Uta Barth

Uta Barth (born 1958) is a contemporary German-American photographer whose work addresses themes such as perception, optical illusion and non-place. Her early work emerged in the late 1980s and 1990s, "inverting the notion of background and foreground" in photography and bringing awareness to a viewer's attention to visual information with in the photographic frame. Her work is as much about vision and perception as it is about the failure to see, the faith humans place in the mechanics of perception, and the precarious nature of perceptual habits. Barth's says this about her art practice: “The question for me always is how can I make you aware of your own looking, instead of losing your attention to thoughts about what it is that you are looking at." She has been honored with two National Endowments of the Arts fellowships, was a recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 2004‑05, and was a 2012 MacArthur Fellow. Barth lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
Early years and education.
Barth was born in Berlin, Germany in 1958. Growing up in Europe give Barth a different cultural perspective. Her memory of West Berlin is "dark and austere" and she left for the States before the Berlin wall was taken down in 1989. During early adolescence her father began a research project in the States at Stanford University and she moved to the US shortly after. Barth was 12 years old and did not know English when she arrived in the States. The shift from cold-war Germany to 1970s California was a culture shock for Barth.
Later, Barth's received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Davis in 1982 and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1985. From 1990 to 2008, she was a professor in the Art Department at the University of California, Riverside, until she was given the honorary title of Professor Emeritus in the Department of Art in 2008 to the present. She was also a visiting Graduate Faculty member at the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California from 2000 to 2012 and has been a visiting professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. After receiving the MacArthur Fellowship in October 2012, she noted that she still plans to teach on a part-time basis because teaching forces her to "put language to" what she is thinking.
Work.
Early work: late 1980s & early 1990s.
In 1989 Barth's work was black and white, multi-paneled photographic and painted images mounted on wood that addressed the psychodynamics of vision, using optic patterns, repetitious visual metaphors for the eye, and diagrams related to light and human vision. The multi-panel work set up formal relationships that would continue through Barth's artistic practice in later works. Barth explains that this early work was about “the confrontation with the camera, in the feeling of being looked at, blasted with light, being blinded, all as a physical experience.” In 1990, Barth continued to explore optic patterns and illusions in her works "Untitled #11–14". This work includes four small photographs of houses that are encompassed in large fields of black and white strips, similar to that of static on a television screen and creates an optic vibration. The work intersects with the themes of photographic vision and the idea of the ‘gaze.’
Mid 1990s.
Barth's work began to internalize the space between the viewer and the object in the mid 1990s, zooming in and zooming out, looking close and far away in her works like "Untitled #13" (1991) and "Untitled #16" (1990).  She begins playing with the communication of space with in the work through landscape and abstracted text, and plays with the idea of how the perception of the works occurs within the human body viewing it. Pamela Lee says, “the self-consciousness of looking is grounded in subjective looking” in Barth's work. In "Untitled #13", Barth includes a photograph of a landscape whose details are blurred to slow down the immediate understanding of the image by the audience. This effect describes the instability of one's visual field of vision, and becomes the basis for Barth's next series of works "Grounds".
"Grounds" (1992–1995).
This body of photographs consists of over 50 images in different sizes and scales. These photos defy the conventional flat photographic image by being laminated prints that are then mounted on wood boards multiple inches thick, projecting the print away from the wall. As a result, the images of "Grounds" impersonate an object instead of a print. This plays into Barth's conceptual ideas for the body of work, referring to these photographs as  “containers of information." Writer Darren Campion says,"Barth's work addresses that fundamental dissonance between the world as it is and the world as we see it, the chasms of perceived experience. This is extended to other areas of the photographic process as well – the main correlate of space being, of course, time, and its fluidity, which seems antithetical to our notion of what photography does." Barth made the images by photographing generic locations outdoors as if she was shooting a formal portrait but removed the subject of the portrait in focus and left the out-of-focus background behind. Barth's gesture reverses the typical use of the camera, shooting something out of focus instead of something in-focus. As a result, she photographs unoccupied space. Barth was thinking about stock photography while making this body of work, picturing backdrops for family photos and portrait photography from the 1960s and 1970s.
"Fields" (1995–1996).
In 1995 Barth began transitioning from her "Grounds" series into a new body of work known as "Fields". She took her photographic approach in "Grounds" and turned it on its side, thinking about the site-specific relationship between the photograph and the physical space where it was made. This idea introduces motion into the work. Visual movement across the images in "Fields" creates a blur that is similar to that found in film and cinematic work. "Fields" produces the "illusion of filmic space and time" and Barth has said that she created this body of work in a similar way film producers scout locations for the perfect place to shoot a scene in a film.
In relation to her "Field" and "Ground" series, which depict blurred and empty foregrounds, Barth has stated: "I am interested in the conventions of picture-making, in the desire to picture the world and in our relationship, our continual love for and fascination with pictures."
Late 1990s.
In 1998 Barth begins another series of "Untitled" works, including "Untitled (98.4)" and "Untitled (98.6)". Here, Barth begins to focus on sequencing in the gallery again, grouping images together in diptychs, triptychs and clusters. The work plays on the idea of multiple points of view or the experience of a visual double-take where a detail catches the viewer long enough to take a second image, a second look. To make this work, Barth would shoot multiple photographs in a row so that she could go back and edit the series of images to find the best photographs to pair together. This act re-introduces the notion of time into Barth's work. She begins spacing her panels of images on the wall in intervals to show gaps in time between shooting the photographs.
Early 2000s.
Barth creates two of her most famous bodies of work during the same time period, "nowhere near" (1999) and "…and of time" (2000). Here, Barth interrogates the temporality of photography and the duration of vision. In "nowhere near" the camera records a repeated view out of Barth's living room window over multiple months. She made hundreds of images that contain moments of framing, records the ebb and flow of light and captures the change of the seasons. This body of work deals with the duration of looking and the prolonged engagement with "seeing" nothing. The series of work "…and of time" is the inverse series about the same window found in "nowhere near". The images depict the light falling through the window, repeating grid like reflections of light that bounce and illuminate onto the wall and floor of Barth's living room. "The window becomes the aperture of the house and light and imagery project through it," Barth's says.
In 2002 Barth creates "white blind (bright red)". She deliberately sequences images, pairing anywhere from two, six or a dozen photographs of bare tree branches with white sky backdrops together. In contrast with the photographic panels are brightly colored panels of primary red, ox-blood, and a deep yellow scattered throughout the sequencing that break up the visual rhythm of movement from one image to the next. Instead of being drawn in by a single image, the viewer experiences a banned of images that flicker across the walls of the gallery in a horizon line of images.  "A flickering of visual consciousness," Holly Meyers, an art critic for the Los Angeles Times wrote in reference to the work. Optical illusion occurs, as the viewer walks through the sequencing of tree branches and interrupting red and yellow color panels interspersed throughout the photographic imagery, creating afterimages that strike the viewers eyes.
"...and to draw a bright white line with light" (2011).
This series of work was commissioned by the Art Institute of Chicago in 2011 and marks a turn in Barth's work. In this series, Barth's intervention of her own body parts into the photographic frame to position the subject of the photograph is made visible. The viewer can identify Barth's arm or arm's shadow, as she creates the lines of light the camera captures in the series of photographs. This more recent work embodies Barth's idea of her own personal intervention into the space that she photographs. In previous series she aimed to spark observation and a sense of visual perception in the work. "Perhaps I have just discovered a way to make marks with light that fits into my ongoing practice," Barth's explains about the series in an interview with Art in American. This interview was in conjunction with a show Barth's had on view at gallery 1301PE in Los Angeles in October 2011. "…and to draw a bright white line with light" was shown at Art Institute of Chicago May 14 – August 16, 2011, as well as, Tanya Bonakdar in New York in October 2011.
Collaborations.
The Getty Museum commissioned eleven Los Angeles Artists for a collaborative exhibition titled "Departures: 11 Artists at the Getty" and Uta Barth was invited to participate. The exhibition was open to the public from February 29, 2000 through May 7, 2000. Each artist was commissioned to create works in response to art in the Getty's collection. Exhibition curator Lisa Lyons said, ""Departures" is intended to explore the potent and sometimes surprising ways in which the art of the past can inform contemporary art. Equally important, the new works produced for the exhibition will offer valuable insights into the Getty collections." The press release for the show gave a brief description of the each artists goals for their work, including Barth who planned to create a series of multi-panel photographs capturing variations of a single view of the interior of her home. These images where inspired by two artists represented at the Getty: the Impressionist painter Claude Monet ("Wheatstacks, Snow Effect Morning", 1891) and environmental artist Robert Irwin ("Central Garden", 1997).
Group shows.
Uta Barth has also participated in multiple group shows nationally and international. One group show she participated in was held at the Getty Museum in 2013. The titled of the exhibition was "At the Window: A Photographer’s View” and also included Gregory Crewdson and Yuki Onodera. Barth showed work from ‘nowhere near’ and ‘…and of time.’ This show articulates a theme and motif throughout Barth's work: the window. In an interview with the artists in the show, Barth's says, “The window is a wonderful vehicle for referring to the act of looking.” The exhibition displayed the contemporary artists work alongside art historical works like French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce who took the world's first photograph in 1826.
Select exhibitions and collections.
Her work has been featured in many exhibitions nationally and internationally, including Museum of Modern Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago; Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle; the SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah; SITE, Santa Fe; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; Lannan Foundation, Santa Fe; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and Museum of Modern Art, Istanbul.
Barth's work is represented in numerous public and private collections worldwide, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York and Bilbao, Spain; The Tate Modern, London; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Dallas Museum of Art, Texas, UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Getty Museum, Los Angeles, and The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, among others.


Upper Savinja dialect

The Upper Savinja dialect ("zgornjesavinjsko narečje", "zgornja savinjščina") is a Slovene dialect in the Styrian dialect group. It is spoken in the upper Savinja Valley and along the Dreta River, extending eastwards to east of Mozirje and Nazarje, up to the Solčava subdialect northwest of Luče in Solčava and the Logar Valley. It includes the settlements of Ljubno, Luče, Gornji Grad, and Bočna.
Phonological and morphological characteristics.
The Upper Savinja dialect does not have pitch accent. It has a late lengthened acute, soft "l" and "n", palatalization of consonants before (former) front vowels, and a very dark "l".


Tony Grisoni

Tony Grisoni (born 28 October 1952) is a British screenwriter. He lives in London. His first feature film, "Queen of Hearts", directed by Jon Amiel, won the Grand Prix at the 1990 Festival du Film de Paris.
Life and career.
He has co-written several of director Terry Gilliam's films, including "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Tideland". Gilliam and Grisoni went to WGA arbitration to get credit for "Fear and Loathing"; initially only Tod Davies and Alex Cox (who had written a previous version of the screenplay) were credited, despite Gilliam and Grisoni rewriting the entire film from scratch. In the end, all four writers were credited. Later, Gilliam and Grisoni were involved in a similar dispute when original writer Ehren Kruger received sole credit for "The Brothers Grimm"; as an alternative to receiving a writing credit, Gilliam and Grisoni listed themselves as "dress pattern makers".
Grisoni also co-wrote the screenplay for Gilliam's "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote", which was abandoned soon after starting filming. During the production, he met filmmakers Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe, who were shooting the making-of documentary that later became "Lost in La Mancha". Fulton and Pepe went on to film Brian Aldiss's novella "Brothers of the Head" (2006), from a screenplay by Grisoni that he had started working on as far back as 1984.
In 2008, Grisoni directed his first short film, "Kingsland #1: The Dreamer", for which he was nominated for a BAFTA.
Grisoni wrote "Red Riding" (2009), an adaptation of David Peace's quartet of novels based on the events surrounding the Yorkshire Ripper murders. For budgetary reasons, only three films were produced, with the second of the four novels ("1977") left unmade. He also co-wrote the screenplay for Samantha Morton's directorial debut "The Unloved" (2009), which won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Single Drama.
"The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" was finally released in 2018, featuring a character named Toby Grisoni.
He teaches Screenwriting at the London Film School.


Nicholas Benson

Nicholas Waite "Nick" Benson (born August 19, 1964) is a third generation American stone carver, stone letterer and owner of The John Stevens Shop in Newport, Rhode Island. He was named a 2010 MacArthur Fellow.
Early life.
Nick Benson began working in his family business, The John Stevens Shop at age fifteen for his father, John Everett Benson. Nick is a third generation stone carver and letterer. He studied Drawing and Design at State University of New York at Purchase in 1986. Benson spent 1987 at the Schule für Gestaltung Basel in Basel, Switzerland where he studied calligraphy, type design, typography, and drawing under Andre Gurtler, Christian Mengelt and Armin Hofmann.
He returned to the U.S. in 1988 and continued to work under John Benson in The John Stevens Shop. His father passed on the business to him in 1993. Benson expands the traditional arts of hand lettering and stone carving through his designs. He is also committed to teaching young artisans, in the hopes that they will go on to create their own works and thereby ensure that the legacy of this centuries-old artistic practice endures. He has had several design students, especially from nearby Rhode Island School of Design, and apprentices work with him in the shop and on projects.
His uncle was the American photographer Richard Benson. Richard Benson was named a MacArthur Fellow in 1986, making the Bensons one of two families with multiple MacArthur fellows.
Work.
Benson has created a distinctive architectural lettering for these architectural and monumental commissions, with careful attention to the effects that large scale, shifting light, and long-term weathering have on the letters, as well as carefully crafting very small details of each letter. "The entire composition is key," he explained in an interview with the architectural historian Judith Dupré, "but the proportion of the letter, the design of the particular letter form itself, is extremely important too. Equally important is the cadence of the text, how the negative space is used, word spacing, line spacing—all of that is absolutely crucial to good inscriptional carving." He developed an original font that draws on both classical Greek letter forms and contemporary sans serif lettering for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, on the National Mall.
Benson's work at The John Stevens Shop has also included personal gravestones and tomb markers. Benson's father, grandfather and his predecessors at the Shop have created individual gravestones on materials including grey slate and Rhode Island granite.
His carvings can be found in the National Gallery of Art, the Yale University Art Gallery, at Brown University, and in Washington D.C., the National World War II Memorial and the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial.
He is a recipient of a 2007 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States' highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.
Family.
Benson lives in Jamestown, Rhode Island, with his wife and two children.


Lois Banner

Lois Wendland Banner (born 1939) is an American author and retired professor of history from the University of Southern California.
She received her doctorate of philosophy from Columbia University. She is the author of the textbook "Women in Modern America: A Brief History", which is commonly used in introductory Women's studies classes at the university level. She helped found the Berkshire Conference on the History of Women at Rutgers University in 1973.
She has written biographies of Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict and Marilyn Monroe.


William Davila

William "Bill" Davila (born Guillermo Davila, April 25, 1931 – February 14, 2014) was an American soldier and businessman. He was involved with many nationally known companies in the United States, including Vons Supermarkets, which he presided twice, first from 1984 to 1990 and then as president emeritus from 1992 to 1998; The Home Depot, Wells Fargo, Hormel Foods and others. He was also president of the Western Association of Food Chains (WAFC).
Davila also became a television and radio personality in the Los Angeles area, the Los Angeles Times once declaring he had been "catapulted to near-celebrity status by his television and radio pitches". He participated on Vons radio and television commercials.
Early life.
Bill Davila was born to Salvador Davila and Polly Lopez-Davila in Los Angeles, California on April 25, 1931. He was the couple's only child. Davila attended the Mount Lowe Military Academy from where he went on to the Polytechnic High School in Los Angeles.
As a young man, Davila obtained a job at Vons sweeping floors. It wasn't long before he met his future wife Dorothy while at the job.
Davila joined the United States Air Force in 1951; he was discharged in 1954 having served as a drill Sergeant.
In 1952, he married Dorothy Davila.
Success with Vons.
Davila returned to work at Vons almost immediately after being honorably discharged from the Air Force, in 1955. Twenty years later, in 1975, Kenneth O. Olsen, then president of the Vons Grocery Company, announced that Davila, along with Donald Stuetz, J.R. Risher, William Birney and Richard London would be named Vice-President of the company.
Vons became the official supermarket chain of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. About that time, Davila was named the company's president and C.E.O., becoming the first Mexican-American ever to be named president of a large American supermarket chain.
Davila soon lead Vons' expansion into the Southern-Californian Hispanic market by opening a series of stores named Tianguis, as well as Von's Pavilion.
Davila decided to retire briefly in 1990, but returned to Vons in 1992, being appointed President Emeritus of the company during that era.
In 1994, Davila was honored by the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business with their Food Industry Executive of the Year Award for that year. He would later be a keynote speaker at the school's annual "legends of the industry" luncheon.
Davila was a customer of Panda Express, where he met and befriended Panda Express' founder Andrew Cherng. Eventually, Cherng convinced Davila to let him open some Panda Express restaurants inside Vons stores.
Davila retired for a second time from Von's in 1998.
Personal life.
William and Dorothy Davila had three daughters (Diane Jones, Deborah McGuire and Lisa Franklin) and two sons (David and Bill Jr.)
Death.
Towards the end of his life, Davila suffered from Alzheimer's disease, which led to his death on February 14, 2014.


Separation anxiety in dogs

Separation anxiety in dogs describes a condition in which a dog exhibits distress and behavior problems when separated from its handler. Separation anxiety typically manifests within minutes of departure of the handler. It is not fully understood why some dogs suffer from separation anxiety and others do not. The behavior may be secondary to an underlying medical condition. With chronic stress, impairments to physiological health can manifest. Increased stress in the dog alters hormone levels, thus decreasing natural immunity to various health problems. A visit to the veterinarian is always recommended if a dog's behavior changes suddenly.
Signs and symptoms.
Dogs suffering from separation anxiety typically exhibit these behaviors:
Cause.
The cause of dog separation anxiety is unknown, but may be triggered by:
Treatment.
Dogs suffering from separation anxiety are often "owner addicts." Setting boundaries can boost a dog's confidence when away from the owner.
Various techniques can help dogs cope with separation anxiety:
Drug therapy.
Dogs can be treated with psychotropic drugs used to treat similar psychological disorders displayed in humans in order to mitigate the behavior related to these disorders, such as anti-depressants or anti-anxiety drugs. These connections between human and animal psychopharmacology can help to explain how similar neurobiology can be among different species. Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, or SSRIs, or tricyclic anti-depressants are used to treat anxious and depressive behavior in animals. One study tracked the effectiveness of clomipramine, a tricyclic anti-depressant, in reducing compulsive behaviors through administration of a tricyclic anti-depressant in dogs. Behaviors displayed by these dogs include but are not limited to tail-chasing, shadow-chasing, circling and chewing. The study found that after one month of daily administration of the tricyclic anti-depressant clomipramine, these compulsive behaviors decreased or disappeared in 16 out of 24 dogs. Slight to moderate behavior mitigation was shown in 5 dogs. These results suggest that clomipramine can be beneficial to canines displaying anxiety behaviors.
Anxiety disorders can also be treated with dog appeasing pheromones similar to those given off by their mothers. The pheromone-containing products are sold as collars and sprays under the brand name Adaptil.
Anti-depressant treatment.
Fluoxetine, an SSRI used by humans under the brand name Prozac, is prescribed to dogs under the brand name Reconcile. A study found that dogs who were being simultaneously treated with Reconcile while undergoing a type of behavior therapy known as behavioral modulation were more successful at mitigating behaviors related to separation anxiety when compared to the control group of dogs receiving only a placebo with behavior modulation treatment. After 8 weeks of treatment, 72% of the dogs given fluoxetine displayed fewer adverse behaviors (e.g., excessive salivation, inappropriate urination/defecation) while only 50% of the control group mitigated these behaviors.
In another study conducted in 2015, dogs expressing symptoms of separation anxiety were given fluoxetine tablets and a standard behavior modification plan for two months. Owner interviews, spatial cognitive bias tests, questionnaires and relations between cognitive bias and drug treatment were all taken into consideration. Results showed that the clinical treatment of fluoxetine seemed to produce a shift in cognitive bias in the canine subjects, emphasizing that pharmacological therapy not only can positively affect behavior, but also an animal's psychological state.
The most common adverse effects were decreased appetite, experienced by 23% of the dogs in the study, and lethargy, experienced by 39% of the dogs in the study. Some canines actually experienced worsening anxiety and aggressive behavior.
In a study using the anti-depressant clomipramine, nine dogs underwent withdrawal after discontinuing treatment. Five of those dogs were successful in overcoming the withdrawal, while four dogs relapsed. Although the study's sample sizes were relatively small, it illuminated one of the many variables regarding psychoactive drug withdrawal.
Benzodiazepine treatment.
Benzodiazepines, such as alprazolam, are anxiolytic medications. Benzodiazepines are beneficial in the treatment of stimuli-evoking anxiety, or phobias. One study on storm phobias found that 30 out of the 32 canines involved in the study had reductions in anxious behaviors after being treated with alprazolam. However, this study found that the best way to benefit from benzodiazepine treatment is when it is being used in conjunction with behavior modulation treatment and an anti-depressant.
The study found that canines can develop dependence to these types of medications and experience a withdrawal process similar to one experienced by humans. For example, their seizure threshold is lowered and anxiety relapse can occur after stopping benzodiazepine treatment. Similarly to treatment of human anxiety disorders, benzodiazepines are a last resort treatment, due to their addiction potential. Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, or SSRIs, or tricyclic anti-depressants are used to treat anxious and depressive behavior in animals. One study tracked the effectiveness of clomipramine, a tricyclic anti-depressant, in reducing compulsive behaviors through administration of a tricyclic anti-depressant in dogs. Behaviors displayed by these dogs include but are not limited to tail-chasing, shadow-chasing, circling and chewing. The study found that after one month of daily administration of the tricyclic anti-depressant clomipramine, these compulsive behaviors decreased or disappeared in 16 out of 24 dogs. Slight to moderate behavior mitigation was shown in 5 dogs. These results suggest that clomipramine can be beneficial to canines displaying anxiety behaviors.
Imepitoin, also known by its brand name Pexion, is a recently developed drug for treating primarily canine epilepsy. Imepitoin is a low-affinity agonist at the benzodiazepine site of the GABAA receptor, meaning it is able to loosely attach itself to the GABA receptor and mimic GABA. Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) is a neurotransmitter that is used to counteract glutamate, the excitatory neurotransmitter responsible for eliciting anxious behaviors if levels are excessive, causing long-term anxiety disorders. Because imepitoin is known to have anti-convulsant effects on laboratory rats and is already an anti-epilepsy drug treatment, researchers are curious as to whether or not it could decrease a canine's levels of separation anxiety, as one symptom of separation anxiety in dogs is excessive shaking, primarily in smaller breeds.
One study conducted in 2016 did not test its effects on separation anxiety specifically, but rather investigated its abilities to reduce fear and anxiety-related behaviors. The study was conducted via an online survey completed by the canine participants' owners, including data on the number of how monthly seizures the dogs experienced. Results showed a significant reduction of average seizures per month, but no significant differences in behavior regarding the five anxiety-related measures examined (dog-directed fear, stranger-directed fear, non-social fear, pain sensitivity and separation-related behavior), concluding that imepitoin did not definitively affect anxiety-related behavior in dogs. However, it was noted by researchers conducting the study that the participants' anxiety levels could not have been high enough in the beginning of the study for the dogs to show a significant reduction in anxiety-related behavior.
Another research study in June 2017 tested imepitoin's abilities to reduce anxiety-related behaviors in canines, but unlike the previous study, researchers evaluated the dogs personally for canine temperament using a Positive and Negative Activation Scale (PANAS), rather than having the participants' owners evaluate the dogs through an online survey. Average weekly reaction (AWR) scores in response to anxiety-inducing stimuli and owners' diary entries were also taken into account. Results displayed significantly lower AWR scores for anxiety alongside a reduction in negative activation on the PANAS, concluding that imepitoin is a drug-therapy option to positively reduce canines' anxiety-related behaviors. However, imepitoin is not being prescribed to treat separation anxiety in canines.
Nelumbinis Semen treatment.
One cause of separation anxiety in canines is chronic stress. A study in 2012 tested Nelumbinis Semen, the seeds of the herb "Nelumbo nucifera", and its anti-depressant effects on animals experiencing stress. This study did not test directly on canines, but rather rats, and aimed to apply the principles found by the study to other animals like dogs. The study, however, did test oral toxicity specifically on canines. After testing different dosage amounts of the Nelumbinis Semen, scientists determined that 400 mg per the animal's weight in kilograms was the ideal amount to lower immobility when the animal was faced with a stressful situation. In addition, Nelumbinis Semen was not found to be toxic when administered to dogs. The study supports the possibility that alternative and "natural" ingredients may be used as a substitute for drug-based therapy.
Other scientific findings.
A study conducted in 2016 used primary metabolite profiling through a combination of liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry to identify possible biomarkers for anxiety-related behavior. Primary metabolites are directly involved in more "natural" processes, such as reproduction and development, so abnormal differences could result in differences of mental development. Results identified changes in thirteen metabolites between dogs who had separation anxiety and those who did not; these changes included differences in hypoxanthine, indoxysulfate and phospholipids, all which control oxidative stress, tryptophan levels, and lipid metabolisms. Researchers concluded that biomarkers like primary metabolites play a prominent role in canine anxiety.


Alternative High School

Alternative High School (AHS) is a public senior high (secondary) school in Calgary, Alberta, Canada; which teaches grades 10 through 12. AHS is currently located at the Clinton Ford Centre, which was home to the former Clinton Ford Elementary School.
AHS was launched, independent of the board, in September 1974 by a parents group. It reflected many of the "alternative education" ideas that were popular at the time. The early philosophy the school borrowed from the ideas of A. S. Neill, who founded Summerhill School. This involved supporting the freedom of children, and opposing the traditional structure and control of most schools. Although, AHS was never meant to be a copy of Summerhill.
In 1975 AHS came under the control of the Calgary Board of Education (CBE).
Special programs.
The school helps operate an off-campus class at the Alberta Adolescent Recovery Centre. Two teachers from the school, help students progressively get back into the regular school system if they are of school age after they reach Level Three of treatment.


Jef McAllister

J.F.O. 'Jef' McAllister (born February 13, 1956) is an American journalist, author and lawyer. Formerly the London Bureau Chief of TIME Magazine, he is currently the Managing Partner of McAllister Olivarius, an international law firm headquartered in London. He is married to Ann Olivarius.
McAllister graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Yale College in 1977 with a concentration in American diplomatic history. He then attended Linacre College at Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar, earning a D.Phil. in Modern History. While there he co-wrote "The Right Hand of Power", the memoirs of U. Alexis Johnson. McAllister then returned to law school at Yale, before becoming a career journalist.
Between 1995 and 1997, McAllister was "Time "magazine's White House Correspondent, covering foreign and domestic policies and the internal politics of the Clinton Administration. In his previous assignment as Diplomatic Correspondent, McAllister accompanied Secretaries of State James Baker, Lawrence Eagleburger and Warren Christopher on their foreign travels, and contributed to or wrote more than 40 cover stories on diplomacy.
McAllister served as Chief of "TIME" magazine's London Bureau from 1999 to 2007, covering the U.K. and Ireland for TIME and TIME International, and for writing widely about Europe and its relations with the rest of the world. In this role, he authored cover stories on Tony Blair, the 2005 United Kingdom general election, EU expansion, Muslims in Europe, the siege in the Russian city of Beslan, terrorist bombings in London, the 2006 G-8 summit and the BBC. In 2006 he won the Foreign Press Association's award for Best Story by a Foreign Correspondent, for his cover story on how Queen Elizabeth has modernized the monarchy.
Since 2007, he has been the managing partner of McAllister Olivarius. In addition to his legal practice, he comments regularly on politics and diplomacy for the BBC and other news organisations.


Jesse Ball

Jesse Ball (born June 7, 1978) is an American novelist and poet. He has published novels, volumes of poetry, short stories, and drawings. His works are distinguished by the use of a spare style and have been compared to those of Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino.
Career.
In 2007 and 2008, Ball published "Samedi the Deafness" and the novella "The Early Deaths of Lubeck, Brennan, Harp & Carr." The latter won the "Paris Review"'s Plimpton Prize. These were followed in 2009 by "The Way Through Doors", and in 2011, "The Curfew", whose style The New Yorker described as "[lying] at some oscillating coordinate between Kafka and Calvino: swift, intense fables composed of equal parts wonder and dread."
Ball's 2014 book "Silence Once Begun" was reviewed by James Wood in "The New Yorker" in February 2014. In 2015, he was a finalist for the NYPL Young Lion Prize (also for "Silence Once Begun)". Later that year, he published "A Cure for Suicide", which was long-listed for the National Book Award.
In 2017, "Granta" included him on their list of Best Young American Novelists. On June 30 of that year Ball published an opinion piece in the "Los Angeles Times" suggesting that all American citizens be incarcerated periodically, as a civic duty. The article likens this incarceration to already existing jury duty and states that no one, not even sitting politicians, judges or military officers would be free from it.
Ball's "The Divers' Game" was included on The New Yorker's Best Books of 2019 list. Staff writer Katy Waldman writes, "This dystopic fable imagines a society riven in two, with the upper class empowered to murder members of the lower class, for any reason."
Ball is represented by Jim Rutman of Sterling Lord Literistic.
Personal life.
Ball was born into a middle-class, English-speaking Irish-Sicilian family in Port Jefferson, New York, on Long Island. Ball's father worked in Medicaid; his mother worked in libraries. His brother, Abram, was born with Down's syndrome and attended a school some distance from the place where they lived. Ball attended Port Jefferson High School, and matriculated at Vassar College.
Following Vassar, Ball attended Columbia University, where he earned an MFA and met the poet Richard Howard. Howard helped the then 24-year-old poet publish his first volume, "March Book", with Grove Press.
In Iceland, Ball met Thordis Bjornsdottir, a poet and author who he collaborated with on two books, married, and later divorced. Ball and the writer Catherine Lacey have been partners since 2016.
Ball has lived for ten years in Chicago. He is on the faculty at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he teaches courses on lying, ambiguity, dreaming, and walking.


One Day University

One Day University is an adult education program founded by Steven Schragis and John Galvin in 2006. The program's one-day sessions feature four or five lectures by leading American university professors. Originally based in the New York City area, the program has spread to Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, Florida and California. It hosts events at leading colleges including Villanova, Georgetown University, Notre Dame, Babson and the College of Saint Elizabeth.
The school's faculty include Pulitzer Prize winners Jack Rakove and Gordon Wood, Bard College president Leon Botstein, social critic Andrew Delbanco, Clinton White House advisor Christine Heenan, Holocaust historian Jonathan Steinberg, philosopher Tamar Gendler, psychologist Paul Bloom, and legal scholar Akhil Reed Amar.
In 2009, One Day University was acquired by Bill Zanker and The Learning Annex to bring the live One Day University experience online for students around the world.
One Day University held its largest event to date on Sunday, October 4, 2009 at the Hilton Hotel in New York City. 5,000 students from around the country attended One Day U to learn from 17 professors from notable universities, along with keynote speaker and Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz. One year later, on October 3, 2010, 4,000 students returned to the Hilton in New York for another event. Faculty on that day included former New York State Governor Mario Cuomo and award-winning writer and Princeton professor Joyce Carol Oates. Hollywood legend and UCLA professor Peter Guber taught at the March 13, 2011 event in New York City.
In 2011, One Day University was reacquired by original founder Steven Schragis and a group of investors.


Brigitte Peucker

Brigitte Peucker (born 13 April 1948, in Berlin, Germany) is the Elias Leavenworth Professor of German Languages and Literatures and Professor of Film Studies at Yale University. A disciple of Yale University's Geoffrey Hartman, she has written on and teaches in film studies, particularly German cinema, as well as in German lyric poetry and literature. She is an expert on Alfred Hitchcock, horror film, and painting and cinema. She has been Chair of the Film Studies Program at Yale University 1986-2000, and of the German Department 1997-2002, 2003-4.


Inga Markovits

Inga Markovits (born 1937 in Germany) is an American lawyer, and The Friends of Joe Jamail Regents Chair, at the University of Texas.
She is the recipient of the 2012 Ellen Maria Gorrisen Berlin Prize and is a Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin.


Yeshiva Gedola of Carteret

Yeshiva Gedola of Carteret (Hebrew: ישיבה תפארת יהודה אריה) informally, "YGOC", also called Yeshiva Tiferes Yehuda Aryeh, is a yeshiva and non-profit organization located in Carteret in Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States.
History.
The yeshiva was founded in 2006 by Rabbi Azriel Brown and Rabbi Yaakov Mayer, both
graduates of Yeshiva of Far Rockaway, the Mir yeshiva in Jerusalem, and Yeshivas Ner Yisroel of Baltimore. With the backing of Rabbi Aharon Feldman, Rabbi Yaakov Perlow, and Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetzky, among numerous others, Rabbis Brown and Mayer decided to open a yeshiva in the suburban north Jersey town of Carteret. Carteret had previously boasted a Jewish community with two synagogues in the 1950s but its Jewish presence had dwindled since then, to the point that it was no longer able to support the remaining synagogue, a Jewish community center, which closed in 2002. Garson Gruhin and Lou Raiman, remaining board members of the Jewish community center who worked hard to preserve Jewish life in Carteret. Garson Gruhin along with his son Mark I. Gruhin, Esq., arranged to transfer the former synagogue and community center building and an adjoining five-bedroom rabbi's residence to the yeshiva.
The yeshiva opened in September 2006 with 14 students. Initially, Donya Brown and Chani Mayer, wives of the founders, handled the food preparation and bookkeeping for the fledgling institution, and each family hosted all the students in their home for one Shabbos meal. As enrollment grew and the students began staying in the Yeshiva full-time, the Browns and Mayers took an active role in each student's education, personal growth, helped them with shidduchim (marriage proposals), and even hosted their sheva brachos (festive meals held during the week after the wedding).
In 2014 Rabbi Heshy Fireworker became the Mashgiach of the yeshiva.
In 2015 Rabbi Yaakov T. Biderman, became the executive director of the yeshiva. Biderman is an alumnus of the Yeshiva, who was intimately involved in its operations as student and remained involved throughout the years in between. He also founded the Alumni Association in August 2013, with the help of Zecharya Michelsohn.
In 2017 the Roshei Yeshiva founded the Mesivta of Carteret, placing Rabbi Avraham Yeshaya Roth in the Rosh Mesivta role, after several years as the Night Seder Shoel U'meishiv. The Mesivta started with a ninth grade for the 2017–2018 school year, with Rabbi Chaim Motechin being the Ninth Grade Maggid Shiur. Later they brought in Rabbi Yisroel Daskal to be the Tenth Grade Maggid Shiur, Rabbi Roth is the Eleventh Grade Maggid Shiur and Rabbi Brown is the Maggid Shiur for the twelfth grade. Rabbi Reuven Pelberg is serving as the director and principal of the General Studies department.
Program.
The yeshiva is an all-male Lithuanian (Litvish)-style Talmudic college. Currently, it consists of a mesivta (high school) program.
Curriculum.
The Mesivta's studies are broken into two halves. The first half of the day is focused on Talmudic texts and rabbinic literature, "mussar" (Jewish ethical literature) and practical "halacha" (Jewish law). The second half of the day is focused on general studies, including math, history, science, language arts, computers, business economics, public speaking and more.
Hachnasas Sifrei Torah.
In December 2008, the yeshiva celebrated a "Hachnasas Sefer Torah", the traditional festivity upon the completion of a new Torah scroll. Several hundred guests came to Carteret for the procession, including several eminent Torah figures. Noe Street was barricaded off to outside traffic as the crowd wound its way to the yeshiva building accompanied by live music and dancing.
In September 2011, the yeshiva held a "kesivas osios" (Torah scroll-writing ceremony) in Lakewood for another new Torah scroll, that was to be dedicated after Sukkos 2011. The Hachnosas Sefer Torah took place in Carteret.
Alumni association.
In August 2013, an alumni association was formed by a group of yeshiva alumni, spearheaded by Rabbi Yaakov T. Biderman (now executive director of the yeshiva), with the involvement and backing of the Roshei Yeshiva. Their motto is "By the alumni, for the alumni". The alumni association's primary goal is to keep the alumni united as a group, in order to network and support each other in both personal life and beyond. They arrange get-togethers, share simchas, and keep the alumni connected with their rebbeim.
Hurricane Sandy.
In October 2012 the yeshiva building experienced substantial damage from Hurricane Sandy. The flooding reached nearly above the main floor, as well as damaged dormitory houses. One dormitory, hit by the flood and by an explosion from a neighboring building, was condemned by the township. Total damage was estimated at close to $200,000.


Dog harness

A dog harness is a piece of equipment consisting in part of straps that surround the dog’s torso. It is used to guide, hold, and lift the dog or to utilise its pulling power. It reduces tension on the neck when they pull, and provides free breathing during daily walks. In sports such as skijoring, where the dog’s pulling power is utilised, the harness provides effective use of force while maintaining freedom of movement.
History.
Harnesses have been used for millennia to carry weight or pull small carriages or sleds. In both World War I and World War II, service and rescue dogs wore harnesses.
Archeological evidence shows that humans bred dogs for pulling sleds some 10,000 years ago. Artifacts, including rings and parts that connect reins to sleds, have been found on sites throughout the Northernmost stretches of mainland and on arctic islands.
Types of harnesses.
No-pull harness.
No-pull harnesses rely on a level of discomfort, force and avoidance to alter the dogs behavior. When the dog pulls, a strap within the harness tightens. applying pressure on the dog's body which the dog must actively alter the pulling behavior to avoid. If the dog pulls, the leash goes off to the side and directs the dog back towards the owner. That gives a greater ability to control and guide the dog by applying a little pressure.
Sled dog harness.
Harnesses used by sled dogs for running, cycling, sledding, skijoring or pulling weight.
There are several different types of harness available for sled dogs. Some common harness types: X-back, H-back, half-harness, and spreader bar harness. Spreader bar harnesses are thought to add more power whereas half-harnesses are believed by some mushers to result in fewer athletic injuries.
A harness with thicker lining and a wider chest strap is preferred for pulling heavy weights. It has been designed to help the dog pull heavy weights efficiently and may feature a spreader bar behind the wheel dogs and in front of the sled or cart. These harnesses help distribute the weight of the cargo over a broader area of the body.
Rehabilitation and lifting harness.
There are several types of rehabilitation or dog lifting harnesses depending on which parts of the dog’s body needs help. It is a harness with at least one handle that wraps around a dog's body to allow a person to help lift the weight off of their hips, spine or legs.
There are several different types of them available, each of them providing their own unique advantages. They include: front harnesses, rear harnesses, front and rear combo, mid-section support harnesses, amputee harnesses and full body harnesses. There are several conditions that may make it necessary or at least helpful to use a dog lifting harness, some of the most common being: hip dysplasia, broken bones, sprained knees, spine injuries, arthritis, recent surgery, strained muscles and missing limbs.
Tactical dog harness.
A tactical dog vest or harness provides an extra layer of protection that is needed. Most tactical dog vests are provided with a handle to help the dog on difficult terrain. It can also be used to hold additional devices, such as a GPS tracker or a light. Further specialization is possible depending on needs: bulletproof; suitable for descent; mantrailing harness, etc.
Assistance dog harness.
Assistance dogs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assistance_dog) usually have a vest, cape or harness for identification. The gear is often utilized during the dog’s work. Cape harnesses are ergonomic and well-made. Usually there is ample space for identification patches. The pulling harnesses are worn by service dogs who need to pull heavy weight. Pulling harnesses are usually padded for comfort. Mobility support harnesses are for assistance dogs who need to pull their owners. They are ergonomic and have a rigid handle.
Car safety harnesses.
Safety harnesses were designed to restrain the animal in a car seat using the car's seat belt. In the event of an accident the harness distributes the pulling force. Several car safety harness have been designed that pass crash tests conducted in the USA by the Center for Pet Safety.


Paul Henri Mallet

Paul Henri Mallet (20 August 1730 – 8 February 1807) was a Genevan writer.
Life.
He was born and educated in Geneva. He became tutor in the family of the count of Calenberg in Lower Saxony. In 1752 he was appointed professor of "belles lettres" to the academy at Copenhagen. He was naturally attracted to the study of the ancient literature and history of Denmark, his adopted country, and in 1755 he published the first fruits of his researches, under the title "Introduction à L'histoire du Danemarch où l'on traite de la religion, des moeurs, des lois, et des usages des anciens Danois".
A second part, more particularly relating to Danish literature, "Monuments de la mythologie et de la poesie des Celtes, et particulierement des anciens Scandinaves", was issued in 1756, and was also translated into Danish. A translation into English, with notes and preface, by Bishop Thomas Percy, was issued in 1770 under the title of "Northern Antiquities" (republished with additions in 1847).
The book had a wide circulation, and attracted much attention on account of its being the first (though a very defective) translation into French of the Edda. The king of Denmark showed his appreciation by choosing Mallet to be preceptor of the crown prince. In 1760 he returned to Geneva, and became professor of history in his native city. While there he was requested by the czarina to undertake the education of the heir-apparent of Russia (afterwards the Czar Paul I), but declined. A more appealing invitation led to his accompanying Lord Mountstuart in his travels through Italy and thence to England, where Mallet was presented at court and commissioned to write the history of the house of Brunswick. He had previously received similar commission from the landgrave of Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel) for the reparation of a history of the house of Hesse, and both works were completed in 1785.
The quietness of a literary life was rudely broken by the French Revolution, to which he was openly hostile. His leanings to the unpopular side were so obnoxious to his fellow-citizens that he was obliged to quit his native country in 1792, and remained in exile till 1801. He died at Geneva.
Works.
A memoir of his life and writings, by Sismondi, was published at Geneva in 1807. Besides the "Introduction to the History of Denmark", his principal works are:


Vatican Telephone Service

The Vatican Telephone Service was first officially established in 1930. In 2002, it became part of the Governorate's Department of Telecommunication and oversees all telecommunications needs of Vatican City.
The assigned telephone code/country code for Vatican City is +379. But this code is not used. Instead, the Vatican city uses the country code +39 of Italy and assigns phone numbers starting with 698 within the regional code 06 for Rome.


Oluf Rygh

Oluf Rygh (5 September 1833 – 19 August 1899) was a noted Norwegian archaeologist, philologist and historian. Oluf Rygh is recognized as one of the founders of professional archaeology in Norway. He led the 1867 excavation of the Tune ship ("Tuneskipet")
Background.
Oluf Rygh was born in Verdal in Trøndelag, Norway. His parents were Peder Strand Rygh (1800–1868) and Ingeborg Marie Bentsen (1809–1878). He was the older brother of banker Evald Rygh (1842–1913) and member of Parliament Karl Ditlev Rygh (1839–1915) . Oluf Rygh attended the Trondhjem Cathedral School in 1850 and went to the University of Christiania to study philology, where he graduated in 1856. In 1858, while a teacher at Nissens Skole in Christiania, he was a research fellow for history. Later he was a professor of classical philology, history and Scandinavian languages.
Career.
Rygh was professor of history at the Royal Frederick University (now University of Oslo) between 1866 and 1875. He was director of "Oldsaksamlingen" (which subsequently became the Museum of Cultural History) from 1862 and professor of Nordic archaeology from 1875 – the first professor of archaeology at any Scandinavian university. He led excavation of the Tune ship 1867. His work about Norwegian antiquities "Norske Oldsaker" (1885) is recognized for its detailed illustrations and even today is still a significant reference source.
From 1879 to 1899 he chaired the Norwegian Historical Association.
Oluf Rygh is best known for creation of a registry of Norwegian farm names "Norske Gaardnavne" which is a 19 volume set of books based on a manuscript prepared from 1897 to 1924. The book contains a standardized notation, information on pronunciation, historical forms and the etymology for recorded farm, estate and manor names in Norway, which became the standard for place names in Norway. It inspired similar research in Sweden and Denmark. Rygh died in 1899 at Ulefoss in Holla, Telemark. At the time of his death, only three and one half volumes had been published.
Legacy.
The street "Oluf Ryghs gate" at Fagerborg has been named after him.
Bibliography.
His more significant publications include:


Hand in Hand (Ugandan TV series)

Hand in Hand is a Ugandan soap opera created to promote vocational training and the field of craftsmanship in the country. The first series was launched in October 2005 and ran until December of the same year. The show was produced by Great Lakes Film Production with funding from the Ugandan Ministry of Education and Sports and the German State Development Bank ("Kreditanstalt für die Wiederaufbau"). Other sponsors include Coca-Cola, Uganda Telecom and the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ).
The show is performed by an ensemble cast made up of exclusively Ugandan actors. Central themes include vocational training, women's rights/sexism, alcoholism and HIV/AIDS.
The show is ground-breaking in that it addresses these issues, but also in the fact that it uses the medium of film and television to present them, when film and media are not yet a key aspect of Ugandan culture. Ellen Görlich, the show's producer and head of Great Lakes Film Production, has been working in recent years to make the medium more well known in Uganda.


29th Writers Guild of America Awards

The 29th Writers Guild of America Awards honored the best film writers of 1976. Winners were announced in 1977.
Winners & Nominees.
Film.
Winners are listed first highlighted in boldface.


Margaret Kennard

Margaret Alice Kennard (September 25, 1899—December 12, 1975) was a neurologist who principally studied the effects of neurological damage on primates. Her work led to the creation of the Kennard Principle, which posits a negative linear relationship between age of a brain lesion and the outcome expectancy: in other words, that the earlier in life a brain lesion occurs, the more likely it is for some compensation mechanism to reverse at least some of the lesion's bad effects.
Biography.
She earned a Rockefeller Traveling Fellowship for study in Western Europe from 1934 to 1936. She also studied the effects of stimulants and cortical depressants on monkeys with brain damage.
Kennard Principle.
The observation that young brains reorganize more effectively than adult brains was first articulated by Kennard in 1936. Consequently, the notion that how well a brain can reorganize itself after damage as a function of the developmental stage is now known as the "Kennard principle". This research led to one of the earliest experimental evidence for age effects on neuroplasticity.
She worked closely with John Fulton in her famous infant brain studies.


Xiangsheng

Xiangsheng (), also known as crosstalk or comic dialogue, is a traditional performing art in Chinese comedy, and one of the most popular elements in Chinese culture. It is typically performed as a dialogue between two performers, or rarely as a monologue by a solo performer (similar to most forms of stand-up comedy in Western culture), or even less frequently, as a group act by multiple performers. The Xiangsheng language, rich in puns and allusions, is delivered in a rapid, bantering style, typically in the Beijing dialect (or in Mandarin Chinese with a strong northern accent). The acts would sometimes include singing, Chinese rapping, and musical instruments.
According to Canadian Xiangsheng comedian Dashan (Mark Rowswell), the closest English Xiangsheng-equivalent is "Who's on First?", a sketch by Abbott and Costello.
Format.
Modern Xiangsheng comprises four classic skills:
Xiangsheng is most commonly performed by two actors. The leading actor is called Dougen (simplified Chinese: 逗哏; traditional Chinese: 逗哏; pinyin: dòugén) and the supporting actor is called Penggen (simplified Chinese: 捧哏; traditional Chinese: 捧哏; pinyin: pěnggén).
History.
Origins.
Xiangsheng is generally thought to have originated in the late Qing Dynasty, particularly during the rules of the Xianfeng Emperor and the Tongzhi Emperor in the mid-1800s, although its roots may extend as far back as the Ming Dynasty. It began as a form of street performance, incorporating joke-telling, comedic banter, imitations, or borrowing from other performance arts, such as Peking opera, all with the express purpose of making audiences laugh. By the early days of the Republic of China, Xiangsheng had evolved into a more modern format. It was performed in teahouses, theaters, and, eventually, on radio and television.
There are three major sources of Xiangsheng: Beijing Tianqiao, Tianjin Quanyechang, and the Nanjing Confucius Temple. The origins of certain modern-day Xiangsheng pieces can be traced back well over 100 years, though in many cases, the original author is unattributed. Many skits in "traditional Xiangsheng" have evolved through generations of performers successively revising material, retaining the general structure or "heart" of a piece while updating specific references with more modern material.
One of the earliest Xiangsheng pioneers is a person known by name of Zhang Sanlu (), who performed during the mid-19th century. Originally a performer of Ba Jiao Gu ("drum-song") (), Zhang eventually switched to doing imitations and telling humorous stories. Later artists considered Zhang to have been one of the first Xiangsheng performers.
Xiangsheng in Chinese Mainland.
After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the popularity of Xiangsheng increased. Previously seen as relatively low-class street performing, Xiangsheng became regarded as a proletarian art form. Because it was performed in Mandarin Chinese, Xiangsheng became a useful tool for promoting the use of Mandarin Chinese throughout China.
In the 1950s, Hou Baolin led a group of Xiangsheng performers to reform Xiangsheng, removing language and content that was considered "vulgar" and generally making it more "politically correct". Hou later became widely regarded as a master of Xiangsheng. He is often regarded as "China's Charlie Chaplin".
As with many forms of performance art, Xiangsheng was banned during the Cultural Revolution. It experienced a huge resurgence in the mid-1970s, with many skits satirizing the Gang of Four and excesses of this period. With the popularization of television in the 1980s, Xiangsheng became a standard feature of the annual New Year's Gala of China Central Television (CCTV), as well as other popular performing arts shows in China.
Xiangsheng entered a period of decline in the 1990s, caused largely by increased official sensitivity towards political and social satire following the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, as well as the lack of performance venues outside of sanitized state-run television programming. Many performers called for a return of performing Xiangsheng in teahouses and small theaters, which had traditionally been the main venues for Xiangsheng performances but were almost never used at the time. A new generation of Xiangsheng performers emerged from this movement, including Guo Degang. Guo has been credited with renewing interest among young millennial audiences, who found Xiangsheng to be boring and didactic. Guo's rise to fame, while representing a very traditionalist movement, pitted him against more mainstream, establishment performers, such as Jiang Kun.
In recent years, to appeal to younger audiences, animators have created animated versions of various skits using audio from past broadcasts. The animated versions often use humor in a literal sense, illustrating scenes or stories described by the performers. There are some variety shows for young Xiangsheng actors to promote themselves like "Xiangsheng Has New Talents" (Chinese: 相声有新人) and "Happy Comedian" (Chinese: 欢乐喜剧人), both hosted by Guo Degang.
Xiangsheng in Taiwan.
In 1949, a group of Xiangsheng performers followed the Republic of China's retreat to Taiwan. The same year, Chen Yian (Chinese: 陳逸安), Wei Longhao (Chinese: 魏龍豪), and Wu Zhaonan met and hosted a Xiangsheng show on the Broadcasting Corporation of China and Taiwan Police Radio (Chinese: 警察廣播電台). After 1967, he began collecting data to produce "Xiangsheng Collections", "Xiangsheng Highlight", "Xiangsheng Anecdote", and "Rediscovery of Xiangsheng".
Initially, Xiangsheng's main audience was internal immigrants, mainly from military dependents' villages. In 1985, performance workshop Biao Fang (Chinese: 表演工作坊) launched "That Night, We Speak Xiangsheng" (Chinese: 那一夜，我們說相聲), a play performed by Li Liqun (Chinese: 李立群) and Li Guoxiu (Chinese: 李國修), which caused a stir.
In 1989, Biao Fang launched the stage play "Tonight, Who Speaks Xiangsheng?" (Chinese: 這一夜，誰來說相聲), which was performed by Li Liqun (Chinese: 李立群), Jin Shijie (Chinese: 金士傑), and Chen Lihua (Chinese: 陳立華). Numerous other plays were produced, including:
In 2005, "This Night, Women Speak Xiangsheng"—performed by Fang Fang (Chinese: 方芳), Deng Chenghui (Chinese: 鄧程慧), and Xiao Ai (Chinese: 蕭艾)—was launched. Although all these plays were claimed to be Xiangsheng, they were actually theater performances.
In April 1988, Feng Yugang and Song Shaoqing (Chinese: 宋少卿) formed Comedians Workshop, which aimed to merge theater with Xiangsheng. Huang Shiwei (Chinese: 黄士伟) joined in 2001. On July 8, 2004, Comedians Workshop assisted Dream Theater to perform "Give Me a Tape."
In 1993, Liu Zengqi (Chinese: 劉增鍇) and Lin Wenbin (Chinese: 林文彬) founded the Taipei Musical Art Troupe. In addition to Xiangsheng, they also introduced many Chinese traditional Quyi (a traditional form of Chinese art), such as Shuanghuang (Chinese: 双簧), Pingshu (Chinese: 评书), Shulaibao (Chinese: 数来宝), Kuaiban (Chinese: 快板书), Jingyun drum (Chinese: 京韵大鼓), Meihua drum (Chinese: 梅花大鼓), Xihe drum (Chinese: 西河大鼓), Danxian (Chinese: 单弦), and Taiping lyrics (Chinese: 太平歌詞), which have also promoted the exchange of performances between Taiwan and Mainland China.
On August 26, 1999, Wu Zhaonan announced the establishment of Wu Zhaonan's Xiangsheng Club. Only direct disciples of Wu Zhaonan could become official members. In addition to Xiangsheng, it also introduced Quyi, including Shuanghuang (Chinese: 双簧), Pingshu (Chinese: 评书), Shulaibao (Chinese: 数来宝), Kuaiban (Chinese: 快板书), Danxian (Chinese: 单弦), Taiping lyrics (Chinese: 太平歌詞), and Peking opera.
Xiangsheng in Hong Kong.
Northern Xiangsheng has been popular in Hong Kong since the Zhongyuan period. As early as the Qing Dynasty, storytellers from China brought Xiangsheng to South Guangdong and Hong Kong.
After Hong Kong was ceded as a British colony, the development of Xiangsheng entered a unique period of localization. In the early years of the Republic of China, Hong Kong's Xiangsheng mainly performed in the street, and most Xiangsheng artists were jugglers, such as Pingshu and Kouji. Xiangsheng performers came from all walks of life. They were knowledgeable and enjoyed chatting, thus using Xiangsheng to make a living.
In the 1940s and 50s, Hong Kong cinema began to develop rapidly, and Xiangsheng began to integrate into emerging media. In old Hong Kong movies, Xiangsheng-inspired comedy began to integrate into early Hong Kong cinema, mostly in the form of monologues and characters teasing each other.
In 1957, the first Chinese-language TV media in the world was created; it was called Rediffusion Television Limited and was the predecessor of Asia Television. Xiangsheng became a fixed performance for variety shows. In 1967, Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB) was created, and the variety show "Enjoy Yourself Tonight" was launched. Xiangsheng began to appear in several variants in the variety show, such as the host's speech and the show to show lines.
Xiangsheng in Malaysia (Overseas Chinese).
After the Chinese Civil War, a number of performers from South China traveled to Malaysia for development (before Singapore's expulsion from Malaysia). Feng Xiang (Chinese: 冯翔), Bai Yan, and Lu Ding performed Xiangsheng in this region. In the multi-language environment of Malaysia, "Malaysian Xiangsheng" became different from Xiangsheng in mainland China and Taiwan. Since Mandarin Chinese is not a mainstream language in Malaysia, there are few professional performers in Malaysia.
As social commentary.
The small scale and popularity of Xiangsheng make it second only to word of mouth in reflecting popular concerns. Hou Baolin and others have said that Xiangsheng items are "works of comic nature which use satire and humour as their principal base. The cross talks use witty speech, bitter, ridiculous ridicule, in order to achieve the purpose of arrogant "big laugh" and entertaining people. Its earliest form was derived from the juggling of "Yuyou". In these jokes, artists often pinned their mockery and whipping against the rulers. Their satirical content strikes home at contemporary malpractices and also often includes political satire." The role of Xiangsheng in the social commentary was seen after the fall of the Gang of Four in 1976, when Xiangsheng performances provided the first open criticisms of the gang. After 1976, Xiangsheng has also satirized corrupt officials and members of the Communist Party of China, although criticism of the party as an entity remains off-limits.


Antonio Puente

Antonio E. Puente is an American neuropsychologist and academic. He was the president of the American Psychological Association in 2017. He has a private practice, is the founding director of a bilingual mental health clinic, and is on the psychology faculty at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW). He founded the journal "Neuropsychology Review".
Biography.
Born in Havana, Cuba in 1952; Puente earned an undergraduate degree at the University of Florida and a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia. He is married to Linda Puente and has three children.
Puente is a neuropsychologist and a psychology professor at UNCW. He founded and directs the Cape Fear Clinic, a bilingual mental health clinic in Wilmington, North Carolina, for underserved populations. He maintains a private practice in clinical neuropsychology, ranging from clinical to forensic assessments.
He founded and edited the journal "Neuropsychology Review" for ten years. He also founded and edited the journal of Interprofessional Education & Practice and is the author of 10 books, 90 book chapters, and as 110 journal articles in Arabic, English, Italian Spanish, and Russian. He has been president of several other psychological societies including the North Carolina Psychological Association, North Carolina Psychological Foundation, Hispanic Neuropsychological Society, National Academy of Neuropsychology and the Society for Clinical Neuropsychology.
Before joining the UNCW faculty in 1981, Puente was a neuroanatomy professor at St. George's University School of Medicine in Grenada, where he taught courses in brain and behavior, neuropsychology and the history of psychology. He is a visiting professor at UCLA and the University of Granada in Spain as well as Honorary Professor of Psychology at Moscow State University.
Puente has served on several APA and related society boards and committees. He spent 15 years as a representative to the American Medical Association's committee on Current Procedural Terminology and served on the actual CPT Panel for 8 years before becoming the 125th President of the APA in 2017. Puente had four foci during his term as APA president: improving governance, membership engagement, psychology's international presence, and the APA Convention.


Shepherd Sisters

The Shepherd Sisters (also known as The Sheps) were an American vocal quartet of four sisters born and raised in Middletown, Ohio, United States: Martha (born Martha Jane Shepherd, April 22, 1932 – February 24, 1998), Gayle (born Joyce Gayle Shepherd, May 31, 1936 – May 7, 2018), Mary Lou (born May 19, 1934), and Judith (November 20, 1939 – July 10, 2009) Shepherd.
The sisters were born into a family of eight children, six sisters and two brothers, with Judith being the youngest. In the late 1950s, they appeared on "Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts". One of their first recordings, "Gone with the Wind" got them a call from Dick Clark. Subsequently, they made many appearances on Clark's "American Bandstand".
In New York City, Morty Craft had a song he wanted them to record, "Alone (Why Must I Be Alone)". In 1957, "Alone" would become their biggest hit and their signature song. In the U.S. it reached No. 18 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart; in the UK Singles Chart it made No. 14. Its chart progress may have been hindered by several rival cover versions on both sides of the Atlantic. In all the Shepherd Sisters recorded over thirty songs, many of them on one of Morty Craft's record labels such as Melba and Lance.
Craft also introduced them to the DJ Alan Freed, the man often credited with coining the term "rock and roll." The Shepherd Sisters played the Brooklyn and Manhattan Paramount Theaters and toured with Alan Freed's 'America's Greatest Teenage Recording Stars', along with The Everly Brothers, Paul Anka, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Danny and the Juniors, Lee Andrews and the Hearts, The Twin Tones, Little Joe Dubs, Thurston Harris, Terry Nolan, and Jo Ann Campbell.
Besides rock and roll the Shepherd Sisters were also a stage and cabaret act. They performed at hotels, nightclubs, New York's Apollo Theater, and casinos in Reno and Las Vegas, Nevada. They also sang in the Philippines, Canada, South America, and parts of Europe.
Martha died on February 24, 1998, at the age of 65. Judith died on July 10, 2009, at the age of 69. Gayle died of dementia on May 7, 2018, at the age of 81. As of 2018, Mary Lou Shepherd is the only surviving member of the quartet.


Annie Gosfield

Annie Gosfield (born September 11, 1960 in Philadelphia) is a composer based in New York who works on the boundaries between notated and improvised music, electronic and acoustic sounds, refined timbres and noise. She composes for others and performs with her own group, taking her music on a path through festivals, factories, clubs, art spaces, and concert halls. Much of her work combines acoustic instruments with electronic sounds, incorporating unusual sources such as satellite sounds, machine sounds, detuned or out of tune samples and industrial noises. Her work often contains improvisation and frequently uses extended techniques and/or altered musical instruments. She won a 2012 Berlin Prize.
Work.
Her work includes large-scale compositions, opera, orchestral work, chamber music, electronic music, video projects, and music for dance. She uses traditional notation, improvisation, and extended techniques to explore a sound world that eliminates the boundaries between music and noise. Her music is often inspired by the inherent beauty of non-musical sounds, such as machines, destroyed pianos, warped 78 rpm records, and detuned radios. She often works in close collaboration with musicians, in order to emphasize the unique qualities of each performer.
Gosfield's compositions have been performed internationally by The Bang on a Can Allstars, Agon Orchestra, Joan Jeanrenaud, Fred Frith, Felix Fan, Roger Kleier, Blair McMillen, William Winant, the FLUX Quartet, the Miami String Quartet, The Silesian String Quartet, So Percussion, Talujon Percussion, Newband (on the Harry Partch instruments) and many others, at festivals including Warsaw Autumn, ISCM World Music Days, Bang on a Can Marathon, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Festival Musique Actuelle, Wien Modern, OtherMinds, Spoleto Festival USA, Company Week, Taktlos, and three "Radical New Jewish Culture" festivals curated by John Zorn.
In November, 2017, The Los Angeles Philharmonic presented Gosfield's first opera, an original setting of Orson Welles's "The War of the Worlds", adapted and directed by Yuval Sharon, performed both inside Walt Disney Concert Hall and on the streets of Los Angeles simultaneously, using three repurposed air raid sirens to broadcast the music to the public in satellite performances staged in parking lots in Downtown Los Angeles.
Gosfield has composed a site-specific work for a factory in Germany, collaborated on installations with artist Manuel Ocampo, and created a video for an imaginary orchestra of destroyed instruments. She has worked with many choreographers, including Karole Armitage, Pam Tanowitz, and Susan Marshall. Her music for dance has been featured at the Venice Biennale, the Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Teatro Olimpico (Rome), The Joyce Theater, Jacob's Pillow, and the Duke Theater on 42nd Street.
She was the niece of the great actor Maurice Gosfield
Large-scale compositions include "Daughters of the Industrial Revolution", a concert-length piece inspired by her grandparents’ immigrant experiences in New York City during the Industrial Revolution that was commissioned by the MAP Fund and premiered at The Kitchen in 2011; the signature piece "EWA7", a site-specific work created during a residency in the industrial environments of Nuremberg, Germany; and "Floating Messages and Fading Frequencies," which incorporated coding systems used by the Resistance in WWII, conducted by Pierre-André Valade, and performed by the Athelas Sinfonietta with Annie's electronic trio in a four-city U.K. tour that included the 2011 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.
Her work has been profiled in "The New York Times", The New Yorker, on National Public Radio, and in articles in The Wire (magazine), Contemporary Music Review, Avant Magazine, Strings Magazine, MusikTexte, as well as the book “Music and the Creative Spirit”. Gosfield received a 2008 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award. She has received recent fellowships from the McKnight Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Siemens Foundation.
Her music is featured on four solo CD's on Tzadik Records. Her 2012 release, titled "Almost Truths and Open Deceptions" features a chamber cello concerto, a piece for piano and broken shortwave radio, and compositions inspired by warped 78 rpm records, baseball, and the industrial revolution, performed by the Annie Gosfield Ensemble, Felix Fan, the Flux Quartet, Real Quiet, Blair McMillen, David Cossin, and the Pearls Before Swine Experience. Her third release, "Lost Signals and Drifting Satellites", features work scored for solo violin accompanied by satellite transmissions, as well as solo and chamber works performed by Joan Jeanrenaud and the Flux Quartet. Her previous Tzadik CD, "Flying Sparks and Heavy Machinery" features two pieces inspired by her 1999 residency in the factories of Nuremberg, Germany. "Burnt Ivory and Loose Wires", her first solo release for Tzadik, focuses on her work for detuned piano.
Gosfield taught composition at Columbia University in 2019. She was the Milhaud Professor of composition at Mills College in 2003 and 2005, visiting lecturer at Princeton University in 2007, and was a visiting artist at Cal Arts in 1999.
Gosfield's writing on music has been featured in four essays published by "The New York Times"' "TimeSelect", and her essay "Fiddling with Sputnik" was published in "Arcana II", edited by John Zorn.
She is a periodic contributor to "The Score", "The New York Times" blog where composers discuss their work and the issues involved in creating music in the 21st century.
Annie is the recipient of a 2017 Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition, the Berlin Prize in Music Composition and Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin in Spring 2012, the Paul Fromm composer in residence at the American Academy in Rome in 2015 , and was a 2008 Civitella Ranieri Fellow.


John Harris (physicist)

John William Harris (born March 14, 1950) is an American experimental high energy nuclear physicist and D. Allan Bromley Professor of Physics at Yale University. His research interests are focused on understanding high energy density QCD and the Quark-gluon plasma created in relativistic collisions of heavy ions. Dr. Harris collaborated on the original proposal to initiate a high energy heavy ion program at Cern in Geneva, Switzerland, has been actively involved in the CERN heavy ion program and was the founding spokesperson for the STAR collaboration at RHIC at Brookhaven National Laboratory in the U.S.
Nuclear Physics Career.
After obtaining a Bachelor of Science, with Distinction, from the University of Washington, John Harris started his career at the Stony Brook University (then known as State University of New York at Stony Brook), where he completed his Ph.D. in experimental nuclear physics in 1978.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
After his Ph.D. Dr. Harris went to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in Berkeley, California, to conduct his post-doctoral work in high-energy nuclear physics from 1978 to 1979. After working as a senior guest scientist at the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt, Germany, from 1980 to 1984, he returned to LBNL in 1984 and was appointed divisional fellow in the Nuclear Science Division. He became staff senior scientist in 1989 and served in this role until 1995. During his time at LBNL he was a collaborator in the NA35 experiment at CERN (1985–1991), spokesperson of the Bevalac CCD-Streamer Chamber Experiments at LBL (1986–1990), CERN NA35 Project Leader in Nuclear Science Division at LBL (1990–1991), RHIC project leader in Nuclear Science Division at LBL and deputy program head of the Relativistic Nuclear Collisions Program (1990–1996). His most significant work from this period focused on compression effects in nucleus-nucleus collisions, pion production in high energy nucleus-nucleus Collisions, and on directed and elliptic flow in Pb+Pb collisions at the CERN SPS.
Yale University.
In 1996, Dr. Harris joined the faculty of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, as a tenured professor of physics. At Yale he served as Director of the Wright Nuclear Structure Laboratory (2008 – 2010), in the Yale Science Council (2005–2015, as chair 2008–2015), and in the inaugural Yale Faculty Senate (2015 – 2017). Dr. Harris has served in the Physics Department as Director of Graduate Studies (1998–1999), Director of Undergraduate Studies (2013-2016), Associate Physics Department Chair (2016-2019) and Director of Postdoctoral Affairs in Physics (2007–2020).
STAR Collaboration.
The STAR collaboration, which is carrying out experiments at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, New York, was founded in 1991, and John Harris served as its founding spokesperson from 1991 to 2002. He also served as the acting project manager from 1991 to 1992. At present, he is still a member of this collaboration. Among the most important discoveries by the STAR collaboration is the "perfect liquid".
ALICE Collaboration.
Dr. Harris joined the ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) collaboration at the CERN Large Hadron Collider in 2006 and became the national coordinator for the ALICE-USA Collaboration (2006-2012). In ALICE he served on the Physics Board (2009–2016), Management Board (2011-2019) and Collaboration Board (2007-2020, as deputy chair 2011-2016, as chair 2016-2019).
Honors.
Dr. Harris received the Nuclear Science Divisional Fellowship, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, U.C. Berkeley, in 1984, the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1986, and the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Performance Achievement Award in 1993. Harris was awarded the Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation Distinguished Senior U.S. Scientist Award (Humboldt Prize, Humboldt-Forschungspreis für Naturwissenschafler aus den USA) in 1994. He was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1996. In 2002, on the occasion of the 40th Anniversary of Stony Brook University, he was designated a Top 40 Distinguished Alumni. In 2007 Dr. Harris presented the Robert Hofstadter Endowed Lectures at Stanford University.


Southeastern Chakavian

Southeastern Chakavian () or Ijekavian accent is a dialect of the Chakavian variety of Croatian. It is spoken by the peoples of the diaspora of Lastovo, and on the islands of Janjina on Pelješac, Bigova on the south of Montenegro.
The Ijekavian accent (Lastovo island, Janjina in Pelješac): */ě/ > /je/ or /ije/


Moti Laxmi Upasika

Moti Laxmi Upasika (Devanagari: मोतिलक्ष्मी उपासिका) (born Moti Laxmi Tuladhar) (30 June 1909 – 1997) was Nepal's first woman poet and short story writer of modern times. Her first work, a short story, was published in 1935.
Early life.
Moti Laxmi Upasika (also spelled Motilakshmī Upāsikā) was born in Kathmandu to father Drabya Dhar and mother Gyan Laxmi Tuladhar. Her father was a merchant who owned a business house in Lhasa, Tibet. Her brother was poet Chittadhar Hridaya. She received informal education in Sanskrit, Pali and English.
Writing career.
Upasika, who also wrote under the pen name M. Laxmi, published her first work in 1935, a story in the Nepali language entitled "Rodan". It appeared in "Sharada" magazine published from Kathmandu.
She started writing in Nepal Bhasa with a poem entitled "Chitta Panchhi" (meaning "Heart bird") and a story "Lan" ("Road") which were published in "Dharmadoot" in 1944. "Dharmadoot" was a Buddhist magazine published in Hindi by the Maha Bodhi Society from Sarnath, India. It also published contributions in Nepal Bhasa at the request of its subscribers in Nepal.
Though most of her essays deal with religious subjects, her writings have been described as a bridge between religious and free prose. Her essays are characterized by simple language and a powerful way of expressing her opinions.


Indonesian Spelling System

The Indonesian Spelling System (, EBI), often referred to as the Indonesian Spelling System General Guidelines (, PUEBI) is the spelling system used for the Indonesian language. It was formerly known as the Enhanced Spelling System (, EYD). The system is an orthography released in 1972 was to replace the Republican Spelling System ("RSS", also called the Soewandi Spelling System, "SSS"). The aim of the change in 1972 was introduce greater harmonization of the Indonesian and Malay-language orthographies.
The adoption of the new EYD system, to begin on the 27th anniversary of Indonesia's independence on 17 August 1972, was announced by President Suharto on 16 August 1972. Government departments were instructed to begin using the EYD system on 1 January 1973. On 27 August 1975, the Minister of Education and Culture issued a decree which provided a detailed explanation of the changes proposed in the new system and marked the official use of EYD system.
Changes.
Various minor changes were announced after 1975:
Foreign loan letters.
Letters that had previously been included in the Republican Spelling as foreign loan letters are officially used in the EYD Spelling.
Q and X.
The letters Q and X are used in scientific subjects. Examples:
The letter Q is also used as needed for Islamic subjects. Examples:
Affixes and prepositions.
The writing of "di-" and "ke-" (affixes) can be distinguished from "di" and "ke" (prepositions), where "di-" and "ke-" are written together with the words that follow it, for example "diambil", "kehendak" (is being taken, desire), while "di" and "ke" are written separately with the words that follow it, for example "di rumah", "ke pasar" (at home, to the market). This is different from the former Republican Spelling, where both "di-" and "di" are written together with the words following it.
Reduplication.
Reduplication, mostly used in plural form of words, has to be fully written with letters, so the use of the number "2" as used in the Republican Spelling is no longer valid. (The practice remains common in informal usage such as in text messaging.)


Eduard Hula

Eduard Hula (25 September 1862, in Prague – 26 September 1902, in Vienna) was an Austrian classical archaeologist and epigrapher.
He studied classical philology, archaeology and epigraphy at the University of Vienna, receiving his doctorate in 1889. Later on, he taught classes at gymnasiums in Brünn and Vienna. In 1892/93, with a scholarship from the Austrian Academy of Sciences, he conducted research in Italy and Greece, and in 1894, along with epigrapher Emil Szántó, he performed investigations in Asia Minor. In 1901 he was named secretary of the Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut.


Tom Shull

Tom Shull is an American businessman and Director/CEO of the Army & Air Force Exchange Service (Exchange), No. 61 on the National Retail Federation's Top 100 Retailers list. Shull joined the Exchange in 2012 as the first civilian to lead the Department of Defense's largest retailer. He also serves on the Exchange's Board of Directors.
Early life and education.
Shull was born at Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Aurora, Colo., while his father was on joint assignment at Peterson Air Force Base. His father served for 30 years in the United States Army and spent more than 40 months in combat. Shull is a graduate of Heidelberg High School in Heidelberg, Germany. He earned a bachelor of science from the United States Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., where he was among the top 1 percent in leadership. Shull’s military schooling included Ranger and Airborne Schools. He holds a master of business administration from Harvard Business School, where he graduated with honors.
Military service.
During his time in the Army, Shull served as Rifle Platoon Leader, Scout Platoon Leader, Support Platoon Leader, Company Executive Officer and Infantry Company Commander. He had numerous line and staff assignments, including serving as assistant professor at the U.S. Military Academy and commander of a Mechanized Infantry Company. Shull’s company was ranked No. 1 in combat readiness out of more than 30 others in the 4th Infantry Division. Shull earned several honors, including the Meritorious Service Medal, Expert Infantryman’s Badge, Ranger Tab and Airborne Wings.
In 1981, Shull was named to the 17th class of White House Fellows and served in the Office of the Chief of Staff. During his last active-duty assignment, then-Major Shull served as Military Assistant to Robert “Bud” McFarlane, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. During his time at the White House, Shull led a major re-evaluation and revision of White House management systems. He also conducted a comprehensive review of the National Security Council, was a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and helped coordinate National Security Council low-intensity conflict policy initiatives. Shull represented the White House in helping to oversee the construction and dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. He earned the Defense Superior Service Medal.
Business career.
Shull began his retail career in 1985 at Sanger-Harris, formed by Federated Department Stores, in Dallas, Texas, where he led business planning, training and recruiting. He served as Divisional Merchandise Manager of $20 million hard good businesses for the prominent regional 22-store chain.
From 1986 to 1990, Shull served as senior consultant at McKinsey & Co., where he directed defense/aerospace and retail client engagements to reduce costs and increase market share.
In 1990, Shull co-founded Meridian Ventures and served as CEO until 2012. He served clients including Federated Department Stores, Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, Mobil Corp., Tecstar Corp. and Spiegel Brands as senior adviser and assumed senior executive roles to identify acquisitions, raise equity capital and implement turnarounds.
From 1992 to 1994, Shull served at Macy’s. He was a key leader in creating $2 billion of value in two years as a senior vice president of strategic planning, group senior vice president and then executive vice president. He developed a restructuring plan and served as principal negotiator in Macy’s exit from bankruptcy.
Shull joined Barneys New York in 1997. He was Barneys first non-family member CEO and led the company out of bankruptcy. Under his leadership, Barneys realized earnings improvements of 6 percentage points in 20 months.
From 2000 to 2004, Shull served as president and chief executive of Hanover Direct. At Hanover, profitability improved by more than $45 million on a $460 million sales base as he repositioned the company’s e-commerce business and increased sales from $20 million to more than $125 million. Shull led efforts to save brands such as The Company Store, Gump’s and Improvements.
In 2004, Shull joined Wise Foods as chairman and chief executive officer. He increased earnings by 10 percentage points and positioned the company for sale after a successful turnaround. He served until 2008.
Shull was elected to the Zale Corporation Board of Directors from 2004 to 2010, serving on the Compensation Committee and as Chairman of the Audit Committee for three years. As Audit Committee Chair, he successfully resolved two SEC investigations and led improvements in governance and accounting practices through early adoption of Sarbanes-Oxley requirements.
In 2009, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York named Shull the chief restructuring officer of Fred Leighton Jewelers.
In 2012, Shull was named the Director/CEO of the Army & Air Force Exchange Service, becoming the first civilian to lead the Department of Defense retailer. Shull’s business acumen and passion for taking care of military families have been the foundation to keeping the Exchange benefit thriving for America’s Warfighters and their families. When he came aboard, Shull applied private-sector best practices to the Exchange and focused on growth initiatives such as intensifying national brands, growing concessions and its convenience stores, transforming the online experience.
The Exchange is a nonappropriated fund entity of the Department of Defense operating more than 4,000 retail facilities in more than 30 countries. Like commercial retailers, the Exchange is reliant on the sale of products and services to fund its operations and generate a profit. In 2015, the Exchange achieved more than $400 million in earnings, despite military personnel downsizing of 13 percent since 2011. This performance represents an increase of three percentage points in terms of profitability, and is on par with or exceeds that of Walmart and Target. Record operating earnings in 2015 allowed the Exchange to distribute $237.2 million in dividends to military Quality-of-Life Programs. Each year, the Exchange distributes two-thirds of its earnings to these programs. In 2016, Shull became the longest-serving leader of the Exchange.
Under Shull's leadership, the Exchange has more closely aligned itself with private-sector competitors by tightening cost controls, reducing its number of employees, and introducing top brands such as Disney and Michael Kors. The Exchange has also improved its E-commerce operation at ShopMyExchange.com, establishing shipping centers inside brick-and-mortar stores to reduce shipping costs and increase delivery speeds. In 2019, the Exchange continued to perform well, reporting $369 million in earnings, $217 million of which was reinvested into installation Quality-of-Life programs that promote military readiness and resiliency, including child, youth and school services; Armed Forces Recreation Centers; and more.
Shull is a former member of the Board of Trustees of the Association of Graduates of the United States Military Academy at West Point. He also helped lead the first major Capital Campaign in USMA history. Shull is former Chairman and member of the Board of Directors, Deafness Research Foundation, the largest private charity for funding research in the causes and treatment of hearing loss.
Veterans advocacy.
Shull is a lifelong advocate for veterans' issues. While serving as a White House Fellow assigned to the White House, Shull was chosen to be an intermediary during the creation of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, helping to ensure compromises were reached to facilitate the construction and dedication of the memorial. In a Harvard Business School Bulletin article "Making Peace," Jack Wheeler (a driving force in getting the Memorial built on the National Mall) said, "There would have been no memorial without Tom Shull. Period."
Once Shull came to the Exchange, he began planning for a way to recognize and honor all honorably discharged veterans for their service. In a 2014 memo to the Undersecretary of Defense, Shull proposed allowing all honorably discharged veterans to shop the exchanges online as a modest recognition of their service, especially since the vast majority of veterans who served honorably do not meet the 20-year criteria or certified 100% disabled by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs to retain exchange benefits. The Veterans online shopping benefit represents a low-risk, low-cost opportunity to strengthen funding of Quality-of-Life programs in support of service members’ and their families.
On Jan. 11, 2017, after years of coordination with the Exchange, Departments of Defense, Army and Air Force as well as several other federal agencies, Shull received word that a change to DoD policy would extend limited online exchange privileges to all honorably discharged veterans starting Nov. 11, 2017—Veterans Day. Congressional oversight committees were notified as well and had 30 days to comment. No comments were provided, and the Veterans online shopping benefit—the first new benefit for Veterans since 1953—began on Veterans Day 2017.
The Veterans online shopping benefit allows approximately 15 million veterans to shop online at military exchanges. As of June 2019, nearly 90,000 Veterans saved more than $5 million in sales tax .
The initiative is projected to add approximately $200 million in sales to the Exchange's annual revenue within three years, making the Exchange more competitive with private-sector competitors such as Amazon.com and offsetting a 13 percent decline in the number of active-duty Soldiers and Airmen since 2011.
On Jan. 1, 2020, the Exchange welcomed home disabled Veterans, Purple Heart recipients and certain caregivers—4.1 million Americans— with in-store shopping privileges.
Privileges expanded to all Veterans with service-connected disabilities, Veterans who are Purple Heart recipients, Veterans who are former prisoners of war and primary family caregivers for Veterans who are enrolled in the Department of Veterans Affairs Program of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers.
Before the expansion, only Veterans with 100% service-connected disabilities could shop in person. (Active-duty service members, their dependents and military retirees also have in-store and online privileges.)
Awards and Decorations.
Mr. Shull's awards and decorations include:
Personal life.
Shull and his wife, Dorothy, reside in Dallas, TX. They have three children. Shull is a former Elder in the Presbyterian Church.


Philip Eisner

Philip Eisner is an American screenwriter best known for writing the screenplay for the 1997 science fiction/horror film "Event Horizon", which was produced by Paramount and helmed by director Paul W.S. Anderson.
Screenplays.
In addition to writing the film "Event Horizon" (1997), Eisner also wrote "" for Sci Fi (now known as Syfy) which was produced in 2002. In early 2005, Scott Rudin Productions acquired Eisner's supernatural thriller spec script "Furious Angels".
Eisner also wrote the screenplay for "The Mutant Chronicles", which was released in 2009 and stars Thomas Jane and John Malkovich. The film tells the tale of 28th century soldiers battling so-called "NecroMutants."
Comic book writing.
Eisner writes the comic book 'Bad Guys' which is coordinated by Kevin Spacey's TV/film production company Trigger Street Productions and Kickstart Comics.
Teaching.
He also teaches several screenwriting courses at the UCLA extension.


Central Styrian dialect

The Central Styrian dialect ("srednještajersko narečje", "osrednja štajerščina") is a Slovene dialect in the Styrian dialect group. It is spoken in the watersheds of the Voglajna and upper Sotla rivers in the south and the Central Dravinja Valley in the north, extending from Štore in the west to Rogatec in the east, and from Spodnja Polskava and Pragersko in the north to Podčetrtek in the south.
Phonological and morphological characteristics.
The Central Styrian dialect is characterized by diphthongal reflexes of the high vowels ("ii/ei, uu/ou") and close mid vowels ("ei/ai, ou/au"), lengthening of some short accented vowels, a stress accent, non-parallel reflexes of "o" and "e" (the latter being open), "a" > "ɔ", "ər" > "ar", "v" > "f" before voiceless consonants and in final position, and a small degree of vowel reduction. Final-syllable accent is morphologically unknown.