Sunrise Semester

Sunrise Semester is an American educational television series that aired on WCBS-TV from September 1957 to October 1982 and was at first syndicated by CBS Television Film Sales. It was produced in conjunction with the College of Arts and Science at New York University (when the program started, the Washington Square and University College of Arts and Science). During June, July and August, the program was known as Summer Semester. It was one of the first examples of distance learning, telecourses, or MOOCs. Lecturers presented NYU credit courses in studio on a wide range of academic subjects, and these broadcast courses were offered for credit to anyone who paid the course fees. The program earned five Emmy Awards during its lifetime.
The program was so named because it was broadcast in the early morning, in New York at 6:30 a.m.
History and production.
"Sunrise Semester" was developed by Warren A. Kraetzer, director of the Office of Radio/Television at New York University, and Sam Cook Digges, general manager of WCBS-TV, and started on WCBS before becoming a syndicated program. Thomas Brophy, assistant director under Kraetzer, was the administrator of the program until his retirement in 1973, when he was succeeded by Pat Myers. New York University planned the courses and provided faculty; beginning in 1963, CBS taped and distributed it to network affiliates. The first course was "Comparative Literature 10: From Stendhal to Hemingway", taught by Floyd Zulli, Jr., an Assistant Professor of Romance Languages. Neil Postman taught a course, "Communication, The Invisible Environment", in the Fall of 1976.
After a preview broadcast at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, September 7, 1957, the program premiered on Monday, September 23, 1957 at 6:30 a.m. in New York and aired at varying early times between 5:30 and 7:30 a.m. elsewhere. It consisted of two courses per semester on alternating days from Monday through Saturday, each broadcast half an hour long (90–95 hours a year). Initially these were broadcast live, requiring a 4:30 a.m. makeup call for the lecturer. After adoption by the CBS network, the three lectures for each course were taped in a single weekly session, between 11:15 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. The setting was an unadorned lecture room, with a chalkboard and a projector. There was no editing and no provision for retakes; Myers said she advised professors who made "a horrendous goof" to "faint". Payments to the instructors were too low to permit rebroadcasting or the sale of tapes under union regulations: initially instructors received $25 per broadcast. NYU students at first paid a $75 fee to receive undergraduate credit for one of the courses; by 1974 this had risen to $250. Other institutions were free to use the program for their own credit courses, without payment to NYU. Beginning in 1971, NYU also allowed high-school students to take the course for credit before enrolling in the university. A primary source of funding was a grant from the Sperry and Hutchinson Foundation.
During the summer, the program was titled "Summer Semester" and courses were non-credit; from 1962 Rutgers University produced summer courses.
In a December 1958 article, John Crosby reported that most viewers of "Sunrise Semester" were women between 16 and 60. In the early years, NYU held a social event at which registered students could meet their instructor. There were plans in the early 1980s to improve the production values of the program, but CBS canceled it in 1982 to make way for early-morning news. At that time, according to the network, only 42 affiliates carried the program.
Awards and reception.
"Sunrise Semester" won five Emmy Awards in its first two years.
Zulli's first course, viewable only in New York, had 74,000 viewers in the first week, 120,000 by the end of the semester. 150 students enrolled for credit, and bookstores sold out of Stendhals "The Red and the Black". Jack Gould in "The New York Times" called it "a refreshing and civilized hit" and praised the instructor's "[lack of] condescension" and "carefully controlled ...theatrical[ity]". In the mid-1970s, 85 CBS stations were carrying the broadcast, and NYU believed there were up to a million viewers. "Variety" called Zulli's course "the first unquestioned hit show of the 1957 television season". CBS did not permit advertising during the program, but the slots before and after it were popular with advertisers.
"Sunrise Semester" has been described as "a kind of primitive form of a ... MOOC"; in 1962 "The New York Times" ran a featured article on a housewife who had completed a bachelor's degree at NYU including 54 out of 128 credits from "Sunrise Semester" courses. "Sunrise Semester" was cited in a 2021 article in the Smithsonian magazine as setting the stage for widespread distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
See also.
Continental Classroom


Stacey Ferreira

Stacey Ferreira (born September 11, 1992) is an American entrepreneur, speaker and author. She is the co-founder and CEO of Forge.
Ferreira, also co-founded the online bookmark vault and password manager MySocialCloud.com with her brother Scott Ferreira. MySocialCloud investors include Sir Richard Branson, Jerry Murdock, and Alex Welch. She has been featured on and contributed to several news outlets, including The Huffington Post, Women 2.0, "Business Insider", TechCrunch. In 2016, she entered the "Forbes" list of 30 under 30, as part of the 600 brightest young entrepreneurs and leaders in the USA.
Early childhood and education.
Ferreira was born on September 11, 1992 in Scottsdale, Arizona. Her mother, Patricia Ferreira, worked in accounting for IBM and later became an accountant at the State of Arizona. Her father, Victor Ferreira, is a Vice President of Sales at IBM.
She attended Xavier College Preparatory in Phoenix, AZ, to complete her high school degree. She served as a Board Member for the nonprofit Open Table, which her brother cofounded, when she was 11. She also worked at a local Phoenix educational TV station and attended GRAMMY Camp.
After founding MySocialCloud, Stacey attended New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development to study Music Business. After one year, she took a leave of absence to pursue MySocialCloud full-time.
MySocialCloud.
Ferreira co-founded MySocialCloud with her brother, Scott Ferreira, and programmer, Shiv Prakash, while she was in high school. The idea came after a computer crash that left Scott without the spreadsheet he used to store usernames and passwords for his online accounts. In 2013, the siblings sold MySocialCloud to Reputation.com and moved from Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay Area.
2 Billion Under 20: How Millennials Are Breaking Down Age Barriers & Changing the World.
After selling MySocialCloud, Ferreira worked with Jared Kleinert to co-author "2 Billion Under 20: How Millennials Are Breaking Down Age Barriers And Changing The World." The book rose to the #1 New Release position in the Business Leadership book category on Amazon (company)"."
Thiel Fellowship and Forge.
In 2015, Ferreira became a part of the Thiel Fellowship, a two-year program for individuals who've dropped out of college to build their careers. She co-founded Forge with Scott Ferreira, Lloyd Jones and Talulah Riley through the fellowship. Forge is an application that businesses can use to allow hourly workers select their own shifts and manage schedules. Ferreira now serves as CEO of the company.
Awards and recognition.
Ferreira has spoken with the United States State Department at TechCrunch Disrupt, GetInTheRing, We Are the Future’s Startup Summit, NextGen Summit, TEDxNYU, TEDxYouthSanDiego and GRAMMY Media Week. She has been a guest contributor to Virgin Entrepreneurship, Inc., Forbes, and Women 2.0. She has also received recognition for her achievements, including:


Learndirect

Learndirect Ltd, stylised as learndirect, is a British training provider founded in 2000, owned by the private equity firm Lloyds Development Capital (LDC). The company has a network of learning centres in England and Wales, and also runs some courses online. Nearly all of Learndirect's revenue is from government contracts.
By 2006 the organisation was assisting half a million learners per year, and in January 2013 the cumulative number was in excess of 3.5 million.
In March 2017, Ofsted inspectors gave the company the lowest possible rating, leading to Learndirect to seek court review and an injunction on the publication of this poor result. The court lifted the reporting restriction on 14 August 2017. Subsequently, the Department for Education stated that it would withdraw all funding from Learndirect, placing the future of the organisation at risk.
History.
Learndirect was formerly owned by the Ufi Charitable Trust, a not-for-profit organisation which sold Learndirect and its parent Ufi Limited to LDC in 2011. Ufi was created in 1998 to take forward HM Government's stated vision of a University for Industry in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and launched learndirect in 2000. Learndirect Scotland was the public-facing brand of the Scottish University for Industry, but has since become part of Skills Development Scotland as 'My World of Work'. Learndirect still operates in Scotland, and has offices in Glasgow.
The House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts undertook a review of the programme in 2005–2006; it found that the programme had received a total of £930 million in public funding, and was critical of the poor involvement of businesses, the high cost of marketing, and the low number of learners recorded as meeting their training objectives.
Ufi announced in late 2009 that it would be unable to sustain the large network of centres due to proposed budget cuts. An agreement was subsequently reached with the newly established Skills Funding Agency, allowing for a smaller network of centres, with the closure of some between July and August 2010.
Ufi were contracted by the Skills Funding Agency to deliver agreed targets in respect of qualifications achieved by learners, as well as a raft of quality, equality, and other indirect targets. However, following the May 2010 general election in which the Labour government was replaced by a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, the future of Learndirect became unclear. Funding for English as a foreign or second language through Learndirect centres ceased in July 2010.
According to "The Independent", Ufi Ltd was included in a list compiled by the new government of quangos which it sought to abolish. The company and the Learndirect brand were then bought by LDC, part of Lloyds Banking Group, on 4 October 2011. Learndirect thus became an independent training provider competing in the open market and Ufi Ltd became a charitable trust. Learndirect Scotland became part of Skills Development Scotland and was renamed "My World of Work".
Learndirect participated as a provider in the UK government's mandatory unpaid work experience programme for those on Jobseeker's Allowance, in place between 2011 and 2017. The scheme was commonly known as "workfare", and formally by Learndirect and the Department of Work and Pensions as Mandatory Work Activity.
Between 2012 and 2015, Learndirect’s profits declined 85%, while student failure rates doubled in its educational programmes, and achievement rates for its apprenticeships dropped below Ofsted's 62% minimum to qualify for grants. During this period, 84% of Learndirect's profits were redirected to its parent firm to pay for dividends, debt-servicing, and legal fees, as well as half a million pounds to sponsor the Marussia F1 racing team.
2017 Ofsted inspection and aftermath.
In March 2017, the Education & Skills Funding Agency (EFSA) issued a "notice of serious breach" against Learndirect for 70% of its apprenticeship services not meeting state-required minimums. This was followed in the same month by an inspection by Ofsted, with publication of the report delayed until after the 2017 snap election.
Learndirect sought judicial review of the report, on grounds that the sample size was insufficient and the lead inspector had predetermined the outcome; Learndirect requested and obtained a publishing injunction during the proceedings. In filings for this injunction, the managing director of Learndirect claimed that the Skills Funding Agency said it would serve three months notice on all its contracts if its Ofsted rating were to stand.
In August 2017, the High Court lifted the injunction and the report was published. Ofsted's overall effectiveness rating was 'Inadequate', with five areas rated 'Requires improvement' and two – Outcomes for learners and Apprenticeships – rated 'Inadequate'. Ofsted noted positive changes in the last year, leading to early signs of improvement.
The EFSA decided to continue funding Learndirect for the 2017/18 academic year, then withdraw funding from July 2018. Funding of Learndirect Apprenticeships Ltd, paid by large employers through the Apprenticeship Levy (which began in April 2017) is not affected. The National Audit Office published an investigation into the monitoring, inspection and funding of Learndirect Ltd in December 2017.
According to BBC reports in September 2017, the chair of the Public Accounts Committee said Learndirect should face an investigation after its Ofsted rating. The committee's enquiry "Funding of Learndirect Ltd" began in January 2018.
Services provided.
Learndirect offers courses, training and employment services. In August 2017, the number of enrolled trainees was reported as 73,000.
In 2004, an average of 65% of students completed their courses but this figure had improved to 92% by 2009.
Learndirect administers the "Life in the United Kingdom" test, for candidates for British citizenship, on behalf of UK Visas and Immigration, a division of the Home Office.
Acquisitions.
In March 2021, Learndirect acquired two training companies that specialize in animal welfare training and TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language).


54th Writers Guild of America Awards

The 54th Writers Guild of America Awards honored the best writing in film, television and radio of 2001. Nominees for television and radio were announced on January 16, 2002, while nominees for film were announced on February 7, 2002. Winners were announced on March 2, 2002 in joint ceremonies at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California and at The Pierre Hotel in New York City, New York. The ceremonies were hosted by Jeffrey Ross (Beverly Hilton) and Mort Sahl (The Pierre).


Joseph McElroy

Joseph Prince McElroy (born August 21, 1930) is an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist.
Personal background.
McElroy was born on August 21, 1930 in Brooklyn, New York. McElroy grew up in Brooklyn Heights. He graduated from Poly Prep Country Day School in 1947 and was given an Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award in 2007 from the school's Board of Governors. He graduated from Williams College in 1951. The following year, he earned a master's degree from Columbia University. He served in the Coast Guard from 1952 to 1954, and then returned to Columbia to complete his Ph.D. in 1961.
In 1961, McElroy married Joan Leftwich, of London, in London. She is the daughter of Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jews; her father, Joseph Leftwich, was a translator and anthologizer of Yiddish poetry. The McElroys' only child, Hanna, was born in 1967. McElroy assisted with the birth.
Career.
McElroy taught English and Creative Writing at the University of New Hampshire from 1956 to 1962 and at Queens College, City University of New York from 1964 to 1995, when he retired. McElroy's first novel, "A Smuggler's Bible," was published in 1966. McElroy said "A Smuggler's Bible" "is like everybody's first novel, trying to put too much between covers. ...[I}t's a young book, and young people still seem to like it."<ref>


National Advanced Driving Simulator

The National Advanced Driving Simulator (NADS) at the University of Iowa College of Engineering is among the largest ground vehicle driving simulator in the world along with Toyota's driving simulator at Higashifuji Technical Center.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) owns the NADS-1 simulator, while the University of Iowa takes responsibility for operation and maintenance.
Mission.
Make roads safer by researching the connection between humans and vehicles
Driving research.
Research is done with both simulators and on-road vehicles. Funded by government and industry partners, their expertise includes:
Simulators.
NADS-1 simulator: One of the world’s most realistic driving simulators
NADS-2 simulator: A fixed-base simulator with high-resolution graphics
miniSim™: A low-cost PC-based portable simulator available for purchase
The NADS-1 simulator consists of a dome with a vehicle cab inside. The vehicle is attached to a motorized turntable that allows the dome to rotate and simulate different driving conditions. 64 feet of longitudinal and lateral travel and 330 degrees of rotation are used to give motion cues to the driver inside. Different makes and models of car cabs can be utilized. The driving simulator was designed, developed and produced by MTS Systems Corporation of Eden Prairie, Minnesota. The simulation runs using a software package called Real Time Recursive Dynamics (RTRD), as well as NADSdyna submodules for specific vehicle specs.
On-road research vehicles.
The National Advanced Driving Simulator faculty and staff also use a fleet of on-road, custom instrumented vehicles to conduct driving research, in addition to their suite of simulators:
History.
The National Advanced Driving Simulator was developed from 1996 through 2001 by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to conduct human factors research on driver behavior.
1992
NHTSA selects the University of Iowa to house the National Advanced Driving Simulator (NADS), which would become the most sophisticated research driving simulator in the world.
1994
The first automated driving simulations in the world are done at the University of Iowa. Forward collision warning and ACC systems are designed, developed, and tested for NHTSA.
1997
NADS begins building virtual replicas of military proving grounds, such as the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, where the government tests military vehicles.
1998
Ground is broken for the new NADS facility.
1999
UI begins first drugged driving study: “Effects of Fexofenadine, Diphenhydramine, and Alcohol on Driving Performance.”
2001 (fall)
NADS-1 is operational. The facility is operated on a self-sustaining basis by the UI. NHTSA owns the simulator while the UI takes responsibility for operation and maintenance. UI owns the building, land, and the software that runs the NADS-1.
2001
The first formal study done on the NADS-1 is a study on tire failure and loss of control.
2002
A wireless phone study is conducted—the first at NADS about driver distraction.
2003
NADS begins work with John Deere, and a tractor cab is created for use in the NADS-1 simulator.
2005
NADS builds a portable simulator for outreach to high school students, which eventually leads to the creation of the miniSim program in 2009.
2006
2011
2013
NADS is awarded a grant that would grow to $11.2 million over eight years from the U.S. DOT to fund SAFER-SIM: Safety Research Using Simulation.
2015
MyCarDoesWhat.org campaign launched to educate consumers about advanced driver assistance systems.
2016–2018
Automated vehicles are added to the NADS fleet: a Volvo XC90, Tesla Model S75D, and Lincoln MKZ.
2019
U.S. DOT awards NADS a $7 million grant for the Automated Driving Systems for Rural America project.


34th Writers Guild of America Awards

The 34th Writers Guild of America Awards honored the best television, and film writers of 1981. Winners were announced in 1982.
Winners & Nominees.
Film.
Winners are listed first highlighted in boldface.


Walter Reed Middle School

Walter Reed Middle School is located in the Studio City neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. Originally called North Hollywood Junior High School, the school was later renamed in honor of U.S. Army Major Walter Reed.
The school is a part of Local District North East of the Los Angeles Unified School District and feeds into North Hollywood High School. Several areas, including parts of North Hollywood, Valley Village, Studio City and Woodbridge Park, are zoned to Reed.
History.
On May 26, 1998, a student brought a kitchen knife to school and stabbed and seriously injured another boy during an eighth-grade “Fun Day” event.
In 2017 the school received budget cuts since the percentage of non-Hispanic/Latino white students reached 30%; this occurred because of a state law established in the 1970s stating that schools with populations of white students below 30% get extra funding.
Academies and electives.
The school offers a variety of special academic programs: the Individualized Honors Program (IHP), the School for Advanced Studies (SAS), the Humanities Academy, the Media Arts and Technology Academy, the S.T.E.A.M. Academy, the Environmental Sciences Academy, and the Global Leadership Academy. IHP was described by "Time" magazine as "perhaps the most successful junior-high curriculum in the U.S.". Founded in 1971 by William Fitz-Gibbon, the IHP's purpose is to serve the needs of highly gifted children. IHP students are usually one or two levels above average grade math classes. There is also an Honors program for every academy for Gifted and Talented children, which is one year above the regular curriculum (on average). Each academy brings something different, and specializes it’s learning to the way their students enjoy the most. Despite the disproportionate amount of IHP information, the Walter Reed Middle School website includes information about every academy. When selecting an academy, take time to make your decision, but you can also transfer academies at the end of each semester if you change your mind.
Electives-
There is a large variety of electives at Walter Reed. It ranges from Spanish and Latin, to Choir, Show Choir, to Wind, Percussion, String, to Cartooning and Animation,Architecture and Design, to the Cadet Corp, to Computers, Creative Writing, Environmental Studies, Robotics, Library TA and Office TA.
The school has a very active parent body organized under its PTSA.
Gifted program.
In 1971, the school established the Individualized Honors Program (IHP) co-founded by William Fitz-Gibbon. The parents who place their children in the program want them to be social peers; the students would otherwise be able to skip middle school and enroll directly in high school or in some cases tertiary education.
Filming.
Television shows filmed there include "Head of the Class" (which was based on Reed's IHP program; one of the actors on the show was an IHP graduate), "Growing Pains", "7th Heaven", "Joe Dirt", "Parks and Recreation", "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In", "", "Malcolm in the Middle", "Parenthood", "The West Wing" and "Tell Me You Love Me".
Scenes from movies including "Transformers", "Joe Dirt", "License to Drive", "The Shaggy Dog", "Role Models", "Accepted" and "Scooby-Doo! Curse of the Lake Monster" were also filmed there. In 2006, the fee for one day of filming at an LAUSD school was $2,500.
In the news.
At the 2008 Republican National Convention in Saint Paul, Minnesota, the façade of Walter Reed Middle School was displayed behind the GOP nominee John McCain as a backdrop to his acceptance speech, raising questions as to why, starting in the blogosphere. Blog posts referring to "Walter Reed Middle School" jumped from roughly 0% in the previous six months to .0325% on the night of the convention, according to the BlogPulse search engine. Although the campaign did not release an official statement, many have speculated that the campaign had intended to display a picture of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the Army's leading medical institution and a facility widely associated with care for Iraq war veterans.
The then principal of Walter Reed Middle School, Donna Tobin, placed a statement on the school's website saying that the school had not given permission for the footage to be used, "nor is the use of our school’s picture an endorsement of any political party or view."


Ferdinand Laloue

Ferdinand Laloue (1794 in Passy – 27 September 1850) was a French dramatist, librettist and theatre producer.
Administrator of the Théâtre du Cirque-Olympique, he also was director of the Hippodrome and the théâtre des Délassements comiques. His onerous plays with fastuous settings were performed on the most important Parisian stages (Théâtre des Folies-Dramatiques, Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin, Théâtre du Châtelet, Théâtre des Variétés etc.).


Techno Drive

Techno Drive is a 1998 driving simulator arcade game developed and published by Namco in Japan. It is known for its unique graphical interface that uses fluorescent colors choices and flat shading. Players control a racecar throughout a variety of different minigames, each testing their skill and reaction time. Minigames include drifting along corners, avoiding collision with other vehicles, and driving with a bowl of liquid attached to the rear of the car. The game was designed for the Namco System 12, an arcade board based on raw PlayStation hardware.
"Techno Drive" is the second in Namco's "Almighty Human Project" series of simulation games, which also include "Gynotai" and "Photo Battle". Its futuristic aesthetic was designed by Minoru Sashida, who is known for his work on titles such as the "Mr. Driller" series and "". Critics praised "Techno Drive" for its unique gameplay structure and presentation, finding it a welcome change in pace from other arcade racers of the era.
Gameplay.
"Techno Drive" is a driving simulator video game. Its plot revolves around Japan's escalating traffic problems causing the country's roads to become paralyzed and deteriorating the driving ability of its population. The player is sent back to the past via a futuristic race car to rehabilitate drivers and prevent the problems of the future. The objective of the game is to control a car through a variety of racing-themed minigames under a limited amount of time. They are designed to test the player's skill and reaction time, judged by a letter grade from A- to E at the end. Minigames are split into three categories: Steering Technique, which only utilize the steering wheel; Footwork Technique, which use only the gas pedal and brake; and Practical Technique, which make use of all three. Objectives in these minigames differ for each one, including drifting around sharp corners, avoiding collision with other vehicles, driving with a bowl of liquid attached and avoiding any spills, dribbling a ball to the goal, and driving only when a large eyeball is closed. Only three minigames from each category can be played in a single game. Upon completion, the arcade cabinet prints out the player's results and letter grade.
Development and release.
"Techno Drive" is the second game in Namco's "Almighty Human Project" series, which also include the skeeball-esque "Gyontai" (1996) and action game "Photo Battle" (2003). It was designed by a small team of employees led by Minoru Sashida, a designer that was known for his work on redemption games and mechanical prize-winning machines; Sashida used the knowledge he gained from these while developing "Techno Drive". Sashida worked primarily on the game's graphical interface, which features bold, fluorescent color choices and flat-shaded polygons. "Techno Drive" was designed to be vastly different and distinct from Namco's previous racing game offerings, such as "Ridge Racer" (1993), and appealing towards a wide player demographic. The upbeat electronic soundtrack was composed by Koji Nakagawa, who later went on to compose the music for "" (1999).
"Techno Drive" was demonstrated at the 1998 Amusement Operator's Union (AOU) tradeshow at the Makuhari Messe convention center in Tokyo, alongside games such as "Ehrgeiz", "Time Crisis II", and "Panic Park". Its original concept attracted attention from publications. The game was published on July 1, 1998 in Japan.
Reception and legacy.
"Game Machine" listed "Techno Drive" as being the third most popular arcade game of August 1998. A reviewer for "Edge" described "Techno Drive" as being a "complete and drastic departure for Namco", and a game that distinguished itself from most other racing arcade games with its futuristic presentation and vastly-different gameplay structure. The reviewer said that it drastically departs from the real-world setting of Namco's previous racing games, such as the "Ridge Racer" series, and as such made it an intriguing title. Staff from "Next Generation" believed that "Techno Drive" possessed the same amount of innovation as "Soulcalibur", which was released in the same time frame. They admired the game's stylized graphics, which they took as "a concession to the real meat of the game: technical driving ability". Staff also expressed disappointment towards the lack of any kind of home release. A writer for the Italian publication "MegaConsole" enjoyed "Techno Drive" for its immersive techno atmosphere and printer feature. "Console Plus" writers found "Techno Drive" to be an aesthetically-pleasing arcade game, and its unique concept made it stand out from other titles.
Max Krieger, the creator of the puzzle game "CROSSNIQ+", credits "Techno Drive" for inspiring most of the look and presentation used in his game. A song from the game appears as a playable track in the Nintendo Switch game "". The music used for the Footwork Technique minigames was played live at "Ridge Racer Night 2", a concert hosted to celebrate the 20th anniversary of "Ridge Racer" in 2014. In July 2015, Bandai Namco Entertainment announced it would cease support for "Techno Drive" due to a shortage of necessary parts.


Scott Kosar

Scott Kosar is an American screenwriter whose films include "The Machinist", the 2003 remake of the classic horror film "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre", and the 2005 remake of "The Amityville Horror". In June 2006, Kosar was presented with the Distinguished Achievement in Screenwriting Award by the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Kosar was appointed the Hunter/Zakin screenwriting chair at UCLA for 2009–2010.
Career.
Kosar wrote the script for "The Machinist" while attending the graduate screenwriting program at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. The movie became notorious for actor Christian Bale's dramatic weight loss (Bale dropped his weight to 120 pounds for the film) and was described by Stephen Holden of "The New York Times" as "one of the few movies to scale the barrier between chilly fantasy and authentic cinematic nightmare."
During the years that it took for "The Machinist" to be produced, the script attracted the attention of producer-director Michael Bay, who hired Kosar to write "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" remake. It was directed by Marcus Nispel. "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" was released in North America on October 17, 2003, in 3,018 theaters. It grossed $10,620,000 on its opening day and concluded its North America opening weekend with $28,094,014, ranking No. 1 at the box office. The film opened in various other countries and grossed $26,500,000, while the North American gross stands at $80,571,655, bringing the worldwide gross to $107,071,655. The film's budget was $9.5 million, making it the highest-grossing film of the franchise even when adjusted for inflation.
The box office success of that remake led Kosar to another collaboration with Bay's company with the remake of "The Amityville Horror", directed by Andrew Douglas. The film grossed $65,233,369 domestically and $42,813,762 in foreign markets for a total worldwide box office of $108,047,131. Ruthe Stein of the "San Francisco Chronicle" thought "the truly shocking thing about the new version is that it's not bloody awful... The decision to use minimal computer-generated effects, made for monetary rather than artistic reasons, works to "Amityville"s advantage. It retains the cheesy look of the 1979 original, pure schlock not gussied up to appear to be anything else."
In February 2010, he began re-writing a "Dracula" prequel entitled "Vlad" for Summit Entertainment. That same year, he wrote the remake of "The Crazies", directed by Breck Eisner. He has written and served as a supervising producer on the television series "Bates Motel", a prequel to "Psycho", as well as on the Netflix horror series "The Haunting of Hill House".


Titan language

Titan, also known as Manus, is an East Manus language of the Austronesian language family spoken in the southeastern part of Manus Island, New Guinea, and neighboring islands by about 4,000 people.
Titan has a bilabial trill and prenasalized consonants, as in 'girls' and 'wooden plate'.
Phonology.
Phonology of the Titan language:
Consonant sounds in parentheses are only inferred to exist in Titan, or to exist in other dialects of Titan.
An /e/ sound may also be interchangeable with an open-mid sound /ɛ/.


Deanell Reece Tacha

Deanell Reece Tacha (born January 26, 1946) is a retired United States Circuit Judge who served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. She was the Dean of the Pepperdine University School of Law from 2011 to 2016.
Education and career.
Born in Goodland, Kansas, Tacha received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Kansas in 1968 and a Juris Doctor from the University of Michigan Law School in 1971. She was a White House Fellow and special assistant to the Secretary of Labor at the United States Department of Labor from 1971 to 1972. She was in private practice in Washington, D.C. and Concordia, Kansas from 1973 to 1974. She then served as Director of the Douglas County Legal Aid Clinic in Lawrence, Kansas until 1977. She was also on the faculty of the University of Kansas School of Law from 1974 to 1985.
Federal judicial service.
On October 31, 1985, Tacha was nominated by President Ronald Reagan to a new seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit created by 98 Stat. 333. She was confirmed by the United States Senate on December 16, 1985, and received her commission the same day. She served as Chief Judge of the Circuit from 2001 to 2008, and was succeeded by Judge Robert Harlan Henry. She also served as a member of the United States Sentencing Commission from 1994 to 1998. Tacha took senior status on January 27, 2011. She retired completely on June 1, 2011.
Post judicial service.
In 2008, Tacha received the 26th Annual Edward J. Devitt Distinguished Service to Justice Award from the American Judicature Society. On February 10, 2011, Tacha was named Dean of the Pepperdine University School of Law, taking up that post after retiring from the federal bench on June 1, 2011. She retired as Dean of Pepperdine University School of Law on December 31, 2016. She serves as chair of the executive committee of the University of Kansas Endowment.


National Speakers Association

The National Speakers Association (NSA) is a US based association that supports motivational and other public speakers. It is the oldest and largest of 13 international associations comprising the Global Speakers Federation.
History.
NSA was founded in 1973 by Cavett Robert who was born 14 November 1907 in Starkville, Mississippi and died in September 1997. Even though Robert suffered from stage fright in his younger years, he joined Toastmasters International and went on to receive his first paid speech at the age of 61. Cavett's idea for NSA began with 35 attendees of the Phoenix Summer Sales Seminar in 1969. He incorporated the National Speakers Association on 12 July 1973. In July 1979, Robert was honored with NSA's first Member of the Year Award, later renamed “The Cavett Award.” In honor of Robert's birthday, NSA celebrates the "Spirit of NSA" day every 14 November.
The association launched the Academy for Professional Speaking in January 2004 to teach those exploring a career in professional speaking. The Academy consists of eLearning and the one-day Cavett Institute, named after NSA founder Cavett Robert, CSP, CPAE.
Organizational structure and operations.
NSA has its national office in Tempe, Arizona, and 34 regional chapters throughout the United States. NSA's professional competencies were adopted in June 1985 and continue to drive all facets of NSA today. These competencies are known today as the four E's: Eloquence, Expertise, Enterprise and Ethics. In January 1991, the NSA moved into the new headquarters building at 1500 South Priest Drive in Tempe, Arizona.
Membership.
National Speakers Association membership is available only to paid professional speakers and they need to provide required proofs and documents for it.
Conventions.
NSA holds an annual national convention every summer featuring successful speakers in the industry, such as Steve Forbes, Sally Hogshead, Erik Wahl, Nancy Duarte, Walter Bond, and Penn Jillette. NSA's first Convention was held 1 June 1975 with 62 attendees gathered at the Scottsdale Camelback Inn.
Labs.
NSA holds labs throughout the year featuring a deep-dive on speaking business, marketing and eloquence topics to help professional speakers grow their business and improve their speaking skills. NSA's first lab was held 30 April 1994 at the International Center for Professional Speaking.
Local and regional chapters.
The 35 individual chapters are led by an elected president and a board of directors. Chapters usually hold monthly meetings featuring a speaker and networking time. Nationally, NSA has a Chapter Leadership Council composed of past presidents who serve as resources and volunteer consultants to current chapter leaders.
CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame.
In February 1977, the Association established the Council of Peers Award for Excellence (CPAE) "Speaker Hall of Fame." This lifetime award was created to honor the organization's top professional speakers for their speaking excellence and professionalism. Inductees are evaluated by their peers on the different criteria. As of 2015, 232 men and women have been inducted; there are currently 172 living members.
Certified Speaking Professional.
Conferred by the Association, the Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation is the speaking profession's international measure of professional platform competence. In 2015, NSA recognized 51 professional speakers, the largest class of individuals to receive the designation at the Annual NSA Convention.
"Speaker" Magazine.
NSA also publishes a magazine 10 times annually in print and digital formats for the marketing strategies, tips, information and innovative ideas from professional speakers. NSA's magazine was rebranded and renamed to "Speaker" magazine in January 2007. A year later in June 2008, "Speaker" magazine went digital. In 2013, NSA launched SpeakerMagazine.com and introduced a mobile application
Books.
NSA has published following books


Gifted Child Quarterly

Gifted Child Quarterly is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering the field of education. The journal's editors-in-chief are Jill L. Adelson of the Duke University Talent Identification Program and Michael S. Matthews of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The journal was established in 1957 and is published by Sage Publications in association with the National Association for Gifted Children.
Abstracting and indexing.
The journal is abstracted and indexed in Scopus and the Social Sciences Citation Index. According to the "Journal Citation Reports", its 2018 impact factor is 1.304, ranking it 41st out of 59 journals in the category "Psychology, Educational" and 24th out of 41 journals in the category "Education, Special".
Open Science.
In December, 2018, under the leadership of Co-Editors Jill L. Adelson and Michael S. Matthews, "GCQ" was the first gifted education journal to sign the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines. In March 2019, they announced the journal's commitment to transparency, openness, and research improvement in an open-access article. The journal is committed to meeting Level I or better in all eight areas of the TOP Guidelines: citation standards, data transparency, analytic methods (code) transparency, research materials transparency, design and analysis transparency, study and analysis plan preregistration, and replication. To that end, "GCQ" submission guidelines were expanded to encourage submission of replication studies with peer review, with particular encouragement to use Registered Reports for replication studies (Level III); to require authors to provide appropriate citations for data and materials, when appropriate (Level III); and to require authors to state whether data are available, and if so, where to access them (Level I).
To encourage individual researchers to implement open science practices, "GCQ" implemented an Open Science badge system in 2019, using small icons to communicate clearly to readers when articles have implemented specific open science practices. The badges indicate the following practices: (1) data are available in a public, open-access repository with a DOI or other permanent path; (2) materials (e.g., analytic code, interview protocols) are available in a public, open-access repository with a DOI or other permanent path; and (3) a preregistration (and, if applicable, analysis) plan was registered in a public, open-access repository with a DOI or other permanent path prior to the examination of the data or observing the outcomes.


Melanie Stansbury

Melanie Ann Stansbury (born January 31, 1979) is an American scientist and politician serving as the New Mexico state representative for the 28th district since 2019. She is the Democratic nominee in the 2021 New Mexico's 1st congressional district special election.
Early life and education.
Stansbury was born in Farmington, New Mexico and raised in Albuquerque. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in human ecology and natural science from Saint Mary's College of California and a Master of Science in development sociology from Cornell University. She is a PhD candidate in development sociology at Cornell with minors in natural resources and American Indian studies.
Career.
Early career.
Stansbury began her career as an ecology instructor at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. As a White House Fellow, she worked as a policy advisor on the Council on Environmental Quality. She was a consultant at Sandia National Laboratories and later served as a program examiner in the Office of Management and Budget during the Obama administration. She worked on the staff of the United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and as an aide to Senator Maria Cantwell. Since 2017, she has worked as a consultant and senior advisor at the Utton Transboundary Resources Center of the University of New Mexico.
New Mexico House of Representatives.
Stansbury ran unopposed in the 2018 Democratic primary for the 28th district of the New Mexico House of Representatives. In the general election, she defeated Republican incumbent Jimmie C. Hall, 54% to 46%.
Stansbury was again unopposed in the 2020 primary. She defeated Republican Thomas R. Stull and Libertarian Robert Vaillancourt in the general election by a margin of 10 points.
In the House, Stansbury has introduced legislation to improve the state's energy conservation and water resource management. She is the vice chair of the Energy, Environment & Natural Resources Committee.
2021 U.S. House campaign.
After Joe Biden announced Deb Haaland as his nominee for secretary of the interior, Stansbury announced her campaign in a special election for the seat. In the first round of voting by members of the New Mexico's 1st congressional district Democratic committee, Stansbury placed second after State Senator Antoinette Sedillo Lopez and automatically advanced to the runoff. In the second round of voting, Stansbury narrowly defeated Sedillo Lopez by six votes. She will face State Senator Mark Moores in the general election scheduled for June 1, 2021. As no Republican has represented the 1st congressional district since 2009, "The Santa Fe New Mexican" labeled Stansbury "a heavy favorite".
Political positions.
In a questionnaire created by the Adelante Progressive Caucus, Stansbury pledged support for Medicare For All legislation, a federal assault weapons ban, the D.C. statehood movement, canceling student loan debt, federal marijuana legalization, and several other progressive policies.
Personal life.
Stansbury lives in Albuquerque.


Whitey Campbell

Alexander Carr "Whitey" Campbell (January 19, 1926 – November 3, 2015) was an American football, basketball, baseball player and coach. He served as the head baseball coach at the University of Miami in 1958 and from 1960 to 1962 and at the University of Montana in 1966.
Born in New York City and raised in Caldwell, New Jersey, Campbell attended James Caldwell High School, where he graduated in 1944 and was inducted into the school's hall of fame in 1990.
Campbell died on November 3, 2015, in Rutherfordton, North Carolina, after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.


Automated main distribution frame

Automated main distribution frame (AMDF), (automated switching matrix, automated distribution frame, loop management system (LMS)), a technology to provide connectivity between subscriber (local loop, outside plant) – and office equipment (inside plant) lines in a telephone exchange (central office, CO) main distribution frame (MDF).
At the beginning of the 21st century the connections (n-subscriber lines and m-office equipment lines) are established or removed manually using a twisted pair of copper wires (jumper).
An automated main distribution frame provides, after an initial installation of all relevant subscriber- and office equipment lines, remote controlled and locally performed connectivity by switching via the switching matrix of an AMDF.
Advantages of automated main distribution frame include reduced switching time, reduced errors in execution and documentation, no truck-roll for each subscriber connection to be established, and reduction of operational expenditures (OPEX). These advantages are typically only off-setting the initial investment in the AMDF equipment in places with relatively high labour cost and an "active" telephony market where subscribers have a choice of multiple service providers leading to many MDF changes.


Lower Carniolan dialect group

The Lower Carniolan dialect group ("dolenjska narečna skupina") is a group of closely related dialects of Slovene. The Lower Carniolan dialects are spoken in most of Lower Carniola and in the eastern half of Inner Carniola.
Phonological and morphological characteristics.
Among other features, this group is characterized by pitch accent, extensive diphthongization ("ei, ie, uo"), an "a"-colored semivowel, shift of "o" > "u", and partial akanye.


Robin Russin

Robin Russin is an American playwright, screenwriter, author and educator.
Education.
Russin was educated at Harvard, Oxford (which he attended on a Rhodes Scholarship), the Rhode Island School of Design, and UCLA, where he received his MFA in screenwriting. Russin taught screenwriting at UCLA in their undergraduate and graduate film departments as well as their Professional Program from 1994 to 2002. He is currently Professor of Screenwriting and has served as Director of the MFA for Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts at UC Riverside.
Career.
Russin has written for film, theater, television and various national publications, including "Scr(i)pt Magazine". Additionally, he co-authored "Screenplay: Writing the Picture" and "Naked Playwriting" (both published by Silman-James Press). "Screenplay: Writing the Picture" was reviewed by Lew Hunter, co-chair of UCLA's screenwriting department, as the "best book about screenwriting and being a screenwriter ever written."
Among Russin's entertainment credits are the #1 box office feature "On Deadly Ground", the eco-thriller starring Steven Seagal and Michael Caine, and many of his other feature spec scripts have been either bought or put under option by both studio and independent producers.
Russin has been a producer on both independent and TV movies, and in television, he wrote, produced and directed numerous segments and specials for "America's Most Wanted" and "The Prosecutors". He was Senior Producer of the hour-long ABC primetime series, "Vital Signs". In 2015 he sold his original pilot and series bible about King David to ABC, which became the basis for the ABC 2016 prime time one-hour series, "Of Kings and Prophets," for which Russin was consultant. In 2017 Russin directed the feature film, "When I Sing", about independent singer-songwriter Linda Chorney's journey to the Grammy Awards, and co-starring Chris Mulkey. "When I Sing" won the People's Choice Award at the 2018 Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival, and the Remi Special Jury Award for best low budget feature at the 2018 Worldfest Houston Film Festival, among many other awards. He also co-wrote the screenplay for "2 Hearts", a 2020 feature starring Jacob Elordi and Radha Mitchell, and directed by Lance Hool.
Among his plays is "Painted Eggs", which was reviewed by "The Los Angeles Times" as "ambitious, heart-felt and hypnotic," and "Dramalogue" called "a glorious treat and a wonderful lesson in love." He regularly writes and directs for the Ruskin Group Theatre in Santa Monica, California, which premiered his play "The Face in the Reeds" in 2014. He also has directed numerous theatrical productions, including "The Merchant of Venice" at the Barbara and Art Culver Center for the Arts, and written extensively about the play in "Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies": "The Triumph of the Golden Fleece: Women, Money, Religion, and Power in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice"|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/shofar/v031/31.3.russin.html. He also writes occasionally for the Jewish Women's Theater, a salon ensemble group.
While at UCLA, Russin was Story Editor on the campus sitcom "Good News, Bad News", and was awarded two Jack Nicholson Awards for excellence in screenwriting. He also directed several short films, was twice a finalist in Chanticleer's "Discovery" program for new directors, and has won or been a finalist in the ScriptPIMP, Final Draft Big Break, TVWriter People's Pilot, The Movie Deal, Award Winning Screenwriters, Northwest Film Forum, and other competitions.
Personal life.
Born and raised in Wyoming and Italy, Russin currently lives in Los Angeles. He also works as a sculptor, and has taught art, literature and art history. He is married to Sarah Russin, the Executive Director of LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions). They have two children, Olivia and Benjamin Russin.


Sayakbay Karalaev

Sayakbay Karalaev (, Sayaqbay Qaralayev) (1894–1971) was a renowned "manaschi" - a reciter of the epic Kyrgyz poem "Manas"


Styrian dialect group

The Styrian dialect group ("štajerska narečna skupina", "štajerščina") is a group of closely related dialects of Slovene. The Lower Carniolan dialects are spoken in central and eastern Slovenian Styria and in the Lower Sava Valley and Central Sava Valley.
Phonological and morphological characteristics.
Among other features, this group is characterized by loss of pitch accent, tonemically high and lengthened accented syllables, lengthening of accented short syllables, and frequent development of "a" > "ɔ", and "u" > "ü" in the eastern part of the territory.


Impersonal verb

In linguistics, an impersonal verb is one that has no determinate subject. For example, in the sentence "It rains", "rain" is an impersonal verb and the pronoun "it" does not refer to anything. In many languages the verb takes a third person singular inflection and often appears with an expletive subject. In the active voice, impersonal verbs can be used to express operation of nature, mental distress, and acts with no reference to the do-er. Impersonal verbs are also called weather verbs because they frequently appear in the context of weather description. Also, indefinite pronouns may be called "impersonal", as they refer to an unknown person, like "one" or "someone", and there is overlap between the use of the two.
Valency.
Impersonal verbs appear only as infinitives or with third-person inflection. In the third person, the subject is either implied or a dummy referring to people in general. The term "impersonal" simply means that the verb does not change according to grammatical person. In terms of valency, impersonal verbs are often avalent, as they often lack semantic arguments. In the sentence "It rains", the pronoun "it" is a dummy subject; it is merely a syntactic placeholder—it has no concrete referent. In many other languages, there would be no subject at all. In Spanish, for example, "It is raining" could be expressed as simply "llueve".
Use in meteorological expressions.
Temperature expressions ("it is hot"), weather expressions ("it is snowing"), and daylight expressions ("it is dark") tend to lack independent participants with distinct semantic roles. While snow participates in snowing, very few other types of participants can participate, and the participant is indistinguishable from the event itself; this is similar to the phenomenon of cognate objects. In addition, the participating snow is non-specific, and lacks a clear semantic role. Therefore, assigning the participating snow the role of 'referent' in the default English expression "it is snowing" would seem inappropriate. Instead, linguistics classify the "is snowing" in "it is snowing" as an impersonal verb.
Meteorological expressions are often constructed with impersonal verbs in English. However, meteorological expressions are obviously not restricted solely to impersonal verbs, even in English; furthermore, different languages use different strategies for their default meteorological expressions and common idioms. In Palestinian Arabic, "Id-dunya ti-shti" translates to "It (the world) is raining" and uses a non-impersonal verb. "Vreme je sunčano", which means "the weather is sunny", is a common Serbian construction that uses a (non-impersonal) adverb rather than a verb.
Forms.
Invisible arguments.
When an agent is unspecified, impersonal verbs are also known as zero person construction, or impersonal construction. An implicit argument (an argument that is put forth without stating it directly) is present on a semantic level for both Estonian and Finnish. The Finnic impersonal construction enables an event or state to be described without specifying the identity of the agent (actor). Despite this, the interpretation of the impersonal includes a referent of some sort (dummy).
The zero person is not entirely the same as an impersonal.
Finnish
Estonian
There is a lack of an overt nominative subject in these constructions.
By-phrase.
Some languages require their counterpart to the English by-phrase be present (like Palauan and Indonesian, Austronesian languages). Other languages disallow the presence of a by-phrase. For example, Polish does not allow the use of a by-phrase in its passive.
The content in the parenthesis causes the Polish sentence to be ungrammatical as who did the knocking cannot be overtly stated. As such, it might seem like it would be more grammatical to use impersonal verbs in such cases.
In various languages.
In some languages such as English, French, German, Dutch and Swedish, an impersonal verb always takes an impersonal pronoun ("it" in English, "il" in French, "es" in German, "het" in Dutch, "det" in Swedish) as its syntactical subject:
Occasionally an impersonal verb will allow an object to appear in apposition to the impersonal subject pronoun:
Or as an instrumental adjunct:
In some other languages (necessarily null subject languages and typically pro-drop languages), such as Portuguese, Spanish, Occitan, Catalan, Italian, Romanian, in Hungarian and all the Slavic languages, an impersonal verb takes no subject at all, but it is conjugated in the third-person singular, which is much as though it had a third-person, singular subject.
Other languages, those which require a subject, may permit an adjunct to assume that role.
Indo-European.
In English.
The following sentences illustrate impersonal verbs:
The expletive pronoun "it" in these sentences does not denote a clear entity, yet the meaning is clear. In other words, the pronoun "it" has no clear antecedent. English is so strict about requiring a subject that it supplies them for verbs that do not really require them. In sentences (4) and (5), "it" is in the subject position, while the real subject has been moved to the end of the sentence.
A simple test can be done to see if the sentence contains an impersonal verb. One checks to see if a given subject pronoun takes an antecedent in the previous clause or sentence, e.g.
The two examples may seem similar, but only the pronoun "it" in the first example links with the previous subject. The pronoun "it" in the second example, on the other hand, has no referent. The hill (Bukit Timah) does not rain, "it" rains. This demonstrates that "rain" is an impersonal verb.
In Spanish.
There is no equivalent of the dummy subject "it" in Spanish. In Spanish, there are a few true impersonal avalent verbs. Most of them are "atmospheric verbs":
Most "impersonal" constructions in Spanish involve using a special verb in third-person defective verb with a direct object as its only argument or use of "impersonal se" (not to be confused with other uses of "se").
There are two main impersonal verbs in Spanish: "haber" (to have) and "hacer" (to do). "Haber" is an irregular verb. When used as an impersonal verb in the present tense, it has a special conjugation for the third person singular ("hay"). Clauses with the verb "haber" do not have an explicit subject; its only argument is a direct object noun phrase that does not agree with the verb. "Haber" has its 'natural meaning' of "tener" 'to have'.
Less frequently, and only in some expressions with a limited number of nouns in singular, the verb "hacer" in the 3rd singular is used as impersonal ("Hacer" is a very common verb meaning 'to do').
Spanish will add the pronoun "se" in front of verbs to form general sentences. Impersonal voice using "se" will use a singular verb since "se" can be replaced by "uno".
The passive voice in Spanish has similar characteristics following that of the impersonal "se". It is normally formed by using "se" + the third person singular or plural conjugation of a verb, similar to the impersonal "se". This use of "se" is easily confused with the medial "se".
In French.
The verbs are impersonal in French because they do not take a real personal subject as they do not represent any action, occurrence or state-of-being that can be attributed to a person, place or a thing. In French, as in English, these impersonal verbs take on the impersonal pronoun - "il" in French.
The "il" is a dummy subject and does not refer to anything in particular in this phrase. The most common impersonal form is "il y a", meaning "there is", "there are". Note its other tenses "(il y avait, il y a eu, il y aura, etc.)".
French makes a distinction between a dummy subject and an actual subject in clauses with infinitives by the use of a different preposition. The preposition "de" is used with dummy subjects and the preposition "à" is used with real subjects. Compare:
In others.
The Celtic languages also possess impersonal verbal forms though their use is usually translated into English by forms such as 'one sees' (Welsh: "gwelir"), 'one did' (Welsh: "gwnaethpwyd"), 'one is' (Irish: "táthar") etc., in which he 'one' is taken to be an empty subject. For weather, personal verbs are used in Celtic languages, e.g. Welsh "Mae hi'n bwrw eira" 'it is snowing'.
Verbs meaning existence may also be impersonal.
However, sometimes there are intransitive verbs with more or less the same meaning:
Latin has several impersonal verbs, most often seen in the third person singular. The real subject of the sentence will not be in the nominative case but is most often in the dative or accusative case. These verbs include:
Tai-Kadai.
In Thai.
Impersonal verbs in Thai do not allow for an overt grammatical subject. The impersonal verbs occur only with transitive verbs.
There is no allowance for the presence of a non-referential subject "man" 'it' in the case frame. In general, it is not allowed in formal speech, such as news reports. However, the presence of non-referential subject "man" can occur in the colloquial form.
Subdivision into non-inception and inception subclasses can occur depending on whether the verb may occur with the path adverb "khin" 'up'.
In constructed languages.
In the auxiliary language Interlingua, verbs are not conjugated by person. Impersonal verbs take the pronoun "il":
In the planned auxiliary language Esperanto, where verbs also are not conjugated for person, impersonal verbs are simply stated with no subject given or implied, even though Esperanto is otherwise "not" a null subject language:
In the planned logical language Lojban, impersonal verbs simply have no first argument filled and might not have any arguments filled at all:
where "carvi" is a verb meaning "x1 rains/showers/[precipitates] to x2 from x3" where "x1", "x2", "x3" are numbered core arguments.
Comparison to other linguistic classifications.
Weather verb.
Some linguists consider the impersonal subject of a weather verb to be a "dummy pronoun", while others interpret it differently.
Adjectives of zero valence are mainly the adjectives referring to weather such as "winding" and "raining" and so on. In some languages such as Mandarin Chinese, weather verbs like snows take no subject or object.
Impersonal pronoun.
An impersonal pronoun, or dummy pronoun, lacks a reference; in English, the usual example is "it" when used with an impersonal verb. Some sources classify certain uses of "one" (ex. "what should one say?") or "you" (ex. "you only live once") as "human impersonal pronouns". An impersonal pronoun, when used, serves as an empty placeholder, or "dummy subject", for the sentence.
Examples:
When the pronoun "one" is used in the numerical sense (rather than as a dummy pronoun), a different pronoun can be used subsequently to referring to the same entity.
Generally, it is not ideal to mix the impersonal pronoun one with another pronoun in the same sentence.
Null objects.
While the concept of impersonal verbs is closely related to phenomenon of null subjects, null objects have to do with the lack of the obligatory projection of an object position.
In French
In English
Null objects can be understood as implicit anaphoric direct objects, that is, those whose referents can be understood from the prior or ongoing discourse context as well as sufficiently salient in that context not only to be encoded pronominally, but even to be entirely omitted. However, it is not imperative that the referent of the direct object has been referred to explicitly previously in the discourse; it could instead be accessible extra-linguistically due to its salience to the interlocutors.
Defective verb.
An impersonal verb is different from a defective verb in that with an impersonal verb, only one possible syntactical subject is meaningful (either expressed or not), whereas with a defective verb, certain choices of subject might not be grammatically possible, because the verb does not have a complete conjugation.
In universal grammar theory.
Impersonal verbs can be considered null subject data. They involve a general concern in generative grammar: determining the nature and distribution of phonetically null but syntactically present entities (empty categories). Since, by definition, these entities are absent from the speech signal, it is of interest that language learners still can come to have information about them. As this phenomenon could not have resulted from sufficient prior experience, it suggests the role of universal grammar.


Maggie Scarf

Maggie Scarf (born Margaret Klein; May 13, 1932) is an American writer, journalist, and lecturer. Her award-winning books and articles specialize in women, family relationships, and marriage in particular, including the best-selling books "Unfinished Business: Pressure Points in the Lives of Women" (Doubleday, 1980) and "Intimate Partners: Patterns in Love and Marriage" (Random House, 1987). She is a former Visiting Fellow at the Whitney Humanities Center, Yale University, and at Jonathan Edwards College, Yale University, as well as a Senior Fellow at the Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy at Yale. She was for many years a Contributing Editor to "The New Republic", and a member of the advisory board of the American Psychiatric Press. Maggie Scarf lives in Sag Harbor, NY with her husband Herbert Scarf, the Sterling Professor (Emeritus as of 2010) of Economics at Yale University. She is the mother of three adult daughters, Susan Scarf Merrell, Martha Samuelson, and Betsy S. Stone. She has eight grandchildren.
Public and media appearances.
Maggie Scarf has lectured widely, and made a great number of television appearances (Oprah Winfrey, 5 times; Phil Donohue; The David Letterman Show; CBS News; Good Morning America; The Today Show; and many radio shows including Larry King.) She has been interviewed extensively on radio and for magazines and newspapers across the nation.
She currently blogs for Psychology Today.


Istrian dialect

The Istrian dialect ("istrsko narečje", "istrščina") is a Slovene dialect in the Littoral dialect group. It is spoken in Slovenian Istria in most of the rural areas of the municipalities of Koper, Izola and Piran, as well as by the Slovenes living in the Italian municipalities of Muggia and San Dorligo della Valle, as well as in the southern suburbs of Trieste (Servola, Cattinara).
Phonological and morphological characteristics.
The Istrian dialect does not have pitch accent and is non-diphthongal. Long "a" is rounded to "ɔ", fronted "a" is common, including as a reflex of "e" and original "ə", and syllabic "l" has developed into "u". The dialect has soft "ľ", soft "ń", "ć", and "šć". The dialect has lost the dual morphologically. The conditional is made with the auxiliary "bin". The dialect has been influenced by Croatian as spoken in Buzet and Ćićarija. The dialect is further subdivided into the Rižana and Šavrin Hills subdialects.


Preshil

Preshil School, also known as The Margaret Lyttle Memorial School, is an independent progressive co-educational, day school located in Kew, an eastern suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The original Arlington campus houses the Kindergarten and Primary school, while the Secondary School is located at the Blackhall Kalimna campus. The campuses are located on Barkers Road and Sackville Street respectively.
Established in 1931 by Greta Lyttle (and later, Margaret E. Lyttle), Preshil teaches a progressive curriculum, and is Australia's oldest progressive school. The school caters for students from Kindergarten through to Year 12. In 2017 the school phased out the Victorian Certificate of Education in favour of the International Baccalaureate programme.


Werner Janssen (philosopher)

Werner Heinrich Janssen (born 7 August 1944 in Mönchengladbach) is a Dutch/German philosopher, Germanist, author and poet under the pseudonym Heinz Hof.
Career.
Werner Janssen grew up both in Germany (Monchengladbach) and in the Netherlands (Kerkrade/Heerlen). He studied at the Universities of Nijmegen, Heidelberg, Amsterdam and Aachen German language and literature, philosophy, sociology, pedagogy, ethnology, political science, psychology and dialect knowledge.
Very first he graduated in 1984 to Dr. lit. at the University of Amsterdam with the thesis Der Rhythmus bei Heinrich Böll, 1985 published by Peter-Lang-Verlag. At the University of Aachen, the Rhenish-Westphalian Technical University he graduated in 1991 to Dr. phil. with the thesis Kultur und Spiel – die dialogische Erweiterung des natürlichen Spielraums, also published by Peter Lang.
He is chairman of the Curatorium of the Martin Buber-Award, which is annually granted since 2002 at the International Culture and Science Festival Euriade, which was set up by him in 1981 and which director he is, just as he is the director of the International Chamber Music Festival AmadèO – Academia Musica da Camera.
He taught German Language and Philosophy at Bernardinuscollege in Heerlen, and is now professor of Philosophy and Germanistics among others at the Lomonosow University of Moscow.
He gave/gives guest lectures at the Universities of Perm (Ural), Vienna, Graz and Heerlen.
With the pseudonym "Heinz Hof" he writes poetry.


Frank Luntz

Frank Ian Luntz (born February 23, 1962) is an American political and communications consultant, pollster, and pundit, best known for developing talking points and other messaging for Republican causes. His work has included assistance with messaging for Newt Gingrich's Contract with America, and public relations support for pro-Israel policies in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He advocated use of vocabulary crafted to produce a desired effect; including use of the term "death tax" instead of "estate tax," and "climate change" instead of "global warming."
Luntz has frequently contributed to Fox News as a commentator and analyst, as well as running focus groups during and after presidential debates on CBSN. Luntz describes his specialty as "testing language and finding words that will help his clients sell their product or turn public opinion on an issue or a candidate." He is also an author of business books dealing with communication strategies and public opinion.
In January 2021, Luntz declared himself no longer a Republican.
Early life and education.
Luntz was born and grew up in West Hartford, Connecticut, the son of Phyllys (née Kelmenson) and Lester Luntz, who together wrote the first American forensic dentistry textbook. His family was Jewish. He graduated from Hall High School, earned a bachelor of arts degree in history and political science from the University of Pennsylvania, and received a doctorate in politics from Trinity College, Oxford where he was a contemporary of future British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Luntz's doctoral thesis formed the basis for his first book, "Candidates, Consultants, and Campaigns: The Style and Substance of American Electioneering". published in 1988.
Luntz's studies at Oxford was funded by The Thouron Award, a scholarship established in 1960 by Sir John R.H. Thouron, K.B.E., and Esther du Pont Thouron to strengthen the "special relationship" between the United States and the United Kingdom through educational exchange between British universities and the University of Pennsylvania to foster the sort of relationship that Luntz had with Boris Johnson (as Luntz counseled Johnson regarding his election as President of the Oxford Union debate society). Since its founding in 1960, the Thouron Award has sponsored programs of graduate study for more than 650 fellows, known as Thouron Scholars.
Career.
Luntz has appeared as a consultant or panel member on a number of television news shows, including "The Colbert Report", "Capital Gang", "Good Morning America", "Hannity", "Hardball with Chris Matthews", "Meet the Press", "PBS NewsHour", "Nightline", "The O'Reilly Factor", "Real Time with Bill Maher", and "The Today Show". He has written op-eds for publications such as "The Financial Times", "The Los Angeles Times", "The New York Times", "The Wall Street Journal", and "The Washington Post". In addition to his work in the US Luntz also provides analysis for British news programmes such as Newsnight.
He was an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania from 1989 until 1996 and also taught at George Washington University and Harvard University.
On January 10, 2020, Luntz suffered a stroke, a matter he freely discussed in interviews afterwards. He recovered, and continued his public analysis and media appearances.
Use of language.
Luntz frequently tests word and phrase choices using focus groups and interviews. His stated purpose in this is the goal of causing audiences to react based on emotion. "80 percent of our life is emotion, and only 20 percent is intellect. I am much more interested in how you feel than how you think. ... If I respond to you quietly, the viewer at home is going to have a different reaction than if I respond to you with emotion and with passion and I wave my arms around. Somebody like this is an intellectual; somebody like this is a freak."
In an article in "The New Yorker" Luntz is quoted as saying,The way my words are created is by taking the words of others... I've moderated an average of a hundred plus focus groups a year over five years... I show them language that I've created. Then I leave a line for them to create language for me.
In a 2007 interview on "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, Luntz redefined the term "Orwellian" in a "positive" sense, saying that if one reads George Orwell's essay on language, "To be 'Orwellian' is to speak with absolute clarity, to be succinct, to explain what the event is, to talk about what triggers something happening… and to do so without any pejorative whatsoever." Luntz believes that Orwell would not have approved of many of the uses to which his pseudonym is applied by quoting Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language", where Luntz focuses on how Orwell derides the use of cliché and dying metaphors.
Luntz's description of his job revolves around exploiting the emotional content of language. "It's all emotion. But there's nothing wrong with emotion. When we are in love, we are not rational; we are emotional. ... my job is to look for the words that trigger the emotion. ... We know that words and emotion together are the most powerful force known to mankind."
Additionally in his 2007 interview on "Fresh Air", Luntz discussed his use of the term "energy exploration" to refer to oil drilling. His research on the matter involved showing people a picture of current oil drilling and asking if in the picture it "looks like exploration or drilling." He said that 90 percent of the people he spoke to said it looked like exploring. "Therefore I'd argue that it is a more appropriate way to communicate." He went on to say, "if the public says after looking at the pictures, that doesn't look like my definition of drilling—it looks like my definition of exploring—then don't you think we should be calling it what people see it to be, rather than adding a political aspect to it all?" Terry Gross responded, "Should we be calling it what it actually is, as opposed to what somebody thinks it might be? The difference between exploration and actually getting out the oil—they're two different things, aren't they?"
James L. Martin, chairman of the conservative 60 Plus Association, described Luntz's role as being that of pollster and popularizer of the phrase "death tax."Martin gained an important ally in GOP pollster Frank Luntz, whose polling revealed that 'death tax' sparked voter resentment in a way that 'inheritance tax' and 'estate tax' couldn't match. After all, who wouldn't be opposed to a 'tax on death'? Luntz shared his findings with Republicans and included the phrase in the GOP's Contract with America. Luntz went so far as to recommend in a memo to GOP lawmakers that they stage press conferences 'at your local mortuary' to dramatize the issue. 'I believe this backdrop will clearly resonate with your constituents,' he wrote. 'Death is something the American people understand.' Apparently, he's right. Spurred by Luntz, Republicans have employed the term 'death tax' so aggressively that it has entered the popular lexicon. Nonpartisan venues like newspapers and magazines have begun to use it in a neutral context—a coup for abolitionists like Martin.
In a confidential memo to the Republican party, Luntz is credited with advising the Bush administration that the phrase "global warming" should be abandoned in favour of "climate change", which he called a "less frightening" phrase than the former.
Publications.
Luntz is the author of the 2007 New York Times Best Seller, "Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear." His second book, "What Americans Really Want ... Really: The Truth About Our Hopes, Dreams and Fears," climbed to #6 on the New York Times Business Best Sellers list. In March 2011, Luntz released his book,"Win: The Key Principles to Take Your Business From Ordinary to Extraordinary".
Work and views.
U.S. politics, 1990s.
Luntz was Pat Buchanan's pollster during the 1992 U.S. Republican presidential primary, and later that year served as Ross Perot's pollster in the general election.
Luntz also served as Newt Gingrich's pollster in the mid-1990s for the Contract with America. During that time, he helped Gingrich produce a GOPAC memo that encouraged Republicans to "speak like Newt" by describing Democrats and Democratic policies using words such as "corrupt," "devour," "greed," "hypocrisy," "liberal," "sick," and "traitors."
In 1993 and 1997 Luntz served as pollster and strategist for the successful mayoral campaigns of Rudolph Giuliani in New York City.
Israel and the Palestinians.
In December 2008 to January 2009, Luntz wrote a report titled "The Israel Project's 2009 Global Language Dictionary" that has been used by the Israeli government to defend Israeli policy in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The report, commissioned by The Israel Project, advised media spokespeople to use specific language that Luntz believed would create a more favorable impression of Israel in the United States and the rest of the international community. For example, when discussing the contours of a two-state solution, the report advised describing Palestinian negotiating points as "demands" because Americans dislike people who make "demands." The report was marked "not for distribution or publication", but it was leaked to "Newsweek" shortly after it was written.
Global warming.
Although Luntz later tried to distance himself from the Bush administration policy, it was his idea that administration communications reframe "global warming" as "climate change" since "climate change" was thought to sound less severe. Luntz has since said that he is not responsible for what the Bush administration did after that time. Though he now believes humans have contributed to global warming, he maintains that the science was in fact incomplete, and his recommendation sound, at the time he made it.
In a 2002 memo to President George W. Bush titled "The Environment: A Cleaner, Safer, Healthier America", obtained by the Environmental Working Group, Luntz wrote: "The scientific debate is closing [against us] ... but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science. ... Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate, and defer to scientists and other experts in the field."
In 2010, Luntz announced new research that shows the American people are eager for Congress to act on climate legislation that would promote US energy independence and a healthier environment. "Americans want their leaders to act on climate change—but not necessarily for the reasons you think," Luntz said. "A clear majority of Americans believe climate change is happening. This is true of McCain voters and Obama voters alike. And even those that don't still believe it is essential for America to pursue policies that promote energy independence and a cleaner, healthier environment." In reference to recent political events, Luntz added: "People are much more interested in seeing solutions than watching yet another partisan political argument."
On July 25, 2019, Luntz spoke in front of the United States House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis where he shared his advice to people pushing for action on the climate crisis. Furthermore, he stated that "I'm here before you to say that I was wrong in 2001","That was a lifetime ago" and "I've changed." He promised to help the Democrats on the climate committee, provided that they put "policies ahead of politics" and commit to nonpartisan solutions. He had his change of heart after a wildfire, the Skirball Fire, threatened and forced him to evacuate his home in 2017.
2005 UK Conservative leadership election.
In 2005 Luntz conducted a focus group broadcast on the Conservative leadership race on the BBC current affairs show "Newsnight". The focus group's overwhelmingly positive reaction to David Cameron was seen by many as crucial in making him the favorite in a crowded field. Cameron was the eventual victor. In March 2007, Newsnight invited him back to gauge comparative opinions on Cameron, Gordon Brown and Sir Menzies Campbell in the city of Birmingham.
2007 Irish general elections.
Luntz led a focus group telecast with the Irish state broadcaster RTÉ to gather the opinions of the Irish people before the May 24, 2007 general elections. RTÉ hoped to show viewers some of the campaign techniques the political parties were using without their knowledge.
2007 Australian federal election.
Another focus group of swing voters was analysed by Luntz in the lead-up to the November 2007 poll between the ruling Coalition and the opposition Labor party. Luntz noted that, like the Irish scenario, the Coalition was well established, presiding over the country for 11 years and overseeing continued economic growth for much of that period; and that unlike the lead-up to the Irish elections, Australia had a stronger and more popular opposition leader in Kevin Rudd: "This is much closer to the Irish election where the leader just barely scraped in, Bertie Ahern, because the economy was so good. But the big difference there was the opposition leader was not as good as Kevin Rudd." Luntz was brought in to conduct his research in a collaborative effort by Sky News Australia and "The Australian" newspaper.
2010 UK general election.
During the 2010 UK General Election, Luntz led focus groups during the Prime Ministerial debates between Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg, and also appeared on the BBC's "Daily Politics".
Luntz predicted that 2015 would likely result in a hung parliament. P
Gun control.
In 2012, Luntz conducted a poll that found that sizable majorities of gun owners supported gun control measures such as mandatory criminal background checks, minimum age restrictions, and eligibility requirements for concealed weapon permits.
U.S. politics, 2010s.
Occupy Wall Street movement, 2011.
In November 2011, during the height of the Occupy Wall Street movement, Luntz had a meeting with the Republican Governors Association to discuss how to address the growing populist Occupy movement sweeping the country. He was quoted as saying: "I'm so scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I'm frightened to death. They're having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism."
Depression and sale of LuntzGlobal, 2012–2014.
According to a 2014 article in "The Atlantic", Luntz became frustrated with the contention and argumentation of voters after the 2012 presidential election and, at the time of the interview for the article, was in psychological turmoil: "Something in his psyche has broken, and he does not know if he can recover." As a result, in 2014, he sold the majority of shares of his polling business, LuntzGlobal.
State of the Republican Party.
In August 2020, Luntz was asked what the defining principles of the Republican Party were, to which he responded, "You know, I don’t have a history of dodging questions. But I don’t know how to answer that. There is no consistent philosophy. You can’t say it’s about making America great again at a time of Covid and economic distress and social unrest. It’s just not credible."
Reception.
Refusal to release poll data.
In 1997, the American Association for Public Opinion Research, of which Luntz was not a member, criticized Luntz for refusing to release poll data to support his claimed results "because of client confidentiality". Diane Colasanto, who was president of the AAPOR at the time, said
It is simply wanting to know, How many people did you question? What were the questions? We understand the need for confidentiality, but once a pollster makes results public, the information needs to be public. People need to be able to evaluate whether it was sound research.
In 2000 he was censured by the National Council on Public Polls "for allegedly mischaracterizing on MSNBC the results of focus groups he conducted during the [2000] Republican Convention." In September 2004, MSNBC dropped Luntz from its planned coverage of that year's presidential debate, saying "[W]e made a decision not to use focus groups as part of our debate coverage. This decision had nothing to do with Frank's past work or politics." Luntz disagreed, believing that MSNBC "buckled to political pressure" from activist David Brock.
2010 "Lie of the Year" award.
Luntz was awarded the 2010 PolitiFact Lie of the Year award for his promotion of the phrase 'government takeover' to refer to healthcare reform, starting in the spring of 2009. "'Takeovers are like coups,' Luntz wrote in a 28-page memo. 'They both lead to dictators and a loss of freedom.'" In an editorial response, the "Wall Street Journal" wrote that "PolitiFact's decree is part of a larger journalistic trend that seeks to recast all political debates as matters of lies, misinformation and 'facts,' rather than differences of world view or principles." The editors of PolitiFact announced "We have concluded it is inaccurate to call the plan a government takeover."
Leaked tape from the University of Pennsylvania.
On April 25, 2013, "The American Spectator", a conservative news outlet, published a scathing article about Luntz entitled "The Problematic Frank Luntz's Stockholm Syndrome".
In fact, what Luntz has done is simply reveal the kind of thinking that goes on in the minds of too many on the right who, whether they realize it or not, have been intellectually and culturally bullied that there is some sort of 'right way'—'right' as in 'correct'—to think. Resulting in some conservatives who suffer from what might be called a political version of Stockholm Syndrome—where the captives identify with their captors.
The article was a response to an April 22, 2013 leaked recording of Luntz at the University of Pennsylvania, where he said conservative radio personalities (specifically Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin) were being "problematic" and "destroying" Republicans' ability to connect with more voters, or even maintain a majority in the House of Representatives in the 2014 mid-term elections.
As part of his critique Luntz said:
And they get great ratings, and they drive the message, and it's really problematic. And this is not on the Democratic side. It's only on the Republican side. ... [Democrats have] got every other source of news on their side. And so that is a lot of what's driving it. If you take—Marco Rubio's getting his ass kicked. Who's my Rubio fan here? We talked about it. He's getting destroyed! By Mark Levin, by Rush Limbaugh, and a few others. He's trying to find a legitimate, long-term effective solution to immigration that isn't the traditional Republican approach, and talk radio is killing him. That's what's causing this thing underneath. And too many politicians in Washington are playing coy.
After the leak, Luntz announced that he would no longer fund a scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania. The scholarship, which was in his father's name, supported student trips to Washington, D.C.


Jeremy King

Jeremy King is an American historian, Professor of History at Mount Holyoke. He was research fellow at Harvard University, Berlin Prize Fellow, from the American Academy in Berlin, and 2004–2005 Research Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies.
Life.
He graduated from Yale University with a B.A, and from Columbia University with an MA, M.Phil., Ph.D.
He lived in Prague, Budapest, and Vienna.
In the summer of 1989, he held an internship at the Hungarian Section of Radio Free Europe, in Munich.


Charles Patrick Garcia

Charles Patrick García (born February 28, 1961) started Garcia Trujillo LLC, a consulting, merchant banking, and venture capital firm where he was the CEO. In June 2014, García was selected to lead the Association of Latino Professionals for America (ALPFA, Inc.).
Biography.
Charles Patrick García resides in Boca Raton, Florida. He was married to Allison Holtzman in 1993. He has three children. The couple divorced in 2005, and he remarried Cristina Avila from Quito, Ecuador. García was born in Washington, D.C., to parents Carlos A. Garcia, a Panamanian surgeon, and Marilyn McCarthy Garcia. Shortly after he was born, the family moved to Panama City, Panama. He grew up in Panama City and graduated from Balboa High School, the American Canal Zone high school, in 1979. He obtained a bachelor's degree from the United States Air Force Academy in 1983.
From 1983 to 1988, as an Air Force junior officer, García served in staff officer assignments for U.S. Strategic Air Command at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, and at the United States Southern Command then located in Panama. During this period, García earned a master's degree in public administration from the University of Oklahoma.
In 1988, García received a one-year appointment to serve as one of fourteen White House Fellows for the 1988–1989 term. As a Fellow, García was first assigned to work on the staff of the Department of State, then, several months later, to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Following his term in Washington, García returned to Air Force staff duty until he left active service in 1990.
In 1994, García obtained a Juris Doctor degree from Columbia Law School.
Early business career.
In 1994, García was appointed co-manager of his former father in law's $60 million "Thrift Value Fund," based in Palm Beach County, and later as manager of at least two other investment funds of lesser value. By the time he terminated Thrift Value Fund relationship in late 1997, García was working at the Greenberg Traurig law firm in Miami, advising banks and Savings and Loans institutions.
Sterling Financial Investment Group.
In 1997, with $800,000 in personal funds and seed money from family and friends, García bought assets of Agora Securities of Miami and relocated it to a Mizner Park office in Boca Raton. With two other associates, Alexis C. Korybut and John Curry, García founded the "Sterling Financial Investment Group (SFIG)." An original goal of SFIG was to provide financial services to the U.S. and overseas Hispanic market by partnering with small banks to set up their stock sales and insurance operations. Sterling provided a means of clearing stock trades using García's relationship with brokerage giant, Bear Stearns & Co.
García also focused his business on providing private placement services for large investors. Stock market research focusing on the healthcare and biotechnology sectors was a core feature of Sterling Financial Investment Group. Sterling advertised itself as being one of the few investment advisors willing to issue "sell" recommendations.
Using this model of combining investment research and partnership with small banks, García led his company on a path of aggressive growth, opening offices in a large number of U.S and overseas locations. In 2000, García established the "Sterling Financial Group of Companies" under "Sterling Financial Holdings, Inc. " Sterling Financial then had three operating subsidiaries:
The creation of myPrivates.com, Inc. in 2000 cost over $5 million. Also in 2000, García struck a deal for almost $3 million to hire 140 brokers from the recently bankrupt Boca Raton-based Joseph Charles & Associates. To finance this expansion, particularly for the creation of the myPrivates.com subsidiary, García completed two funding rounds of private placement venture capital funding that raised a total of $8 million. Crossbow Ventures, based in Florida's Palm Beach County, was the lead investor in both funding rounds. As a result of the transactions, Crossbow Ventures obtained a minority equity stake in Sterling.
By 2001, SFIG claimed a worldwide network of more than 400 independent agents working out of more than 50 offices in the United States and eight offices in other countries including Panama, Spain, Chile, Greece and England. In the years 2001 and 2000, Sterling Financial Investment Group was named by the University of Florida Fischer School of Accounting as the number one fastest-growing privately held firms in the State as well as the fastest-growing minority owned firm in Florida. In mid-2002, the firm earned state certification as a Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) which helped attract larger companies wanting to include minority firms as part of their syndicate offerings.
In August 2002, "Hispanic Business" magazine named Sterling the number one fastest-growing Hispanic company in the United States and it made "Inc. Magazine"s "Inc 500 List" as the #8 fastest-growing privately held company in the United States. García received the "Outstanding Business Leader" award by Northwood University. In December 2004, García was selected by "Hispanic" magazine for the "Entrepreneur of the Year" award.
Sterling Financial Investment Group issued a number of press releases between 1998 and 2003 that described an explosive rate of revenue growth, shown below. However, the company never reported profit.
By 2003, García recognized that the myPrivates.com, Inc., Internet subsidiary, was unsuccessful and had to be closed. Sterling Financial was then seeking outside investors to provide a cash infusion to continue to fuel expansion in the remaining businesses. This effort was hampered by a string of adverse regulatory findings. From 2002 to 2005, García's company, without admitting or denying any allegations, accepted six fines totaling $456,000 for NASD rule violations. Reported problems included issuing research reports that contained errors and exaggerations, lax record keeping, and weak monitoring of branch offices.
Sterling was also named in a 2004 lawsuit launched in Texas by a number of disgruntled investors of DOBI Medical Systems. Sterling was an underwriter or agent in four DOBI stock sales prior to a 2004 private placement offering. From 2000 through 2004, Sterling also selected one member of DOBI's board of directors.<ref name="DOBI-Medical-International,-Inc-May-2004-10KSB/A"></ref> In the DOBI lawsuit, plaintiffs, mostly from Texas, maintain they were defrauded of several million dollars after they bought stock in DOBI in a 2004 private placement offering in which Sterling was the placement agent.
García closed the Sterling Financial Investment Group's research division in April 2005. In June 2005, Sterling sold its 30 independent brokerage offices in 20 states to Pointe Capital of Delray Beach for about $1 million. Finally, in May 2006, Sterling sold its remaining assets to vFinance, Inc., located in Boca Raton, for $3.4 million. As part of the sales transaction, vFinance agreed to hire García at an annual salary of $262,000. Since vFinance bought the assets of Sterling Financial and not the company, lawyers expectd vFinance not to face any liability in the Texas suit. vFinance was then under CEO Tim Mahoney. Following Mahoney's election to U.S. Representative for , Leonard J. Sokolow took over as CEO and board chairman of vFinance, Inc. Under Sokolow, García serves as President of the Sterling Hispanic Markets Capital Group.
vFinance, Inc. is a publicly traded company that has grown to more than $1 billion in assets since its founding in 1997. "In July 2005 vFinance cracked SouthFloridaCEO's South Florida 500 list as one of the Top 100 Public Companies in the region, posting $26.3 million in revenue for 2004. That was up slightly from $24.5 million in 2003."
ALPFA, Inc..
García was selected as CEO of ALPFA, Inc in June 2014. ALPFA changed their acronym to Association of Latino Professionals For America, and the tagline was changed to read "Empowering Latino Leaders".


Bierebo language

Bierebo, or Bonkovia-Yevali, is an Oceanic language spoken on Epi Island, in Vanuatu.


Barking Learning Centre

The Barking Learning Centre, in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, is a community-based learning facility. The centre is located in Barking Town Square and hosts a library, a cafe, an art gallery, a sauna and spa, and offers a range of courses and qualifications. The Barking Learning Centre website states that its primary focus: "is to provide education and training opportunities linked to the public service areas of health, education, social care and administration, to support increased participation to learning locally".
The Barking Learning Centre was officially opened on 10 June 2008 by John Denham, the then Secretary of State for Innovation, University and Skills.
Courses.
Courses at the Barking Learning Centre include health, education, social care, and recreation. The courses are provided by Barking and Dagenham College, the Adult College of Barking and Dagenham, and the University of East London.


Amy Waldman

Amy Waldman (born May 21, 1969) is an American author and journalist. She was a reporter with "The New York Times" for a total of eight years. For three years she was co-chief of the South Asia bureau. Before that she covered Harlem, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and the aftermath of 9/11.
Her first novel, "The Submission", was published in 2011. According to a review of the book in "The Guardian", the novel tackles the fallout from 9/11 attacks. The novel was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award in 2011. It lost out narrowly to Siddhartha Mukherjee's "The Emperor of All Maladies".
Waldman was also a national correspondent with "The Atlantic", has been a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and won a Berlin Prize in 2010 from the American Academy in Berlin.
"The Submission".
Amy Waldman's first novel, "The Submission", was published in 2011 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux and received mostly positive reviews. The plot revolves around events after the 9/11 attacks when a Muslim architect wins a blind contest to design a Ground Zero Memorial.
Some of the awards and honors received include: