Vennard and Ralph Appelman, to introduce contemporary scientific research in the areas of human anatomy and physiology into the study of singing. In addition to contributing articles to a number of music journals, he also is the author of "Discover Your Voice: How to Develop Healthy Voice Habits" (1996), which is a well-known and highly respected vocal training text.
Brown died in Northampton, Massachusetts at the age of 94.


Mary Jane Evans

Mary Jane Evans (3 February 1888 – 25 February 1922) was a Welsh teacher, preacher and actress, best known for her solo recitations and dramatic monologues.
Biography.
She was born Mary Jane Francis at Godre'r Graig. Her mother was Mary Ann Francis (née Hutchings) and her father, Charles Francis, was the conductor of Ystalyfera's town band. As a girl, she won many competitions for recitation at local eisteddfodau, sometimes using the pseudonym "Llaethferch" ("milkmaid") because she delivered milk in her home district. She was sent to a private college in Carmarthen, run by Joseph Harry. After school she did some teaching, and was sent for a time to the Royal Academy of Music in order to improve her command of the English language, which was little used in her day-to-day life in Wales.
She married a musician, William David Evans, in 1919, and they made their home at Maerdy in the Rhondda valley. Later in life she became an adjudicator at the National Eisteddfod. Her hectic schedule of personal appearances placed a strain on her fragile health, and she died at the age of 34. Her body was returned to Godre'r Graig for burial. A memoir of Mary Jane Evans, titled "Llaethferch. Er Cof" (in Welsh) was edited by Ben Davies, who had been the minister at her chapel, and was published at Ystalyfera in 1923.


Intelligent Network Interface Device

An Intelligent Network Interface Device, more commonly known as an "INID", is a system that provides triple play media services to customer homes. The system provides digital subscriber line access, advanced TV, and voice over internet protocol (VoIP) phone services to subscribed customers. The term may refer either to a standalone external residential gateway or to a system of multiple components that together provide RG functions. Models include the 2Wire HomePortal INID and the Entone Crescendo INID. AT&T's U-verse brand of services employs the 2Wire INID as an alternative residential gateway.
Unlike the traditional Network Interface Device (NID) that it replaces, an INID includes an outdoor unit that mounts to the side of the subscriber's home in a hardened, weather-resistant enclosure that is easily accessible by carrier technicians; it also can include an indoor unit and a battery backup.
By transferring intelligent gateway functions and all service and network terminations to the side of the house, the INID eliminates the need to bring DSL into the house, eliminating the signal loss typical of in-home wiring. The location at the side of the house also allows for an easy connection between the INID's integrated VoIP function and the home's existing phone wiring.
The outdoor location also provides carrier technicians with easy access to home coaxial cable wiring, which can be reused to distribute high-speed LAN technologies to video set-top boxes and other networked consumer devices throughout the home using HomePNA.


Golden telephone

A golden telephone is a rotary telephone made of or plated with gold. It is popularly associated with opulent decadence, representing power, wealth and elitism. Golden telephone sets were notably presented to Pope Pius XI in 1930 and to the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1957, both cases of which have inspired its appearances in media.
The Vatican.
In 1930, the newly created Vatican City was connected to the international telephone network via the International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT), which had recently installed a new telephone exchange. For that occasion, the Catholic Church in the United States presented a golden telephone to Pope Pius XI. The golden phone was used until the end of Pope John XXIII's pontificate in 1963. Since then, the Pope has used a standard phone in 'papal' white.
Cuba.
During an award ceremony with US Ambassador Gardner, a ceremonial golden telephone was presented to the Cuban dictator, Fulgencio Batista, in 1957. The instrument is currently not on display in Museum of the Revolution, formerly Batista's presidential palace, in Havana.
In popular culture.
A golden telephone appeared in "The Godfather Part II" as the film depicts Cuban dictator Batista receiving it as a gift from the telephone company United Telephone and Telegraph (presumably intended to represent International Telephone and Telegraph).
In Oliver Stone's "The Doors", Jim Morrison meets Andy Warhol at a party. The camera focuses on a golden telephone, which Warhol offers to Morrison saying: "Somebody gave me this telephone... I think it was Edie... yeah, it was Edie... and she said I could talk to God with it, but uh... I don't have anything to say... so here... (giving Jim the phone) this is for you... now you can talk to God." Morrison accepts the telephone and later gives it to a homeless person.
The symbol is also popular in various award ceremonies as a supposed edifice of prominence. Golden telephone awards include Springwire and Overthinkingit.


Cupcake Digital

Cupcake Digital Inc. was an independent developer of mobile applications for tablets and smartphones focusing on the children's market (ages 2 through 8). Cupcake Digital was headquartered in New York City, with offices in Moncton, New Brunswick (Canada), Santa Barbara, California, and Richmond, Virginia.
History.
Background.
Cupcake Digital Inc. was founded in June 2012 by Brad Powers and Susan Miller.
The company's focus was on the production and distribution of children's apps (applications used on mobile devices) containing interactive storybooks and games that were developed primarily for tablet and mobile platforms, including Apple iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch), Google Android, Barnes & Noble's Nook, and Amazon Kindle Fire.
In March, 2012, prior to the formal founding of the company, Cupcake Digital launched its first app, Wubbzy's Pirate Treasure. The app was distributed on the Apple, Amazon, and Android distribution platforms. It was the recipient of the 2013 Parent's Choice Classic Fun Stuff award.
Licensed Properties.
The majority of the company's apps “transcreates” creative assets from each licensed property into “deluxe storybooks,” iLearning books, educational games, and other apps. As of the end of 2014, Cupcake Digital's portfolio of licensed children's properties included:
Acquisitions.
In March 2013, Cupcake Digital acquired zuuka Inc., developers of the popular iStoryTime Library. With over 200 children's e-books, the acquisition became the basis for the company's children's app subscription platform, and expansion into children's e-books and video content.
In November 2014, Cupcake Digital acquired Little Bit Studio, LLC, developers of the popular Bugs and Buttons series of apps for children. This acquisition was the company's first step in creating and building original properties for the consumer products market.
Applications Developed.
Cupcake Digital's digital library includes the following “deluxe storybooks,” iLearning books, and educational game apps.
Yo Gabba Gabba! Birthday Party
Lalaloopsy Diner
The Smurfs iTalk
Strawberry Shortcake : Perfect Puppy Doctor
Bello goes to school
Bello goes to camp
Bellos friend
Snoopy's All Star Football
A Very Yo Gabba Gabba! Christmas
Olivia Dreams: An Interactive Storybook
Turbo FAST: Interactive Storybook
Wubbzy Racecar
Sparky – The Case Of The Missing Smoke Alarms
Strawberry Shortcake Beauty Salon
Yo Gabba Gabba! Music is Awesome
Rio 2 Sky Soccer
How to Train Your Dragon 2 (The Official Storybook App)
Tree Fu Tom: Squizzle Quest
Strawberry Shortcake Summer Fun
Tickety Tic Card Maker Time
Dragons – Defenders of Berk
Wubbzy's Beauty Salon
Discovery Kids Dinosaur Puzzle and Play
Strawberry Shortcake Jumbo Coloring Book
Rio 2 (The Official App for the Movie)
Biscuit's Birthday
Meet Biscuit
Biscuit's Valentine's Day
Biscuit Visits the Pumpkin Patch
Puss In Boots Movie Storybook
Madagascar Movie Storybook Collection – Complete
Madagascar 3 Movie Storybook Deluxe
Yo Gabba Gabba! Babies
Wee Sing 123
Wee Sing ABC
Kung Fu Panda Holiday
Kung Fu Panda 2 Storybook
The Penguins of Madagascar Read & Play
The Penguins of Madagascar – The Lost Treasure of the Golden Squirrel
Sid the Science Kid Read & Play
Rio Read And Play How To Train Your Dragon
Barney's Storybook Treasure
Ice Age Movie Storybook Collection
Rise of the Guardians Movie Storybook
Turbo Movie Storybook Deluxe
Transformers Dark of the Moon Mix & Match Book
Mike the Knight Storybook Treasury
The Smurfs 2 Movie Storybook
The Smurfs Movie Storybook
The Croods Movie Storybook Deluxe
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Movie Storybook & Cloudy 2 Children's Activity Book
Strawberry Shortcake Color and Play
The Nut Job (The Official App)
Yo Gabba Gabba! Party in My Tummy
VeggieTales: It's a Very Merry Larry Christmas
Strawberry Shortcake Berryfest Princess
Babar & Badou's Musical Marching Band
Sparky's Birthday Surprise
Tickety Toc Bubble Time
Fraggle Rock Game Day Free
Fraggle Rock Game Day
Fraggle Friends Forever Puzzle and Play Free
Wubbzy's 123 Learn & Play
Strawberry Shortcake Berry Best Friends
Good Night Wubbzy Bedtime Counting
Wubbzy's ABC Learn & Play
Wubbzy and The Princess
Wubbzy's Mash-Em Fun
Fraggle Friends Forever
Wubbzy's Animal Coloring Book
Wubbzy's Dance Party
Wubbzy's Magic School
Wubbzy The Superhero
Animal Planet Hide & Seek Pets
Wubbzy Loves You
Wubbzy's Fire Engine Adventure
Wubbzy's Dinosaur Adventure
Wubbzy's The Night Before Christmas
Wubbzy's Train Adventure
Wubbzy's Awesome Adventure
Disco Dancin’ Wubbzy
Wubbzy's Kooky Kostume Kreator
Awards & Industry Recognition.
Cupcake Digital has been recognized eight times by the Parent's Choice Foundation and six times by The Children's Technology Review.
2014
2013
Compliance.
The company complied with industry “best practices” and Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) consumer privacy regulations.
The Federal Trade Commission has published updated privacy protections for children online (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, or “COPPA”). The company had affirmed that it was currently in compliance with COPPA rules, which restrict the collection of personal, non-personal and analytical data from children as well as gaining parental permission.


Otto Behaghel

Otto Behaghel (May 3, 1854 in Karlsruhe – October 9, 1936 in Munich) was a germanist and professor in Heidelberg, Basel, and Gießen.
He added theoretical contributions to the German and Middle High German language. He formulated Behaghel's laws. His work is still important in Theme and rheme research.


John M. Stopford

John Morton Stopford (September 16, 1939 – August 13, 2011) is a British organizational theorist, consultant, and Professor of the London Business School, and Head of its Strategic and International Management Area. He is known for his work on management of multinationals, corporate entrepreneurs, and competition.
Life and work.
Stopford obtained his engineering degrees on the job at Oxford and at MIT, and as a Ford Foundation Fellow obtained his PhD at Harvard Business School.
Stopford had started his career in the late 1950s in the Rotterdam docks. Back in the UK he became craft apprentice at Baker Perkins, a British engineering company based in Peterborough. In the late 1950s he moved to the US, where he participated in the Saturn 1 programme. Back in Europe in the 1960s he joined Royal Dutch Shell in the Netherlands and later in the UK. For some time he was managing director in Guyana for Booker McConnell, before he started his academic career at the Manchester Business School.
In 1971 Stopford moved to the London Business School, where he was Professor of International Business from 1974 to 2002, and founded and chaired the Strategic and International Management Area. He has been Visiting Professor at the Kiel Institute of World Economics in Germany and the Nihon University in Tokyo, Japan. In the year 1995-96 he was elected Vice-President of the Academy of International Business.


Leonardo Lala

Leonardo Lala (1906 – March 4, 2000) was a writer of Arbëreshë/Albanian origin from Contessa Entellina in Italy and an expert on Arbëresh language, and Arbëreshë history and folk traditions. In 1910 he immigrated to the U.S. (New Orleans), where he remained for about three years. Upon his return in 1913 Lala attended elementary school and finished fourth grade and then began to devote himself to farm work, as did most people in Contessa Entellina.
While Lala's education was limited to only elementary school, he remained deeply interested in Arbëresh and Albanian culture. He was a committed researcher who taught himself as much as possible about the language, history and traditions, and wrote several pieces in Italian and Albanian based on his researches, both in prose and verse. Some are reported to have been regularly used in cultural and current affairs of the Italian-Albanian communities. Lala oversaw the writing of a glossary of about 4,000 Arbëreshë words used in Contessa Entellina.
Lala retired from farming at the age of 80, and focused on his researches into Arbëreshe culture. He died, aged 94, in Contessa Entellina on March 4, 2000.


Toy Story (soundtrack)

Toy Story is the soundtrack album for the 1995 Disney/Pixar animated film "Toy Story", with music composed, conducted, and performed by Randy Newman. The soundtrack includes the film score, as well as three original songs written and performed by Newman. It was released by Walt Disney Records on November 22, 1995, the week of the film's release, and the first soundtrack album from a Pixar film.
The soundtrack for "Toy Story" received praise for its "sprightly, stirring score". It received Academy Award nominations for Best Original Score and Best Original Song ("You've Got a Friend in Me"). Despite the album's critical success, the soundtrack only peaked at number 94 on the "Billboard" 200 album chart. A cassette and CD single release of "You've Got a Friend in Me" was released on April 12, 1996, to promote the soundtrack's release.
After it went out of print, the album was made available for purchase digitally in retailers such as iTunes. The soundtrack, along with Newman's complete unreleased score for the film was remastered and reissued on July 17, 2015 as the tenth entry of "The Legacy Collection" series.