Suction caisson

Suction caissons (also referred to as suction anchors, suction piles or suction buckets) are a form of fixed platform anchor in the form of an open bottomed tube embedded in the sediment and sealed at the top while in use so that lifting forces generate a pressure diffential which holds the caisson down. They have a number of advantages over conventional offshore foundations, mainly being quicker to install than deep foundation piles and being easier to remove during decommissioning. Suction caissons are now used extensively worldwide for anchoring large offshore installations, like oil platforms, offshore drillings and accommodation platforms to the seafloor at great depths. In recent years, suction caissons have also seen usage for offshore wind turbines in shallower waters.
Oil and gas recovery at great depth could have been a very difficult task without the suction anchor technology, which was developed and used for the first time in the North Sea 30 years ago.
The use of suction caissons/anchors has now become common practice worldwide. Statistics from 2002 revealed that 485 suction caissons had been installed in more than 50 different localities around the world, in depths to about 2000 m. Suction caissons have been installed in most of the deep water oil producing areas around the world: The North Sea, Gulf of Mexico, offshore West Africa, offshore Brazil, West of Shetland, South China Sea, Adriatic Sea and Timor Sea. No reliable statistics have been produced after 2002, but the use of suction caissons is still rising.
Description.
A suction caisson can effectively be described as an upturned bucket that is embedded in the marine sediment. This embedment is either achieved through pushing or by creating a negative pressure inside the caisson skirt; both of these techniques have the effect of securing the caisson into the sea bed. The foundation can also be rapidly removed by reversing the installation process, applying an over air pressure inside the caisson skirt.
The concept of suction technology was developed for projects where gravity loading is not sufficient for pressing foundation skirts into the ground. The technology was also developed for anchors subject to large tension forces due to waves and stormy weather. The suction caisson technology functions very well in a seabed with soft clays or other low strength sediments. The suction caissons are in many cases easier to install than piles, which must be driven (hammered) into the ground with a pile driver.
Mooring lines are usually attached to the side of the suction caisson at the optimal load attachment point, which must be calculated for each caisson. Once installed, the caisson acts much like a short rigid pile and is capable of resisting both lateral and axial loads. Limit equilibrium methods or 3D finite element analysis are used to calculate the holding capacity.
History.
Suction caissons were first used as anchors for floating structures in the offshore oil and gas industry, including offshore platforms such as the Draupner E oil rig.
There are great differences between the first small suction caissons that were installed for Shell at the Gorm field in the North Sea in 1981 and the large suction caissons that were installed for the Diana platform in the Gulf of Mexico in 1999. The twelve suction caissons on the Gorm field were intended to secure a simple loading buoy device at a depth of 40 metres, while the installation of suction anchors for the Diana platform was a world record in itself at that time, concerning water depth and size of anchors. The height of the Diana suction caissons is 30 metres, their diameter 6.5 metres, and they were installed at a depth of about 1500 m on soft clay deposits. Since then, suction caissons have been installed at even larger depths, but the Diana installation was a technology breakthrough for the 20th century.
An important development step for the suction caisson technology emerged from cooperation between the former operator in the North Sea, Saga Petroleum AS, and Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI). Saga Petroleum’s oil-producing Snorre A platform was a tension-leg platform of a type that in other parts of the world would have been founded with up to 90 metres long piles. Unfortunately on the Snorre oil field, it was difficult to use long piles due to the presence of huge pebbles at 60 m depth under the seabed. Saga Petroleum decided therefore to use suction caissons, which were analysed by NGI. These analyses were verified from extensive model tests. The calculations showed that the platform could be safely secured by suction caissons of only 12 m in length. Snorre A started to produce oil in 1992 and is now operated by the Norwegian oil company Statoil.
Suction buckets were tested with offshore wind turbines at Frederikshavn in 2002, at Horns Rev in 2008 and Borkum Riffgrund in 2014, and are to be used in a third of the foundations at the initial development at Hornsea Wind Farm.
Statoil have gone on to use the technology for windfarms.
They are also planned to be used for some of the wind turbines in the Hornsea Project One wind farm scheduled to be completed in 2020. Similarly, a suction bucket contract has been awarded for the Aberdeen Bay Wind Farm.
Gravity oil platforms.
Suction caissons have a lot of similarities with foundation design principles and solutions for the big gravity oil platforms that were installed in the North Sea when the offshore oil production started there in the beginning of 1970’s. The first gravity oil platform on the Ekofisk oil field had a foundation area that was as big as a football field, and it was placed on a seabed with very dense sand. The platform was designed to tolerate waves up to 24 m in height.
As the installation of oil platforms continued in the North Sea, in areas with poor ground conditions such as soft clays, they were designed to survive even higher storm waves. These platforms were founded on a system of cylindrical skirts that were penetrated into the ground under combined gravity load and underpressure. The oil platform at the Gullfaks C field was equipped with 22 m long skirts. The Troll A platform is founded in 330 m depth with 30 m long skirts and is the world’s biggest gravity platform.
Research and development.
The Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI) has been heavily involved with the concept development, design and installation of suction anchors from the start. The project "Application of offshore bucket foundations and anchors in lieu of conventional designs" (1994-1998) was sponsored by 15 international petroleum and industry companies and was one of the most important studies. The project “Skirted foundations and anchors in clay” (1997-1999) was sponsored by 19 international companies organized through the Offshore Technology Research Center (OTRC) in the USA, and the project “Skirted offshore foundations and anchors in sand” (1997-2000) was sponsored by 8 international companies. The main conclusions from the projects were presented in the 1999 OTC paper no 10824.
An industry sponsored study on the design and analysis of deepwater anchors in soft clay was completed in 2003, where NGI participated together with OTRC and Centre for Offshore Foundation Systems (COFS) in Australia. The overall objective was to provide the API Geotechnical Workgroup (RG7) and the Deepstar Joint Industry Project VI with background, data and other information needed to develop a widely applicable recommended practice for the design and installation of deepwater anchors.
The Norwegian classification society DNV (Det Norske Veritas), active worldwide in risk analysis and safety evaluation of special constructions, has produced a recommended practice report on the design procedures for suction anchors which is based on close cooperation with NGI. The main information from the project was presented in the 2006 OTC paper no 18038.
In 2002 NGI established the subsidiary NGI Inc in Houston. The subsidiary has since been awarded the detailed geotechnical design for more than 15 suction anchor projects in the Gulf of Mexico, and among these the challenging Mad Dog Spar project involving design of anchors located in old slide deposits below the Sigsbee Escarpment. For further information reference can be made to the 2006 OTC papers no 17949 and 17950.


Chaplin station

Chaplin is an underground light rail transit (LRT) station under construction on Line 5 Eglinton, a new line that is part of the Toronto subway system. It will be located in the Forest Hill neighbourhood at the intersection of Chaplin Crescent and Eglinton Avenue, and is scheduled to open in 2022.
Three entrances are planned for this underground station: a main entry at Gilgorm Road and Eglinton, next to Chaplin Parkette and replacing a retail building; a second entrance on the south side of Eglinton between Chaplin Crescent and the Kay Gardner Beltline Park; and a third, also on the south side, about halfway between Chaplin and Russel Hill road. The TTC 14 Glencain bus route will connect at this station.
Property at 574 Eglinton Avenue West was expropriated for the construction of the main Chaplin Station entrance.
In order to accommodate the third entrance, fire station 135 located at 641 Eglinton Avenue West was closed and its eastern portion demolished. The western portion has been retained. The fire hall was built in 1932, and is listed on the City of Toronto Inventory of Heritage Properties. A replacement fire station was established on the west side of Chaplin Crescent just north of Eglinton Avenue West.
Destinations include Forest Hill Collegiate Institute, Forest Hill Library, the Beltline Trail, Memorial Park, and the Forest Hill Memorial Arena.
Surface connections.
The following routes would serve this station according to the report presented at the board meeting on February 25, 2016:


John William Ogden

John William Ogden (1862 – 23 March 1930) was a British trade unionist.
Ogden was born in Heywood, Greater Manchester, to Peter and Martha Ogden. He was baptised 14 September 1862. He began working half-time in a cotton mill at the age of eight and soon became active in his local trade union. In 1891, he was elected as secretary of the Heywood, Castleton, Norden and District Weavers' Association, and through this he served on the council of the Amalgamated Weavers' Association. He became president of the Amalgamated Weavers in 1910, and the following year was elected to the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress (TUC). He served as President of the TUC in 1918, and as its delegate to the American Federation of Labour in 1920.
Ogden joined the Independent Labour Party in the 1890s, and through this became active in the Labour Party, standing unsuccessfully for Sowerby at the 1918 and 1922 general elections. He also served on Heywood Town Council and spent much of his spare time working with the Workers' Educational Association.
Ogden broke his leg around the end of 1929. The leg was amputated, but he died three months later from resulting complications.


Hermann Wilhelm Prell

Hermann Wilhelm Prell (1875–1925) was a skillful German Bogenmacher / Bowmaker. He was born on July 29, 1875 in Bad Brambach, Germany.
Hermann Wilhelm spent his formative years as a pupil of Heinrich Hoyer.
In the early years afterwards he worked for Albert Nurnberger (1893–1895) and August Rau (1896).
The following year (1897) he went to Paris to learn from Eugène Sartory. He established himself independently in Markneukirchen upon his return in 1898 where he lived and worked until his death on 4 April 1925.
Prell went on to become an internationally renowned bow maker.
Quotes.
Sartory left an indelible mark on the young Hermann Wilhelm, as can be seen in the bows of his manufacture (the heads as well as the frog design etc.) - Gennady Filimonov
"Prell's bows were highly regarded by many of the top players of his time (circa 1920's), as was advertised in "The Music Trade Review. (NYC-September 23, 1922)
"Beauty of design and perfect balance gives to these bows a super eminent value." - W. Henley


Antide Janvier

Antide Janvier (1 July 1751 – 23 September 1835) was a French clockmaker.
Life.
Antide Janvier was born in a village in the Jura, and learned the basics of his trade from his father, and was educated in Latin, Greek, mathematics and astronomy by a local "abbé". At age 15 he built an astronomical sphere which he presented to the Academy of Sciences of Besançon, which won him wide admiration, and he began his career as an apprentice watchmaker.
He gained a reputation as a maker of ingenious and complicated clocks, including many astronomical clocks and clocks showing the tides. He was also famous for his "double pendulum clocks", also called "Resonance clocks", which he was the first to make. He eventually became Louis XVI's royal clockmaker. After the French Revolution he spent time in prison because of this royal association and then fell on hard times; his hardships were increased by the death of his wife in 1792. He sold his watches and equipment and designs to Abraham-Louis Breguet, who sold watches under his own name. Following the restoration of the monarchy under Charles X, he was awarded a small pension beginning in 1826, but died in poverty and obscurity.
Works.
He authored and published an important textbook on the theory and practice of watchmaking: "Manuel Chronométrique ou précis de ce qui concerne le temps, ses divisions, ses mesures, leurs usages", Published 1821 by Didot, Paris (267 pages, Frontispiece and 5 engraved foldout plates).
He also produced a written account of twelve of his very original timekeepers, which was published 1827 under the title "Recueil des Machines composées et exécutées par Antide Janvier", which has been reissued 1995 in facsimile format by publisher "L'image du Temps" (56 pages).
The largest, publicly-accessible, collection of Antide Janvier's masterworks is in the Musée Paul Dupuy in Toulouse.


Waterloo railway station, Sydney

Waterloo railway station is an under construction underground rapid transit station in Waterloo on Transport for NSW's Sydney Metro City & Southwest line. It is scheduled to open in 2024. Consideration was given to building the line via Sydney University, however in December 2015, the State Government confirmed the line would be built via Waterloo.


Alois Lang

Alois Lang (1872–1954) was a Master Woodcarver at the American Seating Company, and one of the artists responsible for bringing the medieval art of ecclesiastical carving to life in the United States.
Lang was born in Oberammergau in Bavaria, a town long known for its excellence in wood carving. He was apprenticed to his cousin Andreas Lang around the age of 14, spent one year's study with the great wood sculptor Fortunato Galli in Florence, Italy, and moved to the United States in 1890 at the age of 19. Lang first found work in Boston carving elaborate mantelpieces for Back Bay families.
In 1903, he moved westward and joined the American Seating Company of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, moving with the firm to Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1927. Lang became well known as a prominent ecclesiastical wood-carver. An article in a 1946 newsletter states that “recently the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts and Letters presented him with a special award for his contribution to art in Michigan.”
His carvings can be found in numerous buildings, mostly churches, throughout the United States, including:
Sources.
Hughes, D. Dale. Conscience of A City: The History of Central Methodist Church, Detroit, MI 1967.


Alexander Stevenson (Scottish politician)

Sir Alexander Stewart Stevenson (9 April 1860 – 24 May 1936) was a Scottish councillor and a lay preacher.
Life.
Alexander Stevenson was born on 9 April 1860 at Dalry, Ayrshire, Scotland. His family moved and he was educated at Grange School, Bo'ness, in West Lothian. He became a jeweller and watchmaker and entered Edinburgh Town Council as a Liberal in 1900. He was Convener of the Electricity Committee 1904–1906 and 1909–1915; Magistrate 1906–1909; City Treasurer 1922–1925; and Lord Provost 1926–1929.
He was created a Knight Bachelor on 16 February 1928 at Buckingham Palace. In 1929 he was awarded an honorary LLD by the University of Edinburgh at the same ceremony as the German theologian Albert Schweitzer was also awarded an honorary degree. On 28 November 1929 he was appointed Deputy Lieutenant of the City and County of the City of Edinburgh.
With his father James Stevenson (1824–1887) having been a missionary with the Scottish Coast Mission it was natural that he was a lay-preacher with the Grassmarket Mission in the Leamington Terrace Church in Edinburgh, the first Scottish United Church, which later became the Bruntsfield Church.
Twice capped as a Scottish international bowls player, he was part of Rink 3 in the first ever international competition between England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. This took place on 13th, 14th, and 15 July 1903, on the Crystal Palace and Wandsworth Greens, London. Although tied on points, England beat Scotland on shots.
He died in Edinburgh on 24 May 1936.
Legacy.
A number of streets in Edinburgh were named after him in the area which he represented on the council:


A. M. Aikin Jr.

Alexander Mack Aikin Jr. (October 9, 1905 – October 24, 1981) was an American politician who served in the Texas House of Representatives and the Texas Senate as a Democrat. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1932, and after serving two terms was elected to the Senate in 1937. In total, he served for 46 years in the two chambers of the Texas Legislature, making him the longest-tenured legislator in the history of Texas at the time of his retirement in January 1979.
Aikin earned a reputation as a staunch supporter of education, and was given the honorific "the father of modern Texas education". He served on the Senate Finance Committee from 1937 to 1979; he was also the chair of the committee from 1967 until 1979. In 1943, Aikin also served as president "pro tempore" of the Senate and, in the absence of Governor Coke R. Stevenson and the Lieutenant Governor, as acting governor for 14 days. The A. M. and Welma Aikin Regional Archives and the A. M. Aikin Symposium at Paris Junior College (PJC), as well as two chairs at the University of Texas at Austin, have been named in his honor.
Early life.
Alexander Mack Aikin Jr. was born on October 9, 1905, in Aikin Grove, Red River County, Texas. His family moved to Lamar County in 1907, and Aikin attended grade school in Milton and high school in Deport. He then attended Paris Junior College (PJC) in Paris and Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee, the latter of which he graduated from with a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1932.
Political career.
A member of the Democratic Party, Aikin's political career began in 1932 with his election to the Texas House of Representatives. In 1937, after serving two terms in the House of Representatives, he was elected to the Texas Senate. From 1948 onwards, he did not face an opponent in any election that he contested. In total, he served for 46 years in the two chambers of the Texas Legislature, making him the longest-tenured legislator in the history of Texas at the time of his retirement in January 1979. During his entire political career, he missed only two and a half days that the legislature was in session.
Aikin earned a reputation as a staunch supporter of education, and according to Daisy Harvill "he supported every major educational bill passed by the legislature" and was given the honorific "the father of modern Texas education". Among his most significant legislative achievements were his sponsorship of the 1933 bill that established the Teacher Retirement System, which became a constitutional amendment in 1937; his cosponsoring of the 1949 Gilmer-Aikin Laws (with Representative Claud Gilmer of Rocksprings), which established a centralized, statewide education system along with the Minimum Foundation school program that guaranteed funding levels for public schools and minimum teachers' salaries procured by the state; and his sponsorship of a 1956 amendment to set $100 a month as the minimum retirement compensation for teachers in an effort to attract better talent to the profession. Aikin was also an advocate for all-weather farm roads, largely because of the increased accessibility that they provided to schools, as well as the M. D. Anderson Hospital, the principal cancer treatment center in Texas.
Aikin served on the Senate Finance Committee, which is charged with handling state budget and tax bills, from his election to the Texas Senate in 1937 to his retirement in 1979; he was also the chair of the committee from 1967 until 1979. In 1943, he served as president "pro tempore" of the Senate and, in the absence of Governor Coke R. Stevenson and the Lieutenant Governor, as acting governor for 14 days. During his brief tenure as acting governor, Aikin briefly declared martial law in Beaumont due to a race riot; he did so at the request of local officials and with the approval of Governor Stevenson. Aikin became dean of the Senate in 1963, and dean emeritus upon his retirement in 1979.
Personal life.
Outside of his political career, Aikin worked as the senior partner in both the law firm Aikin & Townsend and Aikin's Men's Wear haberdashery, both in Paris. In 1929, he married Welma Morphew, a landscape beautification advocate and future PJC regent with whom he had one son. Aikin died on October 24, 1981, at St. Joseph's Hospital in Paris, at the age of 76; he had been hospitalized since September 6. His funeral was held at First United Methodist Church in Paris on October 26, where he was eulogized by United States Senator Jack English Hightower of Vernon and former State Senator A. R. "Babe" Schwartz of Galveston. He was also memorialized on October 29 with a brief service in the Texas Senate in which he was eulogized by Lieutenant Governor William P. Hobby Jr. and once again by State Senator Schwartz.
Legacy.
Aikin was honored with the proclamation of "A. M. Aikin Day" in 1973, during which his portrait was hung in the Texas Senate chamber, "a rare honor for a lawmaker who was still serving".
Aikin was further honored with the establishment of the A. M. and Welma Aikin Regional Archives at PJC's Mike Rheudasil Learning Center in 1978. It serves as a repository for his personal papers in addition to showcasing a gallery exhibit and a replica of his Texas Senate office, as well as a reading room for researchers. The Aikin Regional Archives additionally contains local and regional history collections, including manuscripts, maps, newspapers, photographs, and other documents, as well as local government records from Delta, Fannin, Lamar, and Red River counties due to its status as a regional depository for the Texas State Library and Archives Commission.
In 1979, the A. M. Aikin Symposium was established at PJC as a two-day seminar for high school students addressing "fiscal responsibility in government".
Furthermore, the A. M. Aikin Regents Chair in Junior and Community College Education and the A. M. Aikin Regents Chair in Education Leadership were established in 1985 at the University of Texas at Austin. The total endowment of the two chairs was $1 million; former PJC president Louis B. Williams led the fundraising effort for the endowment, while the total gift of $500,000 was matched with funds from the Permanent University Fund to establish the memorial chairs.


Chen bottom mine

The Sinking (沉, or Chen) naval mines are a series of Chinese naval mines. These are bottom mines.
Estimates place Chinese total mine stocks at between 80,000 and 100,000 mines.
Chen-1.
The Sinking-1 (沉-1, or Chen-1) naval mine is the fourth type of naval mine entering Chinese service in 1966. It is a bottom mine jointly developed by the 710th research institute, the 152nd Factory and Fengxi Machinery Factory (汾西机器厂), and it was the first Chinese naval mine using an acoustic fuze. It is useful for shallow water and port defence or blockading.
Chen-2.
The Sinking-2 (Chinese: "沉-2", Transliteration: "Chen-2") bottom mine was the first indigenous designed Chinese naval mine that could adopt a range of fuzes, such as acoustic, contact, infrasonic, ultrasonic and magnetic fuzes. The project was jointly developed by Fengxi Machinery Factory (Chinese: "汾西机器厂") and the 710th Research Institute in 1972, and was mainly used for coastal regions. The mine was accepted into service in 1975.
Chen-3.
The Sinking-3 (沉-3, or Chen-3) is the successor of Sinking-2 (Chen-2) bottom mine, and is also a shallow water mine. It was jointly developed by the Vanguard Instrumentation Factory (前卫仪表厂) and Suzhou Maritime Machinery Factory (苏州船用机械厂) in 1974. In comparison to its processor, this mine is the first in the Chinese inventory to adopt combined fuses instead of being only able to have a single type of fuze. Currently, all Sinking-3 bottom mines are upgraded to the Sinking-3-II (Chen-3Yi) standard and this latest version is a fully solid state model. The upgrades were done by the Vanguard Instrumentation Factory.
Chen-4.
The Chen-4 or Sinking-4 (沉-4, or Chen-4) is a bottom mine with non-contact fuses. It was jointly developed by the 710th Research Institute of Chinese Shipbuilding and the Dongfeng Instrument Factory (东风仪表厂). This bottom mine is the counterpart of the Drifting-2 drifting mine and like the latter, it can be disassembled for easy transportation and then reassembled prior to being deployed. A mine with negative buoyancy which remains on the seabed. Also called a ground mine.
Chen-5.
The Sinking-5 (Chen-5) is a Chinese naval mine. It is a small bottom mine, like the Chen-4 and Drifting-2 drifting mine it was designed around the concept of People's War of guerrilla warfare. It can be dismantled for easy transportation and reassembled just prior to being planted. Unlike the Sinking-4 (Chen-4) bottom mine, this bottom mine cannot be used as part of other Chinese naval mine systems, but it does have the ability to incorporate the contact fuse, a feat that the Sinking (Chen-4) bottom mine lacks. Furthermore, Sinking-5 (Chen-5) bottom mine is developed by Fengxi Machinery Factory (汾西机器厂) can also be used on land as part of booby traps. The evaluation of this mine was carried out under combat conditions - these mines were deployed in Cambodia and Vietnam during the Vietnam War and the customers were satisfied with the performance, and as a result, the mine was considered an achievement and won a national award in 1978.
Chen-6.
Another shallow-water bottom mine.


Canora station (REM)

Canora is a future station on the Réseau express métropolitain, expected to open in the third quarter of 2023. It is located in the west end of the Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, just east of Mount Royal. The platforms are located northwest of the west portal of the Mount Royal Tunnel.
Until May 2020, Canora was a commuter rail station on Exo's Deux-Montagnes line and Mascouche line.
History.
The station is located at 7300, Canora Road, immediately northwest of Jean Talon Street.
The station takes its name from Canora Road, which in turn takes its name from the first operator of this line, the Canadian Northern Railway, which built the line and operated it for a short time before it was merged into Canadian National Railway.
From the opening of the Deux-Montagnes Line in 1918 until the modernization of the line, which took place between 1993 and 1995, the station was called Portal Heights because of its location at the northwest end of the Mount Royal Tunnel.
The station is valued by the residents of not only the town of Mont-Royal, but also by those of the Côte-des-Neiges borough, for its fast connection with the downtown Central station involves a 7-minute journey via the tunnel.
Under the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) proposal, which would convert the Deux-Montagnes line to rapid-transit operation, a connecting station would be built on the Saint-Jérôme line adjacent to Canora across Rue-Jean-Talon.
Starting in May 2018, due to its 4-year-long process of being converted to light rapid transit, only one of the station's two platforms was being used for travel in both directions; the same was true for its neighbouring station Mont-Royal (outbound). The station was fully closed on May 11, 2020, in order to be converted into a REM station. It is slated to reopen in 2022.


Cooper Ring


Petaluma North station

Petaluma North is a future Sonoma–Marin Area Rail Transit station in Petaluma, California located at Corona Boulevard and North McDowell Avenue. The station was planned as an infill station to be constructed after the initial phase of the system's construction had been completed. The site may include a 150-space parking facility. SMART estimated construction costs for the station at $11 million in 2019. In June 2020, the SMART Board of Directors authorized $8 million from the sale of a district-owned property to be used for design and construction of the station.


Forest Hill station (Toronto)

Forest Hill is an underground light rail transit (LRT) station under construction on Line 5 Eglinton, a new line that is part of the Toronto subway system. It will be located in the Forest Hill neighbourhood at the intersection of Bathurst Street and Eglinton Avenue. It is scheduled to open in 2022.
During the planning stages for Line 5 Eglinton, the station was given the working name "Bathurst", which is identical to the pre-existing Bathurst station on Line 2 Bloor–Danforth. On November 23, 2015, a report to the TTC Board recommended giving a unique name to each station in the subway system (including Line 5 Eglinton). Thus, the LRT station was renamed to "Forest Hill".
A small plaza at the northeast corner of the Eglinton and Bathurst intersection, which houses several businesses including a coffee shop and convenience store, will be demolished to make way for the main station entrance. The secondary entrance will be on the north side of Eglinton about west of the intersection, opposite Peveril Hill; the combined entry and service building will replace three storefronts. In the future, a possible third entrance may be added on the southwest corner adjacent to the Scotiabank.
Three local landmark businesses are likely to have their stores expropriated and demolished for the construction of the station, but it is hoped that they can be relocated on this same strip of Eglinton Avenue. Properties required for the construction of the station, at 842 Eglinton Avenue West and 874–876 Eglinton Avenue West, were expropriated.
Since completion of building the station headwalls, restoration of the roadway on Bathurst Street began on August 16, 2015.
On April 18, 2016, a scaffold erected across the face of the future secondary entrance collapsed, injuring seven people (three seriously). The collapsed structure was the façade of the former location of House of Chan, which is a local independent Chinese-Canadian restaurant; the restaurant itself relocated eastward along Eglinton Avenue to west of Avenue Road.
Surface connections.
The following routes would serve this station according to the report presented at the board meeting on February 25, 2016:


Burkat Shudi

Burkat Shudi (variants: Burkhart, Burkhardt, Schudi, Tschudi, Tshudi) (13 March 1702 – 19 August 1773) was an English harpsichord maker of Swiss origin.
Biography.
He was born in Schwanden in the Canton of Glarus, and arrived in England in 1718, where he started work as a joiner. He married Catherine Wild, whose parents came from the same town as him, in 1728. John Broadwood worked for him from 1761, and in 1769 became his partner after marrying his daughter Barbara. Johannes Zumpe also worked for him.
He retired in 1771, being succeeded by his son, who was also called Burkat (c.1738–1803), following whose death the firm was taken over entirely by Broadwood, who had by then become a piano maker. There are twenty-three harpsichords by Shudi and 27 by Shudi and Broadwood in existence today. Three harpsichords exist by his nephew Joshua, who worked for him unsatisfactorily for a while, and one signed 'Bernard Shudi', about whom nothing is known.
Shudi's harpsichords.
His harpsichords drew on the Flemish tradition, dominated by Ruckers, whose harpsichords had become extremely prized in the 18th century; he himself owned and hired out two Ruckers harpsichords. The usual specifications for his single-manual harpsichords was 8' 8' or 8' 8' 4' and for his double-manual harpsichords 8' 8' 4' and lute stop. Most from c.1760 also had a buff stop, occasionally operated by a pedal.
He made a great many innovations in the harpsichord: from c.1765 he introduced the machine stop, a mechanism engaged by a handstop and operated by a foot pedal which gradually reduces the registration on each manual; from c.1765 he extended the range down to CC; from c.1769 he introduced the Venetian swell: a contraption nearly identical in mechanism and purpose to the expression pedal found on the organ, operated with a foot pedal and placed above the strings. He used leather plectra in some registers; it is not known whether he ever built an instrument with a 16' stop, though none survives with one. He also made claviorgans (a joint harpsichord and organ) though none of those instruments remain.
Charles Burney preferred the tone of Shudi's harpsichords to Kirkman's and his instruments were highly valued; his customers included Frederick the Great, Empress Maria Theresa, Joseph Haydn, Muzio Clementi, the Prince of Wales, Thomas Gainsborough, and George Frideric Handel. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart tried one of his harpsichords in 1765. His instruments were exported as far as Russia, Oporto and Naples (where one of his harpsichords was, according to Burney, regarded as a 'musical phenomenon').
It was Frank Hubbard's opinion that the harpsichords of Shudi and Kirkman represent 'the culmination of the harpsichord maker's art [...] for sheer magnificence of tone, reedy trebles and sonorous basses, no other harpsichords ever matched them', though he was later put off building copies because so little significant music was written for them.


Richard Hotham

Sir Richard Hotham (5 October 1722 – 13 March 1799) was an East India merchant, property developer and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1780 to 1784. He is especially noted for his development of the Sussex village of Bognor into a seaside resort. He was also sometimes called Hotham the Hatter, to mark his original trade.
Early life.
Hotham was born the youngest of five children in York in October 1722, but otherwise very little is known about his childhood. Having moved to London to become a hatter's apprentice, in 1743, at the age of 21 he married Frances Atkinson, the daughter of his employer, in the chapel of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea.
By 1746 he was trading as a hatter in his own right from premises in Serle Street, Lincoln's Inn, a few years later moving to new premises in The Strand.
Hotham's wife Frances died in 1760, and the next year, at the age of 39 he remarried, to Barbara Huddart. At this time he became involved with the East India Company, later working up to having a number of ships under his control – records at the British Library show him as 'Principal Managing Owner' of a number of vessels including the East Indiaman "York". He received his knighthood on 2 April 1769 at the relatively young age of 46.
Rise in society.
Using the money he had made in this venture, Hotham began his long association with property development, first buying land and buildings in Merton, South London, including a house for himself known as Merton Grove. This has since been demolished and replaced by Victorian terraced houses including Balfour and Cecil Roads opposite South Wimbledon tube station. The house name was for many years remembered by the name of the Morden Road pub The Grove Hotel, which has in more recent years been acquired by Tesco as a Tesco Metro Supermarket.
During his time in Merton, Hotham was appointed a Magistrate, and in 1770 the High Sheriff of Surrey but suffered a further setback in 1777 when Barbara died, leaving him a widower for the second time at age 55.
Hotham began to be involved in politics, and at the 1780 general election he played a major part in the campaign to elect Admiral Keppel at Surrey. Hotham himself contested Southwark, and was returned as Member of Parliament for Surrey at the top of the poll. He did not stand at the 1784 general election but stood at the by-election at Southwark two months later in June 1784. He lost the contest very narrowly. In Parliament he voted with the opposition until the fall of the North government and made two speeches. In 1784 he was a member of the St. Alban's Tavern group who tried to bring Fox and Pitt together.
Association with Bognor.
Hotham found the climate of the south coast did him the world of good, and decided that he would like to have a house of his own there and accordingly bought a plot of land containing a farmhouse, near the sea. He then set about rebuilding the farmhouse as a comfortable villa which he named Bognor Lodge (this has since been demolished).
Following his own experience of the curative nature of the sea air, and the current trend for the gentry to resort to the seaside, his property developing side kicked in, and with an eye to gaining some of the fame and wealth of places like Brighton and Weymouth he set about buying land in the area until eventually he had around in his ownership. Then the building started.
He built a number of large terraces of houses around the tiny hamlet, with the express aim of attracting the more well-heeled visitor to his new resort, the ultimate prize being to attract the King away from his favoured resort at Weymouth, or the Prince of Wales from Brighton.
Ultimately, this was to be unrealised, although minor members of the Royal Family were attracted to stay in the grand new Dome House, built overlooking Richard's new house and grounds known as Bersted Lodge. Complete with private chapel and clock tower, this house still stands, now known as Hotham Park House. The chapel has gone but the clock tower remains.
Sir Richard Hotham died at Bognor in March 1799 and was buried at the parish church of St. Mary Magdalene at South Bersted, where to this day there is an annual wreath laying ceremony at his grave.
Legacy.
Following his death the estate was broken up and in the intervening years many of his fine buildings have vanished, although some gems remain, including Hotham Park House, now a private residence in the middle of Hotham Park. The grounds of Aldwick Manor are now a public park known as Hotham Park, and although the name Hothampton did not long survive the man himself, the resort he founded, now known as Bognor Regis, has continued to attract visitors to the present day.


Stacy Adams Shoe Company

Stacy Adams is a brand of menswear including suits, sleepwear, underwear, sportswear, jewelry, and shoes, with an emphasis on urban fashions, including styles resembling modern zoot suits, as well as more casual hip-hop clothing.
Stacy Adams is currently owned by Glendale, Wisconsin-based Weyco Group.
History.
The Stacy Adams Shoe Company was founded in 1875 in Brockton, Massachusetts by William H. Stacy and Henry L. Adams.
In popular culture.
Morris Day, front man of the Minneapolis-based funk and soul band The Time, is known for his large collection of Stacy Adams shoes. He mentions the brand by name in The Time's 1982 song "The Walk", from the album "What Time Is It?": "I'm about to walk a hole in my Stacy Adams." Rapper Coolio mentioned the shoe brand in his song "1,2,3,4 (Sumpin' New)" from the 1995 album "Gangsta's Paradise": "Comin' at 'em with a pattern and a fresh pair a' Adams." It was also used as a reference in Snoop Dogg's song "Stacy Adams" featuring Kokane from the album"The Last Meal" in 1999. Tom Waits also references "my Stacy's are soaking wet" in his song "Tom Traubert's Blues/Waltzing Matilda", from the album "Small Change", released in 1976 by Asylum Records. Also on the album "Nighthawks at the Diner", in the track "Spare Parts", he has the lyrics " I wiped my Stacy Adams, and I jackknifed my legs".


Adriana Breukink

Adriana Breukink is a recorder maker living in Enschede, Netherlands, who makes Renaissance, baroque and modern instruments.
Life and career.
Breukink was introduced to the recorder by an aunt when she was nine years old. She attended the Royal Conservatory of The Hague where she worked with Frans Brüggen and Ricardo Kanji. The great recorder maker Fred Morgan offered classes at the Conservatory, and Breukink worked with him to make a Ganassi recorder. By the time she had completed her solo exam in 1980, she had decided to become an instrument maker.
Breukink has become a leader in the development of new recorders. In 1997, she developed a Ganassi-based recorder with a chin-controlled dynamic slide extension for Moeck. In an effort to develop a Renaissance style recorder for use by beginners she developed the Adri's Dream recorder in collaboration with Mollenhauer in 1999. She later expanded this line to include Dream Edition recorders for more advanced players. In conjunction with Küng, she introduced the Eagle Recorder for professional players in 2007.
Breukink is a member of the Bassano Quartet, who perform on a variety of her instruments up to three meters tall.


Dingbian Road station

Dingbian Road (), formerly known as Cao'an Highway (), is a station under construction on the future Line 14 of the Shanghai Metro. Located at Dingbian Road and Tongchuan Road in the city's Jiading District, the station is scheduled to open with the rest of Line 14 in 2021.


Johannes Stenrat

Johannes Stenrat (sometimes Hans Stenrat, Stenradh, Stenrat of Lübeck, Stenrode, Steynrot) c. 1410-1484) was a German Northern renaissance wood carver and painter, active in Lübeck.
Life and works.
Johannes Stenrat was born and seems to have lived most of his life in Lübeck; his name appears frequently in the city archives between 1455 and 1484. In records from the time he is always described with the low German word "meler", literally meaning painter, but in the Baltic Sea area at the time signifying an artist who is working both as a wood carver and a painter.
In 1458 he received a commission to finish an altarpiece for Vadstena Abbey in Sweden. Work on the altarpiece had begun two years before by Hans Hesse, but apparently Hesse never finished his work. It is not entirely clear what parts of the altarpiece was made by which artist. Johannes Stenrat's signature (now erased) was also placed on an altarpiece in Bälinge Church outside Uppsala (also in Sweden). An altarpiece in St. Anne's Museum, Lübeck has also been securely attributed to Stenrat, and a painting in St. Nicholas' Church, Rostock displays many similarities with the Vadstena altarpiece. In addition, several altarpieces in Swedish churches (e.g. Kråksmåla, Rumskulla, Torsås, Salem, Sorunda, Bälinge and Högsrum) have been attributed to Johannes Stenrat, but these attributions remain more or less uncertain.


Gustav Bruemmer

Gustav Bruemmer (German Brümmer, born April 23, 1905, in Kiel, died July 4, 1970, pseudonym: Guschi) was a German watchmaker and headmaster at the watchmaking school in Hamburg.
Life and achievements.
Bruemmer left school in 1920, having acquired the O-level qualification. He learned the craft of watchmaking in Glashütte and took the trade test in 1924. His test work is now exhibited in the Museum of the School of Watchmaking in Glashuette. From 1927 to 1929 he attended the German School of Watchmaking Bruemmer Glashuette. He studied at the Vocational Teacher Training Institute and the Graduate School of Berlin. From 1931 to 1933 he trained as a commercial teacher. In his thesis he wrote about "Vocational education in watchmaking." In 1933 he had a practical educational year at the trade school in Lokstedt-Niendorf. In 1934 he took on various teaching assignments in Hamburg and married his wife Gertrude in the same year. From 1 April 1936 he was a fully employed teacher at the vocational school in Lokstedt-Niendorf. The monthly salary amount was then 236.37 Reichsmark.
In 1940 he started as a teacher in the state sector School of Watchmaking Altona, Hamburg. In 1944 he became a commercial senior teacher at the same school.
Since that time he wrote many technical articles for the journal "The Clock" (organ of the Central Association of the Watchmaker). [2] In 1952 he published the still-used book "Applied Mathematics for Watchmakers" as the third edition of the textbook series "The Watchmaking School" of the publisher Hermann Brinkmann with the cooperation of the State School of Watchmaking in Altona and the "Central Association of the Watchmaker".
In 1958 he was technical director at the state school for watchmakers in Hamburg-Altona, until he retired in 1968. Bruemmer died of kidney failure many years after.
External links.
Scores by Gustav Bruemmer in the catalog that German national library


Gilman Square station

Gilman Square station is an under-construction light rail station on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Green Line in Somerville, Massachusetts. It is being built as part of the Medford Branch of the Green Line Extension. Gilman Square will consist of one island platform. It is projected to open in December 2021.
History.
Railroad station.
The Boston and Lowell Railroad opened between its namesake cities in 1835; local stops were added after several years. Winter Hill station was located at Gilman Square in Somerville, one of several stations in the city. The station building was a long wooden structure north of the tracks. In 1870, the Lexington Branch was routed over the B&L east of Somerville Junction, increasing service to Winter Hill and several other stations.
In 1888, a new stone station was built on the south side of the tracks; the wooden station was split into two sections which were reused as houses still standing near Magoun Square. The new station was made of red marble ashlar with rough marble trim; the waiting room featured a marble fireplace.
The inner suburban stations lost much of their ridership to streetcars, especially after the Lechmere Viaduct sped travel times to downtown beginning in 1911. The ticket office at Winter Hill was closed in 1926. On April 25, 1927, the Lexington Branch was reconnected to the Fitchburg Line; the 1870-built line west of Somerville Junction became the Fitchburg Cutoff used only by freight trains. Three stations on the cutoff plus Prospect Hill and East Cambridge stations east of Winter Hill were closed entirely; service to Winter Hill ended then or soon after. The railroad unsuccessfully attempted to sell the station for reuse. The abandoned station building was demolished in July and August 1934, as it had become a target for vandalism. The stone base of the former station was used to house electric equipment until Green Line Extension construction began in 2018.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the newly formed MBTA reopened several inner-suburb commuter rail stations in response to community desire for service that was faster if less frequent than buses. In 1976, Winter Hill station was considered for reactivation, but ridership was expected to be negligible due to the nearby , , , and buses.
A Gilman Square commuter rail station to supplement the then-planned Green Line station was listed as a possibility in 2012 as an interim air quality mitigation measure in response to delays in building the Green Line Extension. However, such a station would have been costly to build and could not have been completed by the 2015 deadline, and was thus not supported by MassDOT.
Green Line station.
In November 2012, the MBTA indicated that the Gilman Square station was expected to be completed by June 2019, as part of the Phase 3 of the Green Line Extension project. As of 2014, the MBTA expected the Gilman Square station to be completed in 2020, but in December 2016, it announced the station's opening had been delayed until 2021.
By August 2020, the platform foundation and south headhouse were under construction. , the station is expected to open in December 2021. Original plans called for the D Branch to be extended to Medford/Tufts. However, in April 2021, the MBTA indicated that the Medford Branch would instead be served by the E Branch.


Rush (Thorpe Park)

Rush is a giant swing ride at Thorpe Park in Chertsey, Surrey which opened at the park alongside another S&S Power thrill ride, Slammer, in 2005. At this time it was the tallest ride of its type in the world. Smoke can be seen at the top of the ride's canisters. Many consider it to be one of the best flat rides in the UK.
Construction.
Construction for Rush started late 2004, after "Eclipse", the Ferris wheel had been removed. It was originally meant to have four air tanks, instead of two. It took around 4 months to construct and test. The ride was installed by Ride Entertainment Group.
Ride Opening.
The grand opening for Rush was at midday on 27 May 2005. After testing all through the morning, it opened, only to break down after four ride cycles. It tested for over 1 hour, and reopened again. As the ride has two swings which swing in opposite directions, it is thought the ride needed to close due to the swings falling out of sync, which caused the ride to operate with one swing, meaning it can only hold 16 people per ride.
Ride Experience.
The ride begins with low swings which gradually get higher. After about 5 swings it reaches its full height of and its top speed of 50 mph. The approximate angle the swings reach is 104 degrees. At the peak of the swing, riders feel strong negative G's and at the bottom, positive forces of up to 3.5 G. After 4 swings at its full height, the ride slows down quickly to a stop.
The ride experience is enhanced by the fact that it has a lap bar instead of the over the shoulder restraints. This gives riders more freedom and feel more exposed. The ride is powered by compressed air which makes the ride extremely loud. Some guests feel the noise adds to the experience but it has been criticised due to the noise as well.
The ride can also run on one swing if the park is quiet or if the other is not working.
The capacity with one swing is 375 riders per hour, with two swings 768 riders per hour.
2008 Incident.
On 27 May 2008, a piece of metal fell from the ride, while it was operating with guests seated. The ride was stopped immediately and was closed for inspection. The incident was caught on film and posted on YouTube. The fallen part was re-made and re-fitted and new platforms were built. The ride was covered in scaffolding for a week whilst being repaired. The ride re-opened shortly afterwards.


Allen Cleveland Lewis

Allen Cleveland Lewis (1821–1877) was a Chicago citizen who left his estate in order to create Lewis Institute.
Biography.
Allen Cleveland Lewis was born in Sterling, Connecticut. He lived in Elgin, Illinois as a young man, where he was a hardware merchant. He married and had one son. At the age of twenty months, his son died. After the death of his wife, Lewis moved to Chicago, Illinois.
Both Allen and his older brother John Lewis had an interest in creating a school for boys who had to leave school early to attend work. Allen traveled to Europe multiple times to study school systems before creating his will expressing his wish to form the Lewis Institute. In 1874, his older brother, John Lewis, died. He left Allen an estate of around $350,000. A majority of the estate was invested in railroad bonds. In the three years preceding his death he acquired an additional $200,000 to the estate he left after his death in 1877. Several pieces of property were transferred to him by another brother, Henry. The real estate had little value at the time, but 50 years later its value increased.
Legacy.
Allen's will stated that the estate must increase to $800,000 before the school was built. In 1895 Lewis Institute was opened. In those 18 years the estate had increased from $550,000 to $1,600,000. The will also stressed that the school taught "courses of a kind and character not generally taught in public schools... studies that would be directly useful to students in obtaining a position or occupation for life."
Under its first director, George Noble Carman, Lewis Institute initiated a four-year degree track. A two years associate degree program was also started. This made Lewis Institute the first junior college in the United States.
See also.
Illinois Institute of Technology


Keppel MRT station

Keppel MRT station is a future underground Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) station on the Circle line, located in Bukit Merah planning area, Singapore. This station is part of Stage 6 of the Circle line (CCL6) which will "close the circle" between the HarbourFront and Marina Bay stations. The station will be located along Keppel Road, near to the Keppel Harbour. Slated for completion by 2025, Keppel station will serve the upcoming Greater Southern Waterfront.
First announced in 2015, construction of the station began in 2017. The station was to be opened in 2025 along with the other CCL6 stations, but was delayed to 2026 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore.
History.
The station was first announced on 29 October 2015 as part of the Stage 6 of the Circle line. Contract 882 for the construction of Keppel station and associated tunnels was awarded China State Construction Engineering Corporation Limited (Singapore Branch) and Nishimatsu Construction Co. Ltd. Joint Venture (JV) at a sum of in September 2017. Construction began at the end of 2017, with expected completion in 2025.
On 25 July 2019, tunnelling works for the CCL6 started with the launch of the Tunnel Boring Machine at Keppel station. The TBM will tunnel from Keppel to the existing CCL HarbourFront station.
Station details.
Location.
Situated along Keppel Road, the station will serve the Downtown Core and Keppel Distripark.
Design.
The station will have a unique landscape theme; an undulating green roof (with tree-like columns) in a natural setting. It was planned to have an underground bicycle park, providing cyclists direct access to the concourse. The size of the two-level station will be by by .


Marouf, the Cairo Cobbler

Marouf, the Cairo Cobbler () is a 1947 Moroccan film directed by Jean Mauran. It was entered into the 1947 Cannes Film Festival.


Bob Stocksdale

Bob Stocksdale (born 1913 in Warren, Indianadied January 6, 2003 in Oakland, California) was an American woodturner, known for his bowls formed from rare and exotic woods. He was raised on his family farm and enjoyed working with tools. His wife of more than 30 years, Kay Sekimachi, stated that, "His grandfather gave him a pocketknife, and he started to whittle. That's how it started."
According to an oral history he recorded at the University of California Bancroft Library, Stocksdale powered his first lathe with a surplus Maytag gasoline washing machine motor. He turned baseball bats and spindles among early projects. After graduating from high school, he worked in a factory making wooden paddles used by cracker bakers. Later he worked in a factory that made cedar chests. His job was to assemble the chests from the pre-cut wooden pieces.
He was drafted into the Army in 1942. Like two of his three brothers, he claimed conscientious objector (CO) status during World War II because he believed war never solved anything. He spent World War II in several CO camps doing forestry work. It was at a camp in Michigan where Stocksdale turned his first bowl on a lathe. This brought him to the West. He was encouraged in his woodturning efforts by Helen Winnemore, the owner of a crafts gallery in Columbus, Ohio.
Stocksdale was one of the earliest members of ACCI - the Arts and Crafts Cooperative, Inc. on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley, CA.
After the war, Stocksdale moved to Berkeley, California in 1946, one year after Gump's in San Francisco began showing his work. His first solo exhibition followed in 1958 at the Long Beach Museum of Art. He bought a Victorian duplex in South Berkeley, where he lived and worked for the rest of his life. He put together a shop of modest tools in his basement, and there turned out work for more than 50 years that gradually earned him acclaim and fame as a woodturner. He was a friend, and sometime collaborator, of Sam Maloof.
His work was included in the American exhibit of the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair and has been recognized internationally for fine design and workmanship. His many honors include the American Association of Woodturners Lifetime Achievement Award (1998) and the Masters of the Medium Award, James Renwick Alliance (2003). Stocksdale received the American Craft Council’s Gold Medal in 1995.
Stocksdale's bowls are prized by collectors. They have been shown in Europe and Japan, and they appear in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Oakland Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Stocksdale died on the January 6, 2003, at Kaiser Oakland Medical Center in Oakland, California from complications of prostate cancer. He was 89. He was survived by second wife, Kay Sekimachi, a famous weaver and craft artist; a daughter, Joy, a noted fabric designer, of Sebastopol, California; a son, Kim, of Los Angeles; and a sister-in-law, Marge Stocksdale of Huntington, Indiana.


Christian Carl Magnussen

Christian Carl Magnussen (31 August 1821, Bredstedt - 18 July 1896, Schleswig) was a German painter; primarily of genre scenes.
Biography.
He began his artistic career as a student of Herman Wilhelm Bissen at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. From 1846 to 1848, he was in Rome, where he sketched and painted scenes from daily life. In 1848, when his application for a scholarship at the Academy was rejected, he became involved in the First Schleswig War, on the German side.
Following the Danish victory, he settled in Hamburg and became a portrait painter. There, he made the acquaintance of Georg Christian Lorenz Meyer, a local politician, and fell in love with his daughter, Meta. From 1851 to 1852, Meyer financed a stay in Paris for him, during which he studied with Thomas Couture. After returning, in 1853, he married Meta.
Her inheritance enabled them to live in Rome. They stayed for seven years altogether, during which time they held an almost continual open house. Their most notable frequent guests included the painters, Ludwig Knaus, , the brothers and , as well as the art historian, Wilhelm Lübke. They were especially good friends with the poet, Hermann Allmers. Most of the works he created there were either idealized portraits of women or scenes from Italian folk life.
When relations between Austria and Italy became strained and war appeared imminent, he took his family back to Germany and settled in Hamburg, where he once again became a portrait painter. In 1875, they moved to Schleswig, which by then had become part of Germany. Instead of painting, he focused on operating a woodcarving school and attempting to revive the techniques of the "Old Masters". He also worked on restoring carvings in churches throughout the area, but it is now the general opinion that his rigorous restorations robbed the works of their value as historical items.
His activities included collecting furniture and various church pieces; over 500 in all. In 1894, when his school had proven to be financially unsuccessful, he placed his collection in the new Museum of Applied Arts in Copenhagen, as an exhibition for sale. It was purchased in its entirety by Ernest Augustus, Crown Prince of Hanover, and is now on exhibition as part of the "Cumberland Collection" at Sønderborg Castle Another significant part had been acquired by Justus Brinckmann in 1887 for display at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg.
Altogether, he had sixteen children from two marriages; including the sculptor Harro Magnussen, the ceramicist , and the painter and writer,


Pudong Football Stadium station

Pudong Football Stadium (), formerly known as Jingang Road () is a station under construction on the future Line 14 of the Shanghai Metro. Located at the intersection of Jingang Road and East Jinxiu Road in Pudong, the station is scheduled to open with the rest of Line 14 in 2021. It is named after the nearby Pudong Football Stadium.


Yingao Road station

Yingao Road () is a metro station under construction on the future Line 18 of the Shanghai Metro. Located at the intersection of Yingao Road and North Guoquan Road along the boundary of Baoshan District with Yangpu District in the city of Shanghai, the station is scheduled to open with the rest of phase one of Line 18 in 2021. During the planning stage of Line 18, the station was known as North Guoquan Road ().


Manfred Curbach

Manfred Curbach (born 28 September 1956 in Dortmund) is a German civil engineer and university professor. He is a leading researcher in the development of textile-reinforced concrete and carbon reinforced concrete respectively.
Life and career.
Manfred Curbach completed his A Levels in June 1976 at the Albert-Einstein-Gymnasium in Dortmund. From 1977 to 1982 he studied Civil Engineering at the Technische Universität Dortmund, specialising in structural engineering. In 1980 he was admitted to the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes (German Academic Scholarship Foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany). After his graduation, he took up the scholarship to work for David. P. Billington at the University of Princeton (USA) doing research on "Bridge construction in the USA" and "Robert Maillart".
From 1982 to 1988, Manfred Curbach was Josef Eibl's research assistant, first at the University of Dortmund and later at the University of Karlsruhe, where he also received his doctorate in 1987. In 1988 he started working as project manager at the "Ingenieurbüro Köhler + Seitz "where he was also a partner from 1994 to 2004.
Since August 1994 Manfred Curbach holds the professorship for the Institut für Massivbau (Institute of Concrete Structures) at the Technische Universität Dresden, which is still his main field of activity today. Since 1997 he is registered as test engineer for structural analysis, specialising in concrete structures. In 2005 he started a new engineering company "Curbach Bösche Ingenieurpartner, Dresden". In December 2014 the company CarboCon GmbH was founded which specialises in design, construction, calculation and building with carbon reinforced concrete. Curbach is one of the three founding partners.
Research.
Textile and carbon reinforced concrete.
Manfred Curbach concentrates on basic research and application-oriented research for the development of textile and carbon reinforced concrete with the aim to establish it in the building industry. From 1999 to 2011 Curbach was the spokesman for the Collaborative Research Centre 528 "Textile reinforcements for structural reinforcement and repair". As part of this research programme, the new composite material, made of high-strength fine concrete and high-performance fibres (made of different materials such as alkali-resistant glass, later mainly carbon fibres), was developed and researched, as well as transferred into practice by pilot projects in cooperation with construction companies.
Since July 2020 Manfred Curbach is spokesman of the Collaborative Research Center/Transregio (SFB/TRR) 280 "Design strategies for material-minimized carbon reinforced concrete structures - Foundations for a new way of building", funded by the German Research Foundation DFG. Involved are the Technische Universität Dresden, RWTH Aachen and IPF Dresden. While previous research projects investigated the fundamentals and the applicability of the new material carbon reinforced concrete, this SFB/TRR investigates new construction strategies for carbon reinforced concrete in a total of 17 subprojects. The aim is that the new material composite carbon reinforced concrete will not only replace the previously used reinforced concrete, but that new ways of construction will be found that are specifically tailored to the properties of carbon concrete in order to really exploit the full performance potential of this novel building material.
Curbach is the head of a consortium of one of ten Zwanzig20-projects, funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research with up to 45 million euro. The consortium C3 - Carbon Concrete Composite pursues the goal to introduce a completely new design with carbon reinforced concrete (CarbonBeton).
Further fields of research are the material behaviour of concrete under multiaxial load or at high loading rates.
Impact.
Manfred Curbach also works on the subject of high-speed dynamics/ impact for concrete and concrete structures and has established a worldwide recognised centre of competence on this topic.
Multiaxial.
Curbach produced significant results on the multiaxial loading of concrete, especially ultra-high-strength concrete, and built up a research group for this experimentally and theoretically very challenging topic.
Bridges.
With the organisation of the annual "Dresdner Brückenbausymposium" Curbach succeeded in establishing a national and international centre and meeting place for bridge construction engineers. This symposium as well as the design, calculation and construction of large bridges, has had a lasting influence on bridge construction.
History of concrete construction.
Due to the research of the national and international history of concrete construction the civil engineering community worldwide experiences an increasing awareness for their own history.
Memberships.
Since 1999 Manfred Curbach has been a member of the scientific advisory board of the magazine Beton- und Stahlbetonbau. Since 2010 he is head of the German delegation of the International Concrete Association fib and since February 2012 he is on the review board of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) (German Research Foundation). He is a member of the executive board and the research advisory board of the Deutscher Ausschuss für Stahlbeton (DAfStb) (German Committee for Reinforced Concrete), where he was chairman of the executive board from 2004 to 2012. From 2002 to 2008 he was a member of the senate of the DFG and from 2003 to 2008 chairman of the executive board of the VDI-Gesellschaft, Bautechnik (Association of German Engineers – Division Construction Engineering). Curbach has been a member of the scientific advisory board of the Bundesanstalt für Wasserbau (BAW) (Federal Waterways Engineering and Research Institute) since 2011 and has been its chairman since 2015.
Curbach is a member of the advisory board of "structure - magazine for structural design and civil engineering" and of the editorial board of the magazine "Civil Engineering Design".
Curbach is also head of the task group for textile reinforced concrete and the task group for the history of concrete construction for the fib (fédération internationale du béton).
Awards.
On 15 November 2011, Manfred Curbach received an honorary doctorate from the Universität Kaiserslautern for his outstanding scientific achievements in structural engineering, his services in the consistent implementation of research results into practice and his exemplary personality.
Since June 2013, Curbach has been a member of the "Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften" Leopoldina (National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina). In 2017, the honour was bestowed on him to hold the renowned Christmas lecture of the "Leopoldina". In September 2014, the "VDI-Gesellschaft – Bauen und Gebäudetechnik" (VDI-Association – Division Civil Engineering and Building) awarded Manfred Curbach at its annual convention the Wolfgang-Zerna-Medal of Honour for "outstanding achievements in the field of construction technology".
In February 2016 Manfred Curbach is awarded the George Sarton Medal of the History of Science Society, University of Ghent.
In 2016 Curbach was elected to the "Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften" (Saxon Academy of Sciences).
In 2016 Manfred Curbach received the Deutscher Zukunftspreis together with Chokri Cherif and Peter Offermann, which is awarded by the German Federal President.
At the Saxon Chamber of Engineers Day he was awarded the Wackerbarth Medal for his recognized scientific work and his commitment to the internationally recognized Dresden Bridge Building Symposium in November 2018.
At the German Construction Technology Day 2019 in Stuttgart, Manfred Curbach received the Emil Mörsch commemorative coin, donated by the German Society for Concrete and Construction Technology (Deutscher Beton- und Bautechnik-Verein E.V.).
On 10 May 2019 he was awarded the Carl Friedrich Gauss Medal, donated by the Braunschweig Scientific Society (BWG).
Since December 2019, Manfred Curbach has been a corresponding member of the engineering sciences class of the Braunschweig Scientific Society.
Also in December 2019 Manfred Curbach became a full member of acatech - German Academy of Science and Engineering.
Publications.
Further publications.
A detailed list of publications is available on the website of the Institut für Massivbau.


William Billers

Sir William Billers (1689 – 15 October 1745) was an English haberdasher who was Alderman, Sheriff and Lord Mayor of London.
He was born in Thorley, Hertfordshire, where the Billers family, who originated from Kirby Bellars in Leicestershire, owned Thorley Hall and manor.
He became a London haberdasher and a member of the Haberdashers' Company, to whom he donated a painting entitled "The Wise Men's Offering" which hung in Haberdashers' Hall.
In 1720–21, he was elected joint Sheriff of the City of London and in 1733-34 elected Lord Mayor of London. In 1722 he became an Alderman for Cordwainer Ward.
In 1726 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and was knighted in 1727.
He died in 1745 and was buried in Thorley church. He married Anne (–1750), daughter of Sir Rowland Aynsworth and Sarah Fleet (daughter of Sir John Fleet, Lord Mayor of London in 1693), by whom he had two sons and four daughters: John, William, Martha, Anne, Elizabeth, and Maria. His two sons and daughter Martha predeceased him. His eldest daughter Anne, who married John Olmius (later Baron Waltham) was his eventual heiress.
After his death, his extensive library was auctioned by Christopher Cock at his house in the Great Piazza, Covent Garden on 22 November 1745.


Brendan Bechtel

Brendan Peters Bechtel (born 1981) is an American businessman who is the chairman and CEO of the Bechtel Group, Inc., an American privately-owned engineering, construction, and project management firm. It is the largest construction company in the United States, and operates worldwide. He became CEO in 2016 and chairman & CEO in 2017. He succeeded Bill Dudley as CEO and Riley P. Bechtel as chairman.
He is the great-great grandson of the founder of Bechtel, Warren A. Bechtel, and is the fifth generation of the Bechtel family to lead the company. He is the son of Riley P. Bechtel, who stepped down as CEO in 2014, after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.
In 2003, he graduated from Middlebury College with a degree in geography and then worked for the nonprofit Conservation Fund. He then began post-graduate studies, earning an MBA and a master's degree in construction engineering and construction management from Stanford University.
He is an advocate for increased use of public–private partnerships to rebuild America's deteriorating infrastructure. He is also a strong supporter of nuclear power who believes that it is the only long term alternative to fossil fuels.
In 2017, he was inducted into the exclusive Alfalfa Club in Washington, D.C.


Pingliang Road station

Pingliang Road () is a Shanghai Metro station under construction located on Line 18 within Yangpu District, Shanghai. Located at the intersection of Pingliang Road and Jiangpu Road, the station was originally scheduled to open by the end of 2020 along with the rest of phase one of the line. However, due to construction delays, the northern segment of Line 18 between and stations, which includes Pingliang Road station, is now scheduled to open by the end of 2021.
Places nearby.
It will be located near the administrative buildings of Yangpu District.


South Hill station

South Hill is a planned and approved CTrain light rail station in Calgary, Alberta, Canada part of the Green Line. Construction will begin in 2022 and complete in 2027 as part of construction stage one, segment one. The station is located in the north-western corner of Shepard Industrial, directly nearby Glenmore Trail and the suburban residential community of Riverbend.
South Hill station will feature a transit plaza, and will become the centrepiece of new mixed-use transit oriented development village. Much of the South Hill area is city-owned, which provides a unique opportunity for development on almost 20 acres of largely vacant land, though a factory and several mobile homes are currently set up in the area. Additionally, the station will be a major transit hub with connections to neighbouring residential and commercial communities. Utility relocation, land preparation and environmental redemption work have been underway since 2017.


Jacob Hochbrucker

Jacob Hochbrucker (also spelled "Jakob Hochprugger"; 1673 – 28 May 1763) was an eighteenth-century harp maker and musician credited with the invention of the single-action pedal harp popularized in Europe between 1729 and 1750 by his descendants, and particularly by the Dauphine, Marie Antoinette, who performed on it after her arrival in Paris in 1770.
Life and work.
Hochbrucker was probably born in Mindelheim. From 1699 he lived and worked in Donauwörth, where he also built lutes and violas. Around 1720 Hochbrucker invented the pedal mechanism to play the harp, adding to the instrument five (later increased to seven) pedals and connecting them to the hooks for the C, D, F, G, and B strings, thus allowing the player to alter the strings sound of a semitone and greatly extend the range of the instrument for the extraction of sounds. This ingenious chromatic system later became the subject matter of studies and extended considerations.
In the second half of the 18th century, the Hochbrucker mechanism was largely popularized by the efforts of his nephews, Christian and Celestine Hochbrucker, and mainly by his son Simon, who toured around Europe playing in Vienna in 1729, Leipzig, Brussels in 1734, Paris in 1740 and north Germany. At the beginning of the 19th century Sébastien Érard constructed in Paris the "harpe à double mouvement", patented in 1810, finally changing so the course of that which Hochbrucker had successfully developed.


Grotta Gigante horizontal pendulums

The Grotta Gigante horizontal pendulums are a pair of tiltmeters used for monitoring Earth movements, mounted in the Grotta Gigante in Italy. The horizontal pendulums, installed by the geodesist Antonio Marussi in 1959, are sensitive to deviations of the vertical, to rotations and shearing of the cave.
The pendulum beam is suspended horizontally by two steel wires, an upper one fixed to the roof of the cave, the lower one fixed to the floor. The pendulum beam rotates in the horizontal plane around a virtual near-to-vertical axis that passes through the upper and lower mounting points.
Measurements.
Some movements are aperiodic, others regular, as the Earth tides caused by the lunar and solar gravitational field. The pendulums measure a distance of 95 m between the upper and lower mountings, which contributes to the fact that the instruments detect tectonic movements with high precision and are relatively immune to some of the noise which affects smaller instruments.
The Earth's crust is the outer brittle layer of our planet, on average thick in continental areas. This moves up and down by ten centimeters during the time of 12 and 24 hours due to the attraction of Moon and Sun, and is accompanied by a local tilting of some parts in a billion of radians.
The movements of the pendulums has contributed to identify the free oscillations of the Earth, and to show that the secular term tilting of the cave is towards the northwest. The marine tides of the Adriatic have a loading effect in the cave, as have also the underground karstic floods of the river Timavo that disappears at the Škocjan Caves in Slovenia. The Grotta Gigante tiltmeters are the only existing instruments to have recorded four out of five greatest earthquakes in the recent 50 years, which are the earthquakes of Chile 1960 (the greatest earthquake ever instrumentally recorded) and Chile 2010 (the fifth in the scale of recorded worldwide mega-events) the tsunami-generating event of the Sumatra-Andaman islands of 2004 (third greatest event) and the event of Japan 2011 (fourth greatest event), allowing an absolute-amplitude comparison between these events.


MP-APVL 83-F4 mine

The MP-APVL 83-F4 is a Chilean anti-tank blast mine based on the United States M1A1 mine. The mine has a plastic body with distinctive pressed steel pressure spider on the top. The main charge of the mine has 3.5 kg of steel balls embedded into the charge. The steel balls in the main charge create a secondary anti-personnel effect.
The mine is in service with Chile.


Louis Breithaupt (tanner)

Philip Ludwig "Louis" Breithaupt (8 November 1827 – 3 July 1880) was a German-born tanner and politician in Ontario, Canada. He served as mayor of Berlin (today known as Kitchener) from 1879 to 1880.
Biography.
The son of Liborius Breithaupt, a tanner, and Catherine Goetze, he was born in Allendorf, Kurhessen, which today is a part of Germany. He received an ordinary education in Germany, and there he was partially trained as a tanner by his father, Liborius, who was the fourth generation of tanners in the Breithaupt family. Liborius relocated his family Buffalo, New York in November 1843, bringing Louis with him. Liborius, with Louis assisting him, opened a small tannery in Buffalo located on Seneca Street, which mostly processed sheepskins. This situation continued until 1851, when Liborius died, and Louis took over the business, continuing to operate it under the name "L. Breithaupt". In 1852, he took on a partner, Jacob F. Schoellkopf, a Buffalo financier who at the time was investing heavily in the tanning industry. Together they expanded the business and in 1855 they purchased another existing tannery in North Evans, New York.
On a trip to Canada to buy sheepskins, Breithaupt met his future wife, Catharine Hailer of Berlin. She was the daughter of wheelwright Jacob Hailer, who was an early German settler in Berlin. They were married on 8 February 1853, beginning the process that would end with Breithaupt relocating himself to Berlin. His three eldest sons, Louis Jacob, William Henry, and John Christian, who would later become locally prominent in their own right, were born in Buffalo before the move, in 1855, 1857, and 1859 respectively. In 1857, Breithaupt opened a tannery in Berlin in partnership with his new brother-in-law, Jacob Wagner, who soon died in the next year of 1858. Breithaupt at first tried to manage the Berlin tannery from Buffalo, but was frustrated by the situation, and ultimately made the decision to relocate to Berlin and concentrate his business operations there. He did so in 1861, selling off his share in the business he had started with his father to Schoellkopf and focusing entirely on managing his Berlin tannery.
Breithaupt quickly became a prominent local figure in Berlin. In 1862, he paid $10,000 for the construction of the three-storey American Block at the northeast corner of King Street and Queen Street. This multi-purpose commercial building contained storefronts along King Street which were rented out to merchants, as well as a hotel entrance (along with its bar and hall) and the entrance to his office and leather goods store along Queen Street. The upper floors were used for hotel rooms in what was known as the American Hotel, possibly due to Breithaupt's American origins. Some of the American Block's earliest mercantile tenants included Tyson's Grocery and a boot and shoe store owned by William Niehaus, both occupying King Street storefronts.
In 1866, Breithaupt was elected to the Waterloo County council, and in 1867 his tanning business (known periodically as the Eagle Tannery) was prominently advertising the sale of sole leather, leather findings, and bookbinders' stock, among other goods, at his retail store on Queen Street within the American Block. He suffered a significant setback that year when his tannery was destroyed by fire, but he rebuilt and continued, and was elected as deputy reeve of Berlin. His tannery suffered another fire in 1870, but was again rebuilt. Breithaupt continued his investment in Berlin real estate and began paying for the construction of houses, such as rental properties built in 1872 and 1876, as well as Sonneck House, his own suburban home, which was built in 1874 in Italianate style and which prominently featured stained glass work. He was elected as a county councillor again in 1876, and reached the zenith of his political career when he was elected as mayor of Berlin in 1879.
In 1880, while still in office as the mayor of Berlin, Louis Breithaupt died. He is buried in Kitchener's Mount Hope Cemetery. His three sons co-managed the Breithaupt leather company after his death, and would continue under family management and ownership until its sale in 1967.
Descendants.
The following chart displays some notable members of the Breithaupt family and their parents, and does not include all people in the family.


Association of Car Rental Industry Systems Standards

The Association of Car Rental Industry Systems Standards (ACRISS) is an industry body for car rental companies in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Amongst the standards produced by ACRISS is the Car Classification Code.
History.
ACRISS was formed in 1989 by Avis, Budget, Europcar and Hertz. In 1992, ACRISS was reconstituted as a European economic interest grouping.
Current ACRISS members include Alamo, Avis, Budget, Enterprise, Europcar, Hertz, Maggiore, Blacklane, Car Rental Gateway, Amadeus, , GroundScope, Rentalcars.com, Sabre, TaxiTender, Travelport, Mycab, National Car Rental .
Objectives.
The objectives of ACRISS are "to develop clear common standards for Car Rental services and Transfers (Vehicle with Driver Service Industry) in Europe, Middle East & Africa." ACRISS has developed standardised codes for classifying cars (including the optional equipment that is fitted), optional extras, airport locations and locations in general.
Car Classification Code.
The car classification code has been created to allow car rental companies to communicate the characteristics of a car using a standardised system, in order to prevent misleading information when booking a rental car. The code describes the category, body style, transmission, driven wheels (FWD, RWD or AWD), fuel type (or electric/hybrid vehicle) and whether air-conditioning is fitted.
Category
M: Mini
N: Mini Elite
E: Economy
H: Economy Elite
C: Compact
D: Compact Elite
I: Intermediate
J: Intermediate Elite
S: Standard
R: Standard Elite
F: Fullsize
G: Fullsize Elite
P: Premium
U: Premium Elite
L: Luxury
W: Luxury Elite
O: Oversize
X: Special
Type
B: 2-3 Door
C: 2/4 Door
D: 4-5 Door
W: Wagon/Estate
V: Passenger Van
L: Limousine
S: Sport
T: Convertible
F: SUV
J: Open Air All Terrain
X: Special
P: Pick up Regular Cab
Q: Pick up Extended Cab
Z: Special Offer Car
E: Coupe
M: Monospace
R: Recreational Vehicle
H: Motor Home
Y: 2 Wheel Vehicle
N: Roadster
G: Crossover
K: Commercial Van/Truck
 / Driven wheels
M: Manual (drive unspecified)
N: Manual 4WD
C: Manual AWD
A: Auto (drive unspecified)
B: Auto 4WD
D: Auto AWD
Fuel /
R: Unspecified Fuel With Air
N: Unspecified Fuel Without Air
D: Diesel Air
Q: Diesel No Air
H: Hybrid Air
I: Hybrid No Air
E: Electric Air
C: Electric No Air
L: LPG/Compressed Gas Air
S: LPG/Compressed Gas No Air
A: Hydrogen Air
B: Hydrogen No Air
M: Multi Fuel/Power Air
F: Multi Fuel/Power No Air
V: Petrol Air
Z: Petrol No Air
U: Ethanol Air
X: Ethanol No Air
Examples:


Paraconical pendulum

Paraconical pendulum was invented around 1950s by Maurice Allais, a French researcher. During the 1950s, Maurice Allais conducted six marathon series of long-term observations, during each of which his team manually operated and manually monitored his pendulum non-stop over about a month. The objective was to investigate possible changes over time of the characteristics of the motion, hypothesized to yield information about asymmetries of inertial space (sometimes described as "aether flow").
Characterization and experiments.
The defining feature of the "paraconical" or "ball-borne" pendulum is that the pendulum is carried upon a ball which rests upon a flat, thus permitting it to rotate about its vertical axis as well as swinging in two perpendicular directions. Therefore a paraconical pendulum has three degrees of freedom. When the rotation of the Earth is taken into account, the formal equations in classical mechanics of the behavior of this dynamical system are rather complex. The rolling friction of the ball upon the flat is extremely low, so that a paraconical pendulum has a high Q factor, principally determined by air resistance. Typically a paraconical pendulum is built as a solid body with a stiff rod, rather than with a flexible wire or cord, and its length is usually about one meter. If an accurately spherical ball and an accurately planar flat are used, a paraconical pendulum is a highly sensitive instrument: as first noted by Allais, and now confirmed by modern researchers, its motion exhibits a 24.8 hour cyclic pattern, presumably a manifestation of lunar influence.


Cascade Falls (Falls Creek)

Cascade Falls, also called "The Cascades", is a waterfall located at E. B. Jeffress Park on the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, United States.
Geology.
The waterfall is located on Falls Creek. It begins with a small free-fall before cascading and sliding down the rock face. The water here eventually ends up in the W. Kerr Scott Reservoir and the Yadkin River. Like many other falls in the northern North Carolina Mountains, the falls are high, but limited in water.
Visiting the falls.
The falls is located in E. B. Jeffress Park on the Blue Ridge Parkway at milepost 271.9, 4.4 miles north of where U. S. Highway 421 crosses the parkway at Deep Gap. The easy-to-moderate loop trail begins at the north end of the parking area for a total loop of approximately 0.8 mile. The trail, which includes educational material concerning local wildflowers and other plants, such as mountain laurel, descends 50 feet to an upper overlook and another 200 feet to a lower overlook. The upper overlook allows the visitors to see approximately 20 feet of cascades above the overlook and a long slide below the overlook. The lower overlook allows a different view of the slide.
The lower section of the falls is no longer accessible from the trail. A scramble path used to be available, but damage to the plant life and the banks of the stream resulted in the construction of a fence to restrict further access and potential injury to both the falls and to visitors.
Nearby falls.
Betsey's Rock Falls


Trans-Himalayan Multi-dimensional Connectivity Network

The Trans-Himalayan Multi-dimensional Connectivity Network (abbreviated as THMCN and sometimes referred to as the Trans-Himalayan network) is an economic corridor between Nepal and China and part of China's Belt and Road Initiative, a global development initiative that develops connectivity especially across Eurasia. During a state visit to Nepal in 2019, the corridor was hailed by Chinese President and General Secretary of the Communist Party Xi Jinping as changing Nepal "from a landlocked to a land-linked country."
Infrastructure.
The corridor consists of several transportation infrastructure projects. The flagship infrastructure project is the China–Nepal railway, which currently at the stage of feasibility study. A number of highway projects are to be implemented including the construction of a tunnel road and upgrading of the Araniko Highway, which was shutdown after the Gorkha earthquake. The Araniko Highway ends at the border of the village of Kodari and the Chinese border crossing of Zhangmu. The border port is set for restoration under the initiative.
The projects also consist of internal improvements to Nepalese transport infrastructure including serving three north–south corridors of the country (Koshi Economic Corridor, Gandaki Economic Corridor and Karnali Economic Corridor). The intended projects include the Kathmandu-Pokhara-Lumbini extension of the China-Nepal railways and various highway projects in the Himalayan Valley.


Charles Ernest Nicholson

Charles Ernest Nicholson (1868 – 26 February 1954) was a British yacht designer.
Biography.
He was born in 1868.
Nicholson's first design of note was the "Redwing" class. The Bembridge sailing club met in October 1896 to agree the need for a shallow draughted yacht - to allow for the shoal waters of Bembridge Harbour - which could be sailed single-handed, to replace the expensive half racers. Nicholson designed the yacht in ten days, and by 1898 the fleet consisted of 16 boats, all built by the Camper & Nicholsons shipyard.
In the early 1900s Nicholson developed a new powered craft which would enable the owners to come from their "big-boats" before and after the competitions. Named the "Gelyce" class, the name derived from the combined first and last letter of their respective wives: Gertie, Lucy, and Constance.
In 1912, Nicholson introduced the 15mR design "Istria" with a Marconi rig, the first yacht in the world with a lightweight, laminated wood construction. This led to further developments and growing expertise in the use of lightweight materials which saw its fruition in the use of plywood in deck construction. This ultimately led to arguably Nicholson's most beautiful sailing creation, the 1927 commissioned "Vira" (later "Creole") was built on behalf of Alexander Smith Cochran.
He died on 26 February 1954.


Pin and hanger assembly

A pin and hanger assembly is used to connect two plate girders of a bridge. These assemblies are used to provide an expansion joint in the bridge. One beam (the "anchor span") is set on a pier with a short section cantilevered out toward the next pier. The other (the "suspended span") begins underneath the anchor span, and has its far end resting on the next pier. The beams have holes directly above each other. The two holes are connected using "hangers", a pair of connecting plates sandwiching the bridge girders. A pair of large steel pins through the plates and girder webbing provide the hinges, holding up the suspended span while allowing it to move longitudinally. Large washers are bolted to each end of the pin to retain the hangers. Exceptionally long spans may have two sets of girders cantilevered from opposite bridge piers with a third set of girders suspended by pin and hanger assemblies from both cantilevers.
Safety concerns.
Pin and hanger assemblies are considered fracture critical bridge components, meaning that the assemblies are non-redundant and failure of these systems could cause part or all of the bridge to collapse. The collapse of the Mianus River Bridge in Connecticut exposed potential flaws with pin and hanger bridges that could lead to catastrophic failures, if left unchecked. Because of this, state departments of transportation incur costly expenses on bridges with pin and hanger assemblies, as they require constant inspection and maintenance. As a result of these safety concerns, and advances in bridge design to allow longer spans, pin and hanger assemblies are no longer used on new bridges in the United States.
Retrofitting.
Attempts have been made to increase the safety of bridges with pin and hanger assemblies by adding some form of redundancy to the assembly. Retrofits that add redundancy to pin and hanger assemblies include adding a "catcher's mitt"a short steel beam attached to the bottom of the cantilevered girder that extends out beneath the suspended girder to "catch" the suspended girder should the pin and hanger assembly fail. Another redundancy is connecting the cantilevered and suspended girders at the pin and hanger assembly with welded blocks and tie rods. Replacement options include bolted splices (gusset plates) plus shear connectors; a link slab; a ship-lap joint; and a new pin and hanger assembly with improved materials.