William Penney, Baron Penney

William George Penney, Baron Penney, (24 June 19093 March 1991) was an English mathematician and professor of mathematical physics at the Imperial College London and later the rector of Imperial College. He had a leading role in the development of Britain's nuclear programme, a clandestine programme started in 1942 during World War II which produced the first British atomic bomb in 1952.
As the head of the British delegation working in the Manhattan Project, Penney initially carried out calculations to predict the damage effects generated by the blast wave of an atomic bomb. Upon returning home, Penney directed Britain's own nuclear weapons directorate, codename "Tube Alloys", and directed scientific research at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment which resulted in the first detonation of a British nuclear bomb, (codename "Operation Hurricane") in 1952.
After the test, Penney became chief adviser to the newly created British government's United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA). He was later chairman of the authority, which he used in international negotiations to control nuclear testing with the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Penney's notable scientific contributions included the mathematics for complex wave dynamics, both in shock and gravity waves, proposing optimisation problems and solutions in hydrodynamics (which plays a major role in materials science and metallurgy.) During his later years, Penney lectured in mathematics and physics, and was the Rector of Imperial College London 1967–1973.
Early life and education.
William George "Bill" Penney was born in Gibraltar on 24 June 1909. His father, William A. Penney, was a sergeant-major in the British Army's Ordnance Corps who was then serving overseas. His mother was Blanche Evelyn Johnson. Young William was raised in Sheerness, Kent, and was educated at Sheerness Technical School for Boys from 1924 to 1926, where he displayed a talent for science. He then attended the local technical school in Colchester, the Gilberd School, where he completed his technical studies.
In 1927, his passion for science landed him in a local science laboratory where he worked as an assistant which helped him to gain a scholarship to study science at Imperial College of Science. He applied and was admitted to the Imperial College Faculty of Natural Sciences where he began taking courses on mathematics, particularly courses on Linear Algebra, Calculus, Partial differential equations and differential geometry. His talent was recognised by the Governor's Prize for Mathematics from the faculty of science.
In 1929 Penney graduated, obtaining the BSc in Mathematics with First Class Honours at age 20. Penney was admitted to the post-graduate department that year, and earned his MSc in mathematics in 1931. Then he was offered a research position at the London University, where he studied for a doctorate. In 1932, Penney was awarded the PhD in Mathematics after submitting his doctoral thesis containing work on optimisation and cross section of the physical properties of solid-state crystals.
Penney accepted a Commonwealth Fund Fellowship and first travelled to the United States where he became foreign research associate at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, returning to England soon after. In England, Penney was granted the 1851 Exhibition Scholarship to attend Trinity College, Cambridge. He changed his mathematical career to physics, and conducted a thorough research and theoretical investigation into the structure of metals and the magnetic properties of crystals.
In 1935, Penney submitted his final thesis and obtained a D.Sc. in Mathematical Physics from the University of Cambridge; his thesis contained the fundamental work in the applications of quantum mechanics to the physics of crystals. In 1936, he was elected to the Stokes studentship at Pembroke College, Cambridge, but in the same year he returned to London and was appointed Reader in Mathematics at Imperial College London, a post he held from 1936 to 1945. As a recognised prodigy at Imperial College he was set for a distinguished academic career until World War II intervened.
World War II.
At the start of World War II, Penney's leading-edge research into the applications of physics was noticed, and he was offered a research position with the Royal Navy. He had made significant contributions to the application of collisions, explosion events that created shock waves, and applications involving military use of hydrodynamics and gravity waves. The Admiralty and Home Office asked Penney to investigate problems connected with the properties of under-water blast waves from high explosives, a subject of great importance in designing ships and torpedoes.
With Royal Navy engineer officers he designed and supervised development of the Mulberry harbours to be placed off the Normandy beaches during the D-Day invasion. These mobile breakwaters would protect the landing craft and troops from the Atlantic rollers. In 1943, he was released from his Royal Navy work, and went to the physics faculty of the Imperial College London, his alma mater.
Then he joined Tube Alloys the secret nuclear weapon directorate, and shortly before D-Day in 1944, Penney was made head of the British delegation to the Manhattan Project, when a large team of British scientists joined the American atomic bomb project. Penney and others went to the Los Alamos Laboratory.
The Manhattan Project.
At Los Alamos Penney worked on the use of the atomic bomb, particularly the height at which it should be detonated. He quickly gained recognition for his scientific talents, and also for his leadership qualities and ability to work in harmony with others. Within a few weeks of his arrival he was added to the core group of scientists making key decisions in the direction of the programme. Other members of that team included J. Robert Oppenheimer, John von Neumann, Norman F. Ramsey and Captain William Parsons of the United States Navy (USN).
One of Penney's assignments at Los Alamos was to predict the damage effects from the blast wave of an atomic bomb. On 16 July 1945, Penney was an observer at the Trinity test detonation. He was there to observe the effect of radiant heating in igniting structural materials, and had also designed apparatus to monitor the blast effect of the explosions. The Americans considered him to be among the five most distinguished British contributors to the work. General Leslie Groves, overall director of the Manhattan Project, later wrote:
Penney went to Washington for a top secret committee target selection meeting. He recommended Hiroshima and Nagasaki because of the hills surrounding the target which he said would create maximum devastation. He gave valuable advice regarding the height of the bomb detonation which would ensure optimum destructive effects, whilst ensuring the fireball did not touch the earth, thereby avoiding permanent radiation contamination on the ground. The U.S. nuclear team repeatedly attempted to recruit Penney as a permanent member, without success.
Along with RAF Group Captain Leonard Cheshire, he accompanied the American Team to Tinian Island from which the Hiroshima and Nagasaki missions were flown. On 9 August 1945 he witnessed the bombing of Nagasaki. The US authorities had controversially stopped them seeing the Hiroshima detonation, but at the last minute Penney and Cheshire were granted permission to fly in the B-29 "Big Stink", one of the observation planes that accompanied the Nagasaki weapon delivery bomber "Bockscar". Due to the belated permission, "Big Stink" missed its rendezvous with the bomber at Nagasaki. They saw the Nagasaki detonation from the air at a distance. As the leading expert on the effects of nuclear weapons, Penney was a member of the team of scientists and military analysts who entered Hiroshima and Nagasaki following the Japanese surrender on 15 August 1945 to assess the effects of nuclear weapons.
Postwar.
At the end of the war the British government, now under Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee, believed that America would share the technology that British leaders saw as a joint discovery under the terms of the 1943 Quebec Agreement. In December 1945 PM Attlee ordered the construction of an atomic pile to produce plutonium and requested a report to detail requirements for Britain's atomic bombs. Penney returned to England and intended to resume his academic career, but was approached by C. P. Snow and asked to take up post as Chief Superintendent Armament Research (CSAR, called "Caesar") at Fort Halstead in Kent, as he suspected Britain was going to have to build an atomic bomb of its own and the government wanted Penney in this job. As CSAR he was responsible for all types of armaments research.
In 1946, at the request of General Leslie Groves and the US Navy, Penney returned to the United States where he was put in charge of the blast effects studies for Operation Crossroads. In July, he was present at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands and wrote the after action reports on the effects of the two nuclear detonations. His reputation was further enhanced when, after the sophisticated test gauges failed, he was able to determine the blast power using observations from simple devices (empty oil drums).
The British Nuclear Weapons Programme.
However the passing of the McMahon Act (Atomic Energy Act) by the Truman administration in August 1946 made it clear that Britain would no longer be allowed access to US atomic research. Penney left the United States and returned to the United Kingdom where he initiated his plans for an Atomic Weapons Section, submitting them to the Lord Portal (Marshal of the Royal Air Force) in November 1946. During the winter of 1946–1947, Penney returned to the United States, where he served as a scientific adviser to the British representative at the American Atomic Energy Commission. With almost all other aspects of atomic co-operation between the countries at an end, Penney's personal role was seen as keeping the contact alive between the parties.
Attlee's government decided that Britain required the atomic bomb to maintain its position in world politics. In the words of Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin - "We've got to have it and it's got to have a bloody Union Jack on it." Officially, the decision to proceed with the British atomic bomb project was made in January 1947 - however arrangements were already under way. The necessary plutonium was on order from Harwell and in the Armaments Research Department of the Ministry of Supply, an Atomic Weapons Section was being organised. The project was based at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich and was code-named "High Explosive Research" (or HER).
In May 1947, Penney was officially named to head the HER project. The following month Penney began assembling teams of scientists and engineers to work on the new technologies that had to be developed. In June 1947, Penney gathered his fledgling team in the library at the Royal Arsenal and gave a two-hour talk on the principles of the atomic bomb. Centred at Fort Halstead, the work proceeded on schedule. In 1950, the first bomb was expected to be ready within two years and would require a test.
AWRE.
The research was spread across several test facilities in the UK, with confusing lines of authority and responsibility. The bomb design was also complex and innovative; although it started off with the Nagasaki bomb design, completely new methods of arming and of electrical detonation were used. It was realised that a single site was required, and in April 1950 an abandoned World War II airfield, RAF Aldermaston in Berkshire was selected as the permanent home for the British nuclear weapons programme. In 1951 the first scientific staff arrived at Aldermaston, and soon after the HER project vacated the Royal Arsenal. On 3 October 1952, under the code-name "Operation Hurricane", the first British nuclear device was successfully detonated off the west coast of Australia in the Monte Bello Islands.
Penney was also aware of the public relations issues associated with the tests, and made clear-speaking presentations to the Australian press. Before one series of tests the Australian High Commissioner described his press presence: "Sir William Penney has established in Australia a reputation which is quite unique: his appearance, his obvious sincerity and honesty, and the general impression he gives that he would rather be digging his garden – and would be, but for the essential nature of his work – have made him a public figure of some magnitude in Australian eyes".
The British "H-bomb".
In 1954, nuclear development was transferred from the Ministry of Supply (MoS) to the newly formed United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA). From 1954 to 1967, Sir William served on the UKAEA Board, becoming Chairman in 1962.
In the mid 1950s Britain felt the need to quickly develop megaton class weapons because it seemed that atmospheric testing could soon be outlawed by treaty. As a result, the UK wanted to demonstrate its ability to manufacture megaton class weapons by proof-testing them before any legal prohibitions were in place. According to an article in "New Scientist", Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was also hoping to convince the US to change the McMahon Act, which prohibited sharing information even with the British, by demonstrating that the UK had the technology to make a thermonuclear weapon (an H-bomb), and he put Penney in charge of developing this bomb. The Orange Herald bomb was developed and was passed off as a thermonuclear bomb, when in fact it was a boosted fission weapon in which little of the energy came from fusion. The test of this weapon was successful in convincing the Americans to allow information sharing with the British.
Imperial College.
Lord Penney was Rector of Imperial College London from 1967 to 1973. The college built and named the William Penney Laboratory in his honour in 1987. In 1957 he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of Imperial College but failed to turn up to be formally presented with the document, which was eventually sent to him by post.
Legacy.
In later years he admitted to qualms about his work but felt it was necessary. When aggressively questioned by the McClelland Royal Commission investigating the test programmes at Monte Bello and Maralinga in 1985, he acknowledged that at least one of the 12 tests probably had unsafe levels of fallout. However, he maintained that due care was taken and that the tests conformed to the internationally accepted safety standards of the time, a position which was confirmed from official records by Lorna Arnold. McClelland broadly accepted Penney's view but anecdotal evidence to the contrary received wide coverage in the press. By promoting a more Australian nationalist view, then current in the government of Bob Hawke, McClelland had also identified "villains" in the previous Australian and British administrations. As a senior witness Penney bore the brunt of the allegations, and his health was badly affected by the experience. He died a few years later at his home in the village of East Hendred, aged 81.
In his obituary in the "New York Times" he was credited as the father of the British atomic bomb. "The Guardian" described him as its "guiding light", and his scientific and administrative leadership was said to be crucial in its successful and timely creation. His leadership of the team that exploded the first British hydrogen bomb at Christmas Island was instrumental in restoring the exchange of nuclear technology between Britain and the US in 1958, and he was credited as playing a leading part in the negotiations which led to the treaty forbidding atmospheric nuclear tests in 1963.
His Kronig-Penney model for the behaviour of an electron in a periodic potential is still taught and used today in solid-state physics, and is used to explain the origin of band gaps.
Titles, styles, honours and arms.
During his lifetime William Penney was made a Commonwealth Fund Fellow at University of Wisconsin–Madison (1932); Fellow of the Royal Society (1946); Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1970). Among the honours he received was the Rumford Medal by the Royal Society (1966). He was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Science) by the University of Bath in 1966. For services to the United States, he was one of the first recipients of the United States Medal of Freedom (with Silver Palm), awarded by President Harry S. Truman.
For his services to Britain he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE; 1946); raised to Knight Commander of the order (KBE; 1952); made a life peer, taking the title Baron Penney, of East Hendred in the Royal County of Berkshire (7 July 1967); and awarded the Order of Merit (OM; 1969). He served on the board of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (from 1954 to 1967) and became its Chairman (1962–1967). In 1974 he chaired a committee assessing the need for an expert group to be set up to advise and warn the engineering profession on matters of structural safety, which reported positively, and he served as the first chairman of the UK's Standing Committee on Structural Safety from 1976 to 1982.
External links.


Bernard Slade

Bernard Slade Newbound (May 2, 1930 – October 30, 2019) was a Canadian playwright and screenwriter. As a screenwriter, he created the sitcoms "The Flying Nun" and "The Partridge Family". As a playwright, he wrote "Same Time, Next Year", "Tribute", and "Romantic Comedy" and their film adaptations.
He received a Tony Award nomination for "Same Time, Next Year", and an Oscar nomination for the screen adaptation.
Early years.
Slade was born in St. Catharines, Ontario in May 1930, the son of Bessie Harriet (Walbourne) and Frederick Newbound. Slade moved to England with his family at age five. After he returned to Canada, he worked as a steward on Trans Canada Airlines for a while before he went into acting as a career.
Career.
Slade began his career as an actor in repertory theatre in England. He also acted with the Garden Center Theatre in Vineland, Ontario. In the mid-1960s, he relocated to Hollywood and began to work at Screen Gems as a writer for television sitcoms, including "Bewitched". When ABC gave him the opportunity to create a series, he devised "Love on a Rooftop", similar in theme to Neil Simon's "Barefoot in the Park", about a young couple living in a windowless walk-up apartment with access to a rooftop with a view of San Francisco.
The following year, Slade developed "The Flying Nun" (adapted from Tere Rios' book, "The Fifteenth Pelican"), with Sally Field as a young novice whose habit's headgear enabled her to fly. After briefly leaving Screen Gems to work as a script supervisor on "The Courtship of Eddie's Father" for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he came back to Screen Gems to create "The Partridge Family", based on the real-life Cowsills, and "Bridget Loves Bernie", inspired by the play "Abie's Irish Rose". He also wrote the script to the 1972 Columbia Pictures film "Stand Up and Be Counted," directed by Jackie Cooper and starring Jacqueline Bisset, in which the Helen Reddy song "I Am Woman" was first introduced. The last show he created for Screen Gems before it changed its name to Columbia Pictures Television was "The Girl with Something Extra".
Despite his success in television, Slade returned to the theater in 1975 with his play "Same Time, Next Year", about a couple who are married to others but meet once-a-year for sex and conversation. With Charles Grodin and Ellen Burstyn in the leads, the play was a major hit and ran for 1,453 performances. Slade received the Drama Desk Award and a Tony Award nomination for Best Play. In 1978, he followed with "Tribute", the story of a man who learns to love his father, a successful actor who always had more time for his theatrical cohorts than his son. Even with Jack Lemmon heading the cast, it proved to be far less successful than its predecessor, closing after 212 performances. Slightly more successful was "Romantic Comedy" (1979), starring Anthony Perkins and Mia Farrow. Slade wrote the screenplays for the film versions of all three plays, and was nominated for an Oscar for his screen adaptation of "Same Time, Next Year".
Book.
Slade wrote an autobiography, "Shared Laughter", published by Key Porter Books.
Personal life.
Slade was married to actress Jill Foster from 25 July, 1953 until her death on March 24, 2017. They had two children: Laurie Newbound and Christopher Newbound. Slade died from Lewy body dementia at his home in Beverly Hills, California, on October 30, 2019, at the age of 89.


Complementary network service

In telecommunication, a complementary network service (CNS) is a means for an enhanced-service provider customer to connect to a network and to the enhanced service provider.
Complementary network services usually consist of the customer local service, such as a business or residence, and several associated service features, such as a call-forwarding service.


Don Elliott Heald

Don Elliot Heald (July 7, 1922 in Concord, Massachusetts – February 19, 2009 in Atlanta, Georgia) graduated from University of Florida in 1947 and began his career at WRUF in Gainesville, Florida. He then took a news job at WSB radio and then moved to WSB-TV. Heald considered his 30 years at WSB as the "Golden Age" of television. He helped build WSB into the leading television station of Atlanta. Upon retiring in 1980 he devoted time to the National Cancer Society. He was inducted into the Georgia Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 1997.
Heald was the voice of the National Bureau of Standards atomic clock broadcast on shortwave station WWV from May 1955 until August 13, 1991. He is also credited for being the voice of the Audichron.


Joaquin Avila (lawyer)

Joaquin Guadalupe Avila (June 23, 1948 – March 9, 2018) was an American voting rights attorney and activist. Avila spent more than two decades using the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 to increase election fairness for minority voters. But as several court precedents weakened the federal Voting Rights Act, Avila conceived of state voting rights acts as a way to again strengthen minority voting rights. Thus Avila crafted the California Voting Rights Act that was enacted in 2001.
Avila brought lawsuits that set important voting rights precedents. He also served as president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and directed the National Voting Rights Advocacy Initiative at Seattle University School of Law. Among the many honors he received recognizing his work, he was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1996.
Early life and education.
Joaquin Guadalupe Avila was born in Los Angeles, California and grew up in Compton. His father was a foundry worker. He earned his B.A. in political science at Yale University in 1970 and received his J.D. degree from Harvard University Law School in 1973. He was an editor of the "Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review".
Career.
After obtaining his law degree, Avila worked briefly on voting rights litigation in California before relocating to Texas. There, Avila worked as a staff attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and quickly rose in the organization, eventually becoming its president and general counsel. He served as president and general counsel of MALDEF from 1982 to 1985, during which he had a hand in over 70 voting rights cases.
After leaving MALDEF, Avila moved to Fremont, California where he successfully argued important voting right cases, including "Gomez v. the City of Watsonville", in which the city's at-large elections for city council diluted the voting power of the city's Latino residents in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965. He successfully argued two voting rights cases before the United States Supreme Court.
Avila drafted the 2001 California Voting Rights Act (CVRA), which made it easier for plaintiffs to challenge at-large election systems by eliminating one of the criteria required to challenge such systems under the federal Voting Rights Act.
The law also required the government to pay the legal fees of plaintiffs who successfully challenge an election system under the law.
In 2003 he authored a UCLA law school report which called for the amendment of the state constitution to allow millions of non-citizen adults to vote in local elections.
Avila later served as practitioner in residence and director of the National Voting Rights Advocacy Initiative at the Seattle University School of Law.
Awards and honors.
Avila's work has been recognized by awards that include:
Personal life.
Avila was married to Sally Cabaruvias, and lived in Compton,
California, with whom he had three children, Joaquin Jr., Salvador and Angelique He died of cancer at his home in Shoreline, Washington.


Bruce Reznick

Bruce Reznick (born February 3, 1953 in New York City) is an American mathematician long on the faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. He is a prolific researcher noted for his contributions to number theory and the combinatorial-algebraic-analytic investigations of polynomials. In July 2019, to mark his 66th birthday, a day long symposium "Bruce Reznick 66 fest: A mensch of Combinatorial-Algebraic Mathematics" was held at the University of Bern, Switzerland.
Education and career.
Reznick got his B.S. in 1973 from the California Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. in 1976 from Stanford University under Per Enflo for the thesis "Banach Spaces Which Satisfy Linear Identities".
He was a Sloan Fellow (1983–1986) and is a fellow of the American Mathematical Society (AMS). From 1983 to 1985 he was on the Putnam Competition Preparation Committee of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA). As an undergraduate he had been a member of the first place team in the Putnam Competition twice, also being ranked twice in the top ten as an individual
Reznick is a frequent author on matters relating to teaching and mentoring, and the overall training of graduate students. He wrote the popular article "Chalking It Up: Advice to a New TA".
Research.
Reznick has done a systematic analysis of the representation of real forms of even degree as sums of powers of linear forms. This work was described in his monograph "Sum of Even Powers of Real Linear Forms" (Memoirs of the American Mathematical Society, 1992)
Reznick specializes in combinatorial methods in algebra, analysis and number theory, often involving polynomials, polytopes and integer sequences. He is known for his contributions to the study of sums of squares and positivity of polynomials. In joint work with M.D. Choi and T. Y. Lam, he developed the Gram matrix method for writing real polynomials as sums of squares; this method has important applications to other areas of mathematics including optimization.


Vija Celmins

Vija Celmins (pronounced VEE-ya SELL-muns; , pronounced TSEL-meen-ya) is a Latvian American visual artist best known for photo-realistic paintings and drawings of natural environments and phenomena such as the ocean, spider webs, star fields, and rocks. Her earlier work included pop sculptures and monochromatic representational paintings. Based in New York City, she has been the subject of over forty solo exhibitions since 1965, and major retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London and the Centre Pompidou, Paris.
Biography.
Vija Celmiņa was born on October 25, 1938, in Riga, Latvia. Upon the Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940, during World War II, her parents fled with her and her older sister Inta to Germany, then under the Nazi regime; after the end of the war, the family lived in a United Nations supported Latvian refugee camp in Esslingen am Neckar, Baden-Württemberg. In 1948, the Church World Service relocated the family to the United States, briefly in New York City, then in Indianapolis, Indiana. Sponsored by a local Lutheran church, her father found work as a carpenter, and her mother in a hospital laundry. Vija was ten, and spoke no English, which caused her to focus on drawing, leading her teachers to encourage further creativity and painting.
In 1955, she entered the John Herron School of Art in Indianapolis, where she has said that for the first time in her life, she did not feel like an outsider. In 1961 she won a Fellowship to attend a Summer session at Yale University, where she met Chuck Close and Brice Marden, who would remain close friends. It was during this time she began to study Italian monotone still life painter Giorgio Morandi, and painted abstract works. In 1962 she graduated from Herron with a BFA, and moved to Venice, Los Angeles, to pursue an MFA at the University of California at Los Angeles, graduating in 1965. At UCLA, she enjoyed freedom, being far from her parents, leading to further artistic exploration. She lived in Venice until 1980, painting and sculpting, and working as an instructor at the California State College, the University of California, Irvine and California Institute of the Arts, in Valencia.
In 1981, following an invitation to teach at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, she moved permanently to New York City, wanting to be closer to the artists and art that she liked. She also returned to painting, which she had abandoned for twelve years, working during that time mainly in pencil. She later switched to using woodcuts, and then to eraser and charcoal, and added printmaking to her repertory. Since that time, she has worked out of a cottage in Sag Harbor, New York, and a studio loft on Crosby Street in Soho, Manhattan. During the 1980s, she also taught at the Cooper Union and the Yale University School of Art.
Work.
Working in California in the 1960s, Vija Celmins' early work, generally in photorealistic painting and pop-inspired sculpture, was representational. She recreated commonplace objects such as TVs, lamps, pencils, erasers and the painted monochrome reproductions of photographs. A common underlying theme in the paintings was violence or conflict, such as war planes, handguns and riot imagery. A retrospective of the 1964–1966 work was organized by the Menil Collection in cooperation with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2010. She has cited Malcolm Morley and Jasper Johns as influences in this period.
In the late 1960s through the 1970s, she abandoned painting, and focused on working in graphite pencil, creating highly detailed photorealistic drawings, based on photographs of natural elements such as the ocean's or moon's surface, the insides of shells, and closeups of rocks. Critics frequently compare her laborious approach to contemporaries Chuck Close and Gerhard Richter, and she has cited Giorgio Morandi, a master of the pale grey still life, as a major influence. These works also share with Richter's an apparent randomness and thus apparently dispassionate attitude. It is as if any photograph would do as a source for a painting, and the choice is apparently unimportant. This is of course not the case, but the work contains within it the impression that the image is chosen at random from an endless selection of possible alternative images of similar nature.
At the end of this period, from 1976 to 1983, Celmins also returned to sculpture in a way that incorporated her interest in photorealism. She produced a series of bronze cast, acrylic painted stones, exact replicas of individual stones she found along the Rio Grande in Northern New Mexico, with eleven examples held at the MoMA (see photos). By 1981, she returned to painting, from this point forward working also with woodcuts and printing, and substantially in charcoal with a wide variety of erasers - often exploring negative space, selectively removing darkness from images, and achieving subtle control of grey tones.
From the early 1980s forward, Celmins focused on the constellations, moon and oceans using these various techniques, a balance between the abstract and photorealism. By 2000, she had begun to produce haunting and distinctive spider webs, again negative images in oil or charcoal, to much critical acclaim, with particular note of her meticulous surface development and luminosity. She has said that all these works are based on photographs, and she imparts substantial effort on the built-up surfaces of the images. In a 1996 review of her 30-year retrospective at London's Institute of Contemporary Art, "The Independent" cited her as "American art's best-kept secret."
Critics have often noted that Celmins' works since the late 1960s - the moon scapes, ocean surfaces, star fields, shells, and spider webs, often share the characteristic of not having a reference point: no horizon, depth of field, edge or landmarks to put them into context. The location, constellation, or scientific name are all unknown - there is no information imparted.
From 2008, Celmins returned to objects and representative work, with paintings of maps and books, as well as many uses of small graphite tablets - hand held black boards. She also produced series prints of her now well-known waves, spiderwebs, shells and desert floors, many of which were exhibited at the McKee Gallery in June 2010. She recently released a new series of prints that includes both night sky and waves mezzotints. These prints were exhibited at the Matthew Marks Gallery in January, February, and March 2018 and the Senior & Shopmaker Gallery in February and March 2018.
Exhibitions.
Celmins's works have been the subject of over forty solo exhibitions around the world since 1965, hundreds of group exhibitions. After her longtime dealer, McKee Gallery in New York, announced its closing in 2015, Celmins is currently represented by Matthew Marks Gallery.
Collections.
Celmins's works are held in the collections of over twenty public museums, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Baltimore Museum of Art, Carnegie Museum of Art, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, High Museum of Art, Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Switzerland, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TX, Museum of Modern Art, New York, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Menil Collection, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
In 2005, a major collector of her work, real estate developer Edward R. Broida, donated 17 pieces, covering 40 years of her career, to the Museum of Modern Art, as part of an overall contribution valued at $50 million ($50,000,000). Especially noteworthy were the early and late paintings.


Wout Holverda

Wout Holverda (born 22 April 1958) is a former Dutch football striker who played most of his career for Sparta Rotterdam.
Club career.
A speedy and stocky forward, Holverda started his professional football career at Sparta and played seven seasons for them, ending up as their top goalscorer in the 1983–84 season. That earned him a move to Fortuna Sittard, where he played alongside British striker John Linford, but a niggling groin injury did not make him a success at Fortuna and he spent his last seasons at HFC Haarlem before retiring.
With Sparta as well as with Fortuna he played European Cup matches, 11 games in total (4 goals)
Alzheimer's disease.
Holverda was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease what prevented him from visiting Sparta matches. In September 2013, a group of supporters decided to help him and drive Holverda to Sparta matches for the remainder of the season.


Conference operation

In a communications network, a conference operation is an operation that allows a call to be established among three or more stations in such a manner that each of the stations is able to communicate directly with all the other stations. In radio systems, the stations may receive simultaneously, but must transmit one at a time. The common operational modes are "push-to-talk" for telephone operation and "push-to-type" for telegraph and data transmission.


Roy Fagan

Roy Frederick Fagan (28 December 1905 – 18 July 1990) was an Australian Labor Party politician, who was Deputy Premier of Tasmania from 1959 to 1969.
Early life.
Fagan was born in Waratah, Tasmania in 1905, the eldest son of James Fagan and Annie Theresa Breheney. His younger siblings were two brothers, Kevin and Vin, and a sister, Sheila. His Catholic mother sent him to St Virgil's College in Hobart to be schooled, although his Catholicism lapsed once he moved out of home and he was later known to be an agnostic who did not attend Mass.
On leaving school, Fagan joined the staff of the Commonwealth Bank where he worked until 1929, when he resigned to attend university.
Education and legal career.
In 1930, Fagan commenced studies for a law degree at the University of Tasmania. In 1931, he was articled to the firm Gatenby, Johnson & Walker, and in May 1934 he graduated and was admitted to the Bachelor of Laws (LLB). During his studies, he had taken a keen interest in all aspects of university life, and was heavily involved with the Tasmania University Union, serving as the body's president for three years. He was admitted to the Bar in August 1934, after what the Hobart "Mercury" newspaper called a "brilliant university career". Fagan also completed a Bachelor of Arts and graduated in May 1935.
Political career.
Fagan was asked by the Premier of Tasmania, Robert Cosgrove, to stand for the seat of Wilmot at the 1946 Tasmanian state election. Immediately following declaration of his election, Fagan was appointed Attorney-General in Cosgrove's cabinet.
Personal life.
On 8 December 1925, aged 19, Fagan married Estelle Cooney, a shop assistant, in Wynyard. Cooney was pregnant at the time of their marriage, but did not live with Fagan between the time of the daughter's birth or afterwards. Fagan, although he remained married to Estelle, from the early 1930s was in a domestic relationship with fellow university student Mavis Smith. When Estelle died in 1946, Fagan married Smith at a Catholic church in Bellerive on 28 January 1947. They would have three sons.
In his later years, Fagan suffered from advanced Alzheimer's disease and passed away at the age of 84 in Hobart in 1990. The Roy Fagan Centre is a mental health facility in Lenah Valley, Hobart dedicated to older persons with psychiatric illness and/or cognitive impairment, and is named after him.


Melody Chan

Melody Tung Chan is an American mathematician and violinist who works as Associate Professor of Mathematics at Brown University. She is a winner of the Alice T. Schafer Prize and of the AWM–Microsoft Research Prize in Algebra and Number Theory. Her research involves combinatorial commutative algebra, graph theory, and tropical geometry.
Education and career.
Chan was inspired to become a violinist as a pre-schooler, seeing Yo-Yo Ma on Sesame Street. As a freshman at Scarsdale High School in Scarsdale, New York, she became the youngest first place winner of the 1997 Young Artists Competition of the Sarah Lawrence College chamber orchestra.
She studied violin at Juilliard School with Itzhak Perlman and Dorothy DeLay from 2000 to 2001. In 2002, she played a Vivaldi concerto for four violins alongside Perlman in a performance at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts that was broadcast on PBS.
She then majored in computer science and mathematics at Yale University. At Yale she played violin in the Yale Symphony Orchestra, won a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and the university's Hart Lyman Prize for best junior student, and became vice president of the local chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. She graduated "summa cum laude" from Yale in 2005.
After studying for the Mathematical Tripos at the University of Cambridge from 2005 to 2006, Chan worked with Paul Seymour at Princeton University, completing a master's degree there in 2008.
She completed her doctorate in 2012 at the University of California, Berkeley. Her dissertation, "Tropical curves and metric graphs", was supervised by Bernd Sturmfels.
Chan became a postdoctoral research at Harvard University from 2012 to 2015, and then joined Brown as Manning Assistant Professor in 2015.
Recognition.
As an undergraduate at Yale, Chan won the 2005 Alice T. Schafer Prize for her undergraduate research, which resulted in three published papers on distinguishing colorings of Cayley graphs.
Chan was given a Sloan Research Fellowship in 2018. She is the 2020 winner of the AWM–Microsoft Research Prize in Algebra and Number Theory, "in recognition of Chan’s advances at the interface between algebraic geometry and combinatorics", including "an astounding result" on the cohomology of moduli spaces, "foundational work on the moduli of metric graphs and tropical curves", and "beautiful new results on the expected number of turns in a random Young tableau".


Kar language

Kar (Kler), or Eastern Karaboro, is a central Senufo of Burkina Faso. Kar speakers have moderate comprehension of Western Karaboro, but the reverse is not the case.
External links.
(French) Description grammaticale du kar : langue senoufo du Burkina Faso.


Knowledge Forum

Knowledge Forum is an educational software designed to help and support knowledge building communities. Previously, the product was called Computer Supported Intentional Learning Environments (CSILE). It was designed for a short period of time by York University and continued at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, to support knowledge building pedagogies, practices and research designated in this area. In 1983, CSILE was prototyped in a university course and in 1986 it was used for the first time in an elementary school, as a full version. CSILE was considered the first networked system designed for collaborative learning (Carl Bereiter webpage). The main contributors were Marlene Scardamalia and Carl Bereiter.
In 1995, the software was redesigned in accordance to World Wide Web philosophy by OISE in cooperation with Learning in Motion. The new generation was called Knowledge Forum (KF). Knowledge Forum is an asynchronous Computer-mediated communication (CMC) technology that provides a shared discourse environment. It facilitates collaborative knowledge-building strategies, textual and graphical representation of ideas, and reorganization of knowledge artifacts.
The product is now used in a variety of social contexts in 19 countries in the Americas, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. The Institute for Knowledge Innovation and Technology (IKIT) from OISE is the research group that takes charge of future developments of Knowledge Forum.
Specifications.
Knowledge Forum (KF) Server is implemented for Windows, Mac and Linux platforms, while the latest version (KF 4.8) has a Client written in as a hybrid of Java applet and web pages. KF can be used as an e-learning system or as an in-class technology. For each class and course there is a database, individually assigned for each entity.
The main feature of the product is called "note". With notes, users can do the followings:
The main technique that KF uses is called scaffolding (Scardamalia, 2004). Learners use a specific set of scaffolds that directs other toward cognitive operations that will help them to improve their understanding. The basic set of scaffolds is the following one:
Software features.
Knowledge Forum has some basic components that all Learning Management Systems have. It has facilities for posting messages, searching for notes, uploading documents, and online assignments. However, KF is not a typical LMS. Some features (such as grade book, live chat, student information, and the integration into a larger network of users) are not implemented.
Knowledge Forum is not committed to be a traditional LMS. According with its purposes, KF is grounded on "knowledge building" theory. The software helps students in their effort to acquire new meaning and nurture knowledge building communities. In consequence, Knowledge Forum requires that learners and instructors take an approach in concordance with knowledge building theory.
Currently in version 4.8 in beta-testing the major version 5 is in progress.
Pedagogical approaches.
"Knowledge Forum" can be used in different areas such as:
According to Bereiter and Scardamalia (2003) "a comprehensive knowledge building environment would provide a means of
initiating students into a knowledge-creating culture—to make them feel a part of humankind’s long-term effort to understand their world and gain some control over their destiny" (p. 18).
References.
Bereiter, C. & Scardamalia, M. (2003). Learning to work creatively with knowledge. In E. De Corte, L. Verschaffel, N. Entwistle, & J. van Merriënboer (Eds.), Unravelling basic components and dimensions of powerful learning environments. EARLI Advances in Learning and Instruction Series; Retrieved from http://ikit.org/fulltext/inresslearning.pdf
Scardamalia, M (2004). CSILE/Knowledge Forum. In education and Technology: An encyclopedia (pp. 183–192). Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO


Zurab Chumburidze

Zurab Chumburidze (; born 6 July 1926, Terjola District) — Georgian philologist, critic, Doctor of Sciences in the field of philology (1969), professor (since 1970), member of Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1948) and Georgian writers' Union, author of nearly 250 literary and linguistic works much of which is published as a book.
He graduated from the faculty of philology at Tbilisi State University in 1949. He published his first book — „Issues about Georgian literary language and style“ (1956).
His major works include:


Konobo language

Konobo, or Eastern Krahn, is a Kru language of Liberia.
Krahn is part of the Wee dialect continuum. Whereas Konobo dialect may be considered a distinct language from Western Krahn dialects, both are intelligible with intermediate dialects.


Valery Chalidze

Author and publisher Valery Nikolaevich Chalidze (; : 25 November 1938 – 3 January 2018) was a Soviet dissident and human rights activist, deprived of his USSR citizenship in 1972 while on a visit to the US.
His Georgian father was killed during World War Two. His mother, Francheska Jansen, was an architect and designer, descended from Poles exiled to Siberia for their opposition to the Tsarist regime. Chalidze himself challenged the Soviet regime by mastering Soviet law, then demanding that the dictatorship comply with its own laws. This strategy may have afforded Chalidze some protection from the prosecution faced by other dissidents. According to fellow dissident Pavel Litvinov, ""There were rumors that he could be killed, but it was very difficult to arrest him and put him in prison."
Chalidze was born in Moscow and educated as a physicist at the universities of Moscow and Tbilisi in Georgia. In the 1960s he joined the nascent Soviet human rights movement: he began publishing "Social Issues" in 1969, and helped to found the Committee for Human Rights the following year. In 1972 Chalidze was deprived of his Soviet citizenship and spent the rest of his life in the United States.
"Social Issues".
In August 1969 the underground periodical "Social Issues" (Obshchestvennye problemy) made its first appearance. Set up and edited by Chalidze, it covered a range of themes in the humanities and social sciences, including both original articles and translated work. It had a constant focus on the application of law, in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, and the defense of human rights. As part of his publishing activities Chalidze became adept at mending mechanical typewriters, the essential tool of samizdat publication and distribution.
Under his guiding hand, "Social Issues" constantly opened new horizons for discussion. For example, he contributed to discussion of the definition, under Soviet conditions, of the term political prisoner and its practical application. The periodical championed the right of all Soviet citizens to emigrate to another country of their choosing and, in particular, he upheld the right of Jews to leave the USSR.
Chalidze wielded Soviet law in defense of many different people, including Crimean Tatars, students, Jews, Orthodox Christians, political prisoners, Baptists, and Muslims. He went further than many dissidents in calling openly for the repeal of the Stalin-era law criminalizing homosexual relations between adult males. It was a stance that concerned some of his colleagues, and led to an attempt by the Soviet regime to discredit him among the wider population by suggesting (wrongly) that he was himself gay—an assertion that could have paved the way for criminal prosecution of him.
The Moscow Human Rights Committee.
On 4 November 1970, together with Andrei Sakharov and Andrei Tverdokhlebov, Chalidze founded the Moscow Human Rights Committee. The following month "Newsweek", the US weekly magazine, published Chalidze's replies to questions from its Moscow correspondent about the Committee's aims and the prospects for its future activities.
The Committee was among the first non-governmental organizations in the post-Stalin history of the Soviet Union (cf. "Action Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR", set up in May 1969), and eventually became affiliated with the United Nations. Its purpose was to offer free legal advice to persons whose human rights had been violated by the Soviet authorities, and also to advise those authorities on their legal obligations in regard to human rights under international and Soviet law.
Chalidze was an innovative strategist of the Soviet human-rights movement, who described himself as an "evolutionary" rather than a revolutionary. After educating himself on Soviet and international law as they pertained to human rights, Chalidze invited the Soviet dictatorship into a dialogue on human rights issues, utilizing the Committee both to offer free legal advice to those whose rights had been violated, and to the Soviet government itself. In addition to demanding that the authorities comply with the law, Chalidze also adhered to the position that the dissidents, too, must obey the law. He would later summarize this position by writing: "One must have clean hands to do good deeds."
Life and activities in USA.
In 1972, Chalidze was invited by the well-known American lawyer Samuel Dash to deliver a lecture on human rights at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Once there, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree depriving him of his Soviet citizenship, and prevented him from returning to the Soviet Union. His wife Vera Slonim, a cousin of Pavel Litvinov, remained with him in the United States for a short time, retaining her Soviet citizenship. She then moved to England, and the two were divorced.
Publication renewed.
In partnership with US businessman Ed Kline Chalidze soon established Khronika Press. Based in New York, its purpose was to publish Russian-language books and important Soviet periodicals as the "Chronicle of Current Events" (April 1968-July 1982).
Together with Pavel Litvinov and Peter Reddaway, he also began to edit and publish the bimonthly, "A Chronicle of Human Rights in the USSR" (1973-1982), that drew on the contents of the Moscow-based "Chronicle", but included original materials by Chalidze and others.
In 1979, he founded Chalidze Publications, a second New York-based publishing house. It focused primarily on culturally important, non-fiction works in Russian that for reasons of censorship were unavailable to Soviet readers. Among the books issued by Chalidze Publications were original memoirs of historically important figures (such as Nikita Khrushchev), memoirs of Soviet dissidents whose work was banned in their home country, Russian translations of classic Western works of political philosophy, and original analyses of social problems.
He continued to work as a physicist, meanwhile, and for several years was a Visiting Scholar in the Physics Department at Columbia University (New York).
In 1979 he became a citizen of the United States, after having been stateless since December 13, 1972. He was retained by the U.S. Department of State to assess Soviet violations of international human-rights covenants. His report issued in 1980, and identified with specificity and legal precision many such violations.
Move to Vermont.
In 1980 he met Lisa Leah Barnhardt on a visit to Oregon. They were married shortly thereafter. Upon her completion of law school in New York, they moved to Benson, Vermont in 1983, which became the new home of Chalidze Publications and Khronika Press. Chalidze resided in Benson until his death on January 3, 2018, when he died unexpectedly at his home.
In Vermont, Chalidze continued to publish several journals and edited others such as "Internal Contradictions" (Vnutrennie protivorechiya). For a number of years he was a Visiting Scholar in the History Department at Middlebury College (Middlebury, Vermont).
In total, Chalidze Publications published almost one hundred books in Russian and in English, including the Kama Sutra, translated at Chalidze's request by Vladimir Kozlosvsky.
Chalidze never stopped working in physics, and in 2001 published his "Mass and Electric Charge in the Vortex Theory of Matter."
Trotsky, Stalin, Hamilton and Madison.
Among the works issued by Chalidze Publications were hitherto unpublished material retrieved from the Trotsky archive at Harvard University, as well as the memoirs of Trotsky, and Chalidze's own works about the Trotskyite opposition of the 1920s and 1930s and the post-Stalin dissident movement in the USSR.
In his "Conqueror of Communism" (New York, 1981), Chalidze depicted Joseph Stalin as a counter-revolutionary leader who destroyed socialism in Russia. Stalin "restored the Russian empire although in a more despotic form", he contended, using Marxist ideology to mask his real aims.
With the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev as Soviet leader, Chalidze continued to participate in the effort to promote democracy in his native country. Among other works, he wrote "Russian Nationalism and Perestroika," which was published by The American Jewish Committee in 1990. From 1985 to 1990 Chalidze received a MacArthur Fellowship in recognition of his work in international human rights.
At the request of the U.S. Administration, Chalidze Publications also organized and published the first-ever Russian translation of "The Federalist Papers" (1788). It would be an official presidential gift from George H.W. Bush to Gorbachev at one of their three summit meetings in 1990. Chalidze established a translation team for the purpose. He himself served as Editor-in-Chief, and his wife Lisa Barnhardt Chalidze, an American attorney, was Legal Editor. The primary translator was Gregory Freidin of Stanford, who was advised by Leon Lipson of Yale Law School. Gorbachev and Yeltsin both quoted from "The American Federalists" in their historic debates in the Russian parliament after August 1991 during the final months of the Soviet Union.
Citizenship and Death.
During perestroika the Soviet regime of Mikhail Gorbachev offered to restore Chalidze's USSR citizenship. He rebuffed the offer. "You had no right to take it away," he said, "and you certainly have no right to give it back."
Chalidze never returned to the Soviet Union (or the Russian Federation after 1992); he did not see his mother again. His sister Francheska, sacked from her job as a scientist in retribution for her brother's dissident activities, emigrated to the US and settled in San Diego.
Works.
Human Rights and History.
Periodicals (editor and author)
Books and Articles (author)
in English
in Russian
Co-author
Further reading.
[[Category:1938 births]]
[[Category:2018 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Moscow]]
[[Category:Moscow State University alumni]]
[[Category:Tbilisi State University alumni]]
[[Category:Soviet physicists]]
[[Category:20th-century physicists]]
[[Category:Soviet dissidents]]
[[Category:Soviet human rights activists]]
[[Category:People forcibly stripped of Soviet citizenship]]
[[Category:Soviet emigrants to the United States]]
[[Category:American people of Georgian (country) descent]]
[[Category:American publishers (people)]]
[[Category:MacArthur Fellows]]


Guillermo Algaze

Guillermo Algaze (born November 24, 1954) is a recipient of a 2003 MacArthur Award,
Algaze is a former chair of the anthropology department at University of California, San Diego, and project director of the Titris Hoyuk excavation in southern Turkey.
Life and education.
Algaze was born on November 24, 1954, in Havana, Cuba, and was raised in Puerto Rico. He graduated from the University of Puerto Rico in 1976. Algaze later moved to the continental United States, and became a citizen. In 1986, he earned his doctorate from the University of Chicago. He joined the University of California, San Diego faculty in 1990, he taught there as a professor for several years and currently serves as the chair of the anthropology department.
Academic work.
Algaze's archaeological interests have mostly been around Mesopotamian history and culture. His work has contributed to a vast amount of information in relation to Mesopotamia. In the 1990s, Algaze was a major proponent of an anthropological theory on the spread of civilisation from the Euphrates valley area and ancient Mesopotamia, arguing that colonial expansion from south to north (from the area that is currently southern Iraq) was responsible for the establishment of city-states in northern Iraq and Syria and southeastern Turkey. Following discoveries in the new millennium, Algaze says he has been "eating a lot of crow", acknowledging that evidence suggests societies in the northern area emerged simultaneously and independently of the Mesopotamian expansion.
In 2003 he received the MacArthur Genius Award, for his work studying the imperialism and colonialism of ancient civilizations, particularly the Uruk expansion in ancient Mesopotamia.


Peter J. Bickel

Peter John Bickel (born 1940) is an American statistician and Professor of Statistics at the University of California, Berkeley.
Education and career.
Bickel studied physics at the California Institute of Technology. He graduated from University of California, Berkeley, with a Ph.D., in 1963, where he studied with Erich Leo Lehmann.
His students include C.F. Jeff Wu, Jianqing Fan, Katerina Kechris, Elizaveta Levina, and Donald Andrews.
Personal.
He married Nancy Kramer in 1964; they have two children.


Julie Alexander

Julie Alexander (9 May 1938 – 31 January 2003) was a British model and actress of the late 1950s and early 1960s known for playing glamorous roles including Rosalie Dawn in "The Pure Hell of St Trinian's".
Biography.
Born in Fulham in London as Julia Yvonne Alexander, on leaving school Alexander worked in an insurance office and then for an optician to pay for drama lessons. At 5 feet 4 inches tall, Alexander was originally a model and pin-up girl appearing in "Charm" and "Lush" and on the covers of "Blighty" and "Carnival" magazines in 1956, the Turkish magazine "Hayat" in 1957, "Tit-Bits" in 1958 and 1959 and "The Weekly News" in 1959 and in a number of TV commercials before moving into acting. Her television appearances included "The Mythmakers" (1958), "ITV Play of the Week" (1958), Mary in "Tell It to the Marines" (1959), "Play Your Hunch" as herself (1961), "The Strange World of Gurney Slade" (1960), Dahlia MacNamara in "William" (1962) and Lady Rosalie in three episodes of "Richard the Lionheart" (1962).
During her brief acting career she appeared in the films "Hello London" (1958), "Operation Bullshine" (1959), "Dentist in the Chair" (1960), "The Pure Hell of St Trinian's" (1960), "The Terror of the Tongs" (1961) and "A Matter of WHO" (1961).
She retired from acting in 1962 and married the theatrical chartered accountant Robert Breckman in 1979.
Alexander was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1993 at the age of 55 and was admitted to the Meadbank Nursing Centre in Battersea in London in 1997. She died there aged 64 in January 2003. She was cremated in a non-religious ceremony at Putney Vale Cemetery.
Legacy.
After Alexander's diagnosis the Julie and Robert Breckman Centre at the PDSA PetAid hospital in Romford was set up and funded by the couple as a living will; it opened in 1999. Robert Breckman also funds The Breckman Student Nurse Bursary for the same organisation as a tribute to his late wife. The Romford centre has a display of memorabilia from Alexander's modelling and acting career as well as a collection of specially commissioned artwork. In addition, in 2000 Julie and Robert Breckman donated the most important examples from their collection of prints by Francesco Bartolozzi as well as their collection of Staffordshire ceramics, to the Victoria and Albert Museum.
At the same time the Julie and Robert Breckman Staffordshire and Print Fund was established at the V&A for the purpose of adding to the Museum's print collection. Their donation complemented the Bartolozzi prints in the original Julie and Robert Breckman gift, as that had also included an example of a print in its original frame, Bartolozzi's 'Apotheosis of a Beautiful Female' of 1797. The Julie and Robert Breckman Prints and Drawings Gallery at the Victoria and Albert Museum opened in 2005.


Swan Silvertones

The Swan Silvertones are an American gospel music group that first achieved popularity in the 1940s and 1950s under the leadership of Claude Jeter. Jeter formed the group in 1938 as the "Four Harmony Kings" while he was working as a coal miner in West Virginia, United States. After moving to Knoxville, Tennessee and obtaining their own radio show, the group changed its name to the Silvertone Singers in order to avoid confusion with another ensemble known as the "Four Kings of Harmony." They added the name Swan shortly thereafter, since Swan Bakeries sponsored their show. Their wide exposure through radio brought them a contract in 1946 with King Records.
At this early stage, the Silvertones already embodied an amalgam of two styles: the close barbershop harmonies that they had featured when starting out in West Virginia, and virtuoso leads supplied by Jeter and Solomon Womack. The group later lost Womack, but added Paul Owens in 1952 and Louis Johnson in 1955. The three singers with their sharply contrasting styles – Jeter a tenor who could sing falsetto without losing his lyric control, Owens a crooner, and Johnson a hard shouter – played off each other to great effect in songs such as "Mary Don't You Weep."
The group recorded for Specialty Records from 1951 to 1955, when it switched to Vee-Jay Records. They recorded one album with Hob Records after Vee-Jay shut down in 1965, at which point Jeter left the group for the ministry.
When interviewed by Dick Cavett in April 1970, Paul Simon credited the group with inspiring him to write the song "Bridge Over Troubled Water." John Fogerty's goal for the line, "Rollin', rollin', rollin' on the river," in the song "Proud Mary" was to evoke male gospel harmonies, as exemplified by groups such as the Swan Silvertones, the Sensational Nightingales, and the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi.
The Swan Silvertones were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2002.
In January 2011, the Swan Silvertones were nominated for the 10th Annual Independent Music Awards in the Gospel category for "Need More Love".


Grebo language

Grebo is a Kru language of Liberia. All of the Grebo languages commonly go by the term "Grebo", though in Ivory Coast "Krumen" is usual. Grebo country is in the extreme south-west of Liberia on the coast and inland, between the rivers Cavally and Cess.
As in other Kru languages, tone is extremely important. For instance, "né" with a high (or high-mid) tone is the first-person pronoun "I", while "nè" with a low tone is "you" singular.


Stephen Lee (chemist)

Stephen Lee (born 25 October 1955) is an American chemist. He is the son of Tsung-Dao Lee, the winner of the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics. He is currently a professor at Cornell University.
Education.
Lee attended the International School of Geneva, Switzerland and Yale University, from which he graduated with a BA in 1978. He later received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1985.
Career.
In 1993, Lee received the MacArthur Award for his work in the field of physics and chemistry. In addition, he has received an award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for his continued research.
In 1999, Lee joined Cornell University as a professor of solid state chemistry in the chemistry and chemical biology department from the University of Michigan, where he had been associate professor of chemistry since 1993 and where he had been recognized as both a MacArthur and a Sloan fellow. He was also a visiting scientist at Cornell in 1995.
He currently continues his teaching career at Cornell, where he instructs students in (honors) general chemistry and introduction to chemistry courses. During the past two years, Lee has devoted his summer to helping incoming freshmen learn basic chemistry to prepare them for the academic year. This has been considered part of Lee's philanthropic work, as he teaches these summer courses probono.
His current research involves developing stronger porous solids in which all the host porous bonds are covalent in character. Lee is also researching ways to introduce cross-linkable guests (such as di-isocyanides or disilyltriflates) which will react with nucleophilic groups, leading to a fully covalent organic porous solid. He also hopes to develop a long range order in intermetallic phases: Examine noble metal alloys where unit cell dimensions range from just a few, to almost 104 Å.
Personal life.
Stephen Lee was born to Nobel Prize winner Tsung-Dao Lee and Hui-Chun Jeannette Chin (), who died in 1996. Lee has one brother, James Lee (1952-), who is the dean of the School of Humanities and Social Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and chair professor of the Division of Social Science at the same university.


Adult Learning Wales

Adult Learning Wales () is a registered charity and adult education provider serving the whole of Wales.
History.
The present body was formed on the merger of Workers' Educational Association WEA Cymru and YMCA Community College on 1 August 2015, and adopted the present name in November 2016. WEA Cymru was itself a product of a recent merger, when on 10 January 2014 WEA South Wales joined with Coleg Harlech WEA (North).
WEA (South Wales).
The Workers’ Educational Association WEA in South Wales traces its roots to a conference at Cory Hall in Cardiff in October 1906 initiated by Albert Mansbridge, with representatives of local authorities, trade unions and the university college. Twelve branches were formed between 1907 and 1914, bringing adult education to working people primarily in Glamorgan and Monmouthshire. The network continued to expand after the Great War under the leadership of secretary John Davies.
Coleg Harlech WEA (North).
Workers’ education in North Wales began as classes in quarries under the auspices of the University College of North Wales. From 1925, a new North Wales district of the WEA was set up, with Silyn Roberts as its first District Secretary. By 1927 classes in existence had trebled, providing for 1250 adults. After Silyn’s early death in 1930, his widow, Mary Silyn Roberts, succeeded him as Secretary, also a lecturer, and the association continued to grow, with over 3,000 learners by the 1940s.
Coleg Harlech was founded in 1927 by Thomas Jones, Cabinet Secretary to both David Lloyd George and Stanley Baldwin, to continue the work of WEA in a residential environment.
On 1 August 2001, the Workers’ Educational Association (North Wales) and Coleg Harlech merged to form Coleg Harlech WEA (North). The merged Association continued the common longstanding tradition of liberal arts adult education to enable adults to develop their capacity to learn and fulfil their potential, but also continued to enlarge this by developing vocational education and training, including providing opportunities for socially and educationally disadvantaged adults both in residence at Harlech and in communities and workplaces across North and Mid Wales.
WEA publications.
In its heyday, the WEA in Wales published ‘’The Highway’’ in English, and ‘’Lleufer’’ in Welsh, the latter under the editorship of David Thomas.
YMCA Community College.
YMCA Community College was an independent body linked to the wider YMCA movement. It provided adult education, mostly to male learners, often vulnerable people, including ex-offenders and youth workers, across the whole of Wales.
Adult education provision.
Adult Learning Wales/Addysg Oedolion Cymru has a presence across Wales. It provides adult education throughout Wales, sometimes in its own buildings, but often at third-party premises, as required.
Governance.
The Association is a registered charity with the Charity Commission (registration number 1071234) and a company limited by guarantee (company number 3109524), governed by a Council of trustees. It is a membership based organisation at £10 per annum. Students, former students, staff and other people wishing to support the Association are particularly encouraged to apply. There is a branch network throughout Wales.
The main source of funding is the Welsh Government as a designated institution under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992.
Since renaming as Adult Learning Wales - Addysg Oedolion Cymru, the organisation additionally retains the branding of predecessor institutions.


Robert Sapolsky

Robert Morris Sapolsky (born April 6, 1957) is an American neuroendocrinology researcher and author. He is currently a professor of biology, and professor of neurology and neurological sciences and, by courtesy, neurosurgery, at Stanford University. In addition, he is a research associate at the National Museums of Kenya.
Early life and education.
Sapolsky was born in Brooklyn, New York, to immigrants from the Soviet Union. His father, Thomas Sapolsky, was an architect who renovated the restaurants Lüchow's and Lundy's. Robert was raised an Orthodox Jew and spent his time reading about and imagining living with silverback gorillas. By age 12, he was writing fan letters to primatologists. He attended John Dewey High School and, by that time, he was reading textbooks on the subject and teaching himself Swahili.
Sapolsky describes himself as an atheist. He stated in his acceptance speech for the Emperor Has No Clothes Award, "I was raised in an Orthodox [Jewish] household, and I was raised devoutly religious up until around age 13 or so. In my adolescent years, one of the defining actions in my life was breaking away from all religious belief whatsoever."
In 1978, Sapolsky received his B.A. in biological anthropology "summa cum laude" from Harvard University. He then went to Kenya to study the social behaviors of baboons in the wild. When the Uganda–Tanzania War broke out in the neighboring countries, Sapolsky decided to travel into Uganda to witness the war up close, later commenting that "I was twenty-one and wanted adventure. [...] I was behaving like a late-adolescent male primate." He went to Uganda's capital Kampala, and from there to the border with Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), and then back to Kampala, witnessing some fighting, including the Ugandan capital's conquest by the Tanzanian army and its Ugandan rebel allies on 10–11 April 1979. Sapolsky then returned to New York and studied at Rockefeller University, where he received his Ph.D. in neuroendocrinology working in the lab of endocrinologist Bruce McEwen.
After the initial year-and-a-half field study in Africa, he would return every summer for another twenty-five years to observe the same group of baboons, from the late 70s to the early 90s. He spent 8 to 10 hours a day for approximately four months each year recording the behaviors of these primates.
Career.
Sapolsky is currently the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor at Stanford University, holding joint appointments in several departments, including Biological Sciences, Neurology & Neurological Sciences, and Neurosurgery.
As a neuroendocrinologist, he has focused his research on issues of stress and neuronal degeneration, as well as on the possibilities of gene therapy strategies for protecting susceptible neurons from disease. Currently, he is working on gene transfer techniques to strengthen neurons against the disabling effects of glucocorticoids. Each year, Sapolsky spends time in Kenya studying a population of wild baboons in order to identify the sources of stress in their environment, and the relationship between personality and patterns of stress-related disease in these animals. More specifically, Sapolsky studies the cortisol levels between the alpha male and female and the subordinates to determine stress level. An early but still relevant example of his studies of olive baboons is to be found in his 1990 "Scientific American" article, "Stress in the Wild". He has also written about neurological impairment and the insanity defense within the American legal system.
Sapolsky's work has been featured widely in the press, most notably in the National Geographic documentary "Stress: Portrait of a Killer", articles in "The New York Times", "Wired" magazine, the Stanford magazine, and "The Tehran Times". His speaking style (e.g., on Radiolab, "The Joe Rogan Experience", and his Stanford human behavioural biology lectures) has garnered attention. Sapolsky's specialization in primatology and neuroscience has made him prominent in the public discussion of mental health—and, more broadly, human relationships—from an evolutionary context.
Sapolsky has received numerous honors and awards for his work, including the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship Genius Grant in 1987, an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, and the Klingenstein Fellowship in Neuroscience. He was also awarded the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award, the Young Investigator of the Year Awards from the Society for Neuroscience, the International Society for Psychoneuroendocrinology, and the Biological Psychiatry Society.
In 2007 he received the John P. McGovern Award for Behavioral Science, awarded by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
In 2008 he received Wonderfest's Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization.
In February 2010 Sapolsky was named to the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers, following the earlier Emperor Has No Clothes Award for year 2002.
Personal life.
Sapolsky is married to Lisa Sapolsky, a doctor in neuropsychology. They have two children, Benjamin and Rachel.


67th Writers Guild of America Awards

The 67th Writers Guild of America Awards honor the best film, television, radio and video-game writers of 2014. The nominations for television, new media, and radio categories were announced on December 4, 2014. The nominations for original, adapted, and documentary screenplay nominations were announced on January 7, 2015. The winners were announced in simultaneous ceremonies in Los Angeles and New York on February 14, 2015.


Archbishop Romero Catholic Secondary School (Mississauga)

St. Oscar Romero Catholic Secondary School is an alternative-style Separate high school located in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, with satellite campuses in Brampton and Caledon. The school is administered by the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board.
Like other members of the district, students who attend St. Oscar Romero receive teaching on religion, family life, and prayer in addition to the standard curriculum found in public schools. The school originally opened as Archbishop Romero C.S.S. in February 2005. The school offers programs that include Dual Credit College Transition, Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program Career Opportunities in Trades and Technology, or Machining / Electrical Pre-Trades at Sheridan College, ABLE Outdoor Adventure, Catholic Leadership, Co-op Experiential Learning, Flexible Alternative Learning, PLAR, New Directions and Positive Personal Change Programs. A newly formed community Roundtable allows participating stakeholders an opportunity to work together to align resources and services directly into program and school curriculum reflecting global learning for renewed hope. The school has no sports teams.


58th Writers Guild of America Awards

The 58th Writers Guild of America Awards, given on February 4, 2006, honored the best film and television writers of 2005.
Winners and nominees.
Film.
Adapted Screenplay.
 "Brokeback Mountain" – Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana
Original Screenplay.
 "Crash" – Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco
Documentary Screenplay.
 ' – Alex Gibney; based on the book "The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron" by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind
Television.
Dramatic Series.
 "Lost"  – J. J. Abrams, Kim Clements, Carlton Cuse, Leonard Dick, Paul Dini, Brent Fletcher, David Fury, Drew Goddard, Javier Grillo-Marxuach, Adam Horowitz, Jennifer Johnson, Christina M. Kim, Edward Kitsis, Jeffrey Lieber, Damon Lindelof, Lynne E. Litt, Monica Macer, Steven Maeda, Elizabeth Sarnoff, Janet Tamaro, Christian Taylor, Craig Wright
Comedy Series.
 "Curb Your Enthusiasm"  – Larry David
New Series.
 "Grey's Anatomy"  – Zoanne Clack, Ann Lewis Hamilton, Kip Koenig, Stacy McKee, James D. Parriott, Tony Phelan, Joan Rater, Shonda Rhimes, Mimi Schmir, Gabrielle G. Stanton, Krista Vernoff, Harry Werksman and Mark Wilding
Episodic Drama.
 "Autopsy" – "House" – Lawrence Kaplow
Episodic Comedy.
 "You Can't Miss The Bear (Pilot)" – "Weeds" – Jenji Kohan
Long Form – Adapted.
 "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers"  – Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely
Long Form – Original.
 "Warm Springs"  – Margaret Nagle
Daytime Serials.
 "The Young and the Restless"  – Kay Alden, John F. Smith, Trent Jones, Jim Houghton, Sandra Weintraub, Chris Abbott, Joshua S. McCaffrey, Sara A. Bibel, Janice Ferri Esser, Natalie Minardi Slater, Eric Freiwald, Sally Sussman Morina


Michael Stolz

Michael Stolz (*12. December 1960 in Munich) is a Swiss and German medievalist and professor at the University of Bern.
Biography.
Stolz read German and French in Munich, Poitiers and Bern. He submitted his doctoral thesis in Bern in 1993, with a thesis on the poetic techniques of the Marian poem "Der Tum" by the German 14th-century author Heinrich von Mügeln In 2000, he completed his habilitation on the literary representation of the seven Liberal arts in the Middle Ages.
After this, positions followed at the University of Basel (SNSF professorship 2001–2005) and at the University of Göttingen (Professor for Medieval German language and literature with a focus on the later Middle Ages and Humanism, 2005/2006). In 2006 he became professor for Medieval German literature at the University of Bern. He has held visiting professorships at the University of Oxford (EHRC-Visiting Fellow 1995–1998), Paris-Sorbonne (Professeur invité 2007/08), the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (Fellowship 2014), and at Stanford (Visiting Scholar 2015).
Stolz is principal investigator of two major digital humanities projects funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation: the digital edition of Wolfram von Eschenbach's Arthurian romance "Parzival" and the digital reconstruction if the library of the 15th-century humanist Sigismund Gossembrot. His current research is focussed on the relationship of original and copy, medieval literature in intercultural contexts (looking into Wolfram von Eschenbach, the "Carmina Burana", and Giovanni Boccaccio), and the reception of Alan of Lille in Prague during the 14th and 15th century court of Charles IV, university, Hussite movement.
He was president of the Swiss Academic Society of German Studies (2008-2012), executive director of the Bern Centre for Medieval Studies (2009-2012), and vice dean and later dean of the faculty of humanities of the University of Bern (2010-2012, 2012–2014). As dean he oversaw the implementation of the MA programme in Editorial Studies and the foundation of the Walter Benjamin Kolleg for interdisciplinary doctoral and postdoctoral research. Between 2009 and 2018 we was also editor of the journal "Germanistik in der Schweiz".
Stolz is married to the slavicist Zuzana Stolz-Hladká. They have two children.


7th Writers Guild of America Awards

The 7th Writers Guild of America Awards honored the best film writers of 1954. Winners were announced in 1955.
Winners & Nominees.
Film.
Winners are listed first highlighted in boldface.


Brigitte Kronauer

Brigitte Kronauer (29 December 1940 – 22 July 2019) was a German writer who lived in Hamburg. Her novels, written in the tradition of Jean Paul with artful writing and an ironic undertone, were awarded several prizes, including in 2005 the Georg Büchner Prize, in 2011 the Jean-Paul-Preis and in 2017 the Thomas Mann Prize.
Life.
Kronauer was born in Essen, and grew up with her mother. She studied pedagogy and worked as a teacher in Aachen and Göttingen. She moved to Hamburg in the mid-1970s, where she began her literary work. Her first novel appeared in 1980, "Frau Mühlenbeck im Gehäus", published by , which also published all her following works. The novel has autobiographic elements. Its language was unusual in the literature after World War II, with sentences constructed with acrobatic audacity ("von akrobatischer Gewagtheit"). Kronauer named Jean Paul as influential for her work. As in his writing, Kronauer's sentences often contain double-meanings and ironic allusions.
She wrote successful novels such as "Berittener Bogenschütze" (1986), "Teufelsbrück" (2000), "Verlangen nach Musik und Gebirge" (2004), "Errötende Mörder" (2007), "Zwei schwarze Jäger" (2009), "Gewäsch und Gewimmel" (2013) and "Der Scheik von Aachen" (2016). Her novel "Das Schöne, Schäbige, Schwankende" is scheduled to appear in August 2019. It is focused on a woman writer, full of self-irony.
In 2005, she was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize for her literary oeuvre. Among other awards, she received the Jean-Paul-Preis in 2011, and the Thomas Mann Prize in 2017.
Kronauer died on 22 July 2019 in Hamburg, after a long illness.
Legacy.
Kronauer's colleague Martin Mosebach, who delivered the laudatory speech when she received the Thomas Mann Prize, said in an interview by Deutschlandfunk on 24 July 2019 that he regards her as writing in the tradition of Jean Paul in a noble way, mentioning aspects such a sublime artistry ("kunstvoll sublim") and a tender humour with a floating, ironic, delicate undertone ("schwebender, ironischer, zarter Unterton"). He described her as a person open to visual impressions, describing a character's emotions by noting how they are reflected in mimics, and great nature scenes, realising how nature "arches over the little odd human being" ("Die Natur wölbt sich über das kleine kauzige Menschenwesen"), again similar to Jean Paul. He described her as a person with a penetrating mind, a perfect careful control of expression, always trying hard to find the right word, and of great kindliness ("... eben diese einzigartige Gegenwart eines durchdringenden Verstandes, einer vollkommenen, sehr, sehr sorgfältigen Kontrolliertheit ihres Ausdrucks, ein ungeheures Bemühen, immer das genau richtige Wort zu finden – und eine große Liebenswürdigkeit").
The "FAZ" called her one of the greatest post-World War II women writers in German.
When she received the Jean-Paul-Preis of Bavaria, her writing was described by the jury: "The brilliance of her style makes her an exceptional phenomenon in contemporary German literature" ("Die Brillanz ihres Stils macht sie zu einer Ausnahmeerscheinung in der deutschen Gegenwartsliteratur"), with characteristics such as "inventiveness, humanity and a sense of humour that accompanies the often idiosyncratic characters of her books with love, and never betrays them" ("Erfindungskraft, Humanität und ein Humor, der die oft eigenwilligen Figuren ihrer Bücher mit Liebe begleitet und niemals verrät"), while also considered the 'grand master of spite" ("Großmeisterin der Boshaftigkeit").
Novels.
Kronauer's novels, published by Klett-Cotta in Stuttgart and held by the German National Library, include:


Anthony Athanas

Anthony Athanas (July 28, 1911 – May 20, 2005) was a multi-millionaire Albanian American restaurateur and philanthropist. His restaurants included Anthony's Pier 4, known throughout United States. In 1976 the National Restaurant Association named him Restaurateur of the Year.
Life.
Born in Korçë, southern Albania, then part of the Manastir Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire, on July 28, 1911, Athanas and his mother Evangeline traveled on a donkey to a port and emigrated to Bedford, New York in 1915–16, where his father, who was a mason, and siblings had settled. At the age of thirteen Athanas left school and worked in several restaurants until 1938, when he bought his first restaurant: Anthony's Hawthorne Café in Lynn, Massachusetts, which by the early 1950s had become the highest-grossing restaurant in Massachusetts, with profits of more than $1 million annually. The Lynn restaurant closed in 2008. In 1963, he opened Anthony's Pier 4, which by the early 1980s was grossing about $12 million annually and was the highest-grossing restaurant in the United States, though it closed in August 2013. His other restaurants included the Hawthorne by-the-sea Tavern and The General Glover House in Swampscott, Massachusetts (The General Glover House closed in the late 1990s), and Anthony's Cummaquid Inn in Yarmouth Port.
Athanas had also served as president of Massachusetts's Restaurant Association, a member of the board of the National Restaurant Association, while in 1976 he was named "Restaurateur of the Year". In 1999 during the Kosovo War, he became a member of the congressional delegation of the United States, Albania, Kosovo, and Macedonia. Although Athanas had no formal education he was a popular lecturer at Harvard Business School, the University of New Hampshire and Cornell University, and was awarded the "Horatio Alger Award" by the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans in 1978. He died at his Swampscott home on May 20, 2005 of Alzheimer's disease at the age of 93. The funeral was held at St. George Albanian Orthodox Cathedral in South Boston.


Janine Antoni

Janine Antoni (born January 19, 1964) is a Bahamian–born American artist, who creates contemporary work in performance art, sculpture, and photography. Antoni's work focuses on process and the transitions between the making and finished product, often portraying feminist ideals. She emphasizes the human body in her pieces, such as her mouth, hair, eyelashes, and, through technological scanning, brain, using it as a tool of creation or as the subject of her pieces, exploring intimacy between the spectator and the artist. Her work blurs the distinction between performance art and sculpture.
She describes her work by saying "I am interested in extreme acts that pull you in, as unconventional as they may be"
She currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.
Early life and education.
Antoni was born January 19, 1964 in Freeport, Bahamas. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1986 with a B.A.degree. She received a M.F.A. degree in 1989 in Sculpture from Rhode Island School of Design. Although she was educated in the United States, her experience growing up in the Bahamas is influential in her work. Her difficulty acclimating to American society is what drove her to use her body as a tool, as she felt her body language made her stand out.
Career.
Tableau vivants, a static scene containing one or more actors or models, are an art form that Antoni has used in her work. In her installation "Slumber" (1994), Antoni slept in the gallery for 28 days and while she slept, an EEG machine recorded her REM patterns, which she then wove into a blanket from the night gown under which she slept. This particular work was seen as a "tableau vivant" because of its spectacle aspect:The aspirational focus of this "tableau vivant", while situating the artist as an object on view, insists on an aesthetics of connections: between the artist and beholders, between the artists [sic] and the art institutions, and between the artist's conscious and unconscious processes.
Antoni explains this desire to be involved in the viewer's experience when she writes:[Performance] wasn't something that I intended to do. I was doing work that was about process, about the meaning of the making, trying to have a love-hate relationship with the object. I always feel safer if I can bring the viewer back to the making of it. I try to do that in a lot of different ways, by residue, by touch, by these processes that are basic to all of our lives... that people might relate to in terms of process... everyday activities--bathing, eating, etc. But there are times when the best way to keep people in that place, which for me is so alive and pertinent, is to show the process or the making.
She says of this performer/audience interaction: "This letter sums up my relationship to my audience. I have a deep love for the viewer; they are my imaginary friend."
Antoni has cited Louise Bourgeois as a strong artistic influence, referring to Bourgeois as her 'art mother.'
Antoni's work is in various public museum collections, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA), National Gallery of Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Broad, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, among others.
She was interviewed for the 2010 documentary film, "!Women Art Revolution".
Work.
"Gnaw" (1992).
In her work "Gnaw" (1992), Antoni used her mouth to bite, chew, and carve the corners and edges of two 600 lb (300 kg) cubes, one made of chocolate and the other of lard. She collected the removed pieces of chocolate and lard to create a separate mock store front display which she called "Lipstick/Phenylthylamine" "Display", consisting of heart-shaped boxes made of chocolate and lipstick tubes filled with a "lard, pigment, and beeswax". Antoni made a statement about her work saying "Lard is a stand-in for the female body, a feminine material, since females typically have a higher fat content than males, making the work somewhat cannibalistic". In this work, Antoni addresses the transformation in cultural acceptance of feminine desire and sexuality.
"Loving Care" (1993).
In "Loving Care" (1993), Antoni used her hair as a paintbrush and Loving Care hair dye as her paint. Dipping her hair in a bucket of dye, Antoni mopped the gallery floor on her hands and knees, pushing viewers out of the space as she coated the floor in color. In this process Antoni explored the body, as well as themes of power, femininity, and the style of abstract expressionism. Her performance was at the Anthony d'Offay Gallery, London, in 1993.
"Lick and Lather" (1993).
In "Lick and Lather" (1993), Antoni produced fourteen busts of herself, seven cast from chocolate and the other seven from soap. She then "re-sculpts" the busts by licking the chocolate and bathing herself with the soap as the title suggests, distorting the representation. The installation portrays complex ideas of femininity and Antoni's relationship with herself as a woman. Washing, bathing, and eating are indulgent, self-loving acts, and in her destruction of her own image using these methods she explores the love/hate relationship that we have with ourselves. In an interview in 1996 with Amy Jinkner-Lloyd, Antoni discusses the defacing of the chocolate bust in installation, as somebody had bitten the nose off. Antoni states, "I didn't want to leave it as part of the piece because, for me, the licking was very important, in the sense that it was a very loving act, very different than "Gnaw"." The soap has been interpreted by some as a symbol of the societal expectations placed on women, as they are required to be "clean" in a metaphorical and literal sense. The chocolate can also be connected to stereotypical ideas of womanhood in its common consumption by women.
"Slumber" (1994).
"Slumber" is a performance piece which stretched over the course of many weeks. She spent the first weeks sleeping in the gallery space, a room with no decor, filled only by a wire-frame bed and a desk with a computer and wires. She slept with a blanket which she continued to weave during the day, creating an infinite blanket connected to a loom that she slept with at night. While she slept, she recorded her eye movements using an electroencephalogram, and weaves recreations of the recorded data made of her nightgown into the blanket. The piece is a commentary on connections: between the artist and the viewer, the artist and art institutions, and the artist's conscious and unconscious processes.
"Tear" (2008).
In "Tear" (2008), Antoni created a wrecking ball in lead and then used it to demolish a building synchronized with the blinking of her eyelid. Each impact damaged the surface of the ball, thus telling its history. The intention of this project was to leave the viewer to interpret the psychological reaction of danger.
"Crowned" (2013).
Her work "Crowned" (2013) was inspired after her giving birth in 2004 to her daughter. A sculpture of a wall with plaster crown moulding, that has two plaster pelvic bones protruding from the wall and is framed by plaster splashed around the objects. It visually resembles the second stage in childbirth called, "crowning", when the baby's head is surrounded by the vaginal orifice.
"I Am Fertile Ground" (2019).
"I Am Fertile Ground" (2019) was a site-specific installation in the catacombs of Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. Small photographs, close-ups of living bodies, are presented in gilded frames shaped to look like human bones. The work speaks to the fragility of the human form, surrounded as it was by the remains of some 560,000 individuals buried at Green-Wood, one of the earliest examples of a large park-like and varied in style cemetery, built in rural America.
Teaching.
Since 2000, Antoni teaches fine art in a graduate course called "Master Class/Mentor Groups" at Columbia University, School of the Arts.
Personal life.
Antoni is married to artist, Paul Ramirez Jonas and together they have a daughter. The couple met while in graduate school at Rhode Island School of Design.


Matt Witten

Matthew Witten (born in Baltimore) is an American television writer for "House" and other shows. He also has written several mystery books, the first of which was "Breakfast at Madeline's". His novel "The Necklace" will be published in September, 2021, by Oceanview Publishing.
He is credited as the writer for the "Supernatural" episodes "No Exit"—centering on the ghost of H. H. Holmes—and "Playthings".
Witten also teaches screenwriting for UCLA Extension Writers' Program.
Background and education.
Witten grew up in Cincinnati and graduated from Amherst College. He lives in the Los Angeles area with his wife and two sons. He is the son of Louis Witten and the brother of Edward Witten, both of whom are theoretical physicists.
Plays.
"The Deal" (1989). The play won a Clauder Playwriting Competition, helping Witten launch his career as a television writer.
"Sacred Journey" (2000)
Mystery novels.
"Breakfast at Madeline's", a murder mystery set in Saratoga Springs.
"Grand Delusion", a murder mystery set in Saratoga Springs
"Strange Bedfellows"


Kaan language

Kaan, or Libo, is an Adamawa language of Nigeria.


Christa Agnes Tuczay

Christa Agnes Tuczay (born 7 February 1952 in Eisenstadt) is an Austrian University professor in Medieval German Language and Literature at the Institute of German Studies at the University of Vienna. Tuczay is well known for her research on narratives and fairytales in the Middle Ages.
Biography.
Tuczay studied German Literature and Pedagogy, Philosophy and Psychology and also Ethnology, Indology and Finnish and Hungarian Studies at the University of Vienna, gaining the title of Magister in 1978. In 1981 she received her doctorate with a study on the fairytale motif "Der Unhold ohne Seele" (the soulless monster). From 1981 to 2006 she was a researcher in the Austrian Academy of Sciences’ (OeAW) "Motif Index of German Secular Narrative Literature from the Beginnings to 1400". Currently, Tuczay lectures at the Institute of German Studies at the University of Vienna. She has also been a visiting professor in Chiang Mai (Thailand), Innsbruck and Klagenfurt.
Research foci.
Tuczay's research focuses on narratives, cultural studies, history of mentality, history of magic and the psychohistory of the Middle Ages. Her interest in narratives and fairytales was sparked during her undergraduate days, and she eventually wrote her doctoral thesis on an international fairytale motif. With her knowledge on this area she also contributed to the OeAW project "Motif Index of German Secular Narrative Literature from the Beginnings to 1400". She has also written several entries in the Encyclopedia of Fairy Tales.
From 1999 onwards, Tuczay worked on the edited volumes in the series “Mythen des Mittelalters” (Myths in the Middle Ages) and contributed with various articles. Together with researchers on the Motif-Index she edited a volume of collected papers on the modern Austrian legend. Since the publication of "Magie im Mittelalter" (Magic in the Middle Ages) Tuczay has been dedicated to the special field of research on witchcraft, which has been on the rise since the 1980s, from the perspective of history of mentality and cultural studies, resulting in various articles in English- and German-speaking anthologies. Her monograph "Kulturgeschichte der mittelalterlichen Wahrsagerei" (A Cultural History of Medieval Fortune Telling), published in 2012, focuses on the topic of divination, briefly outlined in "Magie und Magier im Mittelalter".
In her habilitation Tuczay examines the subject of ecstasy, experienced in medieval texts as a desirable borderline experience. Her work in this area introduced her to research on shamanism in Hungary, where she has contributed to the frequent congresses and publications in the field. A related experience, dreams and visions, has been the focus of Tuczay's psychohistorical observations, including a three-part series on revenants, human-to-animal transformation and occultism.
Besides these research foci, Tuczay has written many articles on topics firmly rooted in medieval German studies. Her book "Herzesser" (Heart Eaters) also examines the history of crime and mentality in Austria.
Publications (selection).
A comprehensive list of Tuczay's publications can be found on the webpage of the University of Vienna.