Yokohama Museum of Art (横浜美術館, Yokohama Bijutsukan), founded in 1989, is located in the futuristic Minato Mirai 21 district of the Japanese city Yokohama, next to the Yokohama Landmark Tower.<PIC> The museum has works by many influential and well-known modern artists including Constantin Brâncuși, Paul Cézanne, Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, René Magritte, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Ossip Zadkine, and Pablo Picasso.  Dadaist and Surrealist works are especially well represented.
The museum also features work by important Japanese artists, especially those with connections to Yokohama such as Imamura Shiko, Kanzan Shimomura, and Chizuko Yoshida, as well as numerous pieces by Japanese-American artist Isamu Noguchi.  Other artists whose work has appeared at the museum include Kiyoshi Hasegawa, Yasumasa Morimura and Lee Ufan In 2004 the museum hosted a major Marcel Duchamp exhibition entitled "Marcel Duchamp and the 20th Century Art".  The exhibit attracted a long list of corporate sponsors including Asahi Shimbun, Dai Nippon Printing, Japan Airlines, Japan Broadcasting Corporation, Kanagawa Shimbun, Keihin Electric Express Railway and Television Kanagawa.
Also in 2004, the museum hosted "Paradise Lost: The Politics of Landscape (1870-1945)", an exhibition described as an "attempt to show the changing nature of landscape expression in painting and photography as practiced in Europe, the United States, Japan, and the East Asia during the seventy years from the age of Impressionism through the end of World War II."
In 2005, the museum hosted "Masterpieces from the Louvre Museum: 19th Century French Paintings – from Neoclassicism to Romanticism".  The exhibit was arranged in cooperation with the Louvre and Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music.
In 2006, the museum featured a special exhibit entitled " Connecting the World through Sculpture" featuring the work of Isamu Noguchi, Japanese American artist and landscape architect.
In 2008, the museum featured an exhibition of images from the goth subculture entitled "Goth: Reality of the Departed World".  The exhibit included featured works by Avant-garde artists such as Dr Lakra and Pyuupiru.
In 2014, the museum featured an exhibition of Yokohama Triennale 2014 "ART Fahrenheit 451: Sailing into the sea of oblivion". With the artist MORIMURA Yasumasa as artistic director, Yokohama Triennale 2014 "ART Fahrenheit 451: Sailing into the sea of oblivion" was held at Yokohama Museum of Art and Shinko Pier Exhibition Hall from August to November 2014, featuring 65 participants/groups from 19 countries.
In 2018, the museum featured an exhibition of Tetsuro Komaï: A Pioneer of Modern Japanese Copperplate Prints. The exhibit included featured works by Komai Tetsuro (1920-1976), a pioneer of modern copperplate printmaking in Japan, gained renown both at home and abroad for the profound and poetic world envisioned in his prints. In black ink on white paper he expressed a cosmos of endless wandering amid reveries and madness, one that seems all the more fascinating in the current digital era.
In 2020, the museum featured the exhibition "Concave and Convex: A Sumikawa Kiichi Retrospective" devoted to displaying the postwar sculptures of Sumikawa Kiichi. The exhibition will display over 100 works and documents by Kiichi. The building which houses the Yokohama Museum of Art was designed by Kenzo Tange, the Japanese architect who won the 1987 Pritzker Prize for architecture.  The structure is described as an "attractive and spacious building " that is "airy and well-lit".
The museum's main hall is 18 meters tall and is open to the second and third floors.  A glass ceiling allows natural light into the space.  Louvers control the light levels.  It has superb acoustics, is often used for new art projects and cultural events, and is said to be a "particularly impressive" example of modern architecture.
The building is apportioned as follows:
First Floor
lecture hall
parking garage
Second Floor
galleries (including the Grand Gallery described above)
Children's Workshop (consists of a multipurpose studio, a craft studio and an audiovisual studio for use by children ages 4 to 12)
restaurant serving French cuisine
museum store (sells postcards and other goods featuring art in the museum, framed paintings, art supplies, etc.)
Third Floor
Additional galleries (include a photography gallery)
Art Archive Center (a quiet and spacious study room with a collection of Japanese and foreign art books, art catalogs, and art magazines; also has facilities to make photocopies and conduct on-line searches)
Citizen's Workshop (used for lectures and study groups as well work in flat media, three-dimensional media, and printmaking)
Sakuragicho Station provides to public transportation access to museum and the surrounding area by way of the Minatomirai Line and the Yokohama Municipal Subway Line. In 2019 the Yokohama Museum of Art celebrated its 30th anniversary through commemorating its over 12,000 artifacts in a 400 piece exhibition. This exhibition, named "Meet the collection", was divided into two parts, "life" and "world", and consisted of 7 sections of art including paintings, photographs, videos and sculptures. Additionally, four artists consisting Asai Yusuke, Imazu Kei, Suga Kishio and Tabaimo were involved by engaging with their own work in conjunction to the museum's collection on exhibition.


Sir Man-kam Lo, CBE (Chinese: 羅文錦; 21 July 1893 – 7 March 1959) was a Eurasian lawyer in Hong Kong and unofficial member of the Executive Council and the Legislative Council of Hong Kong.<PIC> Man-kam Lo was born into a prominent Eurasian family in July 1893. His father was Lo Cheung-shiu, a compradore of Jardine, Matheson & Co. At the age of 13, he left Hong Kong to study law in England in 1906. He graduated with First Class Honours in the Law Society Examinations in London and returned to Hong Kong in 1915. He began practicing law and later became the senior partner of the law firm Lo & Lo.
In 1918, he married Victoria Hotung, the eldest daughter of Robert Ho Tung, a prominent Hong Kong businessman and close friend of his father's. Man-kam Lo was the eldest child of Lo Cheung-shiu and Shi Sheung-hing. He had three brothers (Man-wai, Man-ho and Man-hin) and five sisters. Man-wai Lo also became a lawyer and partner in Lo and Lo, and served on the Legislative and Executive Councils.
Man-kam Lo and Victoria had six children: Gwendolyn, Wilbur, Phoebe, Vera, Rita and Lo Tak-shing.
Lo Tak Sing followed in his father's footsteps, becoming a lawyer and member of the Executive and Legislative Councils. He ran as a candidate in the first elections for Chief Executive of Hong Kong following the transfer of Hong Kong's sovereignty to China in 1997. When the first large-scale labour strike broke out in Hong Kong in 1920, Man-kam Lo acted as a legal adviser to the strike organiser, the Chinese Mechanics Institute, and negotiated an agreement between the workers and employers. He was appointed Justice of the Peace in 1921.
Lo was ambivalent on the mui-tsai system, a form of child slavery then prevalent in colonial Hong Kong. Initially an ardent defender like Sir Robert Hotung, his father-in-law, he later supported its abolition.
From 1929 to 1930, he was the chairman of the Tung Wah Hospital and the honorary legal adviser for the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals. In 1931, he served as honorary legal adviser for the Po Leung Kuk society and the Chinese Gold and Silver Exchange. He became the vice-chairman of the Rotary Club in 1932 and the chairman the following year. In January 1934, he was named chairman of the Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children.
In May 1929, he was elected member of the Sanitary Board. He was also a member of the University Council of the University of Hong Kong from 1932 to 1956, vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Football Association in 1933 and first President of the Asian Football Confederation in 1954.
Man-kam Lo succeeded his mother-in-law Clara Cheung Lin-kok as director of the Tung Lin Kok Yuen in Happy Valley after her death. Po Kok School was founded and expanded by the Tung Lin Kok Yuen under Man-kam Lo.
He received the King George V Silver Jubilee Medal in 1935 and the King George VI Coronation Medal in 1937. In 1941, he was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. In 1935, Lo-man Kam succeeded Robert Kotewall as one of the three Chinese representatives in the Legislative Council. During his tenure, he was an outspoken advocate for the Chinese community.
Lo supported the government's policy on hiring more local civil servants after a report on government salaries led to a public uproar. Governor Andrew Caldecott adopted the policy in 1935 to consider local candidates before vacancies were advertised in Britain.
Amidst the threat of a Japanese invasion, Lo was appointed to the Taxation Committee in December 1938, which intended to introduce new taxes to raise extra revenue in preparation for war. The Taxation Committee was replaced by the War Revenue Committee in 1940 and Lo was reappointed to the committee. Due to pressure from the business sector, the Committee rejected the government's proposed Income Tax Bill, recommending instead a partial income tax.
Man-kam Lo was an outspoken opponent of the colonial government's policy of racial segregation, which remained in place until 1946. Together with José Pedro Braga, who later became the first Portuguese appointed to the Legislative Council, he founded the League of Fellowship in 1921, aimed at eliminating "racial disabilities" and "promoting good fellowship within the Colony, irrespective of race, class and creed." On 26 July 1946, following a second reading of a bill in the Legislative Council aimed at repealing the Peak District Reservation Ordinance, a controversial law that prohibited Chinese from living in The Peak district, Lo argued that "the Chinese had no particular desire to live on the Peak. Their opposition was based solely on grounds of racial discrimination."
In 1940, on the eve of the Pacific War, Man-kam Lo and Leo d'Almada e Castro, the Portuguese representative in the Legislative Council, criticized authorities after a government ship evacuating British nationals to Australia, a majority of whom were of pure European descent, forced a number of Eurasians to disembark in Manila, the Philippines, on the grounds that Eurasians would feel more at ease among brown or yellow-skinned people. At a Financial Committee meeting, Lo raised the issue of racial discrimination, stating that "the tax-payers of this colony are being made to pay for the evacuation of a very small and selected section of the community and, whenever necessary, for their maintenance and support during an indefinite period, leaving some 99.9 percent of the population uncared for and unprotected when an emergency does come." During the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, many local Chinese leaders including Man-kam Lo were pressured by the Japanese authorities to serve on various representative committees. After the petition of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce on the difficulties of the disruption of public utilities and of supplies, the currency problem, and prostitution, the Japanese authorities formed the Rehabilitation Advisory Committee. Robert Kotewall and Sir Shouson Chow were appointed chairman and vice-chairman respectively and Man-kam Lo was appointed member of the committee. The committee held 59 meetings and was later replaced by the Chinese Representative Council and Chinese Cooperative Council, in which he was a member of the latter.
Lo was able to escape the opprobrium of outright collaboration with the occupying troops due to a series of possibly "diplomatic" illnesses. In contrast to his years on the Legislative Council before the war, Lo generally remained silent on the wartime councils. One of the only times he spoke was when the Japanese authorities asked how they might improve relations between the Chinese and Japanese. He replied that Japanese troops could take the initiative by not urinating in public.
After the British returned in 1945, many local leaders who had collaborated with the Japanese were denied appointments to public positions. Robert Kotewall was asked to withdraw from public life and had to resign from the Executive Council. Sir Shouson Chow never completely returned and Li Tse-fong was not reappointed to the Legislative Council. However, Man-kam Lo was able to return to public life because the British believed he had worked with the Japanese only with great reluctance. In 1946, Man-kam Lo was appointed to the Executive Council and re-appointed to the Legislative Council, where he played an important role during his tenure. He was subsequently knighted in 1948 for his efforts in helping to rebuild Hong Kong.
After the Second World War, the UK's Labour Government decided to give people in the colonies a greater say over their affairs. On his return to Hong Kong in 1946, Governor Sir Mark Young announced a constitutional reform plan of "giving to the inhabitants of the Colony a fuller and more responsible share in the management of their own affairs." The Young Plan proposed an increase in the number of seats for unofficial members on the Legislative Council and the creation of a municipal council elected by the people of Hong Kong. It also proposed the imposition of direct taxes to fund more social services, an idea Man-kam Lo supported.
Young's successor Sir Alexander Grantham, however, did not share the same view as Young. With the Chinese Communists gaining in power during the civil war, Grantham advised Downing Street against implementing the reforms, believing that it would provide a potential opening for a Communist backlash. At a meeting of the Legislative Council on 22 June 1949, Man-kam Lo suggested that the Young Plan was no longer the best option for giving Hong Kong residents a greater voice in the government. He tabled a revised proposal, supported by all unofficial members, which called for a smaller Legislative Council with an unofficial majority and the scrapping of the municipal council. Fearing a negative reaction from the Communists, the British Cabinet rejected both Young's reforms and Lo's proposals, deciding instead to allow for the creation of two elected seats in the Urban Council.
Man-kam Lo was a supporter of educational reform in Hong Kong. He helped Li Luk-wah establish a school for the deaf and supported Bishop Hall in his efforts to organize schools for the children of workers. In 1950, he sought to have children who were unable to attend primary school registered and recommended to the Legislative Council that the government open an inquiry into government spending on education, arguing that the Grant Code that enabled secondary schools to receive grants was overly generous. Subsequently, the government invited N.G. Fisher, the Chief Education Officer of Manchester, to conduct an inquiry; the resulting report became a significant blueprint for education reform in Hong Kong.
In 1950, the government appointed Man-kam Lo to the Committee on Chinese Laws and Customs in Hong Kong, whose aim was to recommend changes to local Chinese customs. In the committee's report, Lo recommended that the custom of Chinese men taking concubines be left untouched on the grounds that the old law "if it is not so acted upon...will gradually die out."
In March 1951, Man-kam Lo received an honorary degree from the University of Hong Kong. Late in his life, Lo suffered from heart disease. On 7 March 1959, he died suddenly of a heart attack at 7:45 pm at his Robinson Road residence. He was 67. Lo had been planning to attend a banquet at Government House on the occasion of a visit by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
On the day of his funeral, hundreds of prominent local residents, including Governor Sir Robert Black and Commander of the British Forces Bastyan. paid their respects at Lo's residence and at Wing Pit Ting, the "farewell pavilion" in Pokfulam, with the Hong Kong Police band leading the cortege. Wreaths were sent from Governor Black, Secretary of State for the Colonies Alan Lennox-Boyd and former Hong Kong governor Sir Alexander Grantham.
Lo was highly regarded by Sir Alexander Grantham in his autobiography Via Ports. Grantham said Lo was outstanding as an Executive Council member and had "a first class brain, great moral courage and a capacity for digging down into details without becoming lost in them."


Stuart is a town in southeastern Hughes County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 180 at the 2010 census, down from 220 in 2000.<PIC> In the late 19th Century, a settlement known as Hoyuby, Indian Territory, existed at this site in the Choctaw Nation.  Hoyuby post office was established June 23, 1892, with  John H. Elliott as the first postmaster. The community began growing after 1895, when the Choctaw, Oklahoma and Gulf Railroad (later the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad) built a line through Stuart, connecting it to McAlester and Oklahoma City. On April 14, 1896, the post office was renamed Stuart, in honor of Judge Charles Bingley Stuart of McAlester.
Berry Alexander "B. A." and Mary Youngblood Nunn came from Texas to Stuart and built a two-story, wood-frame hotel that became known as the Stuart Hotel (listed in the National Register of Historic Places, NR 82001496). By 1909 local citizens had established Baptist, Christian, and Methodist churches. The Bank of Stuart, five general stores, two blacksmith shops, two lumberyards, a cotton gin, and several liveries served the surrounding agricultural area. Cotton was the main cash crop. Royal C. Stuart, Judge Stuart's son, started his banking career as a cashier at the Bank of Stuart. Nine years later the economy supported a second bank, the Stuart Chronicle newspaper, a gristmill, and the Choctaw Cotton Oil Company. Other early newspapers included the Stuart Educator, the Stuart Enterprise, and the Stuart Star. In the 1930s Stuart served as a watering station for the railroad. In addition, the town also had a blacksmith, two cotton gins, and the Texas Pipe Line Company. By the 1940s and 1950s both banks had closed, and citizens traveled to Holdenville or McAlester for their banking needs. Grocery stores and gasoline stations continued to operate in Stuart. Stuart is located in southeastern Hughes County at 34°54′3″N 96°6′0″W (34.900839, -96.100035). U.S. Route 270 passes just north of the town, leading east 20 miles (32 km) to McAlester and west 10 miles (16 km) to Calvin. Holdenville, the Hughes county seat, is 27 miles (43 km) to the northwest via US 270.
According to the United States Census Bureau, Stuart has a total area of 0.3 square miles (0.7 km²), all land. Coal Creek runs through the northwest corner of the town, flowing east toward Eufaula Lake on the Canadian River. As of the census of 2000, there were 220 people, 92 households, and 65 families residing in the town. The population density was 797.1 inhabitants per square mile (307.8/km²). There were 107 housing units at an average density of 387.7 per square mile (147.5/km²). The racial makeup of the town was 84.55% White, 13.18% Native American, and 2.27% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 4.09% of the population.
There were 92 households, out of which 31.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 60.9% were married couples living together, 7.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 29.3% were non-families. 29.3% of all households were made up of individuals, and 16.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.39 and the average family size was 2.95.
In the town, the population was spread out, with 23.6% under the age of 18, 8.6% from 18 to 24, 25.9% from 25 to 44, 18.2% from 45 to 64, and 23.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females, there were 113.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 97.6 males.
The median income for a household in the town was $22,222, and the median income for a family was $29,375. Males had a median income of $22,250 versus $21,250 for females. The per capita income for the town was $11,569. About 18.8% of families and 20.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 28.6% of those under the age of eighteen and none of those 65 or over. According to the Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, 93.6 percent of Stuart's employed residents commute to jobs in other cities and towns. There are no large-scale employers in Stuart. Stuart Public Schools is the school district of the town. It operates a single school, Stuart Public School. which teaches pupils from pre-kindergarten through high school.


Cady-Lee is an historic house located in the Takoma neighborhood in Washington, D.C.   It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1975 as the Lucinda Cady House.  The house is named for Lucinda Cady and her daughter Mary Lee who both owned the house.<PIC> Henry and Lucinda Cady moved to Takoma Park from Ashland, Virginia in 1886.  Henry Cady was a real estate and insurance salesman.  He sold properties largely in Takoma Park and South Brookland from his office at 520-10th Street, N.W. in Washington.  At the time the area had 16 homes and about 100 people.  They hired Washington architect Leon E. Dessez to design their new home.  He had previously worked on the Washington Monument and designed the Admiral's House, now known as Number One Observatory Circle, the official residence of the Vice-President of the United States.   Frederick Dudley built the house, which was completed in 1887.  Other large homes joined the Cady's along what was known as Magnolia Street, now Eastern Avenue.
The Cady's moved into their new home with their five children.  They hosted services of the Episcopal Church in their home.  Together with other Episcopalians in the area they organized Takoma Parish, now Trinity Episcopal Church.  They held a concert at their home to help raise the funds for the new church, which was completed in 1893.  Lucinda headed the Ladies Guild at the church for 16 years.
Henry Cady died in 1906 and Lucinda remained in the house until her death in 1934.  Her daughter Mary, who was a school teacher, inherited the home and she and her husband B.K. Lee had electricity and indoor plumbing installed.  The house became known as Cady-Lee at the time.  Mary had little money in later years to update the house and created an apartment for herself on the main floor of the house after her husband's death.  She invited relatives to move into the rooms on the upper floors.
Mary Lee died in 1973.  By this time the other large homes along Eastern Avenue were torn down and replaced by garden apartments.  The Cady-Lee was also targeted for demolition.  Members of the community rallied to save the home and it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 28, 1975.  It was the beginning of creating the Takoma Park Historic District in both Maryland and the District of Columbia, which was added to the National Register in 1983.  Gerald and Sandra Kurtinitis bought the house for $68,000 the same year.  They started to renovate the Cady-Lee room by room.  They sold the house in 2000 to Frances Phipps who specialized in house rescues.  She also had the financial means to finish the project.  She did not intend to live in the house herself and looked for a non-profit agency to take it over.  The Forum for Youth Investment bought the house in 2002 and now uses it for their offices.  The upper floors and lower-level house the Forum staff and equipment. The first floor provides meeting space for Forum events and other non-profits. The Cady-Lee was designed in the Shingle Style that was popular on the east coast of the United States in the 1880s. The three-story structure is asymmetrical in design and is built over a basement.  It contains 22 rooms, has 50 windows, 12-foot ceilings, seven gables and turreted sleeping porch.  The main façade is dominated by a tower-like bay on the northeast corner.   On the second story the dormer and the gable ends are covered in scalloped shaped shingles. They extend down the house to form the porch and veranda roofs.   The roofline is varied and reflects the Shingle Style.  It consists of gables and cross gables that are topped by finials and two brick chimneys with corbelled chimney caps.
The interior features carved oak moldings and a two-story oak staircase where a Tiffany-style stained glass window is located.  It also houses six original fireplace mantels.  The foyer on the first floor leads to a library with carved bookcases and a front parlor with an original cheery wood mantel and over-mantel.  The dining room has a Chinese Chippendale style mantel.  It also contains a decorative radiator that the Smithsonian Institution says is one of the few left of its kind.  A kitchen, with a cast-iron wood-burning stove, and a morning room, with a hand painted mural of an English garden, are in the back of the first floor.  The second floor contains five large rooms, of which one has a working fireplace, and a bath.  The third floor contains six rooms, a kitchen and a bath.


Maria Veniaminovna Yudina (Russian: Мари́я Вениами́новна Ю́дина, Mariya Veniaminovna Yudina; 9 September [O.S. 28 August] 1899 – 19 November 1970) was a Soviet pianist.<PIC> Maria Yudina was born to a Jewish family in Nevel, Vitebsk Governorate, Russian Empire. She was the fourth child of Veniamin Yudin, a renowned physiologist and forensic expert, and his first wife, Raisa Yakovlevna Yudina (née Zlatina; 1868–1918). Yudina studied at the Petrograd Conservatory under Anna Yesipova and Leonid Nikolayev. She also briefly studied privately with Felix Blumenfeld. Her classmates included Dmitri Shostakovich and Vladimir Sofronitsky. In 1921–22 Yudina attended lectures at the historical-philological department of Petrograd University and, as a result, completed studies in theology after she had already converted from Judaism to the Orthodox Christian faith in 1919. After her graduation from the Petrograd Conservatory, Yudina was invited to teach there, which she did until 1930, when she was fired from the institution because her religious convictions were unwelcome in an atheist state. After being unemployed and homeless for several years, Yudina was invited to teach the graduate piano course at the Tbilisi State Conservatory in 1932–33. In 1936, on Heinrich Neuhaus's suggestion, Yudina joined the piano faculty of the Moscow Conservatory, where she taught until 1951. From 1944 to 1960 Yudina taught chamber ensemble and vocal class at the Gnessin Institute (now Gnessin Russian Academy of Music). In 1960 Yudina was fired from the Gnessin Institute because of her religious attitudes and advocacy of modern Western music. She continued to perform in public, but her recitals were forbidden to be recorded. After an incident during one of her recitals in Leningrad, when she read Boris Pasternak's poetry from the stage as an encore, Yudina was banned from performing for five years. In 1966, when the ban was lifted, she gave a cycle of lectures on Romanticism at the Moscow Conservatory.
According to an otherwise unsubstantiated story in Solomon Volkov's book Testimony, which claims to represent Shostakovich's memoirs, one night in 1944 Stalin heard a performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 on the radio performed by Yudina, and asked for a copy. Because it was a live broadcast, officials woke Yudina, drove her to a recording studio where a small orchestra had quickly been assembled, and made her record the concerto in the middle of the night; a single copy was pressed from the matrix and given to Stalin. In another apocryphal story, she was awarded the Stalin Prize and donated its monetary portion to the Russian Orthodox Church for prayers for Stalin's sins. These stories were extensively researched by Elizabeth Wilson, who found no evidence either in Yudina's recorded oeuvre or in Stalin's well-preserved archives, and concluded they were unlikely to be true and attributed them to Shostakovich's predilection for imaginative tales. Furthermore, the existing recording of the Mozart concerto with Alexander Gauk dates from 1948, so the date 1943/1944 could be wrong.
While Yudina did not overtly criticise any political figures or the Soviet system as a whole, she remained true to her religious convictions. She died in Moscow in 1970.
Yudina's playing was marked by great virtuosity, spirituality, strength and intellectual rigor, with a highly idiosyncratic style and tone. Sviatoslav Richter said of her playing:
She was immensely talented and a keen advocate of the music of her own time: she played Stravinsky, whom she adored, Hindemith, Krenek and Bartók at a time when these composers were not only unknown in the Soviet Union but effectively banned. And when she played Romantic music, it was impressive—except that she didn't play what was written. Liszt's Weinen und Klagen was phenomenal, but Schubert's B-flat major Sonata, while arresting as an interpretation, was the exact opposite of what it should have been, and I remember a performance of the Second Chopin Nocturne that was so heroic that it no longer sounded like a piano but a trumpet. It was no longer Schubert or Chopin, but Yudina.
Among her friends were Shostakovich, Pasternak (who did the first reading of his novel Doctor Zhivago at Yudina's apartment as early as February 1947), Osip Mandelstam, Mikhail Bakhtin, Pierre Suvchinsky, Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen.
Thanks to the efforts of Yudina's friends in Russia, particularly Anatoly Kuznetsov, Yudina's letters and writings were published in the late 1990s and early 2000s. There were several attempts to complete the set of Yudina's recordings. Yudina was portrayed as a character in Aleksei Losev's novel Woman as Thinker. The flawed heroine Losev created was a woman musician who spouted philosophy but held herself to lower standards. The novel has been criticized as an outlet for Losev's difficult relationship with Yudina, and as a poor example of his capabilities as a writer. She was offended by the book and ended their friendship in 1934.
In 1989 David Zane Mairowitz wrote The Stalin Sonata, a radio drama loosely based on an encounter between Stalin and Yudina. It won a Giles Cooper Award.
Yudina appears in the French graphic novel La mort de Staline, which retells the apocryphal concerto story from Solomon Volkov's book Testimony and fictitiously portrays her writing a castigating letter to Stalin that prompts his death. In the novel's 2017 Anglo-French film adaptation The Death of Stalin, she is portrayed by Olga Kurylenko. The French singer La Grande Sophie dedicated one song to "Maria Yudina".


Olga Jegunova (born 25 May 1984) is a Latvian classical pianist, born in Šiauliai, Lithuania (then Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic), and now living in London.<PIC> After studying music at Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music, concluding with a bachelor's degree, she obtained her master's degree at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. This was followed by studying at the Royal College of Music (Artist Diploma course as an RCM scholar under Dmitri Alexeev) and then at the Royal Northern College of Music where her piano teacher was Norma Fisher. In 2013 she studied at the Samling Academy in the UK.
Jegunova has taken part in numerous master classes with eminent pianists such as András Schiff at the Prussian Cove International Musicians Seminar, an annual event, Ferenc Rados, Eliso Virsaladze, Mikhail Voskresensky, Benjamin Zander and Lazar Berman. As a soloist she has worked with conductors such as Saulius Sondeckis, Alexander Soddy, Andres Mustonen and Muhai Tang and appeared with ensembles and orchestras such as the Sinfonia Concertante, founded by musicians of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, the Pasdeloup Orchestra and the Manchester Camerata.
In 2013, Jegunova gave a recital at the Edinburgh International Festival which was met with enthusiastic critical acclaim, played the same year in the "Noureev & Friends" concert performance in the Palais des congrès in Paris, and in 2015 for the Latvian EU Presidency's annual Burns supper in Brussels.
In 2014 she played before Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands, in 2015 at the Latvian Day Celebration Concert in the Westminster Cathedral Hall in the presence of the Latvian ambassador, Andris Teikmanis, and was chosen to take part in the Baltic Stars Ensemble, a concert organised by the City Music Society of London in the St Lawrence Jewry Church.
On 2 December 2015 Jegunova launched a charity called OlgaRhythm which aims to support talented music students of any age and ability. Jegunova has worked with Alina García-Lapuerta and re-created, with the soprano Kirstin Sharpin, the "Lost Song" originally sung by Maria de las Mercedes Santa Cruz y Montalvo. She has also worked with the story teller Jan Blake on the Peter and the Wolf performance for children.
Jegunova was invited to work as a presenter at the 2015 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, where she interviewed Vadim Repin, violinist and member of the jury, and Maxim Vengerov. She also broadcast live interviews with other well-known musicians at this competition.
Since 2009, Jegunova has worked as a performer for Live Music Now, a charity providing live music in the concert hall as well as in the welfare, educational, justice and health sectors. She teaches piano to students of Queen Mary University of London. Jegunova won the Concours Musical de France Ginette Gaubert in Paris and in 2008 the Steinway-Förderpreis in Hamburg. In 2016 she was accepted by Steinway & Sons as a Steinway Artist. She has been a prize-winner at the Concours International de Piano Maryse Cheilan in France, at the Stasys Vainiūnas competition in Vilnius and at the competition of the foundation Animato in Zurich, and was a semi-finalist at the prestigious Concours Géza Anda in Zurich.


Robert Lee "Sam" Huff (October 4, 1934 – November 13, 2021) was an American professional football player who was a linebacker in the National Football League (NFL) for the New York Giants and the Washington Redskins. He played college football for West Virginia University. He was a member of both the College Football Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the latter of which he became a member in 1982. Huff was born and grew up in the No. 9 coal mining camp in Edna, West Virginia. The fourth of six children of Oral and Catherine Huff, he lived with his family in a small rowhouse with no running water.  Huff grew up during the Great Depression while his father and two of his brothers worked in the coal mines loading buggies for Consolidated Mining.
Huff attended and played high school football at the now-closed Farmington High School, where he was both an offensive and defensive lineman.  While he was there, Huff helped lead the team to an undefeated season in 1951.  He earned All-State honors in 1952 and was named to the first-team All-Mason Dixon Conference. Huff attended and played college football for West Virginia University, where he majored in physical education.  He started at guard as a sophomore, then as a tackle his next two years, after winning a letter as a backup guard during his freshman season.  He was a four-year letterman and helped lead West Virginia to a combined four-year mark of 31–7 and a berth in the Sugar Bowl.
In 1955, Huff was voted an All-American and served as co-captain in both the East–West Shrine Game and the Senior Bowl. Huff was also named first team Academic All-American for his outstanding efforts in the classroom.<PIC>  Huff was drafted in the third round of the 1956 NFL Draft by the New York Giants. In training camp, head coach Jim Lee Howell was having a hard time coming up with a position for Huff.  Discouraged, Huff left camp, but was stopped at the airport by assistant (offensive) coach Vince Lombardi, who coaxed him back to camp.
Then, defensive coordinator Tom Landry came up with the new 4–3 defensive scheme that he thought would fit Huff perfectly.  The Giants switched him from the line to middle linebacker behind Ray Beck.  Huff liked the position because he could keep his head up and use his superb peripheral vision to see the whole field.  On October 7, 1956, in a game against the Chicago Cardinals, Beck was injured and Huff was put into his first professional game. He then helped the Giants win five consecutive games and they finished with an 8–3–1 record, which gave them the Eastern Conference title.  New York went on to win the 1956 NFL Championship Game and Huff became the first rookie middle linebacker to start an NFL championship game.
In 1958, the Giants again won the East and Huff played in the 1958 NFL Championship Game. The championship, which became widely known as "The Greatest Game Ever Played", was the first National Football League (NFL) game to go into sudden death overtime.  The final score was Baltimore Colts 23, New York Giants 17.
In 1959, Huff and the Giants again went to the NFL Championship Game, which ended in a 31–16 loss to the Colts. Also that year, Huff became the first NFL player to be featured on the cover of Time magazine on November 30, 1959. He almost passed up the magazine appearance, demanding money to be interviewed, but relented when Time agreed to give him the cover portrait.  Huff was also the subject of an October 31, 1960 CBS television special, "The Violent World of Sam Huff", broadcast as an episode of the Walter Cronkite-hosted anthology series The Twentieth Century.  The network wired Huff for sound in practice and in an exhibition game.
The Giants then visited the championship under new coach Allie Sherman in 1961, 1962, and 1963, but lost every one of them.  To improve what he thought was a defensive problem, Sherman then traded many defensive players, including Cliff Livingston, Rosey Grier, and Dick Modzelewski. After these trades, Huff went to owner Wellington Mara and was assured he would not be traded.  But in 1964, Giants head coach Allie Sherman traded Huff to the Washington Redskins for defensive tackle Andy Stynchula and running back Dick James.  The trade made front-page news in New York City and was greeted with jeers from Giants fans, who crowded Yankee Stadium yelling "Huff-Huff-Huff-Huff."
Huff played in four consecutive Pro Bowls with the Giants from 1959 through 1963.  He was named most valuable player of the 1961 Pro Bowl. Huff joined the Redskins in 1964 and they agreed to pay him $30,000 in salary and $5,000 for scouting, compared to the $19,000 he would have made another year with New York.  The impact Huff had was almost immediate and the Redskins' defense was ranked second in the NFL in 1965.
On November 27, 1966, Huff and the Redskins beat his former Giant teammates 72–41, in the highest-scoring game in league history.  After an ankle injury in 1967 ended his streak of 150 straight games played Huff retired in 1968.
Vince Lombardi talked Huff out of retirement in 1969 when he was named Washington's head coach.  The Redskins went 7–5–2 and had their best season since 1955 (which kept Lombardi's record of never having coached a losing NFL team intact).  Huff then retired for good after 14 seasons and 30 career interceptions.  He spent one season coaching the Redskins' linebackers in 1970 following Lombardi's death from colon cancer.  After leaving the NFL, Huff took a position with J. P. Stevens in New York City as a textiles sales representative.  He later joined the Marriott Corporation as a salesman in 1971, rising to vice president of sports marketing before retiring in 1998. While with Marriott, Huff was responsible for selling over 600,000 room nights via a partnership between the NFL and Marriott that booked teams into Marriott branded hotels for away games. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he was a spokesman for Marlboro cigarettes. After retiring from football, Huff spent three seasons as a color commentator for the Giants radio team and then moved on in the same capacity to the Redskins Radio Network, where he remained until his retirement at the end of the 2012 season, calling games alongside former Redskins teammate Sonny Jurgensen and play-by-play announcers Frank Herzog (1979–2004) and Larry Michael (2005–2012). He was also a broadcaster for a regionally syndicated TV package of Mountaineer football games in the mid-1980s. In 1982, Huff became the second WVU player to be inducted into both the College and Pro football Halls of Fame.  In 1988, he was inducted into the WVU School of Physical Education Hall of Fame and, in 1991 he was inducted into the WVU Sports Hall of Fame.
In 1999, Huff was inducted into the National High School Hall of Fame and was ranked number 76 on the Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Football Players.
In 2001, Huff was ranked number six on Sports Illustrated's list of West Virginia's 50 Greatest Athletes.  In 2005, Huff's uniform number 75 was retired by West Virginia University. In 1986 Huff began breeding thoroughbred racehorses at Sporting Life Farm in Middleburg, Virginia. His filly, Bursting Forth, won the 1998 Matchmaker Handicap. He also helped establish the West Virginia Breeders' Classic. In 1970, Huff ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, but lost in the West Virginia Democratic primary for the 1st district against Bob Mollohan by more than 19,000 votes. Huff was diagnosed with dementia in 2013. He died at the age of 87 at a hospital in Winchester, Virginia, on November 13, 2021.


The external examiner plays an important role in all degree level examinations in higher education in the United Kingdom.  The external examiner system originated in 1832 with the establishment of the University of Durham, the first in England since Cambridge was founded 600 years earlier. Durham used Oxford examiners to assure the public that its degrees were a similar standard to Oxford's. The establishment of more universities in England from the 1880s was accompanied by a requirement that examinations be conducted by internal and external examiners.  It is also found in countries whose higher education systems were developed from United Kingdom practice, or strongly influenced by it, after its introduction, including  New Zealand, and India.  It is one of the oldest systems of quality control within higher education.
It is a requirement for all degree level examinations at British universities, and in countries operating a similar system, that at least one member of the examining board should be from a university other than the one awarding the degree (and should have no recent affiliation with it).  This applies both to undergraduate examinations, where there may be hundreds or even thousands of candidates, and to postgraduate examinations including those for the PhD where a special board is convened for each candidate.<PIC> While the role of the external examiner varies with the level of examination, the purpose of the system remains the same: to ensure that standards are kept the same across universities, and to provide an assurance of fair play given that internal examiners might be prejudiced for or against a candidate.  In consequence, (by convention and often by regulation) if examiners disagree, the view of the external examiner takes precedence. In undergraduate and taught postgraduate examinations, external examiners typically see and have to approve draft examination questions before the papers are set; and they will review the marks and the work of at least a sample of candidates. They are often asked to adjudicate when candidates are on borderlines or when internal examiners have disagreed about a candidate's marks. Externals are expected to make a report both to the department and also to the university authorities; they have wide licence to comment on all aspects of the degree programme, including its staffing and teaching, not just on the examination process. Where viva voce examinations are still held as part of the final degree assessment, it is common for external examiners to take part in them. Students may have the right to ask for their work to be considered by the external examiner. External examiners are typically appointed for a period of three or four years, and it is common to consult them about changes to the programme that are being introduced during their period of office. In the case of examinations in broad disciplines, there are commonly several external examiners with different areas of expertise on a board of examiners. In PhD examinations within the British system, there are normally only two or three examiners, and the external examiner usually takes the lead in questioning the candidate in the viva voce examination which is the key stage of the assessment.  In some other countries, e.g. Australia, New Zealand and India, externals commonly send their opinions by post, though there may also be a "local" external examiner who is present at the viva. Whatever the level of examination, it is normal to appoint as externals senior academics of acknowledged expertise – though in the case of PhD exams, expertise takes priority over seniority if the two criteria cannot both be met, as is often the case with highly specialised subjects. An invitation or appointment to serve as an external examiner is therefore usually seen as something of an honour, though often an inconvenient one: although a fee is paid to external examiners, it is usually small, and a considerable amount of work is involved, often at the busiest time of the academic year.
While the external examiner in the form described here (and the use of the title "External examiner") is specific to British or British-influenced higher education, the use of examiners from other universities (and often other countries) is widespread in other countries, especially for PhD examinations.


Fearrington Village is a residential development and census-designated place (CDP) in Chatham County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 2,339 at the 2010 census, up from 903 in 2000. Its name is phonetically pronounced FAIR-ington, not FEAR-ington as the spelling might indicate. The CDP occupies what was formerly the area of the unincorporated community of Farrington. It is a mixed-use community located on farmland dating back to the 18th century in Pittsboro, North Carolina. The community is located about 15 minutes from Chapel Hill, a half-hour from Durham and 45 minutes from Raleigh. Fearrington Village is located in northeastern Chatham County at 35°48′15″N 79°5′0″W (35.804190, -79.083195). U.S. Routes 15 and 501 form the northwestern edge of the community, leading north 8 miles (13 km) to Chapel Hill and south 8 miles (13 km) to Pittsboro, the Chatham County seat.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 1.8 square miles (4.6 km²), of which 0.004 square miles (0.01 km²), or 0.32%, is water.<PIC>  As of the 2020 United States census, there were 2,557 people, 1,663 households, and 787 families residing in the CDP. As of the census of 2010, there were 2,339 people. As of the census of 2000, there were 903 people, 506 households, and 357 families residing in the CDP. The population density was 391.9 people per square mile (151.6/km²). There were 533 housing units at an average density of 231.3 per square mile (89.5/km²). The racial makeup of the CDP was 96.79% White, 2.99% African American, 0.11% Pacific Islander, and 0.11% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.22% of the population.
There were 506 households, out of which 2.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 67.0% were married couples living together, 3.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 29.4% were non-families. 27.9% of all households were made up of individuals, and 20.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 1.78 and the average family size was 2.08. A 2018 analysis by the National Center for Health Statistics found that the life expectancy in Fearrington is 97 years old.
In the CDP, the population was spread out, with 2.1% under the age of 18, 0.8% from 18 to 24, 5.6% from 25 to 44, 19.6% from 45 to 64, and 71.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 70 years. For every 100 females, there were 79.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 77.9 males.
The median income for a household in the CDP was $66,198, and the median income for a family was $68,281. Males had a median income of $55,278 versus $28,068 for females. The per capita income for the CDP was $41,000. About 3.8% of families and 6.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 9.3% of those under age 18 and 1.9% of those age 65 or over. The community began in 1974 when R.B. Fitch and his late wife Jenny purchased the two-centuries old dairy farm from Jesse Fearrington. Jesse inherited the 640 acre farm that was purchased for 100 shillings in 1786 from John Oldham by his great-great-great grandfather, William Cole. They named the community Fearrington to honor the stewardship of Jesse and his forebears.
Located midway between Chapel Hill and Pittsboro along U.S. 15-501 in Chatham County, Fearrington currently occupies about 1,200 acres (4.9 km²). The Fitches slowly began to craft a unique community from the rolling pastures and wooded acres of the farm, where residents would enjoy dining, relaxing, shopping and living.
The Fitches aimed to recreate the smaller villages of England and modeled the Fearrington Village Center after those hamlets long before the term "mixed-use community" joined the lexicon. They wanted to create a "coming together place" where one could pick up daily necessities, have lunch with friends, and enjoy an English garden setting.
Over the last 30 years the community has grown to include over 1800 residents, an award-winning country inn and restaurant (The Fearrington House), a cafe & bar, chocolate and wine shop, an independent bookstore, a home décor shop, plants and garden art shop and more. Belted Galloway cows, the village's iconic mascot, were added to the farm in 1983.
The Fearrington House Country Inn is one of only two AAA five-diamond facilities in the state, earning the Five Diamond designation 15 years in a row, more times than any other accommodation in the Carolinas. The Inn is also North Carolina's only five-star hotel, according to Mobil Travel Guide's annual rankings. Fearrington Village is home to many creative visual artists and producers of fine crafts, who welcome visitors to their studios.


RecA is a 38 kilodalton protein essential for the repair and maintenance of DNA. A RecA structural and functional homolog has been found in every species in which one has been seriously sought and serves as an archetype for this class of homologous DNA repair proteins. The homologous protein is called RAD51 in eukaryotes and RadA in archaea.
RecA has multiple activities, all related to DNA repair. In the bacterial SOS response, it has a co-protease function in the autocatalytic cleavage of the LexA repressor and the λ repressor.
RecA's association with DNA major is based on its central role in homologous recombination. The RecA protein binds strongly and in long clusters to ssDNA to form a nucleoprotein filament. The protein has more than one DNA binding site, and thus can hold a single strand and double strand together. This feature makes it possible to catalyze a DNA synapsis reaction between a DNA double helix and a complementary region of single-stranded DNA. The RecA-ssDNA filament searches for sequence similarity along the dsDNA. A disordered DNA loop in RecA, Loop 2, contains the residues responsible for DNA homologous recombination. In some bacteria, RecA posttranslational modification via phosphorylation of a serine residue on Loop 2 can interfere with homologous recombination.
The search process induces stretching of the DNA duplex, which enhances sequence complementarity recognition (a mechanism termed conformational proofreading). The reaction initiates the exchange of strands between two recombining DNA double helices. After the synapsis event, in the heteroduplex region a process called branch migration begins. In branch migration an unpaired region of one of the single strands displaces a paired region of the other single strand, moving the branch point without changing the total number of base pairs. Spontaneous branch migration can occur, however, as it generally proceeds equally in both directions it is unlikely to complete recombination efficiently. The RecA protein catalyzes unidirectional branch migration and by doing so makes it possible to complete recombination, producing a region of heteroduplex DNA that is thousands of base pairs long.
Since it is a DNA-dependent ATPase, RecA contains an additional site for binding and hydrolyzing ATP. RecA associates more tightly with DNA when it has ATP bound than when it has ADP bound.
In Escherichia coli, homologous recombination events mediated by RecA can occur during the period after DNA replication when sister loci remain close.  RecA can also mediate homology pairing, homologous recombination and DNA break repair between distant sister loci that had segregated to opposite halves of the E. coli cell.
E. coli strains deficient in RecA are useful for cloning procedures in molecular biology laboratories. E. coli strains are often genetically modified to contain a mutant recA allele and thereby ensure the stability of extrachromosomal segments of DNA, known as plasmids. In a process called transformation, plasmid DNA is taken up by the bacteria under a variety of conditions. Bacteria containing exogenous plasmids are called "transformants". Transformants retain the plasmid throughout cell divisions such that it can be recovered and used in other applications. Without functional RecA protein, the exogenous plasmid DNA is left unaltered by the bacteria. Purification of this plasmid from bacterial cultures can then allow high-fidelity PCR amplification of the original plasmid sequence.<PIC> Wigle and Singleton at the University of North Carolina have shown that small molecules interfering with RecA function in the cell may be useful in the creation of new antibiotic drugs.  Since many antibiotics lead to DNA damage, and all bacteria rely on RecA to fix this damage, inhibitors of RecA could be used to enhance the toxicity of antibiotics.  Additionally the activities of RecA are synonymous with antibiotic resistance development, and inhibitors of RecA may also serve to delay or prevent the appearance of bacterial drug resistance. Based on analysis of the molecular properties of the RecA system, Cox concluded that the data "provide compelling evidence that the primary mission of RecA protein is DNA repair."  In a further essay on the function of the RecA protein, Cox summarized data demonstrating that "RecA protein evolved as the central component of a recombinational DNA repair system, with the generation of genetic diversity as a sometimes useful byproduct."
Natural bacterial transformation involves the transfer of DNA from one bacterium to another (ordinarily of the same species) and the integration of the donor DNA into the recipient chromosome by homologous recombination, a process mediated by the RecA protein (see Transformation (genetics)).  Transformation, in which RecA plays a central role, depends on expression of numerous additional gene products (e.g. about 40 gene products in Bacillus subtilis) that specifically interact to carry out this process indicating that it is an evolved adaptation for DNA transfer.  In B. subtilis the length of the transferred DNA can be as great as a third and up to the size of the whole chromosome.  In order for a bacterium to bind, take up and recombine exogenous DNA into its chromosome, it must first enter a special physiological state termed "competence" (see Natural competence).  Transformation is common in the prokaryotic world, and thus far 67 species are known to be competent for transformation.
One of the most well studied transformation systems is that of B. subtilis.  In this bacterium, the RecA protein interacts with the incoming single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) to form striking filamentous structures.  These RecA/ssDNA filaments emanate from the cell pole containing the competence machinery and extend into the cytosol.  The RecA/ssDNA filamentous threads are considered to be dynamic nucleofilaments that scan the resident chromosome for regions of homology.  This process brings the incoming DNA to the corresponding site in the B. subtilis chromosome where informational exchange occurs.
Michod et al. have reviewed evidence that RecA-mediated transformation is an adaptation for homologous recombinational repair of DNA damage in B. subtilis, as well as in several other bacterial species (i.e. Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Hemophilus influenzae, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Streptococcus mutans and Helicobacter pylori).  In the case of the pathogenic species that infect humans, it was proposed that RecA-mediated repair of DNA damages may be of substantial benefit when these bacteria are challenged by the oxidative defenses of their host.


Marian Stanisław Chodacki (July 15, 1898, Nowy Sącz – June 26, 1975, New York City) – certified colonel of the infantry branch of the Polish Army under the Second Republic, diplomat, the last Commissioner General of the Republic of Poland in the Free City of Gdańsk in the years 1936–1939, executive director of the Józef Piłsudski Institute of America in the years 1949–1951.<PIC> He received a law degree from the Department of Law and Administration of the University of Warsaw. In the years 1912–1914, Chodacki belonged to the Riflemen's Association. Next, he served in the Polish Legions (1914–1918) and in the Polish Army. On June 1, 1921, he served in the Highest Evaluating Commission; his home unit was the 34th Infantry Regiment in Biała Podlaska. On May 3, 1922, Chodacki's standing as lieutenant was verified with seniority dating from June 1, 1919, and the 168th rank in the infantry officers' corps. In the years 1922–1924, he followed the regular curriculum at the Higher Military Academy in Warsaw. On March 31, 1924, he advanced to the rank of captain with seniority dating from July 1, 1923, and the 131st rank in the infantry officers' corps. Having received an academic diploma of an officer of the General Staff after the completion of the curriculum, he was transferred to the Second Branch of the General Staff of the Polish Army in Warsaw on October 1, 1924. During his studies and service at the Staff, he officially remained officer of the 21st Infantry Regiment "Dzieci Warszawy" ("Warsaw's Children"). In the years 1927–1931, he was a military attaché to Finland and Sweden. On November 1, 1931, he was attached to the 67th Infantry Regiment in Brodnica, with which he underwent a practical leadership training session at the head of a riflemen's company. On December 10, 1932, Chodacki was given to the disposal of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the period of six months. On June 30, 1933, he was transferred to the reserve, and at the same time from the reserve of the 21st to that of the 30th Infantry Regiment (30 Pułk Strzelców Kaniowskich) in Warsaw. Chodacki was given the function of ministerial adviser in the Political Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On October 24, 1935, he became chargé d'affaires in the Polish mission to Czechoslovakia. He was a confidante of the foreign minister Józef Beck, who considered him the best politician among the officers transferred from military service to diplomacy. On December 30, 1936 Chodacki assumed the office of the Commissioner General of the Republic of Poland in the Free City of Gdańsk. During his term of office, he attained the rank of authorized minister (minister pełnomocny) and special envoy (poseł nadzwyczajny). His uncompromising attitude as General Commissioner caused the quarreling Polish organizations in Gdańsk to unite. As for the Polish policy toward the Free City, it did not change under Chodacki and continued to be marked by a strong opposition to the Nazification of the city. The Commissioner often intervened in the defense of Poles, whose health and life at the time was frequently endangered. During Chodacki's service as Commissioner, the work of Polish Intelligence was intensified as employees of the Commissariat collected information about the military preparations in the Free City. Still in August 1939 the Polish Commissioner, according to the accepted custom, paid a visit to the battleship Schleswig-Holstein. On September 1, 1939, Chodacki, along with other employees of the Polish Commissariat, was arrested by the Germans. As the result of the protests by the already-expelled High Commissioner of the League of Nations in Gdańsk, Carl Jacob Burckhardt, the Germans released Chodacki and others on the border with Lithuania on September 5. During World War II, Chodacki was a soldier of the Polish Armed Forces in France and Great Britain. He was consequently transferred to the Polish Consulate in New York City and on September 1, 1943, became the head of the secret branch of Polish Intelligence Estezet. In the years 1944–1945, he was a Polish liaison officer in the rank of major attached to the American Office of Strategic Services. After the war, Chodacki worked at the Józef Piłsudski Institute in New York City, serving as executive director between 1949 and 1951. Silver Cross of the Military Order of Virtuti Militari
Independence Medal
Cross of Valour (three times)
Silver Cross of Merit
Knight's Cross of the Légion d'honneur


Ats Purje (born 3 August 1985) is an Estonian professional footballer who plays as a forward for Tallinna Kalev.  Purje began playing football at Tallinna Jalgpallikool, where he was coached by Aivar Tiidus. He made his senior league debut in the IV liiga with SC Real in 2001. In 2003, Purje joined Meistriliiga club Levadia. He made his debut in the Meistriliiga on 15 March 2003, playing for Levadia's Tallinn-based team against the Maardu-based Levadia team in a 0–1 away loss. Purje scored his first Meistriliiga goal on 13 May 2003, in a 9–3 away win over Kuressaare. In July 2003, Purje was moved to the Maardu team. His first trophy with Levadia came in the 2003–04 Estonian Cup. Purje won his first Meistriliiga title in the 2004 season. He won two more Meistriliiga titles in 2006 and 2007, and two more Estonian Cups in 2005 and 2007. In December 2007, Purje signed a two-year contract with Veikkausliiga club FC Inter. On 12 April 2008, he won his first trophy with FC Inter in the 2008 Finnish League Cup. Purje made his debut in the Veikkausliiga on 27 April 2008, and scored his side's first goal in a 3–1 home victory over RoPS. He won the Veikkausliiga in the 2008 season. On 31 October 2009, Purje came on as a 79th-minute substitute in FC Inter's 2–1 victory over Tampere United in the Finnish Cup final, winning his third trophy with the club. In June 2010, Purje signed a one-year contract with Cypriot First Division club AEP, with an option to extend it for another year. He made his debut in the Cypriot First Division on 29 August 2010, and scored his side's only goal in a 1–2 loss to Ethnikos Achna. In May 2011, Purje signed for Ethnikos Achna. He made his debut for the club on 27 August 2011, in a 0–1 loss to Anorthosis. On 3 April 2012, Purje signed a one-year contract with Veikkausliiga club KuPS. In September, he signed a two-year contract extension that would keep him with the club until 2014. Purje was his side's top scorer in the 2012 season with six goals and was named the club's Player of the Year. He was once again his club's top scorer in the 2014 season, with nine goals. On 9 February 2015, Purje signed a three-year contract with Meistriliiga club Nõmme Kalju. On 30 May 2015, he won his fourth Estonian Cup. Purje was Nõmme Kalju's top scorer in the Meistriliiga for two consecutive seasons, in 2015 and 2016.<PIC> On 27 December 2016, Purje returned to KuPS for an undisclosed fee, on a one-year deal with an option to extend the contract for another year. For the 2021 Season Purje returned to Estonia signing for the Esiliiga club Tallinna Kalev while also managing their under-21 team in the Esiliiga B. Purje began his youth career in 2002 with the Estonia under-19 team. He also represented the under-20 and under-21 national sides, amassing 18 youth appearances and scoring 3 goals overall.
Purje made his senior international debut for Estonia on 11 October 2006, replacing Teet Allas in the 81st minute of a 0–2 away loss to Russia in a UEFA Euro 2008 qualifying match. He scored his first international goal on 20 August 2008, in a 2–1 home win over Malta in a friendly. Purje came on as a second-half substitute in both matches against the Republic of Ireland in the UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying play-offs as Estonia lost 1–5 on aggregate.  As of 10 December 2017.
Includes the Estonian Cup, Finnish Cup and Cypriot Cup
Appearance(s) in UEFA Cup
Appearances in UEFA Champions League
One appearance in Livonia Cup, three appearances in Commonwealth Cup, one appearance in Estonian Supercup
Three appearances and one goal in Commonwealth Cup, four appearances in Baltic League
Appearances in UEFA Europa League As of 9 June 2019.   Levadia
Meistriliiga: 2004, 2006, 2007
Estonian Cup: 2003–04, 2004–05, 2006–07
FC Inter
Veikkausliiga: 2008
Finnish Cup: 2009
Finnish League Cup: 2008
Nõmme Kalju
Estonian Cup: 2014–15
Kuopion Palloseura
Veikkausliiga: 2019 Veikkausliiga Player of the Month: May 2008
KuPS Player of the Year: 2012


Zdeněk Novák (April 2, 1891, Paskov, Frýdek-Místek District - October 23, 1988, Zadní Třebaň) was a Czech military officer who served in the Austro-Hungarian army, in the Czechoslovak Army, and as a resistance fighter in World War II.<PIC> Novák was born on April 2, 1891, in the village of Paskov. From September 1901 to June 1905 he attended the State Lower Gymnasium, Místek.  From September 1905 to June 1907 he attended business school in Uherské Hradiště. From September 1908 to July 1909 he attended the State High School in Brno. From October 1909 to July 1910 he studied at the University of Agriculture in Berlin.
In October 1910 he chose to interrupt his studies and volunteered for a year's service in artillery regiment 27 in Josefov, where he studied at a school for reserve artillery officers from December 1910 to May 1911. From May to September 1911, he was an artillery platoon commander in Field Cannon Regiment No. 29, Josefov. On October 1, 1911, he was named a cadet in the Austro-Hungarian armed forces. Instead of returning to university, he worked as a brewer. After the outbreak of World War I, he joined Artillery Regiment 39 in Varaždin, and was named an Ensign in the Austro-Hungarian armed forces on August 1, 1914.  He served on the Serbian front, where he held various positions in the field before being named commander of the battery. On November 1, he was named a Lieutenant in the Austro-Hungarian Armed Forces.
In February 1915, his unit, renamed Field Artillery Regiment 36, moved to the Russian front. Novák stayed with the unit until the end of March 1916, when he was transferred to Regiment Field Militia 42. In early June 1916, by now a lieutenant, he was taken prisoner by the Russians, who released him in July 1917. On the first of that month he was named a lieutenant. After graduating in October 1917 from an officer's course in Borispol he became a junior officer in the 3rd battery of the 2nd MS. separate artillery section. In September 1918 he was promoted to captain and on December 21 became a major.
In early April 1919, he took command of the 3rd MS. light artillery regiment, and at the end of the same month he became the commander of artillery of the 3rd MS. Rifle Division. In 1920 he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. He returned to Czechoslovakia in August 1920.
In November 1920, he went to Košice to command the 11th Field Artillery Brigade. He remained in that position until February 1929, being promoted to colonel in December 1921 and Brigadier General on May 4, 1928. From May to July 1924, he took a course for generals and colonels in Olumouc; from October to December 1924, he took a course for general and colonels in Versailles; from November 1928 to July 1929 he pursued further studies in Prague.
He was named commander of the 8th Field Artillery Brigade, headquartered in Opava and, after October 1931, in Hranice. In October 1935 took command of the IV. Artillery Corps in Olomouc and in December 1937 was named commander of the Provincial Military Artillery in Brno. When Neville Chamberlain agreed at Munich to allow the Nazis to invade Czechoslovakia, Novák was commander of artillery in the 2nd Army in Olomouc. After the occupation of the Sudetenland he joined the military resistance organization Defense of the Nation. He managed to evade arrest, and after the Nazis occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia, when most of the organization's leaders were arrested by the Germans, Novák became its head in early 1942. He succeeded in resurrecting the organization, but was arrested by the Gestapo on June 22, 1944, and imprisoned at Pankrac.
Interrogated repeatedly and tortured at length at Petschek Palace, he did not disclose the names of his fellow resistance members, and on May 5, 1945, he was freed from prison by Prague insurgents. Despite his ill health, he was involved in the operations of the rebel group Alex, which had been commanded by General František Slunečko. At the end of May 1945, the war in Europe over, he became commander of the 3rd area in Brno, headed until August 1950, and was promoted, first, to Divisional General and then to General of the Army. Subsequently, he was appointed commander of the 2nd Military District.
On January 3, 1951, he was arrested in one of the many Eastern bloc purges engineered by Stalin; he was released from active military service on October 31 of that year and reduced to the rank of Private. In 1954 the Supreme Court sentenced him to 18 years in prison for high treason, but he was pardoned by the President of the Republic in September 1956.
In 1967 he was restored to his full military rank and honors. Novák died on October 23, 1988, in Zadní Třebáň. 1919 Order of St Stanislaus 2nd Class with Swords
1919 Croix de Guerre
1919 Order of Falcon with Swords
1921 Victory Medal
1921 Czechoslovak Revolutionary Medal
1921 War Cross 1918


John William Rawlings [Red] (August 17, 1892 – October 16, 1972) was a second baseman and shortstop in Major League Baseball who played for six different teams between the 1914 and 1926 seasons. Listed at 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m), 158 lb., he batted and threw right-handed.<PIC> A native of Bloomfield, Iowa, Rawlings attended high school in Los Angeles. He started his professional career in 1911 with the Vernon Tigers of the Pacific Coast League.
Rawlings entered the majors in 1914 with the Cincinnati Reds, appearing for them in 33 games before jumping during the mid-season to the Kansas City Packers of the outlaw Federal League. After one and a half seasons in Kansas City, he spent 1917 with the Toledo Iron Men of the American Association.
Rawlings returned to major league action with the Boston Braves (1917-20), and later played for the Philadelphia Phillies (1920-'21), New York Giants (1921-'22) and Pittsburgh Pirates (1923-26). His most productive season came in 1921 for Phillies and Giants, when he posted career highs in hits (156), runs (60), extrabases (27), RBI (46) and games played (146), while hitting .278 average. In 1922, Rawlings hit .282 in 82 games, good enough to play for John McGraw's National League pennant winning Giants in 1921 and 1922. He hit .333 (10-for-30) with three doubles and four RBI for the 1921 Giants World Series champions. Of particular note was the last play in the series, the last time a best-of-nine game format was used.  With the Giants winning in the ninth inning and the Yankees facing elimination, Yankees manager Miller Huggins sent Babe Ruth in to pinch hit to lead off the inning. Ruth had knee and elbow injuries and had missed Games 6 and 7 completely, and had sat out Game 8 thus far. He grounded out to the first baseman unassisted. Aaron Ward coaxed a walk, and represented the tying run. The next batter was Home Run Baker. After fouling off several pitches, he hit a ball that appeared to have eyes for right field. Ward took off on contact. Rawlings reached the ball, and after tumbling, threw to first base from his knees to get the out. Ward inexplicably continued running, rounded second base, and with his head down, barreled toward third. An astute throw to Frank Frisch at third base nailed Ward for the third out, and the Series was won by the Giants. Six seasons later, the winning pitcher, Art Nehf, then with the Cincinnati Reds, would call Rawlings' snag the best play he had ever seen.  In all, Rawlings earned three World Series rings, though he did not play for the 1922 Giants and 1925 Pirates series champions. During an early September game at Pittsburgh against the St. Louis Cardinals, Rawlings, now playing for the eventual World Champion Pirates, broke the fibula near the ankle in his left leg, while sliding into second base. The injury would keep him out of the World Series, and would cut short his major league playing career the following year.
Following his major league career, Rawlings played in the minors until 1930. He began the 1930 season with the Pacific Electric ball club in Los Angeles, but by June, fate found him playing infield on the same Texas League Dallas Steers ball club with former Major League great Grover Cleveland Alexander, a future Baseball Hall of Famer. After he was released by the Steers in June, Rawlings signed on in July as a utility infielder with the Los Angeles Angels.
From the 1940s Rawlings coached for a number of years and also managed during eight years in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League for the Grand Rapids Chicks (1946-'50), Peoria Redwings (1951) and Rockford Peaches (1953-'54). He led his teams to six playoff appearances, including a Championship Title with the 1947 Chicks. Johnny Rawlings was married to the former Alexia Selma Wieben (1894–1986) in Los Angeles, California on October 19, 1917.  They had two daughters, Audrey (later Mrs. Jack Perry), who was born in 1921 in Pennsylvania, and Joanne (later Mrs. Jack Lynwood), who was born in 1927 in California.  Shortly after his retirement from playing baseball, Johnny Rawlings was an insurance salesman in Los Angeles.
Rawlings died in Inglewood, California in 1972, at the age of 80.  His wife Alexia died in 1986.


Roderick "Rod" Lemonde MacFarquhar (2 December 1930 – 10 February 2019) was a British politician, journalist, and academic orientalist, specializing in China as a Harvard University professor. He also served as a Member of Parliament in the 1970s. He was best known for his studies of Maoist China, the three-volume The Origins of the Cultural Revolution and Mao's Last Revolution. MacFarquhar was born in Lahore, British India (now Pakistan). His father was Sir Alexander MacFarquhar, a member of the Indian Civil Service and later a senior diplomat at the United Nations. His mother was Berenice (née Whitburn). He was educated at the Aitchison College in Lahore and Fettes College, an independent school in Edinburgh. After spending part of his national service from 1949 to 1950 in Egypt and Jordan as a second lieutenant in the Royal Tank Regiment, he went up to Keble College, Oxford to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics, obtaining a BA in 1953. He then went on to obtain a master's degree from Harvard University in Far Eastern Regional Studies in 1955, studying with John King Fairbank, who supported his career as a China scholar.
He worked as a journalist on the staff of the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph from 1955 to 1961 specialising in China, and also reported for BBC television Panorama from 1963 to 1965. He was the founding editor of The China Quarterly from 1959 to 1968, and a non-resident fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford, from 1965 to 1968. In 1969 he was a senior research fellow at Columbia University in New York City, and in 1971 he returned to England to hold a similar fellowship at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. MacFarquhar completed his doctorate at the London School of Economics in 1981. In the 1966 general election, MacFarquhar fought the Ealing South constituency for the Labour Party but failed to dislodge the sitting Conservative MP. Two years later, he was Labour candidate who attempted to retain the Meriden seat in a by-election; he was on the wrong end of an 18.4% swing at the height of the Wilson government's unpopularity.
Following the defeat of George Brown in 1970 and favourable boundary changes, MacFarquhar was selected to fight the Belper constituency, and at the February 1974 general election succeeded in winning the seat from its sitting Conservative MP Geoffrey Stewart-Smith. Although he won, there was an estimated swing of 4% to the Conservatives had the same boundaries applied in the previous election.
MacFarquhar proved a moderate figure, in line with Brown's views. He abstained on a vote to remove the disqualification of left-wing Labour councillors in Clay Cross who had broken council housing laws enacted by the previous Conservative government. However, there were exceptions: he also abstained on a vote to increase the Civil list payments on 26 February 1975. He acted as Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to David Ennals, a minister of the state at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and retained the job when Ennals was promoted to be Secretary of State for Social Services. He was made a member of the Select Committee on Science and Technology. In 1978 MacFarquhar resigned his office as PPS after voting against the Government.  In that year, he became a Governor of the School of Oriental and African Studies, a University of London constituent body. The post gave him a job which he could do if he lost his seat. In the 1979 general election, MacFarquhar did indeed lose by 800 votes, and returned to academia and broadcasting (returning to "24 Hours" for a year).
He remained involved in politics and his moderate beliefs made him increasingly uncomfortable in the Labour Party: on 22 October 1981 he announced that he had joined the Social Democratic Party. He fought the South Derbyshire seat, which contained most of then-abolished Belper, for the SDP in the 1983 general election, and nearly succeeded in beating the Labour candidate, although the seat was easily won by the Conservatives. He was a fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C. in 1980-81 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1986. In 1980–1983, he was a Leverhulme Research Fellow from 1980 until 1983.
In 1986–1992, MacFarquhar was Director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. He was a Walter Channing Cabot Fellow at Harvard in 1993–1994. He was the Leroy B. Williams Professor of History and Political Science, Emeritus.
He was a scholar of Chinese politics from the founding of the People's Republic through to the Cultural Revolution. Volume three of his study The Origins of the Cultural Revolution: The Coming of the Cataclysm 1961-1966 (1997) won the Joseph Levenson Book Prize for 1999.
In a statistical overview derived from writings by and about Roderick MacFarquhar, OCLC/WorldCat encompasses roughly 140+ works in 330+ publications in 11 languages and 15,700+ library holdings<PIC> MacFarquhar married Emily Cohen, a journalist and East Asian studies scholar, in 1964. They had two children, the writer Larissa MacFarquhar and economist Rory MacFarquhar, who served as policy adviser in the Obama administration. His first wife died in 2001. He married his second wife, British foreign policy scholar Dalena Wright, in 2012.
MacFarquhar died from heart failure at a hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts on 10 February 2019, at age 88.


Basta (Arabic: بسطة) is a pre-historic archaeological site and village in Ma'an Governorate, Jordan, 36 kilometres (22 mi) southeast of Petra. It is named for the nearby contemporary village of Basta, which hosted a major Ottoman garrison during WWI and the Great Arab Revolt. Like the nearby site of Ba'ja, Basta was built in c. 7000 BC and belongs to the PPNB (Pre-Pottery Neolithic B) period. Basta is one of the earliest known places to have a settled population who grew crops and domesticated livestock.
Basta lies at an altitude of around 1,460 metres (4,790 ft). The modern village is home to 1,491 people.<PIC> The Basta's settlement dates back to the early periods of human smalls settlements and the use of agricultural crops as a way for sustain their inhabitants. Along with the crops, also is one of the archeological sites that marks the first use of animal domestication. Due to the relics founded dating before 9000 BC, the place is considered as one of the first places in the world that initiated the process of human settlement in great scale.
The houses in Basta were built on the familiar circular shape, and this design enabled individuals within the same house to live together. They used limestone to build their homes, as this can be known by the height of the walls in some places and the stone partitions whose floors were made with wood. These woods were from trees of the area and imported from other regions.
There are no cemeteries, on the contrary, the people of the ancient village used to bury their dead under the floors of their homes. The archaeologists believes that the intent is to remind successive generations of the relationship of families and individuals to their homes, which later became a basic concept of place and home ownership for farmers and villagers. Of course, this socio-religious concept has its impact on the formation of the city, the first nucleus of civilization at the region.
Being a civilization that predates the invention of pottery, the household items  that were found were made of stone and bone from which grinding tools and mills were made, while flint was used to make arrowheads. Animal dolls such as a sitting deer, the head of a bull or a cow, the head of a bear and the head of a ram, were also found, which may have religious meaning.
In their highest point, Basta became a regional center of trade and "industrial" production of handmade tools. Thanks to the domestication, trade and agriculture, Basta reached the population of at least 1000 people, which it made one of the most populated settlements in that time along with the ancient settlement of Beidha, which is located near.
There is no consensus about the decline of Basta, but researchers believes that the fast growth of the settlement, an earthquake and the overconsumption of natural resources of the area were the factors that caused the decline and, consequently, the disappear of the city around 5000 BC. The Jordanian census of 1961 found 461 inhabitants in Basta.


William Hayes Pope (June 14, 1870 – September 13, 1916) was the last Chief Justice of New Mexico Territory and the first United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico after New Mexico attained statehood.<PIC> Pope was born in Beaufort, South Carolina to Joseph James Pope, a lawyer, and Emily Hayes (Mikell). He received a Master of Arts degree from the University of Georgia in 1889, followed by a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1890. He also taught at the University of Georgia as an adjunct professor of ancient languages from 1889 to 1890, when he was admitted to the bar. He then practiced law in Atlanta, Georgia.
Pope moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico Territory in 1894, apparently seeking a climate that was better for his health. He practiced law there until 1896 in the firm Victory & Pope, with senior partner John P. Victory. Their partnership was also a public one; Victory was then the territory's attorney general, and Pope served as the Assistant Attorney General from 1895 to 1897. During that period, he served as a commissioner from New Mexico to the Atlanta Exposition in 1895, and on the Capitol Rebuilding Commission from 1895 to 1900.
In March 1896, Pope was appointed by the United States Attorney General to serve as a special Assistant United States Attorney in the United States Court of Private Land Claims, from which Pope resigned in June 1902. He was then appointed by the United States Secretary of the Interior as a special United States Attorney to represent the interests of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico Territory, from 1901 to 1902.
In June 1902, Governor-General of the Philippines William Howard Taft appointed Pope to a judgeship on the Court of First Instance, Philippine Islands. Pope established a friendship with Taft during his service there. He returned to the United States in July 1903, and in October was appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt as an associate justice of the New Mexico Territorial Supreme Court. Pope was elevated to Chief Justice in 1910, and served in that capacity until 1912. Pope was the first judge appointed to the new United States District Court for New Mexico, after it attained statehood on January 6, 1912. Pope was nominated by President William Howard Taft on January 22, 1912, to the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico, to a new seat authorized by 36 Stat. 557. His nomination received some opposition. Ten prominent New Mexico lawyers accused Pope of delaying decisions in submitted cases (despite his reputation to the contrary), and Pope's support of prohibition may have also been an issue. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on February 20, 1912, and received his commission the same day. His service terminated on September 13, 1916, due to his death in Atlanta. One of Pope's decisions on the federal bench was reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court, in United States v. Sandoval, 231 U.S. 28 (1913). The issue was whether an 1897 federal law that criminalized the sale of alcohol to Indians applied to the Pueblos in the state of New Mexico. Pope had ruled that the Pueblos were ordinary citizens living on private property, and did not fit into the classes of Indians defined in the 1897 law. In reversing, the Supreme Court held that the Pueblos were a dependent people, which Congress had made clear in the Enabling Act providing for New Mexico's statehood. Pope was a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Elks, Shriners, and a freemason. He was married for eleven years, but had no children. He was buried in Fairview Cemetery in Santa Fe.


Also called Lineman's splice and Lineman's knot, but not to be confused with the unrelated Lineman's loop (or Butterfly loop).
The Western Union splice or Lineman splice is a method of joining electrical cable, developed in the nineteenth century during the introduction of the telegraph and named for the Western Union telegraph company. This method can be used where the cable may be subject to loading stress. The wrapping pattern design causes the join to tighten as the conductors pull against each other. In 1915, Practical electric wiring described it as being, "by far the most widely used splice" in practical electrical wiring work. NASA included the splice in its technical standard Workmanship Standard For Crimping, Interconnecting Cables, Harnesses, And Wiring, first produced in 1998. The 1915 textbook Practical electric wiring describes the construction of the Western Union splice; short tie and long tie. The short tie splice has it being formed after stripping the insulation from a pair of wires for several inches, each, crossing the wires left over right as shown in figure part A; then, a hooked cross (figure part B) is formed holding the crossing point of the two wires, and pulling the right wire tip toward and pushing the left wire tip away from the worker, leaving the tips oriented vertically as shown. The wires are then held with pliers to the left of their crossing point while the right splice is formed by continuing to wind the wire tip away from the worker, creating 5-6 twists snug against the core wire and against each preceding twist. NASA recommend "tight, with no gaps between adjacent turns." The wires are then again held with pliers, but on the first-made twist, to the right of the crossing point, and then the left splice is formed by winding the remaining wire tip toward the worker for a comparable 5-6 snug twists. The splice wire ends are then trimmed as needed, and the splice may then be soldered, and/or covered (e.g., with a  heat-shrunk tube of insulation).
Practical electric wiring described the splice as having two variations, the "short tie" (figure part D) and "long tie" (figure parts E or F), with the latter examples having a "twist between wrappings [that] allows a better chance for solder to pass in between the wires". The book suggested the long tie variant more suited to splices where soldering was intended. However, this was not backed up by NASA testing.<PIC> The NASA tests included soldering, and were performed to an organizational standard operating procedure (NASA-STD-8739.3) for a solder termination, which includes a number of specific requirements, including "proper insulation spacing"; tight wrapping; trimming of wire ends to prevent protrusions through the solder; and over-sleeving with a transparent or translucent heat shrink seal to cover the completed splice and all exposed metal.
NASA found both the short- and long tie variant to be strong when soldered. The splices were examined in tensile strength ("pull") tests on 16 and 22 American wire gauge wire; even the short tie variation of the Western Union splice performed well after soldering. The test splices never failed at the splice (instead breaking outside of the splice area), leaving NASA to conclude that "the solder connection at the splice was as strong or stronger than the un-spliced wires."


Cephaleuros parasiticus is a plant pathogenic member of the chlorophyta, or green algae. It infects several commercially important crops including tea. Unlike the majority of pathogenic Cephaleuros species it penetrates the epidermis of plants, and is not constrained to subcuticular growth. It has sometimes been misidentified as Cephaleuros virescens. Cortex penetration, and the naming as red rust of tea are marked differentiators of C. parasiticus from its relative C. virescens which does not penetrate the epidermis. It has been renamed several times as more phylogenetic information has become available.<PIC> The disease is increasingly a concern in tea plantations throughout the Indian subcontinent and Sri Lanka in recent decades. It is also present in Chinese tea plantations, although apparently to a lesser extent. In some cases it can necessitate large scale replanting, which are especially vulnerable to C. parasiticus. It may present in up to one quarter of all tea plantations in Bangladesh, and is one of the major threats to the tea plantation industry. It has long been identified as a concern for the industry, with publications dating back to 1907. Already weakened plants, suffering from nutrient stress or damage caused by mechanical harvesters, are at heightened risk of severe infections. However, it is possible for otherwise healthy plants to develop an infection. The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development in India recommends the use of pesticides in the establishment of new tea plantations.  Red rust is not exclusive to tea, and is known to infect other plants, including mango, coffee, citrus, and guava. It should not be confused with either the fungal coffee leaf rust, a basidiomycete rust; or with coffee red leaf spot, caused by the related C. virescens. Similar symptoms and pathogenesis seem to be present on all hosts.  The algae can penetrate the epidermis, although spores more readily spread through wounds.  It proceeds to invade the cortical tissue in the stem. In leaves, the rust causes chlorosis and variegation, which might be surrounded by anthocyanescence. One sign of an infection is red-orange filamentous growth emerging on wounds in humid conditions. The most extreme symptoms produce necrotic patches on the stem. Repeated infection cycles result in permanently reduced yields mortality, especially in younger plants. The algae has a latent period of roughly a year following the initial infection of damaged tissue. After this time, it will begin fruiting during rainy periods. It disperses as both motile zoospores, and also through wind-borne sporangium. Wind and rain are mechanisms of this dispersal. The use of mechanical tea harvesters can increases the losses caused by this pathogen, as wounds on the plants allows for aggravated pathogenesis and eventual loss of the plant. As an algae, various agents including detergents and fungicides are mostly ineffective in controlling the disease. A mixture of urea and muriate of potash can also be applied via spraying. Tolerant cultivars are also being developed to reduce loss, although no resistant cultivars currently exist. Cultural practices such as eliminating weed shade and maintaining soil health have also been mentioned as important for the management of C. parasiticus. The mechanism of resistance from potash spraying is related to vigorous plant growth, as potash is an important nutrient for tea plants. The use of potash in conjunction with bordeaux spraying reduced the severity of the disease impact on crop yields. This is supported by findings that vigorous growth in young plants reduces the severity of an infection. Spraying with copper based fungicides up to three times throughout the summer, especially as the alga sporulates, will control the disease. Pruning infected branches can also help plants recover.


Franke Holding AG, based in Aarburg, Switzerland, is an industrial manufacturer with companies located around the world.
Franke has about 8,100 employees working in 63 companies in Europe, South and North America, Africa, Australia and Asia.
In 2021, the Franke Group had a total turnover of CHF 2,557 million."Key figures". Franke Group. Retrieved 2022-05-27.  Hermann Franke founded a sheet metal business in his name in Rorschach, Switzerland, in 1911. In the late 1920s the economic upturn in the industry and construction sector led to the incorporation of a sanitary installations department. Franke began with the production of oven tops, skylights and dormer windows.
In the 1930s Franke started production of the first sink units in nickeline, monel-metal and later in stainless steel. Franke built a new factory with offices and residential building, and the company's ten employees relocated to Aarburg, Switzerland. Franke initiated the first production series and the first fully welded, smooth sink unit.
Hermann Franke died on January 25, 1939, and his son Walter took over the business. The Second World War led to great difficulties in obtaining materials. During the years after the war the company's factory facilities expanded and the production of complete kitchens began. Franke started to export products to European countries. The construction sector developed encouragingly. Business expanded rapidly. Franke sold kitchen sinks. In 1950 the Washroom and Sanitary Equipment product group was established as part of Franke with products for communal washrooms and WCs. Production of components for propulsion systems began. Franke saw its first foreign investment in Germany and by 1955 had 500 employees.
In the late 1950s, Franke's production doubled. Factory facilities were expanded further. A "Commercial Kitchens" division was founded. By 1961 Franke had 750 employees.
Over the next twelve years Franke experienced rapid growth: 13 new subsidiaries were established and two companies began manufacturing under license. In 1972, Franke built and installed the first kitchen for McDonald's in Munich. By 1974 the company had 2,600 employees. In 1975 Franke ownership changes: Walter Franke's friend and business partner Willi Pieper took over. Four subsidiaries and two licensees were added to the group. In 1979 the Franke compact sink system was introduced. In the late 1980s the divisional organization was established. Michael Pieper joined Group Management in 1989. Rapid and consistent expansion transformed Franke into a corporate group with worldwide operations. Today Franke consists of approx. 8,500 employees in over 70 companies in Europe, South America, North America, Africa, Australia and Asia."Key figures". Franke Group. Retrieved 2022-02-05.  Franke Artemis Group has its headquarters in Aarburg/Switzerland. Franke took over the Sissons company based in Chesterfield, who are a manufacturer of stainless steel catering sinks and washroom systems. Sissons were one of the first companies to manufacture stainless steel sinks in the 1930s, and were founded in Sheffield, England. The company is known as Franke Sissons Ltd. In 1990 it bought the Falkirk-based Carron Phoenix.
Franke Coffee Systems UK are based in St Albans, Hertfordshire and sell and service bean-to-cup, pod and traditional style coffee machines.<PIC> The company has also bought the companies Blinox and Roblin (producing hoods).
United States
Franke Foodservice Systems Americas, Inc. is based in Smyrna, Tennessee, in a office and warehousing facility located near the Smyrna Municipal Airport and a factory in Fayetteville, Tennessee. The company was established in the 1970s with the purchase of a stainless steel manufacturer in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania metro area. The company moved operations to Tennessee in 1998. The business was divided into two sister companies, Franke Foodservice Solutions and Franke Foodservice Supply, in 2016, before being merged back together into a single entity (Franke Foodservice Systems Americas) in 2019.
The Americas division is focused on the manufacture and sale of custom stainless steel heated and refrigerated equipment for quick-service restaurant chains.